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6. PART 2: Bakumatsu 1850-60s

Along with the Sengoku period, the Bakumatsu period can be considered one of the two most turbulent times of Japanese history. Both were eras of bloodshed and change. Sengoku resulted in the unification and isolation of Edo Japan, whereas Bakumatsu resulted in its opening and westernization. The Tokugawa Shogunate was being challenged both at home and abroad, and its failure to react fast enough to the changes in its surrounding environment ultimately led to its downfall.

Even before Perry came to “open” the country in 1853 and 1854, Japan was having scrapes with Western powers determined to usurp Holland’s tenuous hold on her trade market through her only window to the world; Dejima in Nagasaki. Although Dejima was originally built for Portuguese traders, these were expelled from the country in 1639 with the complete ban on Christianity. The Dutch East Indies company had had their own trading post in Hirado, however, and were ordered to move in 1640 to Dejima. For over 200 years, Dutch and Chinese traders at Dejima were the only contact Japan had with the outside world.

Almost. There were others. Engelbert Kampfer. Giovanni Batista Sidotti. Martin Spangberg. The HMS Phaeton. Philipp Franz von Siebold. Ranald Macdonald. Each of these brought news of the changing outside world and served as tiny windows between Japan and their home countries. But it was not enough, until Commodore Perry came from the US with his ultimatum of “open or we will open you”. Initially, it was the Bakufu that tried, in its way, to open the country gradually through learning about the westerners and working with them. Other parts of country, however, were frustrated with the Bakufu’s weak responses. Cries of Sonno Joi (尊王攘夷) or revere the emperor and expel the barbarians, echoed around the land, and the Bakufu came to bear the brunt of that frustration. One of the greatest leaders of this way of thinking was Yoshida Shoin in Choshu (Yamaguchi). From his teachings at Soka-sonjuku, future leaders of new Japan were being raised, including Ito Hirobumi. Moreover, both Choshu and Satsuma were defying Bakufu orders and secretly sending young scholars out to see the world. The Choshu five (including Ito Hirobumi and Inoue Kaoru) and the Satsuma 16 would become some of early Meiji’s most famous leaders. Although the conservative Hosokawa government in Higo favored the Tokugawa Shogunate, there was a forward-looking thinker named Yokoi Shonan here, too. He greatly influenced Bakumatsu greats such as Katsu Kaishu, Sakamoto Ryoma, Yoshida Shoin, Matsudaira Shungaku and Yuri Kimimasa. His 7 principles for a new government were adopted by Sakamoto Ryoma (as the 8 principles on the boat) which were then used as the basis for the first Meiji constitution developed by Yuri Kimimasa. He also sent his own two young nephews secretly to the US, who became the first two Japanese students at Rutgers College in New Jersey. According to Motoyama (translated by Tsurumi, ), Bakumatsu Higo was a microcosm of the different ways of thought that were in the winds in those days. There were three major schools of thought: 1. the pro-Bakufu Confucian clan school Jisshukan （実習館）and Gakkoto（学校党） 2. the Sonno-Joi （尊王攘夷）school run by Hayashi Oen 　（林おうえん）and Kinnoto （謹皇党） 3. the progressive, pro-western fukoku-kyohei （富国強兵）school and Jitsugakuto （実学党） of Yokoi Shonan （横井小楠）.

Each of these produced great historical figures: from Miyabe Teizo （宮部貞蔵）and Kawakami Gensui (川上げんすい) model of the famous Rurouni Kenshin), to Inoue Kowashi （井上毅）and Motoda Nagazane（元田長真）, crafters of the Meiji Constitution (明治憲法 1889) and the Imperial Rescript on Education (教育勅語1890).

But it was the Jitsugakuto that took charge of the early Meiji government in Kumamoto. The younger nephew of Shonan, Yokoi Daihei (横井大平), returned from Rutgers in 1869 with tuberculosis (the same year his father was assassinated in Kyoto), brought a message to this government that to survive, Kumamoto needed to learn quickly from the West by opening a Western school.

7. 1871-1876 Janes Kumamoto Western School and the Kumamoto Band As is well known, the bloodless surrender of Edo to the Satcho Alliance (薩長同盟) in 1868 marked the beginning of the Meiji Restoration (明治維新1868-). However, Higo (now Kumamoto) was a bit late in its own modernization, and the Western School that Yokoi Daihei wanted so much did not begin until 1871. It was organized in the early part of the year, and admitted 53 students, even though there was no western teacher yet. In fact, the government asked Guido Verbeck of Nagasaki to find a suitable teacher, but their standards were high (they insisted on a married man with military experience who was not a Christian minister). Finally, a man was found who turned out to be a perfect match: Leroy Lansing Janes (1838-1909). Janes came to Kumamoto in August after turning down a post in the newly thriving Edo. He worried much about how to teach his new group of students, and was faced with three possibilities: use interpreters, learn Japanese or teach the students English. He chose the last possibility, and the students, after a year of intensive English training, essentially received the same education as they would have in the American school system. Also, Janes admitted three girls to the school in 1875, making it one of the first public schools in Japan to practice coeducation (男女共学). The school lasted for 5 years until 1876. It was one of the longest-lived early Western schools, most of which were converted hanko （藩校）that had to shut down and reorganize in 1872 with the replacement of the clan system by prefectures (廃藩置県) and the promulgation of the first Although Janes was not a minister, he was a devout Christian, and he used materials that stressed Christianity, such as the blue-backed speller written by Noah Webster (of dictionary fame). Under the influence of these materials, the students became interested in Christianity of their own accord. Many of these became believers, forming the Kumamoto Band (熊本バンド) on a cold morning at Hanaoka-yama in early 1876. Another group of students who opposed them were called the Suizenji school (水前寺派). The formation of the Kumamoto Band meant the downfall of the school. Janes was fired, but he made sure that his students (especially those in Kumamoto Band) had a place to go to continue their studies. He wrote a letter to J. D. Davis, who was teaching at a small school that had just begun in Kyoto, by a returnee from America named Niijima Jo (新島襄). He introduced his students as “the finest…. Do you want them?” to which Davis replied that they were welcome. Around 35 students in all transferred to the small school, named Doshisha, and essentially took it over. Several of those students became future professors and presidents of the College. Many students became prominent members of the Meiji society, including Kozaki Hiromichi (founder of Reinanzaka Church), Ukita Kazutami (teacher at Waseda and Doshisha), Tokutomi Soho (historian, founder of Kokumin no Tomo newspaper), Katoh Yutaka (founder of Maebashi English School, Saitama), Yufu Takesaburo (President of Hitotsubashi Commercial High School), and Ichihara Morihiro (mayor of Yokohama). Several more lived abroad and worked directly in the international arena, with at least two professors (Harada Tasuku at the university of Hawaii and Iyenaga Toyokichi at University of Chicago), Tsuji Tomiyoshi (advisor to the Washington Embassy) and Koori Norichika (ambassador to Taiwan).

Those who especially contributed to Kumamoto society include Nakahara Junzo (founding head of Kumamoto School of Engineering, now the Engineering Faculty of Kumamoto University), Tokunaga Norikane, Ebina Danjo and Kurahara Korekiyo (Head of Kumamoto English School), Toyama Sanryo (professor at Fifth High School – later Kumamoto University), and Fukushima Tsuneo (vice principal of Seiseiko High School),