Raphael von Koeber

There was a professor who taught philosophy and music to the students of Tokyo University and Tokyo Arts University for 21 years (1893-1914). He not only decided the direction of the Modern Japanese philosophy world but also greatly influenced students by his learning and personality.

His name was Raphael Koeber, German who was born in Novgorod, Russia on Jan.15,1848 and his father's ancestors were Sachsen-born. His mother, Swedish died when Koeber was one year old. After his mother's death his grandmother brought up him under her care.

For example he was taught to make a note after reading a book and continued the habit through his whole life. He also showed his kindness and gentleness to his servants hired. His grand mother was always kind and gentle, and never changed her maid -servant. Even after Koeber grew up, her domestic-servant and children often visited his grandmother's house.

Sometime he spent in his grandmother's villa and he was steeped himself in such an atmosphere that I.S.Turgenev had written in his novels. Being loved by his grandmother, Koeber didn't have a good memory to his father, doctor who was too sever to him. Koeber was reserved with him because Koeber always felt that his father was arrogant. Koeber 's character was contrary to his father's one.

In his boyhood he was absorbed in Homer, German legends, fair tales and The Arabian night and so on. But when he became 15, he had to study Greek and Latin, but he was earnest enough to read the German Modern novels, which were said to be poor works by his father.

One day when he was reading Le Comt Monte de Cristo, his father took away that book from him and told him not to read such rubbish, which made him weep because of his sadness. One the other hand, at school he was disliked by his teachers and students, because he was a German, who was foreign to Russian people. Therefore his grand mother was the only person to comfort him warmly. Therefore Koeber only attended the school irregularly and quit before graduation.

Being at the age of 19, he entered a music school in Moscow, which his father opposed to apply for. At the music school he made friends with Rubinstein and Chaicovskii and often drank and spent merry evenings together. When he was asked to teach in Japan, Chaicovskii opposed that he would be a teacher. The musician said," It is not comfortable for a pure European such as you middle aged to live in a strange country, which will make you homesick."

When he was 24, he became a good musician. However, Koeber who was shy by nature could not continue his music life. So he went to Jena to be a natural scientist and it was then that he listened to Hakel's lecture hard at first but he realized that he would not be suited for a natural scientist and changed his course into philosophy. However, Koeber was given a good impression by Hackel' s personality. His three years ' stay there made him build up the foundation of his philosophical education. He was instructed philosophy by Eucken and Hackel. He specially studied Schoppenhauer. During his academic life he also enjoyed seeing drama and went to the opera.

At the age of 30 he wrote a treatise on Shoppenhire, which his teacher praised and got a doctor ship by that. He published a book on the base of the treatise and as a result he became acquainted with Hartmann, who was a student on Schoppenhauer. He tried to get a post of teaching in Berlin but he did not succeed, because he did not positively ask his teachers and friends.

Koeber went to Heidelberg to teach music history and music aesthetics. But he could not help leaving the school because of the administrator's policy.

Then he went to Munich, where a friend of his in his Moscow days stayed. Koeber once said that his decade's stay in Munich had been most happy in his life. The reason was good friends, libraries with many books, museums with masterpieces, music halls and beautiful surroundings there.

Some time his younger friend said to him," You have an old- fashioned idea and hobby. " Then Koeber refuted that he was interested in neither new things nor new ideas. All new things were already included in old ones."

Hartmann recommended Koeber to come to teach in Japan but he refused that because he was worried about a long voyage, earthquake and English enough to lecture. But Hartmann and Koeber's friends encouraged him to be a teacher in an unknown place.

In June 1893 Koeber arrived in Kobe with a servant from Munich. Then he was 45. At the first night he could not sleep well because his pillow in a hotel was too high. It seemed curious for Koeber that Japanese people could walk on the" geta" on the street.

Koeber 'daily life in Tokyo was as follows, he always read except meal -time, teaching at school and playing the piano after meals. He did not play the piano except for charity concerts. People always greeted Koeber with a wild applause after his playing.

Though he did not have always many friends, he received his guests warmly at home and taught them western manners and customs. Among them there were Teiji Iwamoto, Chouhuu Anezaki, Chogyuu Takayama, Bin Ueda, Shuukotsu Togawa, Seiichi Hatano and Itoshige Tachibana and so on.

Koeber was always kind to such people as indoor servants and rickshaw men regardless of their jobs. Even they sometime made mistakes, he was generous to them. According to his ardent students, Tutomu Kubo and Masuo Suzuki, Koeber had a charm in his attitude, with which he treated people and animals. They said," When we feel something uncomfortable, we can not appear before Koeber without working off the sentiment." Even if he did not speak to them, they felt happy. The existence of Koeber made them feel at home.

He did not visit any place except that he saw Kamakura and Enoshima once. He said with regret, "If I had studied Japanese, I could had talked with ordinary people, and also would have gone to the theater. " His mother tongue was German and his first foreign languages were Russian and French, which he heard at home in his boyhood. English, Greek, Latin and Italian were taught at school. He was indifferent about money and clothes, and he did not change his work into money. He sometime said, " If you want to make use of me, I'll cooperate with you with pleasure." He used to wear the same winter clothes for 17 years.

When the Russo-Japanese War broke up in 1904, Koeber would not return to his country and the Japanese Government did not make a political issue about him.

Koeber stressed that they had to study the classics actively at the academic world. One of them was Seiichi Hatano who was taught Greek by Koeber with the beginners' grammar and was led to the Greek philosophy. Koeber thought it important that it was simple, quiet and liberal in his daily life. He was faithful to belief in Christianity and did not like religious observance.

He also taught students music at Ueno Music School (Tokyo Arts University), and loved Itoshige Tachibana, one of them best. Tachibana often visited Koeber's tomb at Zoshigaya, Tokyo to offer flowers for that after Koeber' s death.

Kageo Uozumi and Tutomu Kubo had been faithful disciples since about summer of 1908. In those days there was generally the tendency of discussing about the meaning of life among university students. They not only attended but also often visited Koeber's house and Tutomu Kubo served Koeber as a student servant until Koeber's death.

In 1912 Koeber's domestic servant from Munich committed suicide and Koeber was shocked by the accident. In the summer of this year Soseki Natsume called on Koeber and showed their respects to their characters by talking with each other.

Koeber has been one of unforgettable people to Japan.