This paper will analyze the history of the classification of elements in Japan including responses to the periodic law between the 1830s, thirty years before the Meiji Restoration in 1868 (the starting year of full-fledged modernization) and the 1920s, before the advent of quantum chemistry, a development that enabled Japanese science to become mature enough to organize large-scale international conferences. Before the Meiji Restoration, some scholars in Japan began studying western science, technology, and medicine by reading Dutch, since the Netherlands was the only European country with which Japan traded. One such scholar, Udagawa Yoan, wrote the first introductory textbook of chemistry, published between 1837 and 1847 and also introduced Lavoisier’s new chemistry into Japan. After Udagawa, Kawamoto Komin introduced Dalton’s chemical atomism into Japan during the 1860s. During that early period, some European chemistry textbooks were translated into Japanese; Japanese intellectuals who were interested in chemistry also read Chinese translations of European texts on chemistry. Soon after the Meiji Restoration, foreign teachers of chemistry were employed by the Meiji government to promote the westernization of Japan, and the publication of their translated lectures played an important role in the first stage of the institutionalization of chemistry. During this period, various editions of very popular introductory chemistry textbooks, such as those written by Roscoe and Ramsen, were translated into Japanese. The first stage of the institutionalization of chemistry in Japan was completed with the establishment of the Tokyo Chemical Society in 1878 and the foundation of the first Imperial University in Tokyo in 1886. The discovery of the periodic law in 1869-71 and its dissemination in the 1880s coincided with this institutionalization. This factor helped ensure a smooth reception of the periodic system as a basis for chemistry in Japan. Most of the first generation of Japanese chemistry professors accepted the periodic law as one of the most important developments in chemistry in Europe; they also wrote the first chemistry textbooks for middle schools and universities, based on the then current English and German chemistry textbooks. Ikeda Kikunae, one of few exceptions in the first generation chemists, argued the limitations of the periodic law. His thinking was influences by Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald, who was Kikunae’s mentor while studying in Europe.