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Edward Warren Clark and Early Meiji Japan: A Case Study of Cultural Contact
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
Extract
Protestantism in the early Meiji era has long interested Western students as an aspect of the encounter between Japan and expanding European culture in the nineteenth century. Edward Warren Clark (1849–1907) and other American laymen, who went to Japan as teachers and not society missionaries, played a significant role in the process during the 1870s. Edward Warren Clark is known to Western scholars of the Meiji period for his contribution to the development of English-language education and as the author of books based upon his experiences in Japan. In his letters to William Elliot Griffis (1843–1928), Clark reveals opinions concerning Japan and Japanese acquaintances, and the hopes and tribulations of teaching Western studies. These are interesting in themselves as one American's views, and they also shed more valuable light upon Japanese attitudes toward the West between 1871 and 1875. In this study of cultural contact, particular attention will be paid to Clark's evangelistic work in Shizuoka and later in Tokyo, and the influence of his Christian ideas and misconceptions upon certain Japanese, especially Nakamura Masanao (Keiu, 1832–91).
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The author wishes to thank Professor H. Matsuzawa of Hokkaidö University for his help and advice in the preparation of this article.
1 William Elliot Griffis, Leroy Janes, and William S. Clark were among the most famous American laymen who actively propagated Christianity during the 1870s. Edward S. Morse, Ernest Fenellosa, and Lafcadio Hearn were among the most famous Americans who were openly critical of Christianity during the 1880s and 1890s.
2 For Clark's contribution to English education in Shizuoka Prefecture, see Hiroshi, Lida, Shizuoka-ken Eigaku-shi (Tokyo, 1967), pp. 11–34;Google Scholar and Schwantes, Robert S., ‘American Influence in the Education of Meiji Japan, 1868–1912’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1950.Google Scholar Clark himself wrote two books on Japan: Life and Adventures in Japan (New York, 1878)Google Scholar and Katz Awa, Bismarck of Japan, A Story of a Noble Life (New York, 1904).Google Scholar
3 Fox, Grace, Britain and Japan, 1858–83 (London, 1969), p. 241.Google Scholar
4 In 1874 Komura Jutarō (1855–1911), who studied under Clark and Griffis at the Kaisei Gakkō, wrote of the years immediately after the Restoration: ‘about this time, the study of foreign languages became universal. The superiority of European politics, literature, philosophy, science and arts excited admiration of those who studied anything about the subject. Translations of miscellaneous useful books by Fukuzawa, Uchida and versions of law books by Mitsukuri and others had certainly a great influence upon the Japanese mind’ Komura Jutarō, ‘My Autobiography’, hand-written manuscript 10 pp. dated 1874, in Box XVII-I William Elliot Griffis Collection, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Subsequently cited as WEGC.
5 Blacker, Carmen: The Japanese Enlightenment: A Study of the Writings of Fukuzawa Yukichi (Cambridge, 1964), pp. 28–40.Google Scholar
6 It is interesting to note that Clark's friend Griffis included himself among the membership of the Meirokusha. In his Journal Griffis mentioned that on Monday 6 April 1874 he went to Nakamura Masanao's house in Koishikawa, Tokyo, for dinner and a gathering of Chinese scholars. This may have been a meeting of the Meirokusha. On Thursday 16 July 1874 Griffis noted ‘at 5 p.m. met the Mei Roku Shia, discussed and dined’. William Elliot Griffis, ‘Journal, 1871–77’ AC 2065 i WEGC. In the Preface (p. 10) to his The Mikado's Empire (New York, 1895) Griffis also mentioned his membership of the society.Google Scholar
7 This was not a particularly original idea; in the 1860s Yokoi Shōnan (1809–69) had considered Christianity to be the key to the impressive material achievements of the West. See Chang, Richard T., ‘Yokoi Shōnan's View of Christianity’, in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. XXI (1966), pp. 266–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Mori Arinori, a Meirokusha member, wrote concerning Christianity: ‘It is a fact, demonstrated by the history of the nations of the earth, among which none have so greatly advanced to the head of civilization as those whose religion has been Christianity. However injurious and fearful it may temporarily appear, the evidence of the benefits of such a polity will sooner or later accustom opponents to its adoption in the ratio of their political progress’. Mori Arinori, ‘Religious Freedom in Japan’, privately printed, Vol. 224–A WEGC. For a selection of the writings of Meirokusha members see Toshiaki, Ōkubo (ed.), Meiji Keimō Shisōshū (Meiji Bungaku Zenshū Vol. 3) (Tokyo, 1967).Google Scholar
8 Through the good offices of Guido F. Verbeck and the Mission Board of the Dutch Reformed Church of America, a number of Japanese students had been allowed to study at New Brunswick in the late 1860s. These were among the first Japanese students to study abroad. As Verbeck was resident in Nagasaki between 1859 and 1868, many of the students he helped place in New Brunswick and other American cities came from Satsuma and other Kyūshū provinces. During Clark's time at Rutgers there were never more than six or seven Japanese studying there.
9 Matsudaira Shungaku (1829–1890).
10 E. W. Clark to W. E. Griffis, 17 October 1871. Family Correspondence 1871, AC 2064 WEGC. Mrs Mary Pruyn was a missionary with the Women's Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands. Her house, the American Mission Home, Number 212, The Bluff, Yokohama, was a popular gathering place for the missionary community. Clark stayed there on his arrival in Yokohama.
11 ‘Only one year later than if I stayed’ refers to the fact that he would have to spend two more years in a theological college before he could be ordained in the United States. Thus if he was ordained during his three-year stay in Japan he would only lose one year. W. E. Griffis to M. C. Griffis, 26 September 1870, AC 2064 WEGC.
12 G. F. Verbeck to J. M. Ferris, 3 July 1870. Box 747.4N, G. F. Verbeck Papers, Archives of the Japan Mission of the Reformed Church of America, Gardiner Sage Library, New Brunswick, Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
13 E. W. Clark to M. C. Griffis, 2 February 1872, AC 2064 WEGC.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 E. W. Clark to W. E. Griffis, 17 October 1871, Ibid.
17 E. W. Clark to W. E. Griffis, 27 November 1871, Ibid.
18 Griffis wrote of his own contract that ‘nothing was said concerning religion in any reference whatever, but perfect freedom from all duties whatsoever was guaranteed me on Sundays; and I had absolute liberty to speak, teach, or do as I pleased in my own house’. Griffis, W. E., The Mikado's Empire, p. 402.Google Scholar
19 Kozo Soogiwoora was the assumed name of Hatakeyama Yoshinari, who was Clark's closest Japanese friend at Rutgers. As Hatakeyama had left Japan illegally in 1865, along with other Satsuma students, he used an assumed name while abroad.
20 E. W. Clark to W. E. Griffis 27 November 1871, AC 2064 WEGC.
21 E. W. Clark to W. E. Griffis 26 October 1871, Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Clark, E. W., Life and Adventures in Japan, pp. 41–2.Google Scholar
24 Clark also mentioned in the same passage that ‘the happiest memories I have connected with my long exile in the interior of Japan are those of the hours regularly spent with my Sabbath morning Bible class’. Ibid., pp. 36–7.
25 Clark, E. W., Katz Awa, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar
26 Ibid., p. 10.
27 Clark, E. W., Life and Adventures in Japan, p. 13.Google Scholar
28 E. W. Clark to W. E. Griffis 27 November 1871, AC 2064 WEGC. Clark noted elsewhere that Nakamura ‘gave up an offer to go round the world with the Iwakura Embassy in order to come with me to Shidzuoka and “search the Scriptures”’. Nakamura, at this time, was the head Chinese teacher at the Denshūjo and later became Clark's most intimate friend at Shizuoka. For a recent biography of Nakamura see Masao, Takahashi, Nakamura Keiu (Tokyo, 1966).Google Scholar
29 Clark, E. W., Life and Adventures in Japan, p. 12.Google Scholar
30 Toshiaki, Okubo (ed.), Meiji Keimō Shisōshū, pp. 280–1.Google Scholar
31 Masanao, Nakamura, Saikokurishihen, p. 2.Google Scholar
32 Toshiaki, Okubo, ‘Nakamura Keiu no shoki yōgaku shisō to “Saikokurisshihen” no yakujutsu oyobi kankō ni tsuite’, in Shien, Vol. XXVI, Nos 2 and 3 (01 1966), pp. 74–6.Google Scholar The importance of Nakamura's translation can also be seen from its inclusion in the study curriculum of the Meiji Emperor. Takashii, Kimura, ‘Tennō no Karikyurama’, Asahi Shimbun, 16 10 1971.Google Scholar
33 Cary, Otis, A History of Christianity in Japan (New York, 1909), Vol. 2, p. 75;Google Scholar and Ōkubo, , Meiji Keimō Shisōshū, pp. 281–3.Google Scholar
34 W. E. Griffis, ‘Journal’ 30 May 1872. Loose Sheets, AC 2064 WEGC.
35 Jiyu no Rī, originally printed in Shizuoka in 1872, now available in Meiji Bunka Zenshu, Vol. 2, pp. 1–85.Google Scholar
36 E. W. Clark to W. E. Griffis, 27 November 1871, AC 2064 WEGC. Griffis mentioned, on a visit to Shizuoka at the end of January 1872, that ‘Nakamura Masanawo, professor of Chinese, and also educated in London, his right-hand man, is printing his translation of “Mill on Liberty”. He has shown me some of the cut wooden blocks; for the author is very often his own publisher in Japan’. Griffis, W. E., The Mikado's Empire, p. 548. According to Griffis, Nakamura was Clark's ‘right-hand man’.Google Scholar
37 Jiyu no Rī, p. 3.Google Scholar
38 Ibid., p. 4.
39 Ibid., pp. 18–19.
40 Ibid., p. 23. Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government (London, 1971 ed.), p. 86, line 18.Google Scholar
41 Clark, E. W., Katz Awa, p. 17.Google Scholar
42 Clark, E. W., Life and Adventures in Japan, pp. 41–2.Google Scholar
43 E. W. Clark to W. E. Griffis, 26 October 1872, AC 2064 WEGC.
44 E. W. Clark to W. E. Griffis, 9 June 1873, Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 At the Kaisei Gakkō, Clark acted as Griffis' Assistant in teaching Chemistry. They taught students drawn from the Legal and Scientific departments of the College. Clark's place as a foreign teacher in Shizuoka was taken by Rev. Davidson McDonald M.D. (1837–1905), a Canadian Methodist medical missionary.
47 Clark, E. W., Katz Awa, p. 77.Google Scholar
48 Yoshiyasu, Hiraiwa, ‘A Story of the Beginning of Our Work in Japan’, typescript pp. H13g4 Folder, 115, United Church Archives, Victoria College, University of Toronto, Canada.Google Scholar
49 Carl P. Kasahara to W. E. Griffis, 14 January 1875, AC 2083 WEGC.
50 S. R. Brown to J. M. Ferris, 19 January 1874, ‘Letters of Samuel Brown’ (1859–80), Box 747.4N in Archives of the Japan Mission of the Reformed Church of America, Gardiner Sage Library, New Brunswick, Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
51 Griffis, W. E., ‘Journal’ 11 April 1874, WEGC.Google Scholar
52 Griffis, W. E., The Mikado's Empire, pp. 588–9.Google Scholar
53 Clark, E. W., Life and Adventures in Japan, pp. 175–80.Google Scholar
54 S. R. Brown to J. M. Ferris, 10 March 1875, ‘Letters of Samuel R. Brown’ (1859–1880).