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 the President and a small number of related parties. 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 decision to set May 15 as the public opening date for the museum was, needless to say, in honor of the anniversary of May 15, 1868 (Keio 4), the day of the Battle of Ueno, when Yukichi Fukuzawa ignored the war and conducted his lecture on Wayland’s economics book according to the curriculum at the Juku in Shiba Shinsenza. In this final installment of the series, I will introduce an outline of the museum's first special exhibition, themed around this most important episode for Fukuzawa and Keio University.

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 under consideration, 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, Keio 4: Yukichi Fukuzawa and the Day of the Wayland Economics Lecture" (this start date is also based on 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 the Juku, the exhibition aims to provide 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 (Keio 3), 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, in April of Keio 4, Fukuzawa moved the Juku from Tsukiji Teppozu to Shiba Shinsenza, 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)." The Juku's timetable was also included here, and 10:00 AM on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays was the day for Fukuzawa's lecture on The Elements of Political Economy. Then, on the morning of Saturday, May 15, Keio 4, the New Government forces and the Shogitai of the former Shogunate side began fighting in Ueno. While the roar of the cannons thundered, Fukuzawa gave his lecture according to the regular schedule. 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 how the Dutch took pride in this, saying 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 the safe arrival of July 15, the mid-year festival of Keio 4.

In the early 1880s (Meiji 10s), the Juku fell into serious financial difficulties, and Fukuzawa busied himself with fundraising. In a speech that inspired the Keio Gijuku Shachu during this period, "Record of the Keio University New Year's Inauguration on 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." Fukuzawa himself took up his pen to write a similar description in the "Keio Gijuku Kiji," which could be called a 25-year history of Keio University. Furthermore, the text of "The Mission of Keio University," in which the passage "source of honorable character" and "a paragon of intellect and morals for the entire nation" is particularly famous, was originally the concluding part of a speech by Fukuzawa, and the first half of that speech also mentioned Wayland. In other words, the Wayland episode he recounted in his later years in The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa was, so to speak, Fukuzawa's specialty, and it had repeatedly reached the ears and eyes of the students.

Fukuzawa passed away in 1901 (Meiji 34), but as early as 1904, at the request of Juku affiliates, the Japanese-style painter Yasuda Yukihiko produced the painting "Yukichi Fukuzawa Lecturing on Wayland."

As time passed and the era of the Showa wars began, ideological 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 (Showa 15) and still sung today, was created. The first verse of the lyrics:

"Behold","Our flag sounding in the wind","In the dawn where the new tide surges","Fluttering in the storm","The guardian of culture","Resoundingly","There is pride in having stood firm","Let us raise it, this flag","Strongly and manfully let us raise it","Ah, our Juku","Keio, Keio, Keio"

Masafumi Tomita, a Fukuzawa researcher who wrote the lyrics, stated that they are an allegory for the Wayland anecdote (for details, see the May 2018 issue of this magazine, Keita Yamauchi's 'Keio Year 4 as Sung in the Juku-ka'). Therefore, the "flag sounding in the wind" is not the blue-red-and-blue Sanshokuki, but rather something connected to the Dutch flag mentioned earlier—meaning the banner of Western studies and civilization.

Subsequently, the Pacific War broke out, the war situation worsened, and it led to the student mobilization of 1943 (Showa 18). 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 that quietly finished a lecture while hearing the sound of cannons and seeing the flames on the day the government forces' bombardment set all the temples of Ueno ablaze." Furthermore, at the Yukichi Fukuzawa Birthday Commemoration held in 1945 (Showa 20), when American air raids had begun in earnest, 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 "Fukuzawa-sensei Koko ni Ari" (Yukichi Fukuzawa is Here), completed to commemorate the occasion, include: "Shiba and Ueno are eight kilometers apart / Even if there is a war in Ueno / Shiba Shinsenza is another world / Even if it roars, the bullets won't come / We have class as usual." This also takes Wayland as its theme. Haruo Sato, who wrote the lyrics, said of the process: "What aspect of Yukichi Fukuzawa should I sing about and how? I decided to first seek the guidance of Professor Shinzo Koizumi. Then the professor asked me back, 'Which part do you intend to sing about?' When I replied, 'How about the professor teaching while ignoring the war in Ueno?', he said, 'That's it, that's the highlight of the biography of Fukuzawa,' and spoke about it in detail, also teaching me to rely on The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. From the first draft titled 'Fukuzawa-sensei Koko ni Ari,' which sang of the professor's whole life in about forty stanzas of four lines each, I kept only the parts based on Professor Koizumi's instruction, and after refining it, I finally fulfilled the task 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 Commemoration every January 10, becoming a regular event.

The above is an outline of the story of the special exhibition, which is structured as a history of Keio University surrounding 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 designer 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 period changed several times. The preparation for the special exhibition was the same; plans to borrow materials from other institutions did not go as expected, and the reality is that we are updating it 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 should serve as an introduction to Keio University history. In fact, related materials are also displayed in the permanent exhibition, and the two can be viewed as a set. At the same time, it has become an extremely timely theme in the emergency situation 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.