Background
SETSUHEI MIYAKE was born in 1860 in Kanazawa, the son of a doctor. His given name was Yujiro, which he changed for a time to Yfishuku.
SETSUHEI MIYAKE was born in 1860 in Kanazawa, the son of a doctor. His given name was Yujiro, which he changed for a time to Yfishuku.
In 1871 he entered the Kanazawa Prefcctural English School and later transferred to the Aichi English School. In 1876 he went to Tokyo and entered the Kaisei School, which the following year became Tokyo Imperial University. In 1883 he graduated from the Faculty of Letters of Tokyo Imperial University, specializing in philosophy, and took a job in the editorial office attached to the university.
In 1885 he transferred to the Editorial Bureau of the Ministry of Education. Around this time he began to contribute articles and critical essays to various newspapers and magazines.
In 1888 he joined Sugiura Jugo, Shiga Shigetaka, Inoue Enryo, and others to form a nationalistic organization known as the Seikyosha and founded Nihonjin, a magazine expressing the views of the group, which sought to combat the trend toward Westernization and to emphasize the virtues of Japanese culture.
He continued to be active in expressing his views through contributions to Nihon oyobi Nihonjin, Chub Kbron, and other magazines, and in 1923 joined with Nakano Seigo in founding a magazine of his own called Gakan.
His works entitled Shinzembi Nihonjin and Giakushu Nihonjin, which he wrote in 1891, are representative of the nationalistic writings appearing around the 1890s in Meiji Japan.
In his late years he wrote a work based upon his experiences entitled Dojidai-kan (later retitled Dojidai- shi); in six volumes, it deals with the history of modern Japan.