Yukichi Fukuzawa and Social Education

2021/03/11

I am Yoneyama, who has just been introduced. It is a great honor to have the opportunity to give a lecture on this memorable day, the 186th birthday of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Today, I would like to talk mainly about Yukichi Fukuzawa and the social education activities of Keio University.

Now, since this is a celebration of Yukichi Fukuzawa's birthday, I hesitated whether to call him "Fukuzawa-sensei" or, as usual, "Fukuzawa" or "Yukichi Fukuzawa." However, when speaking about Yukichi Fukuzawa within the university, there are aspects that must be viewed historically and academically, so I will take the liberty of referring to him as "Fukuzawa." In this lecture, I hope to ultimately speak about the contemporary significance and possibilities of Yukichi Fukuzawa.

First, regarding the term "social education" in the title, I think this is a word that is not heard very often lately. A literal translation of "shakai kyoiku" is "Social Education," but in the English-speaking world, it is a very specific term and likely wouldn't make much sense on its own. Rather, terms like "Adult Education" or "Continuing Education" are more common in places like the UK. "Social Education" was used by Professor James E. Thomas of the University of Nottingham, who researched the history of Japanese social education, in his book Learning Democracy in Japan: The Social Education in Japanese Adults, but this is an extremely rare example. One could say that the expression "social education" is unique to Japan.

One reason this term has become less common in Japan recently is related to the historical transition of the term "social education" in the modern era. Touching on this point makes it feel like a class on social education theory, but in fact, I believe Yukichi Fukuzawa was an extremely early example, or perhaps the first example, of someone using the term "social education."

In Japan, the term social education itself was used in the early Meiji period. It was used at the Kojunsha, where many of Fukuzawa's students gathered, and examples can also be seen in Christian media and elsewhere.

However, because the "social" part was associated with socialism, it seems it was not a very desirable term for the government from the mid-Meiji period onward, and the name "popular education" (tsuzoku kyoiku) came to be used instead.

It began to be used again in the Taisho period. In 1924, a "Social Education Section" was established in the Ordinary Education Bureau of the Ministry of Education, and in the Showa period, a department called the "Social Education Bureau" was born. The background of the revival of the term "social education" in the Taisho period is likely related to the attention given to "social work." It seems the term "social education" came to be used again in an effort to promote not just economic relief, but educational relief.

However, the Social Education Bureau established in the Showa period was dismantled during World War II and divided into departments such as the Indoctrination Bureau and the Education Bureau. After the war, the Social Education Bureau was re-established, and the Social Education Act was enacted. This law has been amended several times but still exists today.

However, when "Lifelong Education" was proposed by UNESCO in the 1960s, the term social education was gradually replaced by that term. In the 1980s, the National Council on Educational Reform began using the term "lifelong learning," which became generalized. The Social Education Bureau also changed to the Lifelong Learning Bureau, and is currently the Comprehensive Education Policy Bureau. In local educational administration, Social Education Sections have changed to Lifelong Learning Sections, and the term social education is no longer heard very often.

Incidentally, the Social Education Act defines "social education" as follows:

"'Social education' refers to organized educational activities (including physical education and recreational activities) conducted primarily for youth and adults, excluding educational activities conducted as school curricula based on the School Education Act or the Act on Advancement of Comprehensive Service of Education and Care for Preschool Children."

In other words, it is safe to think of education outside of school education as social education.

Actually, I am embarrassed to say that I myself lived until my third year of university without knowing the term "social education." Since it was the 1970s, it was a time when the term social education was still relatively common. I learned this word when I took the teacher training course as a third-year student in the Faculty of Economics. Now I train middle and high school teachers at the Teacher Training Center, but the teacher training course used to be within the Faculty of Letters, and there were only two faculty members in charge.

The teacher training course had a compulsory subject called "Principles of Education," and during my student days, this class was held every Saturday during the third period. I wasn't very keen on taking classes until Saturday afternoon, but I thought since I was coming all the way to Mita, I would also take an elective subject in the same teacher training course that was assigned to the fourth period at the time. That was the "Social Education" class.

I still remember it; it was in the South Building before it was rebuilt, and Akira Matsumoto continued to be in charge from the third period. In a very relaxed atmosphere typical of a Saturday afternoon, I was taking this class without even knowing what social education was, but Mr. Matsumoto spoke about various cases, focusing on the history of social education in modern Japan. A report assignment was given in the class, and researching what was done during the Taisho period in that report was the catalyst for me to specialize in the history of education.

While researching the relationship between Keio University and social education after entering graduate school, I learned that in 1924, Shintaro Ishida, who was then a director of the Gijuku, established an organization called the Adult Education Association. Ishida was a person who served as a secretary at the Gijuku for a long time, and at this association, Keio University professors were developing tutorial classes in collaboration with external organizations. Although people related to the Gijuku were involved, it was not an organization of Keio University itself. However, it is an activity called university extension in today's terms.

I became interested in that and researched it, but from the perspective of university extension in modern Japan, only Waseda's lecture records come up, making it look as if Keio did nothing. However, I found that Keio had been actively conducting "regional lecture tours" since the late Meiji 40s.

The predecessor to these regional lecture tours was the "Shūshin Yōryō: Fukuzawa's Moral Code" dissemination lecture series. The "Shūshin Yōryō" was compiled between 1899 and 1900. In the latter half of these dissemination lectures, they did not just spread the content of the "Shūshin Yōryō," but also spoke to the general public in regional areas about the academic content being nurtured within Keio University. From 1908, this took the form of regional lecture tours, where Juku teachers actively traveled across the country during spring and summer breaks.

In fact, prior to the "Shūshin Yōryō" dissemination lectures, there was a Keio University alumni who wrote the first book in Japan to bear the title of social education. That was Jiro Yamana, who published "Social Education Theory" in 1892.

Yamana, who served as the principal of the Hokkaido Ordinary Normal School, contributed essays on "social education" to the Hokkaido Education Association Magazine and the Kojun Magazine.

Fukuzawa read Yamana's essay published in the Kojun Magazine and apparently suggested that he publish it in the Jiji Shinpo. However, Yamana seemed to have the idea of publishing it as a separate volume and declined, but the important thing is that Fukuzawa gave a certain level of praise to Yamana's "Social Education Theory."

So, how did Fukuzawa himself view social education in the first place? I would like to look back a bit in time to see that.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I believe Fukuzawa may have been the first person in Japan to use the term "social education." This can be glimpsed in a speech at a Mita Public Speaking Event held in 1877.

"The essence of human social education (not referring only to school education) lies in making a person face practical matters quickly, even in a single thing." ("Empty Theory Must Stop," Collected Essays of Fukuzawa, Vol. 2)

This part can be read, for example, as a statement to the effect that a carpenter who has built a house once understands things better than someone who has heard a talk about industry a hundred times. Here, Fukuzawa uses the term "human social education." One could say this is the very first usage of "social education."

Some people argue that "human social education" has a different meaning from "social education," but there is no doubt that "human society" here is the same as what Fukuzawa called "jinkan kosai (society)." In Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning) and An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (1875), the term "jinkan kosai" is used more frequently as a translation for Society. The word "shakai" (society) first appears in Fukuzawa's writings in the 17th volume (1876), the final volume of Gakumon no susume. The time of the 1877 speech is considered a transitional period from "jinkan kosai" to "shakai."

Therefore, since the term "human social education" can basically be read as "social education," it can be said that he was the first to advocate social education. For Fukuzawa, social education was thought to mean a form of self-education based on social experience.

Social education at that time had the role of spreading school education, but Fukuzawa did not necessarily think that the field of social education was subordinate to schools. This can be seen in the following sentence in the commentary for the sixth volume, "Yukichi Fukuzawa's Essays on Education," by Sumie Kobayashi, who was involved in the compilation of the Selected Works of Fukuzawa planned in 1943 during the war.

"The master placed more emphasis on home education and social education rather than school education, particularly stating that society is a 'great classroom,' and argued that things like the spirit pervading society or public opinion should be the central force of education. It seems the master never once used the term social education (omitted)..."

A total of 12 volumes were planned for this Selected Works of Fukuzawa, but due to the wartime situation, only the "Essays on Economics" was actually published. Although the "Essays on Education" had been compiled, it was ultimately not published, and this sentence is included in Yukichi Fukuzawa and New Education, which Mr. Kobayashi published after the war.

Regarding the last part I just quoted, "it seems he never used it," that is not the case, as he actually used it as we have already seen. In any case, from such descriptions, I believe social education was a very important area or concept for Yukichi Fukuzawa.

In fact, Fukuzawa was enthusiastically involved in what we now call social education activities. In 1878, a lecture hall began within Keio University, where Fukuzawa first gave lectures on An Outline of a Theory of Civilization. Juku students could listen to those lectures for free, but he also made it possible for people from outside the Juku to attend by paying a lecture fee of 1 yen. It was like what we now call a public lecture.

The Mita Public Speaking Event, which had been continuing since before then, also began to attract listeners from outside once the Mita Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall) was built. Thus, it can be said that Keio University was fulfilling a social educational role from a very early stage.

Looking outside the Juku, the Meirokusha, of which Fukuzawa was a member, was a society of intellectuals that held regular meetings with the goal of intellectuals gathering to exchange opinions, spread knowledge, and clarify insight. They then published these in the Meiroku Magazine and actively disseminated them to regional areas.

Furthermore, not only the Meirokusha, but also the Kojunsha, established in 1880, basically had the same structure. Fukuzawa said, "While facts show that human society should be recognized as a single school, the Kojunsha is as if rules were established in this school to make teaching methods convenient," clearly showing that the Kojunsha was a place of education.

Fukuzawa hoped that through associations in society like the Kojunsha, the members belonging to them would mutually fulfill educational functions. He also actively held lectures for the public, not just within the Kojunsha, and went on regional lecture tours. In this way, he intended to spread the discussions held within the Kojunsha to the world.

Jiro Yamana, whom I mentioned earlier, advocated "social education" in gatherings of the Kojunsha and said things like "social education and national education are different things" in essays contributed to the Kojun Magazine and elsewhere. What this means is that currently, the state is leading education, including schools, but Yamana's argument was that such national education alone is not enough; society must possess more educational functions. He also said that national education alone cannot achieve complete education, and that social education is necessary for complete education separately from national education. The social education advocated by Yamana emphasized the creation of various private associations within society and the conduct of education within them.

Fukuzawa, who highly valued these theories of Yamana, can also be said to have considered the importance of exchanging discussions within private associations through the activities of the Meirokusha and Kojunsha and disseminating the results to the outside world.

However, unlike Yamana, Fukuzawa did not use the term national education. This difference is likely because Yamana was from Satsuma. Yamana had one other person he respected besides Fukuzawa. It was Arinori Mori, a fellow countryman who served as the first Minister of Education. Mori frequently used the term national education, so Yamana was likely influenced by that. Of course, one can see that Fukuzawa emphasized the nation of Japan by reading An Outline of a Theory of Civilization, but in Fukuzawa's phrasing, what Yamana called national education would be education by the bureaucracy or education by the government.

Fukuzawa basically proposed separating education or learning from the bureaucracy. Particularly in the Meiji 10s, he wrote the following in The Independence of Learning:

"If the separation of learning and politics is indeed important for the country, I am one who prays to separate the learning of present-day Japan from the politics of present-day Japan."

"My personal theory is to separate the schools of the current Ministry of Education or Ministry of Industry from their respective ministries, making them temporarily the property of the Imperial Household, and then grant them to private volunteers and intellectuals to form the structure of joint private schools (omitted)."

Here, Fukuzawa advocates separating schools from the Ministry of Education and others to make them joint private schools. In this way, Fukuzawa believed that private associations independent of the government should bear the responsibility for school education. And regarding social education, as can be seen from his evaluation of Yamana's social education theory, he seems to have thought it should be borne by private associations outside the government. For Fukuzawa, it can be said that education, including school education, was social education conducted by a society separate from the state.

In that sense, Keio University is a school, but it also had the aspect of an association, as it is also called the Shachu. While it is different from the modern concept of social education, it can be considered that while being a school, it also fulfilled social education functions.

Modern social education is considered a domain concept under the Social Education Act, meaning a concept indicating the domain outside of schools. However, when viewed from the aspect of function, I think we can re-examine social education as education developed by private associations like Keio University in a form independent of the government and bureaucracy.

In the 12th volume of Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning), there is a sentence: "Learning is not just the single subject of reading books." Of course, an individual reading books is one form of learning, but for Fukuzawa, learning was not just studying hard on one's own, but also trading the knowledge one gathered with others through conversation, and dispersing insights through books and public speaking.

Needless to say, reading can be done alone, but conversation and public speaking cannot be done alone. According to Fukuzawa, this was precisely something that could only be done in gatherings like associations. The activity Fukuzawa called learning had a much broader meaning than it does today, and I think it is safe to say he called everything from research to presenting it through interaction "learning."

Fukuzawa's "social education" was first about like-minded people gathering, having proper discussions among themselves, and using that to reach out to people outside the association.

As is well known, the "Shūshin Yōryō" was created by his students in Fukuzawa's final years. To spread this to the world, Fukuzawa provided the funds and held dissemination lectures all over the country. In the summer of the year the "Shūshin Yōryō" was completed in February 1900, Fukuzawa suggested closing Keio University, selling this land in Mita, and using the proceeds for the dissemination of the "Shūshin Yōryō." Ichitaro Fukuzawa and Eikichi Kamata, who was the President at the time, were very bewildered when they heard this, but of course, it did not happen.

In his final years, Fukuzawa tried to place emphasis on the dissemination of the "Shūshin Yōryō," which could be called the dissemination of social education—the part that projects outward. What is the meaning of this? I have stated on various occasions that we who are at Keio University now must think about this.

In the background of what drove Fukuzawa toward social education, there may have been the fact that Keio University in the Meiji 30s was no longer the way Fukuzawa had envisioned it. In other words, it may have appeared to Fukuzawa's eyes that the part where people with the same aspirations gather, study, and interact was being lost. If that is the case, I think it is time to reconsider how the current Keio University stands from the perspective of social education.

Finally, I would like to touch briefly on the teacher training work I am usually involved in.

As I said earlier, I learned the term social education when I took the teacher training course as a student. I think there are not many universities that have lectures on social education within their teacher training courses. It could even be called very rare. This might be because the person Yukichi Fukuzawa used the term social education for the first time, and since then, it has simply been passed down as a tradition within Keio University. However, I think it is safe to say that it has a very important meaning in relativizing school education.

Now, social education supervisors, who are professionals in social education, can be referred to as "social education specialists." This title of social education specialist was proposed about three years ago in a report by the Central Council for Education titled "On Promotion Measures for Social Education Toward New Community Development in an Era of Population Decline." There, the relationship between social education specialists and teachers is stated as follows:

"We recommend that teachers and students in teacher training courses take social education supervisor training, take subjects in social education supervisor training courses, and obtain the social education specialist qualification. The coordination and facilitation skills required of professional social education personnel are considered necessary skills for teachers as well in order to realize a 'curriculum open to society.'"

At Keio University, we believe that teachers need to have a social education mindset as advocated by Fukuzawa, not just limited to educational method issues like coordination skills. From this perspective as well, I believe social education is a very important subject for the teacher training course.

The current situation surrounding teacher training is quite severe; while the compulsory subjects determined by the state are increasing, the reality is that the range of choices at training sites is becoming narrower and narrower. However, as I have discussed so far, the person Yukichi Fukuzawa was involved in the foundation of the unique Japanese idea of "social education." Because of that, I believe we must continue to maintain social education classes, including in the teacher training course, within Keio University from now on.

Thank you for your kind attention today.

(This article is based on a commemorative lecture at the 186th Yukichi Fukuzawa Birthday Celebration, which was held at the West School Building Hall on the Mita Campus on January 10, 2021, and broadcast simultaneously online. Note that some notations in the quoted passages have been modified for readability.)