Yoshi Kajiro was born in Matsuyama, in Ehime Prefecture, the daughter of Kajiro Tomoyoshi (1852–1921), a Christian convert who later established a Japanese church in the Kakaako district of Honolulu.[1] She was educated at Baika Girls' School, which was founded by Japanese Christians.[2]
Sponsored by American missionaries, she attended Mount Holyoke College in the United States, to train as a teacher.[3] She was the third of four women to attend Mount Holyoke from Japan in the 1890s.[2] She was required by the mission board to wear western clothing while attending Mount Holyoke as a student, though she wore a traditional kimono for demonstrations.[4] Her opinion on the First Sino-Japanese War was reported by a New York newspaper in 1894, while Kajiro was a student on summer vacation in Honeoye, New York.[5]
After graduating from Mount Holyoke in 1897,[6] she returned to Japan and her work as "lady principal" of the Sanyō Girls' High School in Okayama.[7] "The glory of Miss Kajiro's work is that it is not western work supported from Boston; but it is one of those glorious developments of large Christian work outside of missionary control, bearing the lamp of life where no missionary could go, and helping make a Christian atmosphere for the homes of hundreds of girls, and for the city in which she is a great moral power," reported one American publication in 1914.[3]
In 1906, Kajiro's school was described as having 270 students,[8] and by 1920 more than 300 girls studied under her leadership.[9] In 1907 she made a ten-month sabbatical visit to the United States and Europe to study,[10] and to publicize her work.[11][12] She served as the school's head for 28 years.[13]
