The second volume

Japanese

"Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835 - 1901)" - 1 -

Yukichi Fukuzawa was born in Osaka as a second boy of a lower class samurai family of the domain of Nakatsu in 1835. When he was only one, his family returned to Nakatsu in Oita prefecture, the origin of the domain and he spent most of his younger days at there.

The founder of famous school Keio Gijuku as he was, we have an image of a brilliant child at his early age. However, there is a rumor that he had hardly read books or could not even read until he was 12-13 years old. As he realized that he was left behind at the age of fourteen, he started to study hard at a cramming school. He improved his academic capability before long and outstripped other student. When he was 19, the domain of Nakatsu commanded Yukichi to go to Nagasaki to lean Dutch, and then he entered a famous private school Tekijuku where superior students gather from all over Japan. One year later, he was ordered to come back to Nakatsu to take over as the head of family by his relatives because of his brother's sudden death. Against his will, he returned to Nakatsu and was given a gatekeeper position from the domain. As he was sent to Nagasaki learn Dutch by the order of the domain, he could not been satisfied with the decision of the domain. Therefore, he asked his relatives to allow him to learn Dutch again against the decision of the domain, but he met with furious opposition from the relatives. But as he could not give up his wish, he begged his mother to allow him to study Dutch again. Then his mother said, "I have a limited life expectancy. Don't worry about me, please go ahead and go back to Osaka to study Dutch."

At the date of the departure, nobody but his mother came to see him off at the station. If there is no understanding of his mother, his life might have been changed.

After he went back to the school in Osaka, he became the head of school soon. The special subject of the school was medicine, but he was not active enough on operation and dissection because he's weak in blood, therefore he concentrated on learning Dutch language in the school.

In 1858, at the age of twenty-three, he went up to Edo (Tokyo) and opened a school of Dutch studies, which was the origin of today's Keio Gijuku.
One day he visited Yokohama, he saw signboardswritt en in English lined on the street, and he was shocked that he could not read them at all.
At the same time, he fully realized that the power balance of the world had been changed and English was going to be the mainstream of the global language.

To be continued...