150 Years of An Encouragement of Learning

Dec. 26, 2022

"Heaven, it is said, does not create one person above or below another." So beginsAn Encouragement of Learning, an early Meiji-period bestseller and one of Keio founder Yukichi Fukuzawa's most famous works. The first essay was published exactly 150 years ago, in 1872. Here, we take a look at the significance ofAn Encouragement of Learningin addition to the context of its publication and subsequent impact.

Fukuzawa never intended to write a book. It was only in July 1880 that Fukuzawa chose to compile the 17 essays published between February 1872 and November 1876 into the single-volumeAn Encouragement of Learningwe know today.

In 1871, Fukuzawa advocated establishing an English school in his hometown of Nakatsu (present-day Nakatsu City, Oita Prefecture), and so Nakatsu Municipal School was established in November of the same year. These pamphlets were meant as Fukuzawa's guide to a new approach to learning for the young people studying there. The title strip on the first issue readsGakumon no Susume Zen, which roughly translates as "A Complete Guide to an Encouragement of Learning," so it is believed that Fukuzawa had no intention to publish a sequel at first.

However, its content proudly proclaimed the dawn of a new era in Japan, causing a social sensation and leading to the publication of a sequel approximately two years later. Consequently, the previously published "complete" version was renamed "the first essay."

Fukuzawa states, in his foreword to the combined volume of 17 essays, that he wrote the essays at his leisure and that they do not necessarily build on or relate to one another. However, readers at the time found within the book a clear and consistent message—to instill a "spirit of independence" in every Japanese citizen. The book was even used as an elementary school textbook. Fukuzawa made a point of writing as plainly as possible to make his text easy to read so that the young people who studiedAn Encouragement of Learningwould eventually aid in the development of Japan as a modern nation.

One cannot overlook the influence of foreign literature when examining the formation ofAn Encouragement of Learning. For example, Francis Wayland'sElements of Moral Scienceis quoted in the eighth essay, and Fukuzawa's ideas in other essays can be traced back to Wayland's writings. Other foreign influences can be felt throughout. Benjamin Franklin's name is mentioned in the fourteenth essay, and John Stewart Mill'sThe Subjection of Womenis cited in the fifteenth installment. Even the first line of the first essay — "Heaven...does not create one person above or below another" — expresses the "inalienable rights" that Fukuzawa adopted from the American Declaration of Independence and John Hill Burton'sPolitical and Social Economy. In fact, the phrase said to have inspiredAn Encouragement of Learning's first words is none other than that of "All men are created equal" found in the Declaration of Independence.

But the book is by no means a mere translation or introduction to Western thought. Fukuzawa takes the ideas from numerous foreign books and condenses them into a distinctive message entirely his own. He presents his ideas in plain Japanese to his readers during a time of great change and upheaval in Japan's history. The fact that so many Japanese can still cite the phrase "Heaven...does not create one person above or below another" is a testament to Fukuzawa's legacy 150 years on.An Encouragement of Learningcontinues to leave its mark on the world, having been translated into English, Chinese, French, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Mongolian, and several other languages.

So, just how many copies of bestsellerAn Encouragement of Learningwere sold during the Meiji period? According to Fukuzawa's own estimate, approximately 700,000 copies were published in 1880, the year of the book's publication. He also estimated that the first essay alone sold 220,000 copies, many forgeries among them. This is an astounding figure considering Japan's population was about 35 million at the time, and the literate population a small fraction of that.

With the popularity ofAn Encouragement of Learning, bootleg copies made their way across the country without much in the way of enforcement, as Japan had yet to adopt copyright law. This proved to be a constant thorn in Fukuzawa's side. In fact, Fukuzawa first introduced the concept of copyright into Japanese in his bookThings Western (Seiyō Jijō)in 1867. At the time of his writingAn Encouragement of Learning, he was petitioning the Meiji government to apply strict publication ordinances as a copyright holder. As a result,hanken, the word for "copyright," was incorporated into the Publishing Ordinance of 1875, after which the concept became widely accepted in Japan.

Fukuzawa's straightforward tone was one reasonAn Encouragement of Learningbecame so popular that the bootlegs appeared in the first place. Today, several new modern translations make the work as accessible to present-day audiences as it was to people in the 19th century. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of its publication, these modern versions, together with Fukuzawa's original text, are the perfect way for readers to travel back to a pivotal time in Japan's history and revisit revolutionary concepts that still ring true today.

*This article appeared inStained Glassin the 2022 Spring edition (No. 314) ofJuku.