Kanazawa University
Morita was born into a farming family what is now Gifu, Gifu Prefecture. At the age of 15, he was selected for the Imperial Japanese Navy's preparatory course, and sent to boarding school in Tokyo. He managed to avoid conscription into the military, and attended what is now Kanazawa University, where he met his future wife, and then went on to graduate from Tokyo Imperial University. He returned to Gifu, but remained drawn to literature, especially the works of Natsume Sōseki, and of various English and Russian writers, he left his wife and returned to Tokyo to pursue a career in the literary world.