THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FUKUZAWA YUKICHI
This book
was dictated in 1898 shortly before
Fukuzawa's death and was later translated into English by a grandson,
Kiyooka
Eiichi, under the title The
Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi (1934). These selections
pertain to
his first visits to America
and Europe and to his founding of a
private
school for Western studies and of a private newspaper.
I am willing
to admit my pride in Japan's
accomplishments [in rapid modernization]. The facts are these: It was
not until
the sixth year of Kaei (1853) that a steamship was seen for the first
time; it
was only in the second year of Ansei (1855) that we began to study
navigation
from the Dutch in Nagasaki; by 1860, the science was sufficiently
understood to
enable us to sail a ship across the Pacific. This means that about
seven years
after the first sight of a steam ship, after only about five years of
practice,
the Japanese people made a trans-Pacific crossing without help from
foreign
experts. I think we can without undue pride boast before the world of
this
courage and skill. As I have shown, the Japanese officers were to
receive no
aid from Captain Brooke throughout the voyage. Even in taking
observations, our
officers and the Americans made them independently of each other.
Sometimes
they compared their results, but we were never in the least dependent
on the
Americans.
As I consider
all the other peoples of the Orient as they exist today, I feel
convinced that
there is no other nation which has the ability or the courage I
navigate a
steamship across the Pacific after a period of five years of experience
in
navigation and engineering. Not only in the Orient would this feat
stand as
an act of
unprecedented skill and daring. Even Peter the Great of Russia,
who went to Holland
to study navigation, with all his attainments in the science could not
have
equaled this feat of the Japanese. Without doubt, the famous Emperor of
Russia
was a man of exceptional genius, but his people did not respond to his
leadership in the practice of science as did our Japanese in this great
adventure. [pp. 118-19]
On our part
there were many confusing and embarrassing moments [in our travels
abroad], for
we were quite ignorant of the customs and habits of American life. . .
. Things
social, political, and economic proved most inexplicable. One day, on a
sudden
thought, I asked a gentleman where the descendants George Washington
might be.
He replied, "I think there is a woman who directly descended from Washington. I
don't know
where she is now, but I think I have heard she is married." His answer
was
so very casual that it shocked me
Of course, I knew
that America
was a republic with a new president every four years, but I could not
help
feeling that the family of Washington
should be regarded as apart from all other families. My reasoning was
based on
the reverence in Japan
for the founders of the great lines of rulers—like that if Ieyasu of
the
Tokugawa family of shoguns, really deified in the popular mind. So I
remember
the intense astonishment I felt at receiving this indifferent answer
about the Washington
family. As
for scientific inventions and industrial machinery, there was no great
novelty
in them for me. It was more in matters of life and conventions of
social custom
and ways of thinking that I found myself at a loss in America,
[pp.
121-25]
While we were
in London,
a
certain member of the Parliament sent us copy of a bill which he said
he had
proposed in the House under the name of the party to which he belonged.
The
bill was a protest against the arrogant attitude of the British
minister to
Japan, Alcock, who had at times acted as Japan were a country conquered
by
military force. One of the instances mentioned in the bill was that of
Alcock's
riding his horse into the sacred temple grounds of Shiba, an
unpardonable
insult to the Japanese.
On reading the copy
of this bill, I felt as if "a load had been
lifted from my chest." After all, the foreigners were not all "devils."
I had felt that Japan
was enduring some pointed affronts on the part of the foreign ministers
who presumed
on the ignorance of our government. But now that I had actually come to
the
minister's native land, I found that there were among them some truly
impartial
and warmhearted human beings. So after this I grew even more determined
in my
doctrine of free intercourse with the rest of the world [pp. 138-39]
During this mission
in Europe I tried to
learn some of the most commonplace details of foreign culture. I did
not care
to study scientific or technical subjects while on the journey, because
I could
study them as well from books after I had returned home. But I felt
that I had
to learn the more common matters of daily life directly from the
people,
because the Europeans would not describe them in books as being too
obvious.
Yet to us those common matters were the most difficult to comprehend.
For instance,
when I saw a hospital, I wanted to know how it was run—who paid the
running
expenses; when I visited a bank, I wished to learn how the money was
deposited
and paid out. By similar firsthand queries, I learned something of
the postal
system and the military conscription then in force in France but not in England.
A perplexing institution
was representative government.
When I asked
a gentleman what the "election law" was and what kind of institution
the Parliament really was, he simply replied with a smile, meaning I
suppose
that no intelligent person was expected to ask such a question. But
these were
the things most difficult of all for me to understand. In this
connection, I
learned that there were different political parties—the Liberal and the
Conservative—who were always "fighting" against each other in the
government.
For some time
it was beyond my comprehension to understand what they were
"fighting" for, and what was meant, anyway, by "fighting"
in peace time. "This man and that man are 'enemies' in the House,"
they would tell me. But these "enemies" were to be seen at the same
table, eating and drinking with each other. I felt as if I could not
make much
out of this. It took me a long time, with some tedious thinking, before
I could
gather a general notion of these separate mysterious facts. In some of
the more
complicated matters, I might achieve an understanding five or ten days
after
they were explained to me. But all in all, I learned much from this
initial
tour of Europe, [pp. 142-44]
In the
beginning my reputation in my lord's household was very bad, for I was
simply
an upstart samurai who had studied some foreign sciences, traveled in
strange
lands, and was now writing books to advocate very unconventional ideas;
moreover I was finding fault with the venerable Chinese culture—a very
dangerous heretic. I can imagine the kind of reports made about me to
the inner
household.
But when
years passed and times had changed, the whole country turning
inevitably toward
the new culture, my class came to find that this Fukuzawa was not so
spiteful a
person as was thought and that he might really prove useful in some
way. A
certain chancellor named Shimazu Yutaro was the first to see the
situation and
speak well of me in the feudal household.
At that time
there was a certain lady dowager in the household whom people called
Horen-in
Sama. She was of very noble lineage, having come from the great house
of
Hitotsu-bashi, and now at her advanced age she was held in particular
respect
by the whole household.
In
conversing with this lady, Shimazu described much of the medicine and
navigation
and other sciences of the Western lands; also the customs which were
very
different from our own. The most remarkable of all the Western customs,
he told
her, was the relation between men and women; there men and women had
equal
rights, and monogamy was the strict rule in any class of people—this,
at least,
might be a merit of the Western customs. The lady
dowager could not help being moved by this conversation, for she had
had some
unhappy trials in earlier days. As if her eyes were sudden opened to
something
new, she expressed a desire to make the acquaintance of Fukuzawa. When
I was
admitted to her presence, she found that I was quite an ordinary
man—though
often called a heretic, I had no horns on my head nor tail beneath my
formal
skirt. So she gradually began to place confidence in me. Many years
later
Shimazu told me all about this, and then I learned how I was first
admitted to
the inner household of the lord. [pp. 326-27]
[The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi,
trans. Kiyooka, pp. 118-44,326-2