Makers of Japan

by J. Morris

It is impossible to convey an adequate idea in so many words of the extent of Mr Fukusawa’s influence and the share which he had in building up the fabric of modern Japan, for at one time and another by far the major portion of her leading men derived their education either by direct training at his school or by the perusal and study of the English works which he translated. He was an ardent advocate of the early opening of the Diet, and was a resolute opponent of those ancient customs that tended to hinder Japan’s progress, strongly insisting, for one thing, on monogamy and the equality of rights of the sexes, having accomplished much in his lifetime towards raising the status of womanhood throughout the Japanese dominions. He vigorously opposed Confucianism in his “General laws of the doctrines of Morality,” a work which had for its primary object the enforcement of the principle of the independence and justification of the right of prudent self-government of man.

The value of Mr Fukusawa’s work was enhanced by the circumstance that it was perseveringly carried on in spite of opposition and almost contumely, and in days when the utility of a sound commercial education could not be discerned, for the samurai abhorred of all things the contamination of trade, and those who devoted themselves to the acquisition of other than classical knowledge, equally with those who might seek to impart it, were openly scoffed at. It has been pointed out with much force by one of his contemporaries that long before the Jo-I and Kai-koku parties in the State had adjusted their differences concerning the retention or abandonment of a policy of isolation, Mr Fukusawa was enjoining on his pupils the benefits to be derived from a study of Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” and that while feudalism was still in the ascendant his students were deep in the mysteries of the standard work on “Representative Government” by John Stuart Mill. The greater the opposition that he encountered, the more determined was Mr Fukusawa to fulfil the task which he had set himself, and he no doubt imbibed during his stay in America not a few ideas relative to the spread of education that were of use to him later in life. Mr Fukusawa seemed to be marked out for the post of Minister of Education whenever that post might fall vacant, but he consistently declined to take office, preferring to carry on his school rather than to aim at rank and station. And when it is remembered that he was mentor to half the statesmen who have risen to power in the Meiji era, the extraordinary influence that he exerted indirectly on the affairs of his country will readily be comprehended.

Mr Fukusawa died in 1900, and his second son Sutejiro, who—together with his elder brother, Mr Fukuzawa Ichitaro,—went to America in 1883, to prosecute his studies, and entered at Yale University, remaining there until 1890, now edits the Jiji Shimpo in Tokio, and married the daughter of Viscount Hayashi, the Japanese Ambassador to Great Britain.

XVII
MARQUIS KIDO KOIN

Dying, as he did, prior to the adoption of the Western system of orders of nobility, Kido Koin—better known as Kido Takakoto, or still earlier in his career as Kido Jiunichiro,—won during his lifetime a title to the esteem and everlasting gratitude of his fellow-subjects of the Japanese Emperor far above any rank that he could have been rewarded with even had he lived to see his aspirations for his country’s welfare realised, as they have in great measure been, during recent years. He was a Choshiu man, a native of the same province as those other Makers of Japan—Ito, Inouye, and Yamagata,—and he was active throughout that troubled period in which his clan came to the front in affairs, and participated in all those stirring events in which it was engaged. As became a samurai of the great southern province, he was an expert swordsman, and he was likewise one of the most profound scholars of his time. The two things did not always go together, even in Japan, and it suited those knights of old whose tastes ran primarily in the direction of falconry or the chase, or who were given to fencing and drill, to somewhat undervalue culture, as scarcely deserving of their serious attention. Every fief had its college for the education of the youthful samurai, but they rarely aspired to literary excellence or renown, preferring the more robust accomplishments of archery and swordsmanship to the ability to pen an essay or compose a stanza, even though it were but one of the orthodox thirty-one syllabled kind that every gentleman was supposed to be able to produce at will. Kido’s energy was unbounded, his patriotism unquenchable. There was no risk that he would not cheerfully run if it afforded a prospect of adding to his store of knowledge of a character likely to enhance his ability to serve his country or the imperialist cause with which he was always identified. Dangers and disguises were for years inseparable from his daily life, as he never missed an opportunity of acquiring information that would the better qualify him for the services that he sought to render to the nation. How much he accomplished in his comparatively brief span of life is matter of common knowledge in Japan, though perhaps, for lack of information, his talents have hitherto met with but scant appreciation outside the borders of the Japanese Emperor’s dominions.

MARQUIS KIDO

Entering the military service of the Nagato province at a very early age, Kido Jiunichiro proceeded to acquire a competent acquaintanceship with all those arts in which skill was demanded of the young samurai of the time, and in some he soon excelled. He was with the Choshiu men when they made their assault on Kioto, and was daring enough to remain behind at that capital and headquarters of his lord’s political opponents after the rest of the Choshiu forces had been compelled to beat a retreat to their own territory. It was at Kido’s house, on a later date, that the reconciliation which had such stupendous consequences for Japan as a nation between the clans of Satsuma and Choshiu was quietly arranged to the satisfaction of all parties, the two Satsuma leaders Kuroda and Oyama going to him and consulting with him, as the representative of Choshiu, in reference to joint action which had for its object the overthrow of the Shogunate and the re-establishment of the imperial regime.

When the new government was set up Kido, together with Goto Shojiro, of Tosa, and Komatsu Tatewaki, of Satsuma, were made Ko-mon, or advisers, of the So-Sai,—the title then conferred on the official head of the administration, but which is now applied to the president of a board,—and as it rested with the So-Sai to give or refuse the imperial consent to all measures proposed by the other departments of State, the position of Ko-mon was one of great power and responsibility.