Fukuzawa Yukichi
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- In this Japanese name, the family name is Fukuzawa.
| Yukichi Fukuzawa | |
|---|---|
 Fukuzawa Yukichi (Kinsei Meishi Shashin, Vol.2) | |
| Born | January 10, 1835 Osaka, Japan |
| Died | February 3, 1901 (aged 66) Tokyo, Japan |
Fukuzawa Yukichi (福澤 諭吉, January 10, 1835 – February 3, 1901) was a Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and political theorist who founded Keio University. His ideas about government and social institutions made a lasting impression on a rapidly changing Japan during the Meiji Era. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern Japan.
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Early life
Fukuzawa Yukichi was born into an impoverished low-ranking samurai family of the Okudaira Clan of Nakatsu in 1835. His family was poor following the early death of his father. At the age of 14, Fukuzawa entered a school of Dutch studies (rangaku). In 1853, shortly after Commodore Matthew C. Perry's arrival in Japan, Fukuzawa's brother (the family patriarch) asked Fukuzawa to travel to Nagasaki, where the Dutch colony at Dejima was located. He instructed Fukuzawa to learn Dutch so that he might study European cannon designs and gunnery.
Although Fukuzawa did travel to Nagasaki, his stay was brief as he quickly began to outshine his host in Nagasaki, Okudaira Iki. Okudaira planned to get rid of Fukuzawa by writing a letter saying that Fukuzawa's mother was ill. Seeing through the fake letter Fukuzawa planned to travel to Edo and continue his studies there because he knew he would not be able to in his home domain, Nakatsu, but upon his return to Osaka, his brother persuaded him to stay and enroll at the Tekijuku school run by physician and rangaku scholar Ogata Kōan. Fukuzawa studied at Tekijuku for three years and became fully proficient in the Dutch language. In 1858, he was appointed official Dutch teacher of his family's domain, Nakatsu, and was sent to Edo to teach the family's vassals there.
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