Kango Koyama

Image: Kango Koyama during his time as a Keio student

Kango Koyama attended Keio University from 1893 to 1901. These were the final eight years before Yukichi Fukuzawa passed away. Koyama was the person who triggered the formation of the "Sanpo-to" (Walking Party) and was one of the Keio students who had the closest contact with Fukuzawa in his later years. After graduation, he served as a councilor for Keio University, maintained deep ties with Kojunsha and Jiji Shinpo, and married Yuki, the eldest daughter of Ichitaro Fukuzawa. While carefully protecting Fukuzawa's legacy, he demonstrated a strong presence in the financial and political worlds. Koyama's experiences and reminiscences hold the key to understanding Fukuzawa's character, as well as the atmosphere, culture, and social role of Keio University, which was characterized by freedom and equality at the time.

Kango Koyama was born in 1875 in Komoro Town, Kitasaku District, Nagano Prefecture, as the fifth son of Kengo Koyama, who ran the Yamaken Sake Brewery. Koyama graduated from Komoro Elementary School and the Komoro Branch of Kitasaku Higher Elementary School before moving to Tokyo. In 1893, he entered Keio University, which his older brother Teizo had also attended. Looking back on that time, Koyama, who had come to the capital from the countryside, imagined that entering a "world-famous school" would mean finding "splendid teachers" to whom he must show "absolute obedience even if scolded," and where the "distinction between master and disciple" and "strict hierarchy" would be clear.

In reality, however, an "atmosphere of freedom and equality overflowed inside and out," and the "Keio Gijuku Shachu was filled with an air of friendship and brotherly love," feeling like "one large family." At the time, the only people referred to as "Sensei" (Professor) were Fukuzawa, Tokujirō Obata, and Ikunoshin Kadono. Even with Kadono, some Keio students would call him "Kadono-kun" when they became "spirited or excessive." While this might appear to be a "disruption of school discipline" that ignored order, Koyama noted it was a scene born from the fact that "at the root, there was a feeling of affection between master and disciple." Fukuzawa at the time was not a "stern master" or a "teacher imparting moral influence," but rather like a grandfather full of benevolence caring for his many grandchildren. He often invited Keio students to dinner, seating them alongside presidents of large companies or bank governors who were alumni. Koyama recalled that there, too, it felt like one large family with no distinction between high and low or distance between strangers.

Koyama first came into contact with Fukuzawa around 1895. It began when his father back home instructed him to ask Fukuzawa how brewers should respond to rumors of a "liquor tax increase" causing a stir in the streets. Fukuzawa answered Koyama's questions with great kindness and had Koyama summarize the contents of the Q&A in writing, which was later published in the Jiji Shinpo. For a student from the countryside, the experience of having his own writing appear in the world-renowned Jiji Shinpo must have been extraordinary.

Combined with the fact that his brother and relatives attended Keio University, Koyama received Fukuzawa's kindness from their first meeting, but the distance closed further during morning walks. From around the age of sixty, Fukuzawa had attempted to walk every morning for his health. At a Mita Public Speaking Event one day, he preached the importance of exercise and recruited participants for his walks from among the Keio students. While many young Keio students ignored the speech, Koyama and his friend Ichitaro Honda attempted the walk the next day. They encountered Fukuzawa on the way, who invited them, saying, "I walk every morning too; why don't we do it together from now on?" This was the beginning.

This gradually gained a reputation, and later, members such as Yasuzaemon Matsunaga (known as the "Demon of Electric Power") and Momosuke Fukuzawa (called the "King of Electric Power," who later married Fukuzawa's second daughter, Fusa) joined, and these members came to be called the "Sanpo-to" (Walking Party). These walks served as a form of education; along the way, Fukuzawa would give them sweet buns or crackers while mixing serious talk with small talk, paying attention to each individual and constantly asking questions. If he heard something he didn't know, no matter how small, he would listen with admiration, saying, "You know some impressive things."

Furthermore, current events discussed on the spot would sometimes become editorials in the Jiji Shinpo a few days later, providing an opportunity to learn Fukuzawa's thoughts and ideas firsthand. Fukuzawa poured deep love into the students, personally going to wake those who overlept, sending letters of condolence when a parent died, introducing doctors if someone looked unwell, and inviting them to his home at the end of the year to serve mochi for New Year's Eve. Among them, Koyama was evaluated as "extremely clever and reliable." Just by mentioning that he had never been to Zenko-ji Temple despite being born in Shinshu, Fukuzawa planned a trip to the Joshinetsu region for him. Koyama was one of the students of his generation who had the "most opportunities to receive personal instruction and favor."

Koyama belonged to a student self-government organization within Keio called the Self-Government Committee. This organization published a journal called "Mita-hyoron." The current "Mita-hyoron" follows the lineage of the "Keio Gijuku Gakuho," and when the name was changed, the name of this past student journal was adopted. The journal at the time featured polemicists such as Takuzo Itakura, Shihoki Sawaki, and Sei'ichiro Takahashi, and it often contained critical and confrontational reports on the Juku's administration. In its pages, Koyama also called for reforms at the Juku, harshly criticizing it by saying that just as the heroes of the Meiji Restoration had suddenly changed to boast of titles like "Baron," the Juku had now fallen into such a state and was fostering an exclusionary spirit. It is interesting that a person in close contact with Fukuzawa was criticizing the Juku authorities. It can be interpreted that because he knew Fukuzawa's thoughts so well, he grieved for the current state of the Juku and sounded an alarm. On the other hand, the depth of tolerance and the free and vigorous spirit within the Juku at the time, which allowed the publication of a journal carrying such intense criticism, is also noteworthy.

In 1926, Koyama also criticized the authorities as an alumnus during a guest speech at the formation of the Preparatory Course Association. He lamented that while education should ideally be created with the same painstaking and kind effort as an artist's work, the school had become a mass-production type, growing from a scale of 800 students to over 10,000. He urged the authorities to exhaust their resources and efforts so that a kind eye could reach every student. He hoped that students would supplement any remaining shortcomings through the effort of mutual refinement and friendship. While taking pride in the long-standing spirit of self-government, he appealed that the "kindness" established since Fukuzawa's time was the true "blessing" of the Juku and the essence that made it great.

Koyama, who graduated from the Department of Law in 1901—the year Fukuzawa passed away—joined the Jiji Shinpo. He went to England as a foreign correspondent and, while writing articles, studied economics at the University of London. After returning to Japan, he utilized that experience as an economics reporter. After serving on the Ministry of Education's Popular Education Research Committee, he became a member of the House of Representatives for Nagano and left the Jiji Shinpo. However, in 1919, he served as Managing Director of Meiji Life Insurance, and in 1926, he became the President of Jiji Shinpo. Taking over as president after Fukuzawa's second son, Sutejiro, Koyama worked hard to improve the management, which was suffering due to the financial difficulties of the Osaka Jiji Shinpo and the total destruction of the company building in the Great Kanto Earthquake. However, he was hindered by the time taken for facility and equipment restoration and could not reach the point of providing support to sales outlets; as a result, the outcome was not favorable, and he resigned after one year in office.

As a Keio University alumni, he was elected as a councilor the year after graduation and was one of the promoters of the establishment of the Mita-kai. He also contributed as a committee member to the establishment of the Professional School, the drafting of revised regulations, and the search for a relocation site for the University Preparatory Course. Furthermore, during the war, he served on the Temporary Emergency Measures Committee, strongly urging the President to pay attention to the health of Keio students who had been mobilized for labor, and after the war, he was elected as a director, supporting the Juku through its hardships.

Similarly, at Kojunsha, he served as Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee and as a director, striving for the development of Kojunsha, including witnessing the relocation of the headquarters to its current Ginza location as a member of the Building Promotion Committee.

It can be said that he sincerely faced the three great enterprises left by Fukuzawa: Jiji Shinpo, Keio University, and Kojunsha. He also served as an auditor for Tokyo, a director of Kamakura Higher Girls' School, and a member of the Industrial Reconstruction Corporation Establishment Committee. After the war, he was appointed by imperial command to the House of Peers as a member of the Seiyu Club. It is evident that, like many Keio University alumni of the same era, he was a person respected in various fields.

Incidentally, Kojunsha had great influence at the time, and its lounge was the starting point for the First Movement to Protect Constitutional Government (the Taisho Political Crisis), in which opposition parties supported by the public forced the Katsura Cabinet to resign en masse. In addition to key members such as Ikunoshin Kadono and Eikichi Kamada, figures like Tsuyoshi Inukai, Yukio Ozaki, Momosuke Fukuzawa, and Koyama—who had just been elected to the House of Representatives from the Rikken Seiyukai—along with other so-called "Mita-派" (Mita faction) figures from the business and political worlds who graduated from the Juku, held heated discussions in the Kojunsha lounge about breaking down the cliques. Later, these Kojunsha volunteers called themselves the Constitutional Government Protection Association, moved their headquarters to Tsukiji Seiyoken, and continued their activities. Triggered by this passion and action, the public also rose up, leading to the resignation of the Katsura Cabinet. The funding for the movement was also primarily borne by businessmen who graduated from Keio University, centered around Momosuke Fukuzawa. In this way, the friendships among Keio University graduates—the so-called Mita faction—at Kojunsha had a major impact on the political world.

Koyama, who had a wide range of friendships through the business world, political world, and Kojunsha, was relied upon by people who could be called Japan's giants, such as Nariaki Ikeda, Nobuaki Makino, Makoto Saito, Fumimaro Konoe, Koichi Kido, and Yasuzaemon Matsunaga. He was especially favored by Kinmochi Saionji after participating as an attendant in the World War I peace conference held in Paris in 1918. (When asked by Saionji whether he preferred to be an official attendant, which would include rewards for services, or an unofficial one, Koyama chose unofficial, saying official status was bothersome. This offers a glimpse of a disciple of Fukuzawa who did not desire medals.) He played the role of an advisor and a source for information gathering until his later years.

To borrow the words of Shinzo Koizumi, he was a "patriot who, without being asked by anyone and without any personal gain, stepped forward to advise, mediate, and facilitate among people in important positions out of a heart that thought only of national affairs." This is recorded in detail in the "Kango Koyama Diary." Koizumi analyzed the reasons Koyama was held in high regard: first, his enthusiasm for national affairs; second, the pure parliamentarianism and liberalism, which could be called classical, that he gained by studying at Keio University and later studying in the UK as a Jiji Shinpo reporter; and third, his personal charm that balanced strictness in judging right from wrong with innocent charm. Kango Koyama, who spent the final eight years of Fukuzawa's life at Keio University, was, in the words of Kamesaburo Shinohara, a person who "embodied true democracy and lived his life as a true liberalist, continuing to worry and strive for Japan" until his death in July 1955.