page_title: Kaneko Kentarō
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Kaneko Kentarō / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Kaneko Kentaro. Meiji era
context_page_description: Count Kaneko Kentarō was a statesman and diplomat in Meiji period Japan.
context_section_description: Kaneko was born into a samurai family of Fukuoka Domain (Chikuzen Province's Sawara district, present-day Chūō-ku, Fukuoka). At the age of 9, he began his studies at the Shuyukan Han school. He was selected to be a student member of the Iwakura Mission, and was left behind in the United States to study at Harvard University while the rest of the mission continued on to Europe and around the world back to Japan. While at Harvard, Kaneko shared lodgings with fellow Japanese student and future fellow-diplomat Komura Jutarō. He also developed a wide circle of contacts in America, including lawyers, scientists, journalists and industrialists.
  While at Harvard, Kaneko made a telephone call to fellow exchange student Itō Junji. This was the first instance of a telephone conversation between two Japanese people.
  After graduation from Harvard in 1878, Kaneko returned to Japan as a lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University.
caption: Kaneko as a teenager
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