The Calligraphy of Fukuzawa Yukichi

There are about 200 different types of calligraphic works by Yukichi Fukuzawa remaining. Since he often brushed the same phrases multiple times to give to people, the total number of pieces might be close to 1,000.

There have been two collections of his works published so far. One is the "Collection of Yukichi Fukuzawa's Calligraphy Commemorating the Completion of His Biography," produced by the Mita Media Center (Keio University Library) in 1932 to mark the completion of the biography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Later, in 1954, just before merging with the Sankei Shimbun, the Jiji Shimpo produced a collection titled "The Legacy of Yukichi Fukuzawa."

At the beginning of that "Legacy" collection, three people who served as Keio University Presidents or Acting Presidents wrote forewords. First, Sei'ichiro Takahashi wrote something like this:

"When I was a boy, I helped grind the ink when the Master was brushing calligraphy, and in return, I would go home with a piece inscribed with 'independence and self-respect' or 'Gikyo Gira Jiyu Shin' (Playful coming and going has its own truth). The Master said that when he was young, writing calligraphy was something he hated more than being hit on the head. However, in his later years, brushing calligraphy seemed to be quite a pleasure for him. And when a student asked an old calligrapher named Teishu Harada, who taught calligraphy to Sei'ichiro Takahashi at the Keio Futsubu School, 'What do you think of Yukichi Fukuzawa's calligraphy?', he replied, 'That is not calligraphy.' However, whenever I look at the Master's writing, I always feel an indescribable good sensation that transcends whether it is skillful or clumsy. In the Master's legacy, his personality naturally appears on the characters, and one can feel a sense of high virtue and spirit. In the Master's writing, where he liked to use the seal of 'Sanjūichiya-jin'—meaning a person of the 'secular world'—there is a figure that transcends the mundane."

I see.

Shinzo Koizumi said that what conveys Yukichi Fukuzawa to future generations is his prose and essays, and that poetry and calligraphy were not his forte. Nevertheless, he says that the Master's ink traces represent the man, and regardless of what calligraphers' critiques might be, he believes this is something unique that could not be created by anyone other than Yukichi Fukuzawa.

Another person, Kōji Ushioda, who was Fukuzawa's grandson and also served as President, says he never thought his grandfather's calligraphy was skillful. He says he never heard anyone in the family, starting with his grandmother (Yukichi Fukuzawa's wife, Kin), say things like "Grandfather's handwriting is skillful." Despite that, he had liked Yukichi Fukuzawa's calligraphy since he was small. Looking at it, something generous, warm, and pleasant flows out. He states that as he came to know Yukichi Fukuzawa's personality and life better, the calligraphy seemed to show a form, power, vigor, and appearance so characteristic of the man that it felt like being in contact with the deceased.

That's interesting.

I think the fact that these three said such things had a great influence on many people. In particular, the comment Sei'ichiro Takahashi mentioned about the old calligraphy teacher at the Keio Futsubu School saying "That is not calligraphy" has taken on a life of its own.

For a long time, I too have heard it like a "Mita legend" that "Fukuzawa's calligraphy is not good." I don't know if that influenced it, but I don't think any of the successive Presidents have spoken about "Yukichi Fukuzawa's calligraphy" in their lectures or greetings.

Mr. Nagoya, what do you think after hearing the impressions of those three?

It's exactly as they say. I think what can be felt from calligraphy is very significant, and it's not a matter of being skillful or clumsy.

Presumably, when the old calligrapher said it was "not calligraphy," he meant that it was different when viewed against the standards of classical calligraphy, such as the quality of Wang Xizhi's characters. But I think everything the three said in the latter half of their comments is correct.

The three of them have different ways of putting it, but they are saying the same thing.

That's right. Everyone is different, and that perhaps comes out most clearly in calligraphy, which is written through a brush. It's completely different from writing text by typing on a computer. That is the charm of calligraphy.

From the perspective of the merits of handwriting, while there may be personal preferences, looking at Fukuzawa's characters broadly, I think it is calligraphy that brings out his individuality well. If you look at each character individually, there might be some strange ones, but when you look at it as a whole, you don't feel that at all.

Even if the alignment of characters is odd, something that shows the person is more attractive. Calligraphy has that quality. I think that's important. It's good because it has the person's individuality.

Since I was involved in editing the "Collected Letters of Yukichi Fukuzawa," I saw Fukuzawa's letters often, and I have the impression that they are very easy to read and understand compared to the handwriting of other people from the same era.

So I simply thought, "If I can read it, maybe it's not masterly handwriting." I thought it was a matter of him being a person who didn't write characters with artistic beauty.

No matter whose handwriting it is, if individuality comes out and it holds together as characters, I think that's fine. It means individuality is being expressed. I think handwriting that doesn't show individuality because it's trying too hard to imitate Wang Xizhi feels less right.

I feel that calligraphy education used to be much freer in the past. I think recent education has been compromised by printed type. It's natural for a vertical line to have a slight hook when writing, but if you hook it, it's marked wrong. However, handwriting is supposed to be freer.

I think if people who only have those things in mind judge skill based on those standards, they might conclude that Yukichi Fukuzawa's handwriting was poor. But whether it is poor and whether the characters are good are two different issues.

They are on completely different levels.

Also, in the case of handwriting, there is always a world of "Hare" (formal/extraordinary) and a world of "Ke" (informal/everyday).

The easiest example is sutras, which are still written in Kaisho (regular script). The reading is also kept in the original sounds as they came over, not read in a Japanese way. In other words, it is a world that respects and inherits that foreign culture and characters as they are. However, since it would be difficult to write characters used in daily life in Kaisho, everyone writes in Gyosho (semi-cursive) or Sosho (cursive) styles.

The model for that was the calligraphy of Wang Xizhi. In Japan, since the Nara period, much has been based on Wang Xizhi's calligraphy. This is basically the world of "Ke." However, within the world of Ke, there are also Hare and Ke. Letters are the quintessential representative of Ke, but you wouldn't write in a rough hand when writing a letter of apology to a superior, would you?

That's true.

Furthermore, Kana characters are for everyday Japanese notation, so they are in the world of Ke compared to Kanji sutras and such. When writing Waka poetry, writing in linear characters using Kanji doesn't fit, so "Kana" was born.

And then, even within Kana, beautiful Kana called Kohitsu (ancient calligraphy) appeared for making clean copies of Waka. That is also a Hare within Kana.

Then, regarding the Chokusenshu (Imperial Anthologies), first there were collections of Chinese poetry. Those were poetry collections for the Hare stage. But the desire to do the same with Waka arose, and the Kokin Wakashu was created. This means that something that was in the world of Ke appeared on the formal stage.

I see.

Thinking about it that way, ordinary people like Yukichi Fukuzawa didn't write much in Kaisho. It was Gyosho or Sosho. It's the characters they used every day. They are people who demonstrated their strength in those characters of the everyday Ke world.

The reason why many of the items remaining as masterpieces are letters is that they were originally objects of the Ke world. Even Wang Xizhi's works are mostly letters.

The same goes for Kukai.

It's the same for both Kukai and Saicho. For all of them, their letters have become masterpieces.

Therefore, when looking at calligraphy, one should broadly distinguish what was written and in what situation—whether it was for a formal stage or not—and within that formal stage, see if there are truly formal Hare elements. Otherwise, I don't think a correct judgment can be made just by comparing whether a person's everyday handwriting is similar or not to their clean-copied characters. The way of writing changes.

So Hare is formal or public, and Ke is the informal and everyday aspect.

Exactly. There is something charming about letters written casually. So, if you want to appreciate the person by looking at their calligraphy, Ke is better than Hare.

It is said that "calligraphy is the person." That is also easily misunderstood, but it's not about knowing a person's personality by looking at their calligraphy; it's about feeling something of that person when you see it. Because everyone is different, when you see the calligraphy, it feels like that person.

Yes. That is a part that is misunderstood.

In that sense, Fukuzawa's calligraphy has a clear individuality and is charming. From a calligrapher's perspective, some might say making characters larger or smaller is unnatural, but that too is individuality.

This "The Mission of Keio University" is a mix of Kanji and Kana, and it's well-composed. Even though he writes Kanji and Kana together like this, it's good because he has made it his own. This is cool, isn't it?

It's very good. It has a beautiful alignment.

From my perspective, the Kana could be a size closer to the Kanji, but he distinguishes them by writing Kanji large and Kana small.

This most famous "independence and self-respect" horizontal plaque also appears in calligraphy textbooks for junior high and high schools.

This is also good. Even if a calligrapher were told to write something like this, they usually couldn't. Even if they could write the form well, whether the finished product attracts people is another matter.

That's the point. I think this plaque is adopted in textbooks because it is calligraphy with the universal beauty of a modern Japanese thinker.

I think the hanging scroll "independence and self-respect Welcoming the New Century" is also good. This one has quite a lot of space between characters for Yukichi Fukuzawa.

What one feels first is the person's unique sense when writing, I suppose; that appears in the brush lines through the brush. So even if 100 people write the same character for "one" (一), they will all be different. Whether that is an attractive line or not depends on the person.

Also, something like the person's emotions comes out within the line quality. This is the interesting part. Even if there are works written with the same spacing, one looks good and the other doesn't.

The measurements might be the same, but you write over a certain amount of time. I'm not actually watching them write, but I feel, "Ah, this is very natural." In other words, I feel a sense of necessity. When you can feel that it's pleasant for this line to be written here with this amount of ink, it's good calligraphy.

I won't say all of them, but looking at Fukuzawa's works, there are many that I feel are good. There is skill and lack of skill when compared with the traditions of calligraphy history, and the part where the calligraphy teacher said "it's not calligraphy" refers to that. But the other part, "whether it's good or not," is separate, and that must be looked at as well.

There are several works I would definitely like to hear your opinion on.

First, there is the letter starting with "Fubo Sei Go Sai Ho Go" sent to Taijiro Yoshikawa, who was the president of Nippon Yusen, along with a bag of rice as a get-well gift. This contains a seven-character quatrain titled "Inscribed on a Hand-milled Rice Mortar," written with consideration for his disciple, saying "The rice is white rice I milled myself. Please eat it as rice gruel." It's a letter where you can see the speed of his scribbling.

Yozan Mochizuki, who is an instructor for the Keio University Calligraphy Society, said it reminded him of Yan Zhenqing's "Draft of a Eulogy for a Nephew"—a masterpiece letter said to have been written in haste to his family after Yan Zhenqing learned that his son and his best friend had been killed. I think it shows Fukuzawa's kindness, warmth, and consideration in the same way. Hanging scrolls remain, but I feel the letters are even better.

I agree. The merits of Ke works come out well. In this case, the letter is more attractive.

I thought so.

One tends to look at letters and think they are written quickly, or they are messy or rough, but letters by people of the past are good. What they possess probably comes out naturally.

The feelings, right? He milled the rice using a mortar he had used for over 30 years and sent it. He attached a letter asking them to eat it.

He also adjusted the balance of the characters; there are remaining letters of refusal where he wrote the character for "refuse" slightly larger.

Also, when he was writing editorials for the "Jiji Shimpo," there was a letter box that went back and forth between the Jiji Shimpo office and Fukuzawa's home, but at one point it went missing. When asked, "Isn't it just stuck at Yukichi Fukuzawa's house?", Fukuzawa said, "No, that's not possible. I should have returned it, so look carefully," but after a while, it turned up in Fukuzawa's chest of drawers.

At that time, he sent a letter to Seiichi Nakajima, the head of administration, which began with the sentence "I am prostrating myself in deep apology." At first, he apologizes properly, but in the end, the content of the letter says, "It is the height of embarrassment that it was found at my place. But if I were an even worse person, I would have pretended the box didn't exist and secretly burned it. Since I am swallowing my shame and returning it like this, you all must forgive me" (laughs).

In the first line, the part about prostrating himself is written in the style of a commoner making a request to the authorities in early modern documents, but after that, he becomes defiant in his usual relaxed handwriting, which is very funny.

That is funny.

I think it would be annoying if he were your boss (laughs).

It was mentioned that he said, "I'd rather be hit on the head than be asked for calligraphy," but I also think Fukuzawa might have had something like a complex because he hadn't studied calligraphy as a discipline and his father, who would have been his model, died early. There seem to have been times when he really hated writing; the person asking for the calligraphy remembers it, but the person asked doesn't, and he would hand it over writing, "Oh, what a nuisance."

It seems Fukuzawa began composing Chinese poetry and creating calligraphy at almost the same time. Takeyuki Tokura, an associate professor at the Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies and chairman of the university's calligraphy club, wrote about this in the club's journal, "Kensai No. 76." In 1878, Fukuzawa was reportedly shocked when Nakamura Rien—a master of Chinese classics and a close friend of Hyakusuke's father—told him that "doing nothing but Western studies and neglecting Chinese studies is a lack of filial piety."

I feel that he realized he had been wrong and apologized sincerely. Then, he began to write calligraphy when requested and, at the same time, started composing Chinese poetry.

I suspect that until around the 1890s, he was quite busy and probably couldn't find the time to sit down and focus on calligraphy.

That's true. In 1878, the Satsuma Rebellion had ended, society had stabilized, and Chinese poetry became a trend among intellectuals. After being told off by Nakamura Rien, he started both Chinese poetry and calligraphy at almost the same time, which turned out to be a very good turning point. His father, Hyakusuke, was a very serious man, a scholar of Chinese classics, and skilled in calligraphy, leaving behind some magnificent works.

Recently, a letter was discovered that reveals his father Hyakusuke's interactions with upper-ranking samurai. Although Fukuzawa writes somewhat self-deprecatingly in his autobiography, I believe Hyakusuke was a person who demonstrated considerable ability in the clan's accounting department, despite being of the lower samurai class.

There is a calligraphic scroll titled "Condolences for Lord Senchiyo." This is a work from before Fukuzawa began calligraphy in earnest in 1878. He had been practicing by looking at the writing of his father and older brother until he could write this well. It is a long work mourning Lord Senchiyo, an ancestor of the Okudaira family, and I think it is a fine, well-ordered piece that reflects a sense of solemnity and integrity.

Compared to his other works, this one isn't very cursive. It feels like a serious study. In terms of flow, his later works are better, but it's impressive that he could write this well when he was just starting out. People of that time wrote characters daily, and having that foundation allowed them to write like this.

Since it was to be presented to his former lord, he might have practiced many times while feeling nervous, so it is quite formal as a work. This is definitely a piece for a formal, public occasion.

Yes, a formal work.

Even for calligraphers, it takes a lot of practice to master the spacing between characters and lines—essentially the "ma" or negative space. Yet, he could write this well from the beginning.

Even looking at "independence and self-respect," his style is dignified, showing confidence in his brushwork without hesitation. He has truly made it his own. That is why it is so good.

What is common to Fukuzawa's calligraphy is that it reflects a broad-minded, warm, and kind personality. It is a natural, unpretentious style of writing, and I think it has a sense of security and stability that puts the viewer at ease.

I agree. I think everyone of that era was like that. Looking at the handwriting of other famous politicians, they all have a certain form, and I don't think anyone wrote feeling ashamed of their hand. Everyone wrote boldly, and that was perfectly fine.

According to Professor Kin Bunkyo (Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University), Fukuzawa exhibited his calligraphy alongside Tokujirō Obata and Hikojirō Nakamigawa at a "Calligraphy and Painting Gathering" held at Nakamurarō in September 1881. Exhibiting at a gathering where "famous masters" were lined up suggests he may have had a fair amount of confidence.

I didn't know that happened.

When considering the characteristics of Fukuzawa's calligraphy, one is that he was consistent in writing only his own Chinese poems and words or phrases he created himself. It is "self-composed and self-written." This was also true for Meiji politicians and revolutionaries like Saigo Takamori, Okubo Toshimichi, and Ito Hirobumi. It could be said that people of the Meiji era acquired the style of studying Chinese classics, mastering calligraphy, and creating Chinese poetry from an early age.

When he was asked for calligraphy, he would sometimes hand it over with a playful or slightly self-deprecating note. He had a playful spirit, such as using the pseudonym "Sanjūichikokujin" (Man of Thirty-One Valleys), which was a play on the characters for "secular world." I feel he considered humor to be a very important element in expressing himself, whether in Chinese poetry or calligraphy.

That's true. While some people were strictly serious, there have been various humorous arts since the Edo period.

Kyōka and Senryū poems as well.

Exactly. Also, in the Edo period, the "Karayō" (Chinese style) was introduced by literati like Hosoi Kōtaku and became a symbol of education leading up to the end of the shogunate. Some people wrote in clerical or seal scripts. Such people were the image of an educated person in the Edo period.

That is why the patriots of the late Edo period and the people who led the Meiji Restoration probably had the idea that the Karayō style was literary and sophisticated, and they may have studied that kind of writing.

They all studied so hard, didn't they?

To put it extremely, Karayō equaled education; if you lined up kanji characters, you already looked like an educated person. However, if you look closely, while Chinese characters are linear, Japanese characters are primarily composed of curves. Historically, characters made of curves are considered beautiful. The "Wayō" (Japanese style) of kanji created by Ono no Michifuze and others changed to be primarily curved, even if the characters were the same.

So, looking at the historical background from the Edo to Meiji periods, people studied the Chinese style as part of their education, but what they were actually writing was closer to their everyday lives. Even if they studied the Chinese Karayō style, the truly pure Karayō only existed at the beginning of the Edo period. Looking at the characters, they are already a blend of Japanese and Chinese styles.

I see.

Their spirit was that of a Chinese-style literatus, but they were still Japanese. So, even looking at the Three Brushes of the Bakumatsu (Maki Ryōko, Nukina Sūō, Ichikawa Beian), their work is different from pure Chinese Karayō; in the end, it's half Wayō.

Is that so? And so, everyone did Haikai, Senryū, Kyōka, and Waka. Everyone was stylish and witty.

That was necessary, and I think everyone had that side to them back then.

For example, the Dodoitsu song "I'd like to kill the crows of the three thousand worlds and sleep in late with my master," which always appears in Rakugo stories about Yoshiwara, was actually composed by Takasugi Shinsaku of Choshu. It became a song for the top-ranking courtesans in Yoshiwara and was sung by the common people. The Meiji statesmen and active politicians possessed that level of cultivation, including wit and a sense of play.

You probably couldn't survive if you were just serious and had no room in your heart for such things.

It is said that Japan is good at Japanizing things that come from abroad, but just as "kana" was born in this climate and landscape, there are things unique to the Japanese people that cannot be erased.

Looking at the people from the Bakumatsu to Meiji periods, I feel a mysterious mix of Chinese and Japanese elements. Such things are left in calligraphy and come out clearly. Calligraphy is like that; it reflects the era. That's what makes it interesting.

Today, the world of Japanese calligraphy includes Hentaigana, semi-cursive, cursive, regular, seal, and clerical scripts. There is no other country like this, but I think for Japanese people, this is good for living and conveying various things.

How do you feel Fukuzawa's calligraphy compares to that of his contemporaries, such as Saigo Takamori, Okubo Toshimichi, Ito Hirobumi, or Katsu Kaishu?

Fukuzawa's writing is not inferior at all; everyone at that time had their own merits and I would place them on the same level. I think each person's handwriting is equally charming. When viewed as calligraphy, the writing of the people who were active at that time really speaks to you.

I especially feel a tremendous amount of heat and energy from the calligraphy of the first generation of people who led the Meiji revolution. It is large-scale, robust, and overflowing with fighting spirit.

Yes, I feel that commonality of the era. It's a completely separate issue from whether it's good or bad. It's simply the calligraphy of that time.

Nishizawa-san, you study Tokujirō Obata and have seen many of his letters, haven't you?

Obata's writing is very serious. While Fukuzawa's is free and easy, Obata's feels like he's thinking it through in his head first. Fukuzawa has the image of writing with momentum on the paper, but in Obata's case, he writes each character carefully, as if considering how much information he can fit onto the page.

Like a blueprint.

Obata's letters use many Chinese words that we no longer use today. In Fukuzawa Yukichi's letters, words that we don't use today hardly ever appear. I think even someone who is not a history specialist could read them and understand the meaning.

When Professor Kin Bunkyo reads Obata's Chinese poems, he notes that some parts are homages to famous Chinese poems. I think many of Obata's own Chinese poems cannot be truly understood without knowledge of Chinese classics.

I thought the fact that Fukuzawa has almost none of that is one of his charms, and it might lead those who value tradition to say, "Fukuzawa's calligraphy isn't real writing."

That's true.

However, from the Meiji era onward, the later the generation, the harder the handwriting becomes to read. For me, when it comes to Masuda Takashi or Yoshida Shigeru, there are many kanji where I don't know what theory they are using to simplify them. It seems they began to simplify characters in their own way.

I suspect that's because they no longer had to read documents written by professional scribes (yūhitsu). In Fukuzawa's generation, reading scribal writing was still a part of life. I imagine that once that experience was gone, people began to write based on the visual appeal of various scripts coming from China.

For example, there are many very important letters addressed to Fukuzawa Momosuke from the Taisho and Showa periods, but reading the various handwritings is a real struggle.

Nishizawa-san, you are compiling Fukuzawa's collected letters; are there about 2,500 in total?

New ones have been found since then, and the total has now exceeded 2,650.

As with his works like "Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning)" and "An Outline of a Theory of Civilization," I think the Fukuzawa style is to always be conscious of the other person. Since there's no point if the recipient can't read the letter, he writes accordingly, and I think when he does calligraphy, he writes while considering how the recipient wants to use it.

For example, Fukuzawa truly wanted Keio students to see "The Mission of Keio University," so that feeling comes through. I feel he thought there would be no point if he wrote in a stiff or intimidating way. I believe the Fukuzawa style is to always be conscious of the reader.

That is an important thing.

In his private life, Fukuzawa wrote Chinese poems about his family and personal thoughts, but he also wrote many formal Chinese poems, poems for professional PR, and poems related to his public position.

The seven-character quatrain "On the Completion of On the Imperial Household" was written to mark the completion of that book. Among his works, the 83rd issue of his newspaper, published three months after its founding, was banned, and he was teased in a Senryū poem: "Old man Jiji (Jiji Shimpo) broke his back at eighty-three." However, I feel that he enjoyed himself more freely in calligraphic works written with a playful spirit, such as "One side truth, one side void" or "Coming and going in play."

The ones with mixed kanji and kana are also quite nice. I find them more charming than those with just rows of kanji.

While there are various formal tasks to do, in his private life, his true feelings and thoughts gush out freely—that's what you're saying, right?

I think so. I think that's an interesting part of being Japanese. When you write a Chinese poem, your mindset changes a bit. Mixed kanji and kana is nice because it's free.

If you think about it, Japan has been doing mixed kanji and kana since The Tale of Genji a thousand years ago.

Yes. Japan has been influenced by China since the Nara period. But as I said before, even when stimulated, everything has been Japanized. From that perspective, looking at it this way, mixed kanji and kana is very charming and interesting.

This "National Glory Emerges from Art" was shown at the 150th anniversary exhibition of Keio University in 2009. I think this is very good, but what do you think?

The balance is good, and the variation in size is very natural. If you look closely, the characters are quite large, but they grow larger very naturally. When I saw this, I thought it could be called one of Fukuzawa Yukichi's masterpieces.

Oh, I'm glad to hear that. Currently, the original calligraphic scroll cannot be found. It's missing. I'm hoping to somehow return it to Keio University.

Does it mean something like the light or brilliance of a nation emerges from within its art?

That is correct. In this case, art refers to culture and the arts.

I completely agree. The merits of a country or an ethnic group are shaped by the long-standing traditional culture and environment of that nation. I believe it is not right to forcibly impose the culture of a different country.

While the significant impacts of the Meiji Restoration and the post-war period work well when they are positive, I do not feel that everything is going smoothly. Especially recently, I feel like something is a bit off.

Calligraphy is one of those cultures. A country's identity as a nation is expressed through its traditional culture. It is exactly as these words say.

I believe the basic concepts of cultural property protection and mecenat activities are summarized here, echoing what Yukichi Fukuzawa appealed for in the first serialized editorial of the Jiji Shinpo, "On the Imperial Household": "The Imperial Household should remain outside of politics and focus on the promotion of academic education and the protection of arts and culture."

In 1895, many international students were accepted from Korea. While they were enrolled, Yukichi Fukuzawa reached his 60th birthday. Since they were all members of the yangban class, they presented him with wonderful kanshi (Chinese poetry) accompanied by ink wash paintings to celebrate his 60th birthday.

However, it seems the Japanese students did not do the same. I think this is an example of how culture changed significantly due to the influx of Western culture in the 30 years or so following the Meiji Restoration. I also thought that this might have been a sad thing for Yukichi Fukuzawa.

I felt that he wanted them to also hold onto the spirit they had cultivated until then. This connects to how he wrote about his youth in a rather exaggerated way in "The Mission of Keio University" and "The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa" to convey a message to young people.

Kazuo Yamaguchi wrote about Inazo Nitobe in the first issue of the Fukuzawa Yukichi Kyokai's "Fukuzawa Techo," and it seems Inazo Nitobe once heard Yukichi Fukuzawa give a lecture at the Mita Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall).

According to Nitobe's recollections, Yukichi Fukuzawa entered with paper bags in both hands and gave the senbei (rice crackers) he took out of the bags to the young boys in the audience before his speech. Nitobe stated the following:

"Today, there are many educators, but most of them simply sell their lectures by the hour for a wage. There are few who provide a heartfelt education, moistening their surroundings with a natural affection, like giving senbei to each child. It was the only meeting of my life, but I remember this well."

Learning this story, I felt that what is expressed in Yukichi Fukuzawa's calligraphy is indeed this kindness and his attitude as an educator who values people. Thank you very much for your time today.

[Major works of Yukichi Fukuzawa's calligraphy can be viewed in the "Fukuzawa Iboku Collection" at the Keio University Media Center.]