Morimura Gakuen
Junior & Senior High School
Founder’s Motto
Be independent
School Motto
Honesty, Kindness and Diligence
Morimura Ichizaemon, the founder of Morimura Gakuen was a business leader who overcame the uncertainties of the start of the Meiji restoration to successfully pioneer trade between Japan and the US. Through his experience in business, he realized the importance of human resources, and in his final years he poured his passion into education. His motto,“ Be independent”, means not depending on others and doing your best in everything and not depending on others; this will enable you to overcome any difficulty and make a real contribution to society. Based on this idea, he founded Morimura Gakuen in 1910. His motto continues to underpin and inspire Morimura Gakuen's education today.
Founder’s Motto
Be independent
- School Vision
- Develop people who have human virtues, cultivate their lives with their own power, and in turn become the power of the world and society.
- Honesty
- Behave
with honesty
- Be honest with yourself
- Trust others and deal with them openly
- Make the right choices to help you grow as a person
- Kindness
- Be proactive and
cultivate a generous spirit
- Value yourself while also sharing others’ happiness and sadness
- Behave thoughtfully towards others while respecting each other's differences
- Cherish the things and people around you
- Diligence
- People’s abilities are unlimited.
Learning is a life-long journey.
- Understand the joy of learning
- Build strong relationships by recognizing your own strengths and those of others
- Make use of what you learn in order to realize your own dreams and to contribute to society
Japanese Pioneer of Japan-US Trade
his can-do spirit and passion for building character
are still alive in Morimura Gakuen today.
- Morimura Ichizaemon is a legendary figure, remembered as the founder of Japanese ceramics brands like TOTO and Noritake and, above all, a pioneer in Meiji-era trade between Japan and the US. He exported Japan-made Western-style crockery to the US in order to build up the nation’s trading strength, and was phenomenally successful despite the turbulence of the times. Through this he realized the importance of developing human resources and made large donations towards the founding of educational organizations such as Japan Women’s University, Keio University, and The Kitasato Institute.
He set up a kindergarten and an elementary school on part of his estate ‒ and this became the foundation of today’s Morimura Gakuen. Morimura Ichizaemon’s philosophy of life,“honesty, kindness, diligence”, remain today as the guiding precepts of Morimura Gakuen.