Thinking Back on His Own Misfortune—Building a Place for Young People to Learn

In February 1937, on the occasion of the opening ceremony for the Hayakawa Commercial School for Youth, Tokuji related how the joy he felt in realizing this long-cherished dream was something completely different from the joys he felt as an entrepreneur. Given the difficulties he experienced in not being able to attend school when he himself was young, he felt a strong desire to provide an opportunity to study for employees working at the factory who had only graduated from elementary school. His idea was to bring them to a level of having the specialized knowledge needed for commerce and industry in the future. At that time prior to World War II, with the increasing momentum to open schools in offices and factories under the Youths’ School Ordinance that had gone into effect two years earlier, Tokuji moved to set up a school without delay, and in the first year, the school enrolled well over 100 students.