Japan’s navigation and shipbuilding technologies showed rapid improvement on entering the Meiji period, reaching world-class standards by the time of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars at the end of 1800s. Without a proper educational system, acquisition of the knowledge and technologies necessary for that rapid improvement would not have been possible. Tracing the footsteps of John Manjiro, it becomes clear that he was the builder of Japan’s marine technology educational system. Manjiro was shipwrecked along with four other fishermen from Tosa in Shikoku Island Japan, and rescued by an American whale ship. The Captain of the American whale ship named William H. Whitfield took him home to Fairhaven, Massachusetts where Manjiro studying navigation and shipbuilding.