Cross-National Odyssey of a Chemist: Edward Divers at London, Galway and Tokyo

How can historians make sense of career of a scientist like Edward Divers (1837-1912)? He attended Royal College of Chemistry (RCC) in London, England, worked as a chemistry assistant and medical student at Queen's College Galway (QCG), Ireland, and taught chemistry in Tokyo at a couple of Japanese colleges for more than two decades. The easiest way would be to focus on one site of science most known to them, in this case unquestionably London and RCC, and treat rest as a projection of his experience there. This paper problematizes such an approach by examining what impact his experience in each place had on his career and pedagogical ideas. I argue that, while retaining ties with London chemical community, especially RCC old boy network, Divers's career and his pedagogical ideas were powerfully influenced by his Galway and Tokyo years, which makes him a revealing case study of cross-national history of science education rather than simply as part of British history.The field upon which this type of research most naturally falls is global circulation of knowledge, which has been gaining a central place in history of science signalled by historiographical proposal by James Secord's Knowledge in transit.1 Responding to this call, scholars have identified various kinds of human agents, in addition to publications and artefacts, as an important medium of knowledge circulation, communication, and appropriation. The brokered world, for example, focused on role of what its authors call go-betweens, such as brokers, spies, messengers, and translators, in mediating between different countries and regions in domains of sciences. These agents are marked by their highly mobile life, and are defined as the arbitrators . . . who as third party draws advantage from antagonism between two sides.2It is questionable whether one can regard a large number of foreign teachers such as Divers hired by Japanese government in Meiji period (1868-1912) as go-betweens. In most cases, they did not have to speak Japanese, their lives were not particularly mobile once settled in their teaching environments, and very few actually functioned as arbitrators between two parties. For example, Graeme Gooday and Morris Low asserted that hired foreigners were, in many ways, budding imperialists sponsored by their nations and were linked with unequal treaties and trade agreements.3 Divers was not among their main targets of analysis, and, as I discuss in my conclusion, term 'imperialist' is not an appropriate attribute for him. However, I agree with Gooday and Low's general point that positioning of foreign teachers in Meiji Japan was far from neutral as third party.Why, then, were foreign teachers in Japan like Divers not neutral? The importance of Divers's Galway and Tokyo years partly comes from fact that teachers are affected by students and institutions just as students are by teachers. The crucial role of students in formation and development of science education and research has been highlighted in Pedagogy and practice of science.4 In this paper, I argue that, by applying this insight to different national contexts of pedagogical practice, classrooms and laboratories become site of cross-national negotiation between teachers and students. By definition, teachers cannot be third party.Another important topic in history of science education is its relationship with knowledge production. Divers was a champion of student research as a pedagogical tool throughout his teaching activities in Japan, so his case seems to corroborate central theme of Pedagogy and practice of science, that reproduction of scientists by teaching shapes scientific practice, and that distinguishing between teaching and research is at best artificial.5 However, Divers's reasoning of pedagogical use of research was combined or embedded with other purposes than reproduction of scientists: turning out technologists or schoolteachers. …