Fukuzawa Yukichi

Travels abroad and early career

Move to Edo and first mission to America

In 1858, the Nakatsu domain ordered Fukuzawa to move to Edo (modern Tokyo) to establish a Dutch studies school for the domain's vassals. Shortly after arriving, he visited the new treaty port of Yokohama and was shocked to discover that most Westerners there spoke English, not Dutch. His years of Dutch study were suddenly obsolete. He immediately began to teach himself English.

In 1860, as part of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, the Tokugawa shogunate sent its first diplomatic mission to the United States. While the main delegation traveled on an American warship, a second ship, the Kanrin Maru, was purchased from the Dutch to serve as an escort, crewed entirely by Japanese sailors. Determined to be part of this historic voyage, Fukuzawa volunteered his services and was accepted as the personal steward to the ship's captain, Kimura Yoshitake. The Kanrin Maru reached San Francisco after a harrowing journey. While most of his fellow travelers were disoriented by the foreign culture, Fukuzawa sought to learn as much as possible. He was not surprised by Western technology, which he understood from his studies, but was struck by social and cultural differences, such as the apparent wastefulness of American society and customs like ladies and gentlemen dancing together at parties.

Mission to Europe

Upon his return to Japan in June 1860, Fukuzawa was hired by the bakufu as a translator of diplomatic documents. The period was one of intense anti-foreign sentiment, and those associated with Western learning risked their lives. Fukuzawa remained cautious but determined to continue his work. In 1861, he married Toki Okin, the daughter of an upper-ranking Nakatsu samurai.

In 1862, Fukuzawa joined another shogunal mission, this time to Europe, as an official translator. The goal was to negotiate a delay in the opening of further ports to foreign trade. The mission traveled through France, Britain, the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia, and Portugal over the course of a year. In London, the group visited the 1862 International Exhibition, Woolwich Arsenal, and the Houses of Parliament. Fukuzawa was an indefatigable note-taker, inquiring about hospitals, banks, the postal system, and the party system. This journey solidified his belief that Japan needed to adopt not just Western science but also its social and political institutions to achieve equality and strength. He began writing his famous work Conditions in the West in 1864, with the first volume published in 1866.

Meiji Restoration and enlightenment

Sidestepping the civil war

Fukuzawa returned to Japan in 1863 to a country in turmoil. The struggle between the weakening Tokugawa shogunate and pro-imperial forces was escalating into civil war. As a translator for the bakufu, Fukuzawa was a fierce partisan of the Tokugawa cause until shortly before its overthrow in 1868. He saw the shogunate's government as "bureaucratic, oppressive, [and] conservative," but considered the imperial forces "still more anti-foreign and violent in their action." He believed both sides were ignorant of the need for fundamental reform.

While fighting raged in Edo in 1868, Fukuzawa remained focused on his educational work. At the very time the city was in chaos, he purchased a large estate in the Mita district of Edo and moved his small school there. He renamed it Keio Gijuku after the Keio era name, and it became the foundation for the modern Keio University. He continued lecturing on Francis Wayland's Elements of Political Economy during the Battle of Ueno, a testament to his belief in the primacy of education and enlightenment even in times of political upheaval.

Champion of "Civilization and Enlightenment"

With the establishment of the new Meiji government in 1868, Fukuzawa was repeatedly offered government positions but declined them all, choosing to remain an independent private citizen. He became a leading voice of the Bunmei-kaika (Civilization and Enlightenment) movement. His understanding of the concepts of "civilization" and "enlightenment" was first shaped by American geography textbooks by Samuel Mitchell and Sarah Cornell, which outlined a theory of societal development through stages such as "savage," "barbarous," and "civilized."

His first major work after the Restoration was Seiyō Jijō (Conditions in the West), published in installments from 1867 to 1879, which described Western political, economic, and social institutions in simple terms. It became an immediate bestseller, selling around 250,000 copies. Even more influential was his series of pamphlets, Gakumon no Susume (An Encouragement of Learning), published between 1872 and 1876. Its opening line, "Heaven never created a man above another nor a man below another," became a frequently quoted phrase when advocating for social equality in the new era. In the work, Fukuzawa argued that differences in social status were not inherent but arose from differences in education. He advocated for practical, scientific learning (jitsugaku) over traditional Confucian scholarship. The book sold millions of copies and was instrumental in shaping the Meiji government's 1872 Fundamental Code of Education.

In 1875, he published Bunmeiron no Gairyaku (An Outline of a Theory of Civilization), a more scholarly work that analyzed the stages of civilization and applied them to Japan's history. Drawing on the work of European historians like François Guizot, Fukuzawa argued that Western civilization was characterized by a "balance" of diverse elements, whereas Japan's development had been "unbalanced" by the dominance of political power. He was also a founding member of the Meirokusha, an intellectual society established in 1874 to promote enlightenment ideas through its journal, the Meiroku zasshi.

Views and ideas

Government and popular rights

Fukuzawa was a staunch advocate for a representative government modeled on the British Parliament. He argued that the relationship between government and the people was a contractual one, where the government's sole function was to protect the people's rights—to life, property, and honor—in exchange for taxes. He criticized the traditional Confucian model, which granted rulers unlimited power over their subjects, a concept he termed "preponderance of power."

His relationship with the Freedom and Popular Rights Movement of the 1870s and 1880s was complex. While the movement's leaders drew heavily on his writings, Fukuzawa himself became critical of their methods, which he saw as disruptive and muddleheaded. He believed that political change should come about through gradual enlightenment and discussion among the educated elite. He was a key behind-the-scenes advocate for the establishment of a National Diet, writing an influential series of articles in 1879 that helped galvanize public opinion and led to the emperor's promise in 1881 to establish a constitution.

Views on women

Fukuzawa was one of the Meiji-era advocates for women's rights. He condemned traditional practices such as concubinage, which he viewed as barbaric, and argued for monogamous marriage based on equality between husband and wife. He believed that women should receive an education, not just in domestic arts but also in economics and practical sciences, to ensure their independence. He argued that the unequal status of women within the family was a major impediment to Japan's national progress.

However, Fukuzawa's views had limitations. His advocacy for equality was largely confined to the husband-wife relationship within the family. He did not support political rights for women or careers outside the home. There was also a notable contradiction between his public pronouncements and his private life. While his sons received an elite Western-style education, his five daughters received a traditional, home-based education, with their upbringing left entirely to their conservative mother. They were not permitted to express opinions, go out alone, or speak to guests, and were married off in their late teens. His primary goal for them was a stable and prosperous marriage, reflecting the conventional values of the time.

Foreign relations and "Leaving Asia"

Fukuzawa's views on foreign policy evolved significantly. An initial faith in a universal "rational principle" governing international relations gave way to a pragmatic acceptance of power politics. Influenced by Social Darwinism, he came to believe that "might is right" and that military strength was essential for national survival. He argued that "a few cannons are worth more than a hundred volumes of international law."

This shift began earlier than is often thought. In the final chapter of his 1875 work An Outline of a Theory of Civilization, Fukuzawa argued that in the current international environment, Japan's national independence had to take precedence over the pursuit of civilization as an abstract ideal. He saw Japan's neighbors, Qing China and Joseon Korea, as hopelessly backward and stagnant, incapable of modernizing to resist Western encroachment. In his famous 1885 editorial "Datsu-A Ron" ("Leaving Asia"), he argued that Japan should mentally and politically distance itself from its "bad friends" in Asia and align itself with the civilized nations of the West. He became a fervent supporter of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), which he considered a war for civilization against barbarism. Through his influential newspaper, Jiji Shinpō, which he founded in 1882, he promoted a jingoistic nationalism that helped rally public support for the war and for Japan's subsequent imperial expansion.

Later life and legacy

By the 1890s, Fukuzawa was an influential figure in Japan, though he held no official title. His school, Keio, was producing graduates who would become leaders in business, finance, and journalism. His newspaper, Jiji Shinpō, was a major voice in national affairs. He had also become a successful entrepreneur and a kingmaker in the business world through his network of Keio alumni.

Fukuzawa suffered his first stroke in September 1898, which left him partially disabled. It was after this event that he dictated his autobiography, Fukuō Jiden (The Autobiography of Old Fukuzawa), which remains a classic of Japanese literature and a key historical document. He suffered a second stroke on 25 January 1901, and died on 3 February. His funeral was a major public event, attended by thousands, and the Lower House of the Diet passed an unprecedented resolution recognizing his profound contributions to the nation.

Fukuzawa's legacy is immense and multifaceted. Keio University remains one of Japan's most prestigious private universities. His ideas on education, independence, and practical learning fundamentally shaped the modernization of Japan. He is regarded as a thinker who dealt with complex Western ideas more extensively than most of his contemporaries, logically extending Enlightenment thought to analyze Japan's situation and plot its future. At the same time, his legacy is complicated by his later embrace of nationalism and imperialism, which provided an intellectual foundation for Japan's expansionist policies in the 20th century. In 1984, in recognition of his central role in the nation's development, his portrait was placed on the 10,000 yen note, the highest denomination of Japanese currency.

Fukuzawa's childhood home in the Rusui-cho neighbourhood of the city of Nakatsu in Ōita Prefecture still exists. It is located on the lower reaches of the Nakatsu River, almost due east of Nakatsu Castle (33°36′26″N 131°11′27″E / 33.60722°N 131.19083°E). Fukuzawa was born in 1835 in the Nakatsu Domain warehouse in Osaka and the family returned to Nakatsu after his father's death when he was 18 months old. He lived in this house in Nakatsu until age 19. The structure is a typical samurai residence of the late Edo Period and is a one-story wooden, thatch roof building with two 6-tatami, one 8-tatami, and one 4.5 tatami rooms. The north of the main building is a two-story kura storehouse with a tile roof. In 1971 this former residence and the ruins of a former residence across the street were designated as a National Historic Site. The house and the adjacent Fukuzawa Yukichi Memorial Hall, which displays the original manuscript of Gakaku no Susume and Fukuzawa Yukichi's personal belongings, are the major tourist attractions of this city. It is located approximately a 15-minute walk from Nakatsu Station on the JR Kyushu Nippō Main Line.