[1] In 1864, laws on national isolation were still in effect in Japan, and Japanese people were not permitted to travel overseas without government permission.

At the age of 21, he entreated Captain William T. Savory, of Salem, Massachusetts, commander of the brig Berlin, for safe passage to the United States, in order to further study Western science and Christianity.

He then secured Niijima's passage from China to the United States on the Wild Rover, commanded by Captain Horace Taylor of Chatham, Massachusetts.

When he arrived in Andover, Massachusetts, he was sponsored by Alpheus and Susan Hardy, members of the Old South Church in Boston, who also saw to his education.

He attended Phillips Academy under the name of Joseph Hardy Neesima from 1865 to 1867 and then Amherst College, where he was greatly influenced by professor Julius Seelye, from 1867 to 1870.

In the same year, Neesima attended the 65th annual meeting of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missionaries at a Congregational church on Friday, October 9 held in Rutland, Vermont, and made an appeal for funds to start a Christian college in Japan.

Before returning to Japan, Neesima gave a speech at the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions meeting in which he asked the attendees for donations for his school he planned to build, leaving with an estimated $5,000.