Fukuzawa Yukichi Memorial Keio History Museum 5th Exhibition: "Keio Gijuku Alone in All of Japan" — Commemorating the Day of the Wayland Economics Lecture

2021/06/16

On May 15, 2021, the completion ceremony for the Fukuzawa Yukichi Memorial Keio History Museum was held at the Old University Library, attended only by a small number of stakeholders including the President. Originally, the schedule called for an opening ceremony on the 12th, a private viewing period until the 14th, and a public opening on the 15th. However, due to the extension of the state of emergency accompanying the spread of COVID-19, the plan was scaled down to the minimum, and only the completion ceremony was held (the opening was also postponed). The reason May 15 was chosen as the public opening date for the museum was, of course, to commemorate May 15, 1868, the day of the Battle of Ueno. On that day, Yukichi Fukuzawa ignored the war and conducted his lecture on Wayland's economics book at the Juku in Shiba Shinsenza exactly as scheduled. In this final installment of the series, I will introduce an outline of the museum's first special exhibition, which takes this most important episode for Fukuzawa and Keio University as its theme.

The Keio History Museum, recently completed on the second floor of the Old University Library, features a small special exhibition room renovated from the former Small Conference Room next to the permanent exhibition room. Plans for its operation are currently being considered, including hosting special exhibitions organized by the museum about twice a year and making it available for use by various organizations related to the Juku. The special exhibition scheduled to be held in this room from July 5 (Mon) to September 11 (Sat) is "May 15, 1868 — Yukichi Fukuzawa and the Day of the Wayland Economics Lecture" (this start date also commemorates July 4, 1868, which is the Gregorian calendar conversion of May 15, Keio 4). By tracing the "encounter" between Fukuzawa and Wayland, the day of the Battle of Ueno, and the inheritance of this anecdote within Keio, we hope this exhibition provides an opportunity to reconsider the significance of the Yukichi Fukuzawa-Francis Wayland Memorial Lecture.

Wayland refers to Francis Wayland, an economist and moral philosopher who served as the president of Brown University in the United States until the mid-19th century. The "Wayland economics book" refers to his work The Elements of Political Economy (1837). Fukuzawa purchased a large number of Western books as textbooks for the Juku during his second trip to the United States in 1867, and he acquired this book at that time. This was the "encounter" between Fukuzawa and Wayland. Wayland also authored The Elements of Moral Science (1835), and Fukuzawa himself frequently mentioned his name in his own writings. Both of Wayland's works were highly regarded within Keio; the former was translated by Tokujirō Obata as "Eishi Keizairon" and the latter by Taizo Abe as "Shushinron."

After returning from America, Fukuzawa moved the Juku from Tsukiji Teppozu to Shiba Shinsenza in April 1868, named it Keio University after the era name of the time, and published the founding spirit as "Keio Gijuku no Ki (Notes on Keio Gijuku)." This document also included the Juku's timetable, showing that Fukuzawa's lectures on The Elements of Political Economy were held on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10:00 AM. On the morning of Saturday, May 15, 1868, the New Government forces and the Shogitai of the former Shogunate began fighting in Ueno. While the roar of cannon fire echoed, Fukuzawa conducted his lecture according to the regular timetable. Fukuzawa took the example of how, when the Netherlands was invaded and lost its territory during the Napoleonic Wars, its national flag continued to fly in only one place in the world—Dejima in Nagasaki—and the Dutch took pride in this as proof that the Kingdom of the Netherlands had never perished. He took great pride in this event, stating that Keio University was to Japanese Western studies what Dejima was to the Netherlands, having preserved its lifeblood even amidst turmoil. Thereafter, he shared this episode with Keio students and Keio University alumni whenever the opportunity arose. An early instance can be seen in the "Chugen Shuku-shu no Ki," which celebrated safely reaching July 15, 1868.

In the early 1880s, the Juku fell into serious financial difficulties, and Fukuzawa scrambled to raise funds. In a speech given during this period to inspire the Keio Gijuku Shachu, titled "Record of the New Year's Inauguration of Keio Gijuku, January 25, 1879," he stated: "Even on the day of the attack on the Shogitai at Ueno, it happened to be the scheduled day for the group reading of Mr. Wayland's economic theory in the lecture hall of this Juku. We finished the lecture while hearing the sound of cannons and seeing the smoke and flames. The members of the Juku at that time must surely keep this in their memory and will never be able to forget it." Similar descriptions can be found in the "Keio Gijuku Kiji," a 25-year history of Keio University penned by Fukuzawa himself. The text of "The Mission of Keio University," famous for the passage "source of honorable character" and "a paragon of intellect and morals for the entire nation," was originally the concluding part of a speech by Fukuzawa, and its first half also mentions Wayland. In other words, the Wayland episode he recounted in his later years in The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa was his signature story, repeatedly brought to the attention of the students.

Fukuzawa passed away in 1901, but as early as 1904, the Japanese-style painter Yasuda Yukihiko produced the painting "Yukichi Fukuzawa Lecturing on Wayland" at the request of Keio affiliates.

As time passed and the era of the Showa wars arrived, trends denying liberalism grew stronger, and Fukuzawa and the Juku were sometimes viewed with hostility by society. It was under these circumstances that the Juku-ka, completed in 1940 and still sung today, was created. The first verse of the lyrics:

"Look,", "Our flag ringing in the wind,", "Of the dawn where the new tide surges,", "Fluttering in the midst of the storm,", "The protection of culture,", "Resoundingly,", "There is pride in having stood firm,", "Let us raise it, this flag,", "Strongly and bravely let us raise it,", "Ah, our Juku,", "Keio, Keio, Keio"

Masafumi Tomita, a Fukuzawa researcher who wrote the lyrics, stated that these lines are an allegory for the Wayland anecdote (for details, see the May 2018 issue of this magazine, Keita Yamauchi's 'Keio Year 4 Sung in the Juku-ka'). Therefore, "our flag ringing in the wind" does not refer to the Blue-Red-and-Blue Sanshokuki, but rather follows the lineage of the Dutch flag mentioned earlier—meaning the banner of Western studies and civilization.

Subsequently, the Pacific War broke out, the war situation worsened, and the student mobilization of 1943 occurred. At this time, Sei'ichiro Takahashi, a professor in the Faculty of Economics, contributed a piece to the student mobilization commemorative issue of the Mita Shimbun. Referring to the students who remained calm and attended lectures even after their enlistment in the Army or Navy was decided, he wrote: "This should be called the reappearance 76 years later of the Keio University spirit, which quietly finished its lecture while hearing the sound of cannons and seeing the flames on the day the Ueno temples were engulfed in fire from the government forces' bombardment." Furthermore, at the Yukichi Fukuzawa Birthday Celebration held in 1945 when U.S. air raids intensified, President Shinzo Koizumi reportedly spoke of the Wayland anecdote in connection with Japan under air raids (for details, see the May 2018 issue of this magazine, Takeyuki Tokura's 'Wayland in 1945'). In the emergency situations of wartime, the memory of Wayland was frequently invoked.

After the war, in 1956, the Juku designated May 15 as Yukichi Fukuzawa-Francis Wayland Lecture Day, and since then, public lectures have been held on this day. In 1964, the Yochisha Elementary School celebrated its 90th anniversary, and the lyrics of the song "Yukichi Fukuzawa is Here," completed to commemorate the occasion, include: "Shiba and Ueno are eight kilometers apart / Even if there is war in Ueno / Shiba Shinsenza is another world / Even if it thunders, the bullets won't come / We have class as usual." This also takes Wayland as its theme. Haruo Sato, who wrote the lyrics, described the process as follows: "What aspect of Yukichi Fukuzawa should I sing about and how? I decided to first seek the guidance of Dr. Shinzo Koizumi. Then the doctor asked me in return, 'Which part do you intend to sing about?' When I replied, 'How about the teacher conducting class while ignoring the war in Ueno?', he said, 'That's it, that's the highlight of Fukuzawa's biography,' and spoke about it in detail, advising me to rely on The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. From my first draft titled 'Yukichi Fukuzawa is Here,' which sang of his whole life in about forty stanzas of four lines each, I kept only the parts based on Dr. Koizumi's instruction and finally fulfilled the task after revision around the day before the deadline" (Ko'uma, Vol. 16, No. 1). This song is sung in chorus by Yochisha students at the Yukichi Fukuzawa Birthday Celebration every January 10, becoming a regular event.

The above is an outline of the story of the special exhibition, structured as a history of Keio University centered on the Wayland economics book lecture. In addition to the items mentioned in the text, we plan to exhibit many materials such as a map of Dejima that is thought to have been displayed in the pre-war library and nishiki-e (colored woodblock prints) of the Battle of Ueno. We also want to introduce, as far as possible, Keio University affiliates who participated in the Battle of Ueno, such as Tatsuzo Sone (a member of the Shogitai), the architect of the Old University Library where the museum is located, and Zanka Togawa (a member of the Shogitai), a pastor and historian of the Edo period.

As mentioned at the beginning, the museum was directly affected by COVID-19, and the original opening date changed several times. The same applies to the preparation of the special exhibition; plans to borrow materials from other institutions did not go as expected, and the reality is that we are updating daily while rethinking the concept. Nevertheless, we believe there is significance in holding it. The day of the Wayland economics book lecture relates to the identity of the Juku and contains content suitable for the first special exhibition, which could be called an introduction to Keio University history. In fact, related materials are also on display in the permanent exhibition, and the two can be viewed as a set. At the same time, it has become an extremely timely theme amidst the emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, as interest in academic and educational opportunities such as online classes grows, how can we respond to the message posed by the history of "Wayland" that has been continuously passed down at the Juku?

(This series ends with this issue)

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.