American author, born in Philadelphia, PA, on the 17th of September 1843; served during a part of the Civil War in the Forty-fourth Pennsylvania Volunteers; entered Rutgers College, graduating in 1869; studied theology at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary for two years; in 1870 went to Japan, under an appointment from the Japanese government, to organize schools on the American plan; made superintendent of schools in the province of Echizen, Japan, in 1871; professor of physics and chemistry at the Imperial University of Tokio from 1872 to 1874. Upon his return to the United States he continued his theological studies at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City; graduated in 1877, and, until 1886, was pastor of the First Reformed Dutch Church at Schenectady, New York; afterward, until 1892, of the Shawmut Church in Boston; in 1893, of a Congregational Church at Ithaca, NY. Dr. Griffis published The Mikado’s Empire (1876); Japanese Fairy World (1880); Corea: The Hermit Nation (1882); Corea Without and Within (1885); Matthew Calbraith Perry (1887); Japan in History, Folk-Lore and Art (1892); Life of Townsend Harris (1895). He was an authority on Japan and Corea.
