Boyhood:
An Extraordinary Rascal
Shitagau Noguchi was born on July 26, 1873, in what is now Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, the first-born son of father Yukinobu and mother Sachi. His brothers Toshio and Nagori and sister Misao were born later.
The year Noguchi was born, 1873, was two years after the abolishment of feudal fiefs and the establishment of prefectures in Japan by the new Meiji government, which had defeated the Tokugawa shogunate, and it was the year that ambassador Tomomi Iwakura and his entourage returned to Japan after visiting Europe and the United States. It was a time when Japan was beginning to move towards a trend of modernization.
Noguchi's father Yukinobu had served the feudal lord Maeda of the Kaga fief and was active as a patriot who was loyal to the emperor. Within the Kaga feif, there were two factions: one loyal to the emperor, and one loyal to ruling shogunate. There were repeated confrontations between the factions, and Yukinobu, as a central figure in the faction that was loyal to the emperor, was imprisoned for three years due to a scheme by the opposing faction. He persevered without compromising his principles, and waited while envisioning the new era that was coming.
With the Meiji Restoration, Yukinobu's time to prosper finally came. He was welcomed by officials from the new government, and moved from Kanazawa to live in Tokyo to work at the Department of Justice. Noguchi was still an infant at this point, having been born only 20 days earlier. In Tokyo, his family lived in a tenement near the Akamon Gate (currently the University of Tokyo), which had been a residence of the former feudal lord Maeda of the Kaga fief. Noguchi’s mother was daughter of the Kaga feif's Ito clan, and with a strong-minded personality, she raised her children in a generous way despite the hardships.
Noguchi's father, Yukinobu
Noguchi's mother, Sachi
As the firstborn son, Noguchi was raised with care by his parents. His mother in particular was strict with him. Once, when he stayed out late, his mother waited up until he returned home, and made him explain why he was late before letting him back in the house, then reprimanded him before letting him go to sleep. There was also a time when his father chased Noguchi around with a sword when his pranks were especially terrible.
Under such parents, the young Noguchi was strong-willed, competitive, and full of mischief. He was the leader of the nearby children, and got them to walk along the tops of walls with him while wearing wooden clogs, and to climb up fire watchtowers and shout with him at the top. He was always quarrelling, and often scolded by his mother.
School Days:
The Rowdiest Boy in School
After spending his youth in this way, Noguchi finished elementary school and moved on to Tokyo First Junior High School (currently Hibiya High School). At this time, Noguchi was still an energetic young boy who enjoyed pranks. He got into many fights and was often reprimanded by his teachers. Perhaps for this reason, he transferred from prefectural school to a private school in Kanda and completed junior high school there.
For high school, he entered First Higher School (under the old system), said to be the most difficult to get into at the time. Renowned teachers with great accomplishments in modern Japanese literature were at this school, including Yakumo Koizumi (Lafcadio Hearn), who wrote ghost stories, and the poet and Japanese literary scholar Naobumi Ochiai.
The Akamon Gate of the University of Tokyo
Once again, Noguchi's unruliness stood out, and he was called the "rowdiest boy in school." A trend among high school students at the time was called bankara, where they would wear tall wooden clogs, purposefully wear torn hats, and walk with a swagger. This was simply an innocent yet strong expression of the upbeat and free-spirited nature of youth, but Noguchi was particularly conspicuous among his peers. Despite being so energetic, he never bullied those who were weaker than him, and he never took things from others.
After graduating from First Higher School, he entered Tokyo Imperial University (currently the University of Tokyo), and studied electrical engineering. The forceful personality from his boyhood remained unchanged at university, where he was called the "General of Arguing." This personality remained when he graduated and entered the workforce, and would be a consistent characteristic of Noguchi throughout his life.
As a student, he was not the type to focus on studying, but instead enjoyed each day of student life. Nevertheless, he had a very clear mind, and particularly excelled in math and physics. Despite hardly studying, he never fell below the middle of the class. Seiji Ichikawa, a university classmate who would later go into business together with Noguchi, said, "As a student, he just played around without studying, even before a test. Even though I studied, I never did as well on the tests as Noguchi did."
