It’s not unusual today for people in junior high school or high school to travel to foreign countries for study, but do you know who the first people in Fukuoka were to study abroad? The first overseas trip for educational purposes occurred in March 1867 at the tail end of the Edo period, after the Shogunate lifted restrictions on travel outside the country. Viewers of the NHK drama Atsuhime might be quite knowledgeable about this time period.
In those days, Fukuoka and Kuroda-han suffered from a fiscal deficit. Kuroda Nagahiro, the feudal lord, somehow found the money to send six people to study in the West, saying, “The plan for the next 100 years is to first promote academic culture.” These six people are said to be the first people from Fukuoka to pursue studies in a foreign country. Bravely embarking on their journey, they left Fukuoka in March. After a delay necessitated by acquiring visas and waiting for a ship, they left Yokohama aboard the American vessel Colorado in July and arrived 27 days later in San Francisco.
The transcontinental railroad had yet to be built, so they took the long way around to the East Coast and passed through the Panama Canal on the way to Boston. Five of the six studied there, but the sixth—19-year-old Matsushita Naoyoshi—continued across the Atlantic to Europe. Matsushita had been ordered to study in Paris, but on board ship during the Atlantic crossing, he met the Swiss consul to Yokohama. The diplomat recommended his own country as a destination because of the high cost of living in Paris. Matsushita thereupon changed his plans and studied law in Lausanne.
The following year marked the beginning of the Meiji Restoration in Japan. The funds for the students to continue their education overseas were not forthcoming, so Matsushita returned to Japan after little more than a year. On his return, he helped Eto Shimpei draft the Japanese constitution and then went on to practice law. In 1900, he became the fourth mayor of Fukuoka City. During his term of office, Mayor Matsushita exerted every effort to bring a university to the city, competing with Nagasaki and Kumamoto. He was successful in attracting the Kyushu Imperial University to Fukuoka, thus fulfilling Kuroda Nagahiro’s plan. It is quite impressive that after just one year of study abroad, he was able to help draft a constitution and pursue a legal career, including serving a judge. It is indeed a testament to his seriousness of purpose. Both the people who sent the students overseas and the students who were sent overseas staked their lives on creating a great change in Japan.
