[Feature: Exhibiting the History of the Juku] Expectations for the Keio History Museum: The Photograph of "Fukuzawa Resting His Chin on His Hand"

2021/05/11

I decided to visit the Keio History Museum, which is opening on the second floor of the Old University Library on the Mita Campus—the building with the so-called "Octagonal Tower" where renovation work was recently completed. This symbolic library was designed by Tatsuzo Sone, a great architect of the Meiji era known for red-brick buildings like Mitsubishi Ichigokan, along with his junior, Seiichiro Chujo. It isn't exactly a place I have memories of using daily during my time as a student, but rather since I started this kind of writing work, I have come here to research lifestyle articles in old issues of the "Jiji Shinpo" and "Mita Shimbun."

Guided by Associate Professor Takeyuki Tokura, a researcher of Yukichi Fukuzawa, and accompanied by Akiko Suganuma, Chairperson of the Keio Rengo Mita-Kai (I was a little nervous as she is a senior whose name I had seen on the Mita-kai information website!), I looked through the exhibits on the floor.

There are various niche historical materials, ranging from documents related to Ogata Koan and Sugita Genpaku, whom Fukuzawa studied under, to ancient coins collected by Yukichi's father, Hyakosuke... but it seems the Fukuzawa family preserved old items quite well to begin with.

"Also, quite a few valuable items are circulating on online auctions," Professor Tokura told me, revealing an unexpected inside story. While the prices are not certain, he said there are several items they have purchased online.

I don't know if the source was the internet, but there was a bromide-style photograph taken in France or the Netherlands (likely during the Bunkyu era before he wrote "Things Western (Seiyō Jijō)") when a young Fukuzawa traveled to Europe. Among them, the shot of "Fukuzawa resting his chin on his hand," labeled with the location "The Hague, Netherlands," caught my eye. He is in a formal kimono with his hair still in a topknot, but his pose like a Western dandy looks quite natural. He might have been instructed by the photographer, but seeing this, one imagines that Yukichi Fukuzawa must have had a certain sense of showmanship.

Along with that "cool photo," there was another unique document that offered a glimpse into Fukuzawa's personality.

It was an invitation to a banquet (June 1891) celebrating the publication of the dictionary "Genkai," which still exists today. However, he had scribbled out his own name (listed as "Yukichi Fukuzawa" along with his title) on the list of guests invited to give congratulatory speeches.

This wasn't simply a case of having urgent business and missing the meeting; apparently, he struck out his name in anger because the name of Hirobumi Ito (listed as "Count Ito") appeared at the top of the guest list to the right of Fukuzawa. While complaints seem to be written in the margins, it appears to be like this: it wasn't that he disliked Ito being listed before him, but rather he was indignant that the greetings of a political power figure were placed at the top of a banquet for a dictionary, which is a book for the common people. Furthermore, he might have been displeased that his own speech was programmed there alongside it in such a pompous manner. However, one wonders if Yukichi Fukuzawa himself preserved this invitation as a kind of evidence.

About ten years later, in February 1901, Fukuzawa passed away. The photograph capturing the funeral procession of students leaving his residence on the Mita grounds is also impressive. This gently curving slope must be the path leading from the side of the current Keio University Library (New Building) (where there is also a monument marking the site of Fukuzawa's death) toward the East Gate (Maboroshi no Mon). The building with a triangular roof (which appears to be black tile) faintly visible at the bottom of the cliff in the left corner of the photo is likely the wooden warehouse of Tada Shoten, which remained until the mid-1960s when I was a student at Chutobu Junior High School.

The Waseda-Keio rivalry began in November 1903, two years after the professor passed away, and a vivid, brush-written challenge sent by Waseda to our Keio (the baseball club dormitory) was on display. Although it was a challenge, the text included humble passages such as, "It would be our greatest aspiration if we could receive your instruction and learn much from it." Indeed, the Keio baseball club was founded about ten years earlier, and at that time, the Waseda baseball club was only in its second year. Their stance was one of testing their skills against their seniors.

The date on this "humble challenge" was November 5, and the Waseda-Keio rivalry match (well, at that point, given the "status," it might be more appropriate to call it the Keio-Waseda match) was held on November 21, so it was a very speedy decision. In fact, there is a theory that discussions about the match had been exchanged between the two schools even before then.

It was only after graduating that I learned the venue for the first Waseda-Keio match was Tsunamachi Field. As a member of the soccer club and during physical education and sports days in my Chutobu days, it was a field I went to almost every day. Perhaps I'll stop by for the first time in a while.

Tsunamachi Field, located quietly behind the west side of the Chutobu near Sannohashi, has the same space as before, but the wooden buildings have disappeared at some point, and the dirt field has been transformed into a smart, all-weather surface. During my time as a Chutobu student, we were given painful muscle injections every year because of rumors that tetanus bacteria lived in the soil of this field, but it seems that concern is now gone.