Knowing the World
Scholars and public intellectuals during the early Meiji era published abundant materials helping the Japanese students and public learn the world. These include news about major events and the histories and geographies of other countries. The Braisted Collection has many titles of this sort. Here there are a few highlights from the collection.
Yochi shiryaku : 12-kan; 輿地誌略 : 12卷
Creator: Uchida Masao 內田正雄, 1839-1876; Nishimura Shigeki 西村茂樹, 1828-1902
Publisher: Tōkyō: 內田正義 Uchida Masayoshi
Publication year: 1873-1880
This world geography series has twelve parts in thirteen volumes. The book was authored by Uchida Masao 内田正雄 (1839–1876). Uchida was a bakufu student from a Tokugawa elite household. He studied at the bakufu school, the naval academy in Nagasaki, and later in the Netherlands before the Meiji Restoration. After the Restoration, he taught at Daigaku nankō 大学南校, which was transformed from the old shogunate’s Kaiseijyō, a school specialized in teaching Western learning to Tokugawa elite students. The entire series was published by three publishers. Parts one to seven were published by the Daigaku Nankō, where Uchida taught together with the Ministry of Education (Monbushō 文部省). Parts eight to eleven were published by Shūseikan 修静館, likely Uchida’s own operation. After Uchida died in 1876, Nishimura Shigeki worked on Uchida’s manuscript and published the eleventh and twelfth parts in 1877 and 1880.
Kaigai kakkoku honyaku shinbunshi 海外各國飜譯新聞誌
Publisher: 東京 : 信報堂 Shinpōdō
Publication year: 1873.
Soon after the Meiji Restoration, more and more Japanese people had become keen to learn what was going on around the world. This publication offers a compilation of world news that the editor deemed useful to Japan,. It was printed using woodblocks on relatively inexpensive paper. The translation from English was attributed to Gyōgawa Kazuo 行川一男 (?-?).
Seiyō jijō 西洋事情
Creator: Fukuzawa Yukichi 福澤諭吉, 1835-1901.
Publisher: 東京: 慶應義塾出版局 Keiō Gijuku Shuppankyoku
Publication year: 1873.
Seiyō jijyō was one of the most popular books published in the Meiji era. Fukuzawa Yukichi, the educator and writer advocating for the Westernization of Japan’s political and education systems, compiled the 10-volume work based on both secondary traveling accounts and first-hand experiences in the West. The volumes in the first part introduced many nineteenth-century Western institutions to Japanese readers, including schools, hospitals, libraries, parliaments, etc. The second and third parts introduced the history, politics, and cultures of England, Netherlands, and the United States. The work became so popular that pirated versions soon emerged after its publication. Fukuzawa thus also became a very early advocate for the “modern” concept of copyright in Japan.
The images shown here are from Kokubungaku kenkyū shiryōkan 国文学研究資料館 (ヤ５－１２０－１～１０, https://doi.org/10.20730/200006148). UT Libraries has a copy from the same edition.