Leroy Lansing Janes was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 educator, hired

O-yatoi gaikokujin

The Foreign government advisors in Meiji Japan, known in Japanese as oyatoi gaikokujin , were those foreign advisors hired by the Japanese government for their specialized knowledge to assist in the modernization of Japan at the end of the Bakufu and during the Meiji era. The term is sometimes...

 by Kumamoto Domain

Kumamoto Domain

The was han or a Japanese feudal domain that was located in Higo Province apart from Kuma District and Amakusa District and part of Bungo Province . It was also known as...

 in early Meiji period

Meiji period

The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...

 Japan

Empire of Japan

The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...

.

A native of Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

, Janes was a veteran of the Civil War

Civil war

A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....

, where he served in the artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 with the rank of captain after graduation from the United States Military Academy

United States Military Academy

The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...

 at West Point. In 1871, he was approached by the Hosokawa clan

Hosokawa clan

The ' was a Japanese samurai clan, descended from Emperor Seiwa and a branch of the Minamoto clan, by the Ashikaga clan. It produced many prominent officials in the Ashikaga shogunate's administration. In the Edo period, the Hosokawa clan was one of the largest landholding daimyo families in Japan...

, feudal lords of Kumamoto

Kumamoto, Kumamoto

is the capital city of Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. Greater Kumamoto has a population of 1,460,000, as of the 2000 census...

 to teach at the Kumamoto Yōgakkō, a domainal school that promoted western studies

Rangaku

Rangaku is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the country was closed to foreigners, 1641–1853, because of the Tokugawa shogunate’s policy of national...

. Janes established a curriculum entirely in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, covering mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

 and natural science

Natural science

The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...

s. He also worked as a Protestant missionary for the Reformed Church of America, but very carefully, as the prohibition against Christianity in Japan was still in force, and any Japanese converts to Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 faced a possible death sentence

Death Sentence

Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...

. Janes lectured on western morals, and waited for three years to broach the subject of Christianity with his students, when he felt that he had gained their trust and that their English abilities were sufficient to understand the relationship between Christianity and western civilization.

Some 30 of his pupils converted to Christianity under his influence, including Ebina Danjō and Ukita Kazutami. The Kumamoto Yōgakkōwas forced to close in August 1876 due to opposition from conservative elements within Kumamoto domain, and Janes, together with his students, relocated to Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

, where they joined the Dōshisha school

Doshisha University

, or is a prestigious private university in Kyoto, Japan. The university has approximately 27,000 students on three campuses, in faculties of theology, letters, law, commerce, economics, policy, and engineering...

, which had been founded a year earlier by Niijima Jō. Janes returned to the United States in 1878.

Janes returned to Japan to teach again from 1893 to 1899 as a oyatoi gaikokujin.