The Contribution of Education and Research at Keio University to Industry: What is Modern Jitsugaku (Science)?

2022/08/16

I am Suzuki from the Faculty of Science and Technology. Today, I will be giving a lecture titled "The Contribution of Education and Research at Keio University to Industry: What is Modern Jitsugaku (Science)?" I would like to speak while weaving in my personal perspective on Yukichi Fukuzawa for about half of the talk.

As I looked at the painting by Yukihiko Yasuda ("Yukichi Fukuzawa Lecturing on Wayland's Elements of Political Economy"), I grew to love it, thinking that this is where the young Yukichi Fukuzawa, then 33 years old, was. He hadn't written Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning) yet, so I imagine he wasn't that famous at the time.

Since it was about 10 years after Keio University (Fukuzawa Juku) was established in 1868, I thought there might have been about 100 students, but there were only 18. Seeing the students in the back looking toward Ueno, I felt that I, too, would have liked to be among those 18 students at Keio University at that time.

I learned from watching Professor Yukihiro Ikeda's YouTube mini-lectures and other sources that Francis Wayland, though described as an economist, was a man who excelled in the humanities in general and said that "science is a systematic exhibition of the laws which the Deity has established." I believe the words "science," "laws," and "systematic exhibition" were likely words that Fukuzawa loved. In the field of natural science, Fukuzawa was very fond of Newton, and Newton was the only one who systematically demonstrated science.

Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning) was influenced by Wayland. In particular, it was heavily influenced by The Elements of Moral Science, and there are even partial translations of it. I still wonder if "science" can be attached to "moral," but since Fukuzawa was a very morally strict person, he wrote Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning) as a sort of triad consisting of Wayland's economic books, Moral Science, and the Confucianism that was his original foundation. It is said that he purchased many copies of Wayland's economic books for his students during his second trip to America (1867).

I looked at what the curriculum of Keio University was like at that time. Yukichi Fukuzawa gave lectures on Wayland's economic books at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Meanwhile, Tokujirō Obata gave lectures on Quackenbos's history of the United States at the same time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Quackenbos's "Lectures on Natural Philosophy" were also held, and this book served as a reference for Fukuzawa's Research Bulletin Kyurizukai (1868). In addition, there were sessions like Mr. Coming's "Reading Group on Human Physiology." Although the terms "humanities" and "sciences" probably didn't exist back then, I get the impression that there were quite a few natural science-related subjects.

Fukuzawa's Research Bulletin Kyurizukai, Japan's first introductory book on natural science, is not read very much considering it was the first in the country. However, I think you can see Fukuzawa's intention by looking at the table of contents. For example, Volume 1 contains "Chapter 1: On Heat, Chapter 2: On Air." I suspect what Fukuzawa was thinking about most at the time was that the Industrial Revolution had occurred in Britain and the Black Ships had come to Japan powered by steam engines, so he wanted to make better use of that power. Chapter 1, On Heat, states, "All things expand when heated and contract when cooled. There is nothing in the natural world (animate or inanimate) that does not receive the virtue of heat." It sounds a bit like thermodynamics. I imagine he was conscious of things like Watt's steam engine.

Chapter 2: On Air. "Air surrounds the world like a sea. There is no place inside or outside of all things where air does not fill (there is no place without air)." Compressing air while burning steam in an engine or the like. Usually, one starts with Newtonian mechanics, but for Fukuzawa, was this the first priority?

Volume 2, "Chapter 3: On Water, Chapter 4: On Wind, Chapter 5: On Clouds and Rain, Chapter 6: On Hail, Snow, Dew, Frost, and Ice" is about meteorology. There were no weather forecasts back then. So, for example, living in Nakatsu as a child, he would witness sudden winds blowing or sudden rain ruining fields and washing people away. He must have wondered why meteorology is important and why it rains. I think this is an important starting point for scholarship.

However, when he asked the great Confucian scholars of the time, they would say things that weren't explanations at all, like "it rains when the sky gets dark and clouds appear." He must have wanted to explain it somehow. Explanations like "water becomes a flat surface no matter what container it is put in" or "dew condenses to become frost, and rain changes to become snow; although the states of rain, snow, dew, and frost differ, their substance is all the same" really resonate with me. I feel he possessed a very scientific mind.

In Volume 3, "Chapter 7: On Gravity, Chapter 8: On Day and Night, Chapter 9: On the Four Seasons, Chapter 10: On Solar and Lunar Eclipses," the story of Newtonian mechanics appears for the first time. "The feeling of gravity is extremely subtle and extremely grand. It acts nearby on the ground and reaches far to the stars." "The sun is always quiet and its light does not change. The world turns itself, creating the division of day and night (the sun is always quiet and its brightness does not change; day and night are created because the earth rotates)."

Fukuzawa also actually conducted experiments in science. As recorded in his autobiography, he struggled with original texts at Ogata Koan's Tekijuku but enjoyed attempting physics and chemistry experiments. He manufactured hydrochloric acid and ammonia. It's funny how he says his whole body became smelly and dogs barked at him. "If you have zinc chloride, you can even attach tin to iron" (Autobiography). I don't think there are any faculty members even in the Faculty of Science and Technology who could understand this part. We don't do that now. He was doing experiments to coat iron with tin and galvanize iron with zinc.

Since there weren't many glass bottles back then, people would go buy sake and return the tokuri (sake bottle) after finishing it. But he used them for science experiments and didn't return them to the liquor store, so he wrote that the liquor store complained. He was doing experiments by putting hydrochloric acid or sulfuric acid in tokuri.

From my perspective, I have a very strong image of Yukichi Fukuzawa first learning science-related subjects and then moving into social sciences like political thought. As evidence of this, when he first went to America, Americans proudly showed him plating (Galvani's electroplating), saying, "You probably don't know about this, do you? Let me show you." However, Fukuzawa said, "I know all about this." He wasn't surprised at all, saying, "This is done using the power of Galvani."

On the other hand, what surprised Fukuzawa was that the social system was completely different from Japan's. Things like the high status of women or the fact that no one knew Washington's descendants.

The world he came to know through natural science was a world of strict laws. It can be inferred that he thought about various political ideas based on that. Newtonian mechanics allows for predictions. For example, you throw a ball. If you know the initial velocity and angle, and you know the air resistance, you know when and where it will fall. I feel he entered political thought with that kind of mindset.

Today, I want to consider, "How can the education and research of the Juku develop and contribute to industry? Are there any hints to be found by exploring Yukichi Fukuzawa as a human being?" Rather than just Yukichi Fukuzawa's ideology, I believe that Yukichi Fukuzawa as a human being is quite applicable in 2022. How Yukichi Fukuzawa lived, thought, and acted serves as a great model for today's world as a tool.

There are various definitions of jitsugaku (science), but "jitsu" (real/practical) is often understood as being empirical in contrast to "kyogaku" (empty learning). The one I like best is the perception of it as the "power to create reality." How to create reality in 2022. In other words, modern jitsugaku (science). Today, the word "innovation" is often used. I think modern jitsugaku (science) is that which directly contributes to sparking innovation, developing society, and evolving.

I graduated from the Department of Inorganic Materials at Tokyo Institute of Technology. In graduate school, I studied nuclear engineering, and the late Masao Yoshida, the former director of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant at TEPCO, was my senior. Like many young people, I had many questions about the world and read voraciously. I read through the Iwanami Bunko series from one end to the other, and Chuo Koronsha's "Great Books of the World." Newton's Principia was among them, and at that time, I read those kinds of books at a pace of about one per day. I had my own purpose; at the time, I felt the world was so bad and was going through a period of great doubt about society. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of my emotional supports.

I also read Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning) around that time. So, my encounter with Yukichi Fukuzawa was when I was about 20 years old. There is a book titled Yukichi Fukuzawa by Shinzo Koizumi published by Iwanami Shinsho, which also left an impression. At the time, I didn't know he was the President of Keio University, but he wrote about his memories of direct contact with Yukichi Fukuzawa as a child, and I thought, "I'm jealous" (laughs). He described in great detail how Fukuzawa, wearing a yukata, played with young Shinzo and his own grandchildren, and how when a mosquito flew by, he slapped his shin with his large palm, causing blood to splatter.

When reading Yukichi Fukuzawa's books, especially One Hundred Discourses of Fukuzawa, the word "ukiyo" (floating world) often appears. It's the "ukiyo" in phrases like "money makes the world go round" or "out of touch with the world." "Uki" originally meant painful or bitter. "Ukiyo" (bitter world) was the original form, referring to a world where many things are painful. It gradually changed to "ukiyo" (floating world). This is pessimistic in Buddhist thought.

Some say a sense of pessimism drifts through Fukuzawa's work; for example, he says things like: "To be born is a promise to die, and death is not something to be surprised at" (One Hundred Discourses of Fukuzawa, "The Human Heart is Vast and Boundless").

I think the fact that Yukichi Fukuzawa grew up poor and of low status was very significant. And he was smart. He saw many things. When a human is born, they cause their mother pain, and when they die, they suffer from illness. Sometimes one chooses death because of the pain. I read Fukuzawa's books while thinking that he surprisingly didn't like this world much. Despite being so influenced by the West, descriptions of God's love, being glad to be born human, or thanking God never appear.

For example, "If the Way of Heaven were truly supremely benevolent and philanthropic, it would be better not to let a mother in a difficult labor have a child from the beginning; rather than killing people through the pain of illness or always tormenting them in vain, it would be the law of benevolence not to have brought this person into existence at all" (ibid., "The Way of Heaven is Acceptable to People"). In Fukuzawa's time, there were no hospitals to take people to for C-sections, so I think childbirth was extremely difficult. He felt various contradictions in this world, even saying that not bringing suffering people into existence in the first place is true mercy. This is entirely my imagination, but although Yukichi Fukuzawa lived quite a long life, I think he was someone who thought very strongly about what to do with this unmanageable floating world.

"Know that discarding the floating world is the foundation for crossing it vigorously" (ibid., "One Can Only Become Vigorous by Viewing Things Lightly"). I think these are very meaningful words. Yukichi Fukuzawa has a moral strictness. And he practices it himself. He also works very hard at his studies. However, his charm lies in the fact that at the very end, there's a part of him that says, "I don't care," and I think this is what appeals to young people today.

Risking one's life to finish things or committing hara-kiri to apologize is nonsense. Therefore, since he is working in this real world of the floating world, he is resigned to it to some extent. The paradox is that by doing so, one can conversely cross the floating world vigorously. I think it's amazing that he saw it through to the end.

In One Hundred Discourses of Fukuzawa ("Hopes for the Future"), Fukuzawa writes, "Confucius is the saint of morals, Newton is the saint of physics." To briefly explain what kind of person Newton was, it's questionable whether he was truly a physicist; his masterpiece Principia translates to "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy." He expressed nature using mathematics. That is completely different from people before him. Whether Fukuzawa understood this mathematics is questionable, but I believe the appearance of cosmology and such in One Hundred Discourses of Fukuzawa is due to Newton's influence. What surprised me was that Yukichi Fukuzawa, who was negative about many things, practiced the idea that Newton's rigor systematizes natural laws, that "natural laws are on the side of humans," and that if you understand the laws, you can understand many things.

He writes that if one possesses knowledge like Confucius and Newton, life might become happy and society harmonious. He says it leads to human happiness and social harmony.

There is a CD of Shinzo Koizumi talking about Yukichi Fukuzawa ("Shinzo Koizumi Speaks on Yukichi Fukuzawa," Keio University Press). It's a lecture from Keio's 100th anniversary, and in it, he says, "Yukichi Fukuzawa wanted to know why it rains." I thought, so Professor Shinzo Koizumi says this too.

One more thing—many of you probably know this story, but I love Yukichi Fukuzawa at this moment, so I'll introduce it. There is a book called Rangaku Kotohajime (The Beginnings of Dutch Studies). It was written by Genpaku Sugita, but the original manuscript was burned in a fire, and it was unknown if any copies existed. Then, a fellow translator of Fukuzawa's named Takahira Kanda found a copy at a street stall in Yushima. Yukichi Fukuzawa was thrilled. Rangaku Kotohajime is Genpaku Sugita's memoir about the hardships of translating Ontleedkundige Tafelen (Kaitai Shinsho).

He was so excited and asked to let them copy it. So they all copied it together and first went to pay their respects to the Sugita family. He pleaded with them, saying, "This book won't sell, but please let me publish it," and he published it. At that time, he wrote a preface ("Preface to the Second Edition of Rangaku Kotohajime") and wept aloud. Some say Fukuzawa was only about making money, but seeing Yukichi Fukuzawa shedding tears over the memoir of someone who died 100 years ago makes me feel that he perhaps carried a sense of loneliness.

In 1990, right during the bubble era, I went to America. This significantly changed my thinking about industry-academia collaboration. I went to Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. The person who first analyzed and presented the rocks Apollo 11 brought back from the moon invited me. At this time, Japanese companies were at their peak. People from Japanese companies would come to America in large numbers for academic conferences, charter a bus, and all leave together. I thought they were only interested in applications, but companies at the time poured money even into basic research. The professors there were saying that Japanese companies are amazing and we can't compete with them.

I really wanted to try working for a wonderful Japanese company once. This is the "jitsu" (real) of the real world and jitsugaku (science). I wanted to work among professionals with patents and such. The infrastructure was also excellent. In terms of impact on industry, having production technology is a strength. Competition isn't just in development.

It's a battle of how universities will compete with this. When people hear "industry-academia collaboration," they have an image of friendly drinking and fun social gatherings, but it's not like that at all. I joined Tungaloy Corporation's technical research institute in 1993 and felt that companies were superior to universities in terms of research and development.

After this, I took up a post at Keio in 1996, and what surprised me was that Yagami was a prefab building at the time. I was shocked. It was very cramped, there was no equipment, and nails were sticking out from the floor. Then a senior professor told me, "Please do your best, you're free to do as you like." At that point, honestly, I thought I was finished (laughs).

Then, in 2003, I served as a program manager for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry at NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization), and I came to understand the national system for supporting science and technology quite well. After becoming a professor in 2005, I became involved in the management of the faculty and started buying various things like electron microscopes.

When I give lectures, there are quite a few students who are mentally unwell or sleeping. Since I am also the escapist type, I talk about how the reality of society is tough, and when I say, "At times like that, I feel healed when I look at atoms lined up through an electron microscope," they react. I make diamonds, and when I was a full-time lecturer, I developed a technology to coat the inside of ordinary plastic bottles with a diamond film to prevent oxygen from entering and carbonation from escaping, and I'm still doing it. When you put in gas and coat it, the carbonation doesn't go out and oxygen doesn't come in.

As an application of that, we insert stents when blood vessels are narrowed. However, blood clots attach to the expanded stent again. That's why someone might be fine after surgery but feel unwell again after three months. For that purpose, I coated it with a material that blood doesn't stick to.

I'm also working on the concrete of the viaduct under Kyoto Station. The Shinkansen was built before the Tokyo Olympics, so it's over 60 years old. It's dangerous because the viaducts haven't been changed at all. I was conducting demonstration experiments to prevent crack expansion and concrete carbonation. I'm doing familiar things like this.

I would like to introduce three students I thought were great in my long teaching career in today's education and research. It's an experience where three students who broke out of their shells jumped into my lab.

One is still in the Faculty of Letters studying archaeology and stone tools. She is a female student who scientifically analyzes stones and studies stones from 20,000 years ago. She jumped into my lab, entered the doctoral course of the Faculty of Science and Technology from the Faculty of Letters, and left after getting her doctorate. She is very strong-willed and never gives up. The "Journal of the American Ceramic Society" is a top-tier journal that ordinary students can't get into, but she kept submitting papers no matter how many times they were rejected, which was amazing. She earned a Doctor of Engineering and is a student who realized the theme of fusing humanities and sciences.

Next is a student of "one-person medical-engineering collaboration." He came to me from Keio's School of Medicine because he desperately wanted to make things, and he also earned a Doctor of Engineering. He does clinical work and basic research at the School of Medicine and also has a doctorate from the Faculty of Engineering. I named it one-person medical-engineering collaboration.

The third is a student who is doing research in the Faculty of Science and Technology, but belongs to the Faculty of Economics and has also passed the bar exam. He is very talented and came to me when he was at the Senior High School. He does things at his own pace no matter what. I think he's still only about 22 years old, but he's been writing papers in English since high school and it's been decided that he's going to Oxford. I'm emailing various professors saying, "Please make sure he comes back to Keio in the future."

What I thought at this time was that even as the Director of KLL (Leading-edge Laboratory of Science and Technology) or the head of the Office for Research Coordination and Administration, I couldn't move money freely. Even when I appealed to the Vice-President at the time, they said there was no money to support such kids. I think this is a big problem. I was at a loss and said, "Don't you hate Keio University now?" and he just looked down and laughed, but he was impressive and went to a high-ranking person at a certain telecommunications company and got about 2 million yen just like that. But I thought something had to be done about this.

According to Rousseau's Emile, or On Education, the word education comes from the Latin word meaning "to draw out" or "to lead out." It draws out what the person originally possesses. This is difficult for today's Keio University, which is not a small-group system, but it is important today to provide various guidance once they enter a laboratory and to have them interact with society before they enter it.

Yukichi Fukuzawa also wrote, "If we count the average number of scholars, they only spend and their income is not very satisfactory" (One Hundred Discourses of Fukuzawa, "The Value of Education is Not Necessarily High"). He says scholars' income is not high (laughs). I think it's the same now as it was then, but I am talking with deans of engineering and science faculties across the country at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Basic Technology Research Group about why doctorates and scholars are so unstable. This might be unique to Japan. In places like Germany, if you get a doctorate in mechanical engineering or manufacturing, you have no trouble finding a job at all. In Japan's case, there are various problems, such as not being able to enter society if you stay at a university for a long time. I think we have to do something about this.

Industry-academia collaboration didn't matter until before the bubble. It didn't matter what you did at a university or if you were just playing around. However, Japanese companies started failing, and people started asking why only universities were playing around while everyone else was suffering. Industry-academia collaboration began around 1990, and later in 2000, the Keio University Leading-edge Laboratory of Science and Technology was established, and we had to work hard. Until then, if you teamed up with a company, people would say it was dirty and all sorts of things.

What I found interesting about Keio is that there is an organization called the Keio Engineering Society. This is advanced and was already established in 1961. I have also received a lot of help from them, and Keio's strength lies in things like this.

The problem is how to compete with partner companies, and when we think about how far our technology can go in the real world, I think most people won't make it. You might say, "No, Professor, we're getting so many contracts and 1 million or 2 million yen is coming in," but you have to look closely at the content. Some use students for 1 million yen just because they want labor, or they have to team up with a company because they are collaborating with national funds.

After all, the basic concept must not collapse: that we make some big invention within Keio University, and companies say, "Please let us work with you," and we start by receiving a certain large amount of money. Otherwise, it's conversely being invaded. This is a battle. I've experienced it many times, but in the end, I get a tap on the shoulder saying, "The organization has changed, so could you please refrain from coming starting next year?"

I still don't quite understand the definition of a venture, but is it a person who starts a business, an entrepreneur? If Yukichi Fukuzawa saw this, he might say, "A person who starts a business? Isn't that obvious?" However, I think this way of thinking is absolutely necessary for Keio University from now on. In particular, I think we must make it so that students can start ventures while taking classes.

I myself became the Director of KLL in 2013 and realized the importance of students talking to corporate developers. There is a research presentation for companies called KEIO TECHNO-MALL that attracts about 2,000 people, where students wear suits and talk to developers from various companies at the Tokyo International Forum. I think this is a very good thing. Even things I can't teach become persuasive when they say, "A person from company XX told me this." Also, there is the joy when one's research is recognized.

When I was the head of the Office for Research Coordination and Administration, I had to know what kind of research all the faculty members were doing. I can't know that when I don't even know everything in the Faculty of Science and Technology (laughs). Which faculty members are doing how much useful work. That's how you fuse humanities and sciences. Keio University cannot win unless we realize that 1+1=3. If we're not careful, 1+1=0. What I mean is that fighting often occurs. Also, if you merge just because you want money, it often falls apart when the money runs out. Collaboration that doesn't end up like that is important.

Since the year before last, I was fighting COVID-19 at the Office for Research Coordination and Administration headquarters on the Mita Campus. Since all campuses were closed around this time two years ago, I also put up the catchphrase "Keio University will not stop research" and spent all my time in web meetings with Vice-President Okada (then Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology). Then, with the cooperation of all faculties, we proceeded with DX (Digital Transformation). What I thought was good at this time was that there were people in all faculties who were interested in promoting digitalization across the entire Juku. This was very interesting. I felt we could become one by listening to the intentions of all faculties, conducting surveys, and holding management meetings. It's exactly what they call "One Team" in rugby.

I hope there are many such things. Even if all faculties are impossible, two or three faculties must always be in collaboration. Currently, there are many requests from the government asking what Keio University thinks as a whole. I don't like this. It leads to the question, "Then who is thinking about that?" but since you can't suddenly form a team, it's necessary to form them in advance.

Teams cannot be formed easily. Even if you suddenly call and say, "Won't you research with me? You're doing good research," since you're both professors, it would be seen as meddling. I think a certain amount of top-down approach is good. What is needed for a top-down approach is money. And it must be money that can be used freely. Keio University doesn't have much of this. I think the current executive members are trying to create more of it. For example, if you ask people in the Faculty of Economics or Faculty of Letters at Mita, "What can you do with the Faculty of Science and Technology, School of Medicine, or SFC?" and keep giving 5 million yen for good proposals, I believe it will surely succeed. I believe the thing that comes first is money that can be used freely.

Incorporating new technology, creating new value, and making transformations that have an impact on society. Everyone and their dog is talking about innovation, but Yukichi Fukuzawa also said that scholarship is merely a technique for accomplishing things, and scholarship is not the ultimate goal. Then what is the goal? Perhaps universities are not accomplishing things. I think we need to think about this again.

Being inside a university and not dealing with the reality of human society is what's commonly called practicing swimming in a field. I believe that now is an era where organizations out of touch with the world—namely, universities—compete with the floating world. This is not a gentle thing like collaboration; it's a competition. It's okay to think we've been losing until now.

According to Ginjiro Fujiwara, Yukichi Fukuzawa said, "What I am about to say to you all is the business of students. It is a single word: there are many things that should be made real during one's studies, without necessarily waiting until after graduation" (Ginjiro Fujiwara, Yukichi Fukuzawa: Words of Life). This is quite interesting. I thought that surprisingly, in 2022, Keio University might be moving back toward the era of Wayland.

I think the fact that the university has a hospital is a strength. This is not out of touch with the world. It's where we have the most contact with the public. When you go to the reception, there are many ordinary people, and this is the floating world itself. Information here is very important. I think we should continue to advance medical and pharmaceutical research based on the hospital.

Also, I think we must do familiar things associated with daily life through the fusion of humanities and sciences. I mentioned the curriculum of Wayland's era earlier, and it was a fusion of humanities and sciences. Even now, for example, looking at psychology, I have an image that everyone surprisingly gets together and does well. I think the sciences should also collaborate with the Faculty of Economics and Faculty of Business and Commerce, and advice from the Faculty of Law is necessary.

In the end, money that can be used freely becomes important. You can't use funds from the government freely. And if we don't create many 1+1=3s, if we just let people do as they please, it might become 1+1=0 and self-destruct. I think someone should take the lead.

Yukichi Fukuzawa said, "The human attitude should be to view the floating world lightly and not be too zealous," and that only by viewing one's own body, home, wife, and children lightly can the courage to enter water or fire arise; he says, "Discarding the floating world is the foundation for crossing it vigorously" (One Hundred Discourses of Fukuzawa). I think viewing the floating world lightly is, after all, important. If you view it too heavily, you'll surely hide it when you fail. I think it's very bad for the university if such things increase, and I think it's okay to have things where even if you fail, you say, "Isn't it fine? This is a failure."

The question is, "Will Fukuzawa's thought and Fukuzawa the human be applicable in the floating world of 2022?" In 1901, Yukichi Fukuzawa passed away, and a militaristic era like a dark age continued for about 45 years until the end of the war. About 45 years after the end of the war, it feels like Fukuzawa research is being revived.

And another 45 years have passed, and around 1990, even popular songs ended. Songs that led the era generally stopped appearing here. And from here, for me, a dark age has continued. There isn't much ideologically. So, when wondering what to do, I think this Fukuzawa thought might be very good. It's not very religious, it's very solid, and it's refreshing.

Fukuzawa's thought is systematized. So it's easy to handle. Once you understand it to some extent, you can think about how Yukichi Fukuzawa would think about various things. I think this is important. For example, during COVID-19, I wonder what Yukichi Fukuzawa would have done. I don't think he would have been resting at home. He would probably do something that serves as a model for words and actions in the floating world.

I really want people to know Yukichi Fukuzawa when they are young. When I ask various people, retired older people are rereading Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning). That's fine in itself, but I want the people of the future to use it as a tool for crossing the floating world.

Ginjiro Fujiwara says that Yukichi Fukuzawa should be popularized. If we learn while saying, "This person is quite human too," our attitude toward university industry-academia collaboration and ventures might change. When we fail and feel down, I think Yukichi Fukuzawa would think, "Oh well, it's no big deal."

There is the core of Yukichi Fukuzawa, natural science was added to it, and his character was formed around the Tekijuku era. On top of this come Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning), Things Western (Seiyō Jijō), and An Outline of a Theory of Civilization. I wonder if these are hindering us from getting closer to Yukichi Fukuzawa. People might think it's just old stuff anyway, or why they have to read about the West now. So, I think if we can skillfully extract just the natural science foundation and the core of Yukichi Fukuzawa and apply them to 2022, they will be more than applicable, and that is why I discussed Yukichi Fukuzawa today.

What was Yukichi Fukuzawa fighting against? He wasn't particularly fighting the new government, nor was he fighting for his livelihood. I think it was the floating world. Fukuzawa seems to have been fighting against things that humans can't do anything about, like dying or suffering or what to do. And it feels like he ran a 100-meter dash.

Today's lecture included a lot of my own speculation, but I want to put Fukuzawa's thought into Keio University's industry-academia collaboration and ventures and bring them to reality while somehow earning money. Thank you very much.

(This article is based on a lecture given at the Yukichi Fukuzawa Wayland Economic Book Lecture Commemorative Event held at the Mita Campus North Building Hall on May 13, 2022. The original texts of Yukichi Fukuzawa in the text are from the Collected Works of Yukichi Fukuzawa (Keio University Press).)