Jinzaburo Obata

2017/03/03

In New Brunswick, New Jersey, about an hour and a half drive from Keio Academy of New York, lies Willow Grove Cemetery. In a somewhat cluttered corner of the cemetery, seven gravestones of Japanese students who died in America during the early Meiji era stand in an orderly row (see photo below). Last November, members of the school's Fukuzawa Research Society visited the site, offered flowers at the graves, and cleaned the surrounding area. Seeing the gravestones better maintained than the previous year, the members seemed to realize that the Japanese burial site is cherished by many people. One of these seven gravestones belongs to Obata Jinzaburo (also known as Ninzaburo), the subject of this article.

Jinzaburo was born in 1846 (Koka 2) into a high-ranking samurai family of the Nakatsu Domain with a stipend of 200 koku. Fukuzawa and Jinzaburo met in March 1864 (Genji 1). At that time, Fukuzawa was 31 years old and had returned to his hometown for the first time in six years. His previous visit was in 1858 (Ansei 5), when Fukuzawa, who had been studying at Tekijuku, received domain orders to teach Dutch studies in Edo and returned to Nakatsu to bid farewell to his mother before departing.

For Fukuzawa, those six years were tumultuous. After being shocked in Yokohama, he turned to English studies, traveled to the United States on the Kanrin Maru, and upon returning, was hired as a translator for the Shogunate. Furthermore, he traveled to various countries as a member of the Shogunate's diplomatic mission to Europe and the United States. In 1863 (Bunkyu 3), as anti-foreign (Joi) sentiment rose within the country, he spent his days feeling his life was in danger as a scholar of Western learning.

Returning home under such circumstances, Fukuzawa had the important goal of bringing promising talent back to Edo to carry the future of the Juku. In a climate where studying Western learning could cost one's life, his attempt to find such talent seems like an expression of Fukuzawa's own determination to forge a future through scholarship.

The first person Fukuzawa eagerly recruited was Jinzaburo's older brother, Tokujiro. Tokujiro was 23 at the time and would later become Fukuzawa's right-hand man, even being listed alongside Fukuzawa as an author in the first volume of Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning). However, Tokujiro, who was already in a position teaching Chinese classics at the domain school, Shinshukan, initially refused Fukuzawa's invitation. Nevertheless, Fukuzawa did not give up his persuasion, and it was Jinzaburo who ended up going to Edo with Tokujiro.

Jinzaburo was 20 years old at the time. He appears to have studied Chinese classics at Shinshukan and, like his brother, likely had no background in Western learning. It is unclear whether Jinzaburo himself wished to go to Edo or if Fukuzawa intended to take him. However, since Fukuzawa persuaded their reluctant mother and ultimately took both of them to Edo, he must have highly valued Jinzaburo's potential. Jinzaburo arrived in Edo with Tokujiro and others in June 1864 (Genji 1).

Within less than two years of entering the Juku, Jinzaburo mastered English. In December 1866 (Keio 2), he and Tokujiro were appointed to the Shogunate's Kaiseijo to teach English studies. In March 1868 (Keio 4), he published "Eibun Jukugoshu," Japan's first collection of English idioms and example sentences, together with Tokujiro. The following year, he assisted Fukuzawa in the translation of "Yohei Meikan." "Yohei Meikan" was translated for the Kumamoto Domain, and Fukuzawa, who had just moved the Juku to Shinsenza and named it Keio University, used the income to expand the school buildings. Additionally, according to the daily schedules listed in the 1868 and 1869 editions of Keio Gijuku no Ki (Notes on Keio Gijuku), Jinzaburo's name can be seen alongside Fukuzawa and Tokujiro as a professor teaching history and economics.

Incidentally, for a while after Jinzaburo entered the Juku, many Keio students were reportedly rowdy and neglected their studies. For example, Baba Tatsui, who served as a professor at the Gijuku around the same time as Jinzaburo, recalled, "They were as irregular as they were dissolute. ... They hardly studied at all" ("Autobiography of Baba Tatsui"). In this environment, Jinzaburo is said to have contributed greatly to correcting the morale of the Keio students. Furthermore, there is an anecdote that well illustrates Jinzaburo's character.

During the Boshin War, the Imperial Army left Kyoto and headed for Edo. People in Edo rumored that the Imperial Army would surely commit great violence there, and many fled to Yokohama, where the foreign settlement was located, to avoid being caught up in it.

Meanwhile, some Westerners were kind enough to provide Japanese acquaintances with certificates stating they were employees of foreign legations, suggesting they show them to the Imperial Army to escape trouble. Since the Juku had interactions with many Westerners, some offered to arrange certificates for the Keio students as well.

Upon hearing this, Jinzaburo reportedly rushed into the main hall of the Gijuku, his face flushed with anger, and spoke sternly to the Keio students: "As proud citizens of Japan, to forget the great duty of serving one's country and seek safety under the protection of foreigners rather than die by the blades of our own countrymen—where is the purpose for which we founded this Gijuku and studied hard together? For a Japanese to read foreign books, the sole point is to seek the independence of the individual and extend that principle to the whole nation, thereby exalting our national rights. To disregard this great duty now is to say we have mistaken our purpose from the beginning; it is to say we are severing the lifeblood of our Gijuku" ("The Words of a Deceased Member, Still Spirited Today").

These words recall Fukuzawa's assertion that "the independence of a nation stems from the independence of the individual." It is said that Keio students regained their composure through this and thereafter devoted themselves to their studies without being distracted by the various incidents that occurred during the Restoration period. It was also shortly after this that Fukuzawa, undeterred by the Battle of Ueno, gave his lecture on Wayland's political economy textbook.

Having thus become a central figure at the Juku, Jinzaburo was appointed President in 1870. While the duties of the President in the early days are not clearly known, it is said that when the Juku moved from Shinsenza to Mita in March of the following year, he took charge of directing the construction work, sometimes even wearing a hanten (traditional short coat) and working himself.

At the end of December 1871, Jinzaburo departed for America with Okudaira Masayuki, the former lord of the Nakatsu Domain. Fukuzawa had encouraged the 17-year-old Masayuki, who had just entered the Juku, to study abroad and recommended Jinzaburo as his companion. In later years, Fukuzawa stated that he chose Jinzaburo to help him achieve greatness in both scholarship and character.

Masayuki and Jinzaburo arrived in New York at the end of February 1872. In early March, they moved to Winchester, Connecticut, their intended place of study, but judging that they could not learn enough there, they returned to New York in late March and began taking private lessons in Brooklyn.

Once he had finally settled in, Jinzaburo sent two letters. One of them was addressed to Tokujiro, in which he frankly wrote about the hardships he faced in a foreign land for the first time, feeling unable to adequately fulfill his role as an interpreter and attendant to Masayuki, his former lord.

On the other hand, in a letter the following day addressed to his mother and "everyone," he emphasized that he was no longer suffering and that there was no need to worry. He added, "By the time of the next mail, I will have become a fine 'American' boy and will send a photograph, so I earnestly pray that you will look at the photo and be at ease." He also offered a bright outlook, saying, "Since I like all the food here, I am looking forward to gaining a little weight and becoming healthy." Furthermore, he jokingly introduced American customs that had puzzled him, such as table manners and washing the body with soap. The cheerful tone, so different from the previous day's letter, seems to reflect his kindness toward his mother, not wanting to worry her from so far away despite his actual hardships.

Jinzaburo also studied at the Polytechnic Institute (now the New York University Tandon School of Engineering) in the same area. Like other Japanese students abroad at the time, or perhaps even more so, he devoted himself to his studies and reportedly got very little sleep. Perhaps because of this, his mental health began to decline around November of that year. Life in a foreign land strengthens one's feelings for their homeland and sometimes induces intense loneliness. His illness was likely caused by a combination of factors: a sense of mission to learn as much as possible to contribute to the development of the Juku and the independence of the nation, a sense of responsibility to meet Fukuzawa's expectations, and his feelings for his family.

Upon learning of Jinzaburo's illness, Masayuki wished for him to receive the best possible treatment regardless of the cost and had him admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Philadelphia, which was said to be the best in America at the time. However, his body was already significantly weakened, and there was no hope for recovery. On January 29, 1873, Jinzaburo passed away. He was 27 years old. It was a death far too young.

News of Jinzaburo's death reached Tokyo on April 2, and upon receiving the word, Fukuzawa hurried back to the capital from Hakone, where he had been staying for hot spring treatment. Fukuzawa's deep grief was evident in many places; for example, in a letter to Shimazu Fukusei in Nakatsu, he expressed his helpless feelings, saying that although he had looked forward to accomplishing many things together with Jinzaburo, his "best friend for life," upon his return, that was no longer possible, and "though it may be fate, I have no way to comfort myself." In the "Draft Poem for the Memorial of Mr. Jinzaburo Obata," written in mourning for Jinzaburo's death, he wrote, "Alas, when I think of you, I grieve for your death for your sake; when I think of the path of my scholarship, I lament your absence for the sake of that path; and when I think of the world, I worry about the loss of you for the sake of the world."

Fukuzawa continued to speak of Jinzaburo on various occasions thereafter. The aforementioned anecdote from the Boshin War was published in the Jiji Shinpo in March 1882 and later included in the Foreword to the Collected Works of Fukuzawa. When he delivered a public speaking on "The Mission of Keio University" in November 1896, he named Jinzaburo as the foremost among Keio University alumni to be emulated. It is said that when he wrote Shūshin Yōryō: Fukuzawa's Moral Code in 1900, he lamented that if Jinzaburo had lived, he would have been a good advisor.

Jinzaburo, whose death Fukuzawa continued to mourn until his final years, was a rare individual who embodied the "independence," "dignity," and "wisdom and virtue" that Fukuzawa cherished. Here in New York, where Jinzaburo studied, I wish to carefully pass on the legacy of his footsteps.