Tetsu Tamura (also known as "S. Tetsu Tamura"; birth name: Satoru Tamura); October 18, 1876August 19, 1909) was a Japanese meteorologist and oceanographer, who utilized higher mathematics, active in the United States (U.S. National Weather Service) before Syukuro Manabe (2021 Nobel Prize in Physics) and Japan during the Meiji era. Tamura helped Cleveland Abbe (head of the NWS) as his assistant specialized in physico-mathematical theory for three years (19031906) until his returning to Japan and frequently published articles to Science magazine, Weekly Weather Review, etc. as listed below. He was also a pedagogist of the comparative educational system. He taught at the Naval War College, Tokyo Higher Normal School (now University of Tsukuba), and Waseda University.
Early life
On October 18, 1876 (Meiji 9), Tamura was born in Yonezawa, Yamagata, Japan. He was the third son of Yoshimasa Tamura, a samurai of the Yonezawa Domain (Uesugi clan). In his autobiography, Tamura writes that his father survived the fierce battle of Koguriyama in Hokuetsu (Northern Niigata) during the Boshin War (1868–1869), and that the family was "as poor as a church mouse." In July 1892 (Meiji 25), he was graduated from the Yonezawa Chugakko (now Yamagata Prefectural Yonezawa Kojokan High School), a five-year secondary school run by the Uesugi clan, and left home on March 15 of the following spring to enter the Aoyama Gakuin College (now Aoyama Gakuin University). He worked as a schoolboy and janitor while studying at Aoyama Gakuin College. When he studied higher mathematics by himself in this college, Tamura found some mistakes in a book of "determinants" and communicated with the author. The author's response with appreciation would later encourage him to study abroad.
The event that Seitaro Goto (1867–1935), who was then a lecturer in zoology at Aoyama Gakuin, went to the United States with a scholarship from Johns Hopkins University was the motivation and hope for Tamura's subsequent trip to the United States. Tamura would, in fact, later obtain at least three different scholarships from U.S. universities He was graduated from Aoyama Gakuin College in March 1896 (Meiji 29), as listed in Aoyama Gakuin University Alumni Record (Aoyama Gakuin Resource Center).
The next year, in April 1897 (Meiji 30), he taught mathematics and English at Aichi Prefectural Normal School in Nagoya, introduced by Nobuta Kishimoto (1866–1928) and Ryokichi Yatabe (1851–1899), and the following year 1898 (Meiji 31), in April, he was ready to travel to the United States. His destination was Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, where he received his first scholarship. The ship was the City of Peking from Yokohama to San Francisco via Honolulu.
Study and research in the U.S.A. For the following educational backgrounds and training timelines, while referring to his autographed résumé and his autobiography, "Nine Years Abroad," the inconsistencies and inaccuracies between these two sources are corrected and supplemented by using the records of the related universities in the United States. Many of the contradictions are time-to-day inconsistencies that can be misleading, but the biggest contradiction is the fact that he was enrolled at Simpson College, which appears neither in his résumé nor in his autobiography. Although Funabashi's memorial with a short biography is the only Japanese material mentioned, various materials in the United States below prove Tamura's enrollment at Simpson College.
Elsewhere, the autobiography mentions that he met Kiyoshi Kawakami (1873–1949), an old friend in their hometown Yamagata and also an alumnus of Aoyama Gakuin, at the University of Iowa in 1900, but Kawakami was in Japan until the formation of the Social Democratic Party in May 1901. Thus, Tamura was confused in describing some of the events between 1900 and 1901 (Meiji 33 and Meiji 34).