Background
Tatsui Baba was born in 1850 in Tosa in Shikoku, he was a son of a samurai of the domain.
Tatsui Baba was born in 1850 in Tosa in Shikoku, he was a son of a samurai of the domain.
Shortly after the Meiji Restoration, he went to Tokyo and studied in the Keio Gijuku, the forerunner of present-day Keio University. During the years from 1870 to 1878 he studied abroad, principally in England, specializing in British and Roman law and also studying political science and sociology.
While abroad, he formed an association of Japanese students studying in foreign countries. After his return to Japan, he continued his contacts with the group, joining with Ono Azusa and others to form a cultural organization called the Kyoson Doshu, which devoted its time to research and the advancement of learning.
He founded a school called the Meiji Gijuku and set up an office for legal consultation, but in 1885 was arrested on suspicion of violating the laws governing the possession of explosives. In time he was released and in 1886 went to the United States, where he traveled about giving lectures on Japanese culture.
He died in Philadelphia in 1888.
In 1881 he participated in the founding of a political party known as the Jiyuto (Liberal Party), and thereafter was active as a party member and a reporter for the party newspaper Jiyu Shimbun. Because of conflicts of opinion with Itagaki Taisuke, the head of the party, however, he later gave up his membership.