Sai MURASAKI	Sai and the graduates in 1900

Ms. Sai MURASAKI, the founder of a women’s school that would become Tokushima Bunri University, was born on Shodoshima, in Kagawa Prefecture, in 1864. With the encouragement of her father who understood the importance of education, she studied in Shodoshima, Osaka, Okayama, and Takamatsu, and in 1889 became the first female teacher in Ehime Prefecture. After working at an elementary school in Tokushima, she established a private sewing school in 1895, believing that "women must be able to stand on their own feet.” Sai was an educator who devoted her life to the advancement of women in society and their independence. In 1945, the school was burnt down in an air raid; tragically, Ms. Murasaki was killed in the flames. However, the founding philosophy of "self-reliance and cooperation" has been handed down from generation to generation.

Tadahito MURASAKI	Tadahito MURASAKI and the members of the Women's Issues Study Group of Waseda University

Mr. Tadahito MURASAI, the grandson of the school‘s founder, Sai Murasaki, was born in 1914. He graduated from Waseda University with a bachelor’s degree in literature; he was a scholar of Japanese literature and a poet. During World War II, he served in Manchuria and the Philippines as an army officer. After being demobilized at the end of the war, he followed Sai‘s legacy and became the Chairman of Board of Trustees in 1949. He reestablished Sai’s school as Murasaki Girls‘ High School. Based on it, he founded Tokushima Women’s Junior College and all subsequent schools, and developed it into one of the leading comprehensive universities in western Japan. He was loved for his personality, which was described as “like the warm currents of the sea”.