page_title: Shigeru Yoshida
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Shigeru Yoshida / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: Shigeru Yoshida
context_page_description: Shigeru Yoshida, KCVO was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1946 to 1947 and from 1948 to 1954. Yoshida was one of the longest-serving Japanese Prime Ministers, and is the third-longest serving Prime Minister of Post-occupation Japan.
context_section_description: Yoshida was born in Yokosuka in 1878. His father, Takeuchi Tsuna, was an entrepreneur and political activist who would later serve in the first National Diet in 1890. Yoshida was the fifth of his fourteen children. His mother's identity is not known, but she is thought to have been a geisha. Shortly before his birth, his father was arrested for political activity. In August 1881, he was adopted by a friend of his father, wealthy Yokohama merchant Kenzō Yoshida, and his wife Kotoko, who were childless. Yoshida began his education in a rural boarding school. He graduated elementary school in 1889. That same year, Kenzō Yoshida died, and Shigeru inherited a substantial fortune from him. Kotoko subsequently raised Shigeru on the family's estate in Ōiso. Shigeru finished secondary school in 1894, and attended junior high school until 1895, after which he briefly attended business school. He attended an academy run by the crown prince's ethics tutor in Tokyo, and briefly studied at Keio University and the Tokyo Physics School (now the Tokyo University of Science). He also spent a year ill at home in Ōiso. In 1897, he entered the prestigious Peers' School, which prepared members of the elite for the public service, and was run by Duke Konoe Atsumaro. After completing his education there, Yoshida attended a college for diplomats also run by Duke Atsumaro. Shortly after Atsumaro's death in 1904, the college became defunct, and Yoshida then studied law at Tokyo Imperial University, graduating with a law degree in 1906. He passed the Foreign Service Entry Exam and entered Japan's diplomatic corps that same year, shortly after Japan's victory against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. He has long been regarded as prioritising the economy over defense, but recent years have seen a reevaluation of this viewpoint.
caption: Yoshida as a child
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