page_title: Tohoku Gakuin University
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tohoku Gakuin University / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Seminarians in Sendai, Japan, 1888; David Bowman Schneder fourth from left and William Edwin Hoy standing far to right
context_page_description: Tohoku Gakuin University is a private university in Sendai, Japan. It was founded under a Christian background.
  Times Higher Education places Tohoku Gakuin University in the 150+ bracket in its ranking of Japan's 200 best universities.
context_section_description: The university was founded in 1886 (Meiji 19) as Sendai Theological Seminary by Oshikawa Masayoshi(1850–1928), one of Japan's first Protestants, and  Protestant missionary William Edwin Hoy. Oshikawa, an ex-samurai in Matsuyama became the seminary's first president. In 1891, the school was renamed Tohoku Gakuin (東北學院, Tōhoku gakuin) and a course for non-Christian students was added.
  The first president Oshikawa resigned in 1901 and was succeeded by David Bowman Schneder (1857–1938). In 1904, college courses were added and authorized by the Specialized School Order. The college at first had two Departments: Letters, Theology. In 1918, Normal School and the Department of Commerce were added. In 1926, the main building (still used today) was built in Tsuchitoi Campus. Schneder left the college due to age, but even in his last days he had strong faith and gave the sermon titled "I am not ashamed of the gospel" (1936, the 50th anniversary of the school).
  During World War II, the college was virtually forced to stop functioning and Tohoku Gakuin College of Aeronautical Engineering (東北學院航空工業專門學校, Tōhoku gakuin kōkū kōgyō senmon gakkō) was established instead (1944–1947).
  After the war, the college was reorganized (under Japan's new educational system) into Tohoku Gakuin University in 1949.
caption: Seminarians in Sendai, 1888; Schneder is fourth from left
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2019:03:22 08:51:26", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5925", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "531", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "432"}