JAPANESE ART, ARTISTS, AND ARTISANS.
By William Elliot Griffis. Published in Scribner's Magazine Jan 1888

GRIFFIS, William Elliot, author, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 17 September, 1843. He served in the 44th Pennsylvania regiment in 1863, was graduated at Rutgers in 1869, and in 1870 went to Japan to organize schools there on the American plan. He was superintendent of education in the province of Echizen in 1871, and in 1872-'4 held the chair of physics in the Imperial University of Tokio. He is the only American living that has made the interior of Japan his residence and has seen the feudal system there in operation. On his return to this country Mr. Griffis studied theology at New Brunswick, New Jersey, and in Union theological seminary, New York City, where he was graduated in 1877. He was pastor of the 1st Reformed Church in Schenectady, New York, in 1877-'86, and in the latter year accepted a call to the Shawmut Congregational Church, Boston, Massachusetts. Union College gave him the degree of D. D, in 1884. Dr. Griffis has published the " New Japan Series" of reading-books (5 vols., Yokohama. 1872); guides to Tokio and Yokohama (1874); " The Mikado's Empire" (New York, 1876; 5th ed., 1887); "Japanese Fairy World " (Schenectady, 1880); "Asiatic History" (New York, 1881); " Corea, the Hermit Nation" ,(1882); " Corea, Without and Within" (Philadelphia, 1885); and "Life of Matthew Calbraith Perry" (Boston, 1887), besides several pamphlets.