Kuwata Kumazo

A leading social policy scholar of the Meiji and Taisho periods. Born on November 17, 1868 in Kurayoshi, Tohaku County, Tottori Prefecture. Graduated from the Department of Politics at the Faculty of Law of the Imperial University in 1893 (Meiji 26). In 1896, he founded the Social Policy Association with Kanai Nobu and others, and in the same year studied social issues in England, Germany, and France. Returning to Japan in 1906, he compiled the results of his research and published The Trends in European Labor Issues (1900), and also worked hard to run the association as a central executive. He was the first scholar to "majored in social policy as an integrated discipline," and if Kanai Nobu was the first to fully introduce social policy ideas, it was Kuwata who made the greatest contribution to establishing those ideas. He served as a lecturer at the Department of Law and Engineering of the University of Tokyo and Tokyo Higher Technical School, and as a professor and dean of the Faculty of Economics at Chuo University. In 1904 (Meiji 37), he became a member of the House of Peers as a large taxpayer, and thereafter served as a member of many governments and various organizations (such as the Factory Law Enactment Research Committee and Advisor to the Social Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs), and was active in both the theory and practice of social policy. He passed away on December 10, 1932. The majority of his papers are collected in "Kuwata Kumazo Posthumous Writings" (1934).

[Akira Tada]

"History of Modern Japanese Social and Economic Thought" by Haruo Nanbata (1973, Maeno Shoten)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

明治・大正期の代表的社会政策学者。明治元年11月17日鳥取県東伯郡倉吉町に生まれる。1893年（明治26）帝国大学法科大学政治学科を卒業。96年金井延(のぶる)らと社会政策学会を創設、同年社会問題研究のためイギリス、ドイツ、フランスに留学。98年帰国し、その成果をまとめて『欧州労働問題の大勢』（1900）を刊行、また、社会政策学会の中心的幹事として運営に尽力した。彼は「一体系としての社会政策学を専攻した」最初の学者であって、社会政策思想を初めて本格的に紹介したのが金井延であるとすれば、その思想の確立に最大の貢献をしたのが桑田である。彼は東大法学科・工科、東京高等工業などの講師、中央大学経済学部の教授・学部長を務め、また1904年（明治37）には多額納税者として貴族院議員になり、以後数多くの政府・各種団体の委員（工場法制定調査委員、内務省社会局参与など）を歴任、社会政策の理論と実践の両域で活躍した。昭和7年12月10日没。なお、論文の主要なものは『桑田熊蔵遺稿集』（1934）に収められている。

［多田　顯］

『難波田春夫著『近代日本社会経済思想史』（1973・前野書店）』

出典　小学館　日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ)日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ)について　情報 | 凡例