In 1887, Ernest Wilson Clement came to Japan and taught English in Mito Middle School, while doing evangelical activities in Ibaraki Prefecture. But he thought a school solidly based on Christianity should be founded in order to realize his vision in Japan. So he returned to the U. S. in 1893 and raised money to open a new school. In the same year, he went back to Japan again as a Baptist missionary and opened the Tokyo Baptist Academy in the Tsukiji foreign settlement in the following year. In 1899 the school was moved to Ushigome and the name was changed to Duncan Academy. In 1905, a Higher Course was approved by the Government. Tasuku Sakata entered the school as one of the first Higher Course students. He was born in Akita Prefecture in 1879. His mother was the eldest daughter of Naiki Hinata, the captain of the “Byakkotai” Regiment of Aizu, which was famous for the suicides of its boy soldiers at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Sakata had worked as a miner from his childhood due to the poverty of his family because the Aizu clan was defeated by the Meiji governmental army. After working in Ashio copper mine, he entered the cavalry school and became a teacher of horsemanship in the Military Academy. About that time, he also attended the Bible class in Duncan Academy. After serving in the Russo-Japanese war, he entered Duncan Academy fulltime, and went on to the First Higher School and Tokyo Imperial University. In 1919 he became the first principal of Kanto Gakuin Middle School in Yokohama.