（7）Civilization and Enlightenment and Schools for Western Learning

Following the Meiji Restoration, the concept of Civilization and Enlightenment enjoyed considerable popularity, and consequently there was widespread experimentation with modern Western thought and scientific technology as well as the life styles, manners and customs of Western peoples. Indeed some people went to the extreme of scornfully abandoning Japanese and Oriental tradition. It was not long, however, before a xenophobic reaction set in, and thus through the early years of the Meji era there was considerable tension between the preservers of native tradition and the promoters of Civilization and Enlightenment.

In the schools Western courses came to be provided and Western textbooks were translated into Japanese for wide use. Both government and private institutions for Western learning and languages flourished and many foreign instructors were cordially received and paid high salaries. In addition, individual interest in the ideas of the West was quite remarkable. Enormous quantities of original works and translations were published which introduced foreign life and thought as it was understood by contemporary scholars of the Occident and by the native leaders of the Civilization and Enlightenment movement. Also many new magazines and newspapers were begun which featured Civilization and Enlightenment themes. Fukuzawa Yukichi's Keiogijuku and other private schools at the time were to a great extent oriented toward Western learning and played an extremely important role in the popular movement to realize Civilization and Enlightenment.

A prime objective of the Civilization and Enlightenment movement was the importation of modern technology from the West and the diffusion of scientific thought. This accounted for the increase in the publication of translated works as well as abridged editions in Japanese of original works on natural science. These served as popular guidebooks to the laws of natural phenomena to enlighten the people in general. Another important aspect of the Civilization and Enlightenment movement was the publication of textbooks on Western geography and customs. Treatises on Western ethics and morals and works on political economy were also published.

In addition to the schools for Western learning established by the new Meiji government, many prefectures and fiefs set up similar schools. For example, several schools for Western learning were opened at Kyoto and staffed by German, American and French instructors; in other locations we find schools for Western learning at Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Kumamoto.

From about 1871 an increase was also noted in the number of schools for Western learning that were privately established. It was in Tokyo however that we find the greatest concentration of private schools for Western learning. They varied in content and their size ranged from many with only ten students to a few with over three hundred students. Some of these private schools employed foreign teachers and provided better instruction than those established by the prefectures and fiefs.

The most remarkable of the private schools was the Keiogijuku founded in 1858 in Edo by Fukuzawa Yukichi as an institution for Dutch Learning. The school eventually developed into a center for English learning, and in 1868 upon relocating at Shiba Shinsenza it assumed the name of the Keiogijuku. It was during these years that Fukuzawa made a name for himself as a scholar of Western learning through his voyages to Europe and the United States. A wide range of Western textbooks were used at his school for instruction in economics, Western history, geography, natural sciences and ethics. By 1870 the enrollment exceeded three hundred students and in the following year, the school was relocated at Mita. Graduates of the Keiogijuku were active in all phases of society and many of them became teachers in the new schools established throughout the country following the Meiji Restoration. Thus, the school played an important role as a teacher training center.

The Kogyokujuku, another private school for Western learning established in this period, developed a good reputation for its instruction in scientific technology. Its founder, Kondo Makoto (1831-1886), had received instruction in Dutch Learning and military science in order to become the Translator (Honyakugata) at the Warship Navigation Institute of the Shogunate in 1863. A private school had been founded at that time for persons interested in the fundamentals of navigation with instruction in the Dutch language. This school later broadened its curriculum to include English, mathematics, navigation, surveying and the like. The school discontinued operations with the fall of the Shogunate but Kondo reopened this school after the Restoration in 1869 and named it the Kogyokujuku. In 1871 the school moved to the former site of the Keiogijuku at Shiba Shinsenza and by the following year it had a teaching staff of 24 and 121 students.