Yukichi Fukuzawa

7 Pages 1818 Words

Yukichi Fukuzawa’s Autobiography offers an in depth view on one man’s dreams and hopes for a better Japan and how those dreams can become a reality. Fukuzawa lived during one of the most incredible changes in Japanese history, the Meiji Restoration, and was one of the biggest supporters for opening the country to foreign thought and civilization. Fukuzawa dreamed of a nation were the strict class system did not exist and a nation that welcomed foreign influence openly and warmly. Fukuzawa writes, “The final purpose of all my work was to create in Japan a civilized nation as well equipped in the arts of war and peace as those of the Western world. I acted as if I had become the sole functioning agent for the introduction of Western learning” (214). This one simple statement sums up one man’s life dream in a few words yet can not capture the drive and struggles that Fukuzawa went through during this period of change. Along the road to the realization of his vision Fukuzawa encountered distaste from fellow clansmen and anti-foreign aggressors, yet with quiet determination and willing students from across the country Fukuzawa saw his country open its borders to Western civilization and embrace it fully.
To understand why Fukuzawa strived for the complete dismissal of the Confusion feudal society that had existed for two and a half centuries prior to his birth, one must understand Fukuzawa’s childhood and studies as a student of Dutch and English. Fukuzawa’s father was a low ranking samurai, thus according to the Japanese class system at the time, Fukuzawa was born with the same class and rank as his father. His father died while Fukuzawa was still a toddler and his family moved back to their mother’s clan village and lived in relative poverty. Since an early age Fukuzawa’s mother had told him that his father had always dreamed that he would become a priest, Fukuzawa interpreted this as his father wanting him to b...