[Feature: Exhibiting the History of the Juku] Roundtable Discussion: Showing Through Stories—Toward Open Exhibition Facilities

On May 15, the Fukuzawa Yukichi Memorial Keio History Museum, which exhibits the history of Yukichi Fukuzawa and Keio University, will open in the Old University Library on the Mita Campus (*Opening is currently postponed due to the spread of COVID-19).

Today, I would like to take this opportunity to talk with experts about how to convey university or school history, how to exhibit it, what meaning to find in it, and how to pass it on to future generations.

First, I would like to ask Mr. Tokura, who has played a central role in the establishment of the Keio History Museum, to speak about the background and significance of its opening.

This museum exhibits the 160-plus-year history of Keio University, the life of Yukichi Fukuzawa, and the people associated with them. It is not just a history of value to those affiliated with Keio; we included the catchphrase "The very struggle of modern Japan" in our pamphlet.

The exhibition method is orthodox and not eccentric, focusing on showing photographs and actual objects with explanatory text, and we want to place emphasis on letting visitors touch the actual objects as much as possible.

At Keio, biographies were compiled in the Taisho era and complete works were edited to convey the figure of Fukuzawa. The compilation of the hundred-year history shortly after the war was also said to be pioneering, and it seems that history has been valued. Curiously, however, an exhibition facility never materialized. As far as I have researched, there are records of talks about creating a memorial hall several times since 1937, but it fell through time and again—first due to material shortages under the wartime regime, then after the war because priority was given to rebuilding school buildings, and once because a major donor suddenly passed away.

The Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies was established in 1983, and from the beginning, it was expected to compile historical materials and exhibit them, but nearly 40 years have passed.

I think Keio played a leading role in conveying the history of its founder and the school through academic research at Research Centers and Institutes, but it was completely late in conveying history through "exhibitions."

In my understanding, the direct trigger for the creation of this museum was in 2015, when then-President Seike and his party visited Harvard University and were shown a letter from Fukuzawa indicating the connection between Keio and Harvard. It just so happened that the Old University Library building was to be renovated for seismic reinforcement, and momentum grew to create a historical exhibition facility when it was refurbished.

Until now, there was a very small exhibition room on the first floor of the Old University Library where items related to Fukuzawa were displayed, but it was not usually open to the public. So this is the first full-scale exhibition facility.

Now, I would like to ask Mr. Inoue of the Shibusawa Memorial Museum, which is a predecessor as a museum related to a historical figure.

Our museum opened in 1982, but the origin of the museum itself lies in the Japan Business History Museum concept proposed by his grandson, Keizo, in 1937.

This was a very large-scale concept that did not simply introduce Eiichi Shibusawa, but considered the period from the Bunka-Bunsei era shortly before Shibusawa was born until the end of the Meiji era as a single span, capturing the transformation of culture. Unusually for that time, they also began collecting visual materials such as nishiki-e (woodblock prints) and photographs, and collected a large and systematic amount of daily utensils and literature that told the story of that era. It also included a concept for a portrait room to collect and introduce portraits of the people who led that era. However, this also had to be abandoned due to the influence of the war and other factors.

Another pillar of the Shibusawa Foundation's work is the compilation and publication of the "Biographical Materials of Eiichi Shibusawa," a vast collection of materials summarized in 68 volumes. This comprehensively includes primary materials such as management records of businesses Shibusawa was involved in and letters from people he interacted with, as well as reference materials from newspaper and magazine articles. These "Biographical Materials of Eiichi Shibusawa" were completed in 1971 after more than 40 years, spanning the war.

The Japan Business History Museum concept was interrupted, but our museum opened in 1982, limited to introducing Eiichi Shibusawa as in the business history museum concept, centered on materials collected during the compilation of the biographical materials. When it first opened, it started modestly using the Seien Bunko, a Taisho-era library building that remained on the site of the former residence, as the main building.

We restarted in the current main building in 1998. Since then, facilities have been improved, a special exhibition room has been established, and historical materials can now be stored in a proper repository.

I have worked as a curator since the museum opened, but since taking on the role of director in 2004, I established an Information Resource Concept to strongly disseminate various information from the museum. We have worked on creating databases of various materials and producing digital content by extracting material information, providing information to many people through the web for their use.

In addition, through Shibusawa, we have strengthened cooperation with research institutions such as universities around the world, promoted joint research, and embarked on educational projects based on research results. As a research institution, we also aimed to have a hub function for providing information. I aimed for what is often called MLA collaboration (collaboration between museums, libraries, and archives), but for me, I am doing it with the desire to integrate them rather than just collaborate.

The Shibusawa Memorial Museum was renovated last year, wasn't it?

Yes. It was delayed by about six months due to the influence of COVID-19, but it reopened in November last year.

In this exhibition, visitors can first "trace" what kind of achievements Eiichi Shibusawa left in a chronological format year by year. It is also structured to "know" more deeply and "touch" to experience Shibusawa. While effectively displaying original historical materials, we want to digitize the information contained within them—for example, by having visitors read QR codes with their smartphones to further deepen their understanding.

Now, I would like to ask Mr. Muramatsu of the Meiji University History Archives.

The Meiji University History Archives was established in 2003, exactly 20 years after the opening of the Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies. Since 2004, we have established a permanent university history exhibition room in a small space of about 100 square meters in a building called the Academy Common on the Surugadai Campus. In fiscal 2011, we established the "Yu Aku Memorial Museum," an exhibition facility for the graduate lyricist Yu Aku, whom we call an "alumnus" at Meiji University.

Unlike Keio, Meiji's founders are not famous, and there are three of them. It is not uncommon for private universities other than Keio and Waseda to have multiple founders. Also, in the case of Meiji University, there are almost no historical materials on the founders, so the weight of the exhibition is relatively small. Most of the exhibition room consists of a general history exhibition, the history of the faculties, an introduction to the campus, and introductions to monumental buildings and famous graduates.

I myself am entrusted with roles such as the secretariat of an organization called the National Council for University Archives, which is a federation of about 110 universities. We exchange information and hold joint exhibitions through this council. Separately, I have obtained KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) to collaborate among five universities with origins in the Kanda law schools (Senshu, Chuo, Nihon, Hosei, and Meiji) to hold study groups and joint exhibitions.

Now, I would like to ask Mr. Matsuoka, who is centrally involved in research and survey activities at the Nakatsu City Museum of History and the Shin-Nakatsu City School.

I am currently at the Shin-Nakatsu City School, which was originally a history and folklore museum, and before that, the Obata Memorial Library. It was renovated in 2019 and became a cultural facility named after the Nakatsu City School, which was established in 1871 at the suggestion of Fukuzawa. Also, as a new museum, the Nakatsu City Museum of History was established near Nakatsu Castle in the same year. These facilities are equipped with repositories, and joint research has been underway since their establishment to deepen research on Keio University-related people from Nakatsu, such as Fukuzawa and Obata, partly to strengthen the partnership agreement with Keio.

I used to be a part-time researcher at the Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies, and partly because I participated in the Nakatsu Archives Course, a project that is part of the collaboration between Keio University and Nakatsu, I am now working as a curator in Nakatsu City.

The Nakatsu City Museum of History exhibits the history of Nakatsu as a general history from the Jomon period to the early modern and modern eras. On the other hand, the Fukuzawa Memorial Museum near Fukuzawa's former residence is in charge of the modern part. Therefore, when holding joint exhibitions between the Museum of History and the Fukuzawa Memorial Museum, since there is currently no specialized curator at the Memorial Museum, I am in charge of moving historical materials in and out. Especially for the Yukichi Fukuzawa exhibition, Nakatsu City is holding exhibitions that allow visitors to feel Yukichi Fukuzawa throughout the entire town while coordinating between the Memorial Museum and the Museum of History.

Thank you all very much. Now, I would like to first think about the meaning of exhibiting university and school history. I think the visitors targeted by university history exhibition facilities can be broadly divided into those inside the university or school community and those outside.

The people inside would be current students, faculty and staff, graduates, and also the families of students and graduates. The outside is very diverse, but I would like to ask what the aims and meanings are of showing the history of the university to such diverse visitors.

Private universities have some kind of philosophy or founding spirit, and the desire to raise young people is the starting point. I think it is important to continue confirming that part, especially for those involved. It is our raison d'être, our mission.

Not only that, but I think there is meaning in questioning that philosophy for those outside the university as well, if there is a part that can be shared. Broadly speaking, I think it is to continue questioning "what is education" and "how to live" after learning. Getting people outside the university to empathize is very difficult, and I think it is also a place for Keio's self-inspection.

In creating the exhibition, it is of course important to make it feel interesting to people who have school spirit and an attachment to the founder, but I was careful that it should not be told in words aimed only at a limited group of insiders.

Words like "Keio University alumni" or "Keio Gijuku Shachu" tend to give off an insider feel. The same goes for "alumni" at other universities.

If you speak in words that alienate the majority of people, that facility will become a closed one even if it is a place where anyone can come. Therefore, I thought very hard about what kind of words to use for this exhibition.

I agree, and I think it is very important that it must not become self-praise.

In the case of Meiji, I think it is important in self-history education to first position where one is. And for people outside, I consider having them know what kind of position Meiji holds by positioning it within the whole.

I think this is related to the fact that Meiji's founders are not famous. Of course, we also think about things like the penetration of the founding spirit and the cultivation of a sense of belonging, but on the other hand, how to position our own university history within the whole of private universities, the whole of Japanese universities, and the whole of world higher education, as well as within the expansion of modern Japanese history and world history, has been considered very important in the compilation of our history, and that has been a consistent stance to the present.

When it comes to the self-history of a single school, there is a risk that it will lose universality and become self-praise. Therefore, as long as we are conducting education and exhibitions at a university, we need to provide qualitative guarantees as something that meets the standards of historical research. And in classes and exhibitions, I want to reflect comparative perspectives and findings from recent research.

For example, at Meiji University, we tend to say, "The founders in their early 30s were great for creating a university at a young age," but compared to the founders of universities established in the 1880s, Meiji's founders (Tatsuo Kishimoto, Kozo Miyagi, and Misao Yashiro) were not exceptionally young.

From the first to the second decade of the Meiji era, the number of people studying abroad in their late teens and 20s increased, and they returned to Japan after absorbing new knowledge. When they returned, they were the top runners and there were no predecessors around them, so socially, the younger generation had to become the ones in charge and give back what they had learned through education. There was such a social and national demand, so the founders of schools established in the 1880s were generally young.

This kind of thing can be understood by looking at other school histories, and I think the perspective of comparing within the whole is very important.

It's about positioning and relativizing one's own school within the whole of universities.

Mr. Matsuoka, the Shin-Nakatsu City School is a collaborative project between Nakatsu City and Keio University. Do you have any thoughts on having such an exhibition space in an area far from the university?

If you ask if many people in Nakatsu go on to Keio, I don't think that's particularly the case. However, I do feel that they react quite sensitively to the word Keio.

On the other hand, I think the rate of students from regional areas going on to Keio University is decreasing year by year. I myself went to Keio University from a regional public school, but I felt that the desire to absolutely go to Waseda, Keio, or Meiji was fading at my high school. In such a situation, I feel it is a strength to be able to hold exhibitions that show the characteristics of Keio University in a place like Nakatsu where there is a commonality in Yukichi Fukuzawa.

From the perspective of the university's social contribution, I think regional collaboration is very important. I think there are various methods, but in terms of re-examining the founder through joint research and various other aspects, I think it can play a major role.

In the case of the Shibusawa Memorial Museum, unlike a university, there may not be an inside or outside. However, the visitors are very diverse, including people from the business world, history enthusiasts, and many others.

That's right. Of course, many people visit from the perspective of Shibusawa as an individual. Since Shibusawa's achievements involve many companies and various universities, some people come out of interest in each business history.

As a museum, we have also planned to explore the history of each business entity and the origins of the industry using Eiichi Shibusawa as a catalyst. We assembled the exhibition in the form of joint research while sharing historical materials and information with the people in charge of the so-called company histories of companies that have been passed down to the present. In the future, we plan to look at so-called social work and get involved with various social welfare organizations and schools.

In such attempts, I think the meaning of building modernity that Eiichi Shibusawa envisioned at the time can be read within each business, and I want to find the philosophy that runs through his diverse activities and what Eiichi Shibusawa was aiming for, and convey that widely.

From what I've researched a little, it seems that many university history exhibition facilities have been established relatively recently, since 2000. Mr. Muramatsu, what are the circumstances behind this?

Speaking from the compilation of university history, Meiji started compiling its history about 20-plus years later than Keio. Keio started compiling its history very early, relating it to Fukuzawa research since before the war, but after the war, it was epoch-making that the "Hundred-Year History of Keio University" began to be published in 1958 as a pioneer of university history.

Before the war, the "Fifty-Year History of Tokyo Imperial University" was published, but after that, the largest-scale one since the war is Keio's "Hundred-Year History." Many schools established in the 1880s, including Meiji University, began compiling their histories in the 1970s and 80s. Their completion was roughly in the 90s. Therefore, Keio was the top runner in university history, including national universities, and other universities followed 20 or 30 years later.

Through this compilation of history, how to utilize the collected historical materials, findings, and knowledge was a major issue for each university. When the compilation of the "Fifty-Year History of Tokyo Imperial University" was finished, there was no department to preserve it, and the historical materials were scattered. That became a major point of reflection, and from the 90s to the 2000s, national universities began to move toward creating university archives triggered by the enactment of laws such as the Information Disclosure Act and the Public Records Management Act.

The pioneer was the Kyoto University Archives established in 2000. In the case of private universities, the documents and historical materials created are not public records, so the establishment of university archives in the sense of exhibition facilities or material preservation became popular instead of archives in the legal sense.

In particular, in self-history education, I think the review of general basic education accompanying the 1991 deregulation of the Standards for Establishment of Universities became the trigger, and a trend emerged to utilize self-history education or exhibitions for the purpose of having students know the founding spirit and increasing the sense of belonging of graduates.

Looking at the opening status of exhibition facilities, I think places where the positioning of the founder is significant established exhibition facilities relatively early. Examples include the Naruse Memorial Hall at Japan Women's University in 1984 and the Seikei Gakuen Archives established in 1988. These were done as movements separate from the compilation of history, but in contrast, the number of universities that established facilities after finishing a major compilation of history increased considerably in the 2000s.

Major ones include the Meiji University History Exhibition Room in 2004, the Kansai University History Materials Exhibition Room in 2006, the Ochanomizu University History Museum in the same year, the Harris Science Hall Doshisha Gallery in 2013, the Kokugakuin University Museum, the Rikkyo Gakuin Exhibition Hall in 2014, the Tohoku Gakuin Archives and the permanent exhibition at Kanagawa University, and the Teikyo University Museum in 2015. In 2018, Waseda University created a very large-scale University History Museum, and in 2020, the HOSEI Museum was established.

At first, many places had strong elements of individual exhibitions, but I have the impression that they are shifting to a wide range of exhibitions, such as general university history exhibitions, campuses, buildings, famous graduates and faculty, and regional collaboration.

As for the way of showing, since university history exhibitions inevitably involve an increase in paper and objects, some places utilize digital signage, hands-on exhibitions (exhibitions that can be touched), or exhibitions in the form of VR.

I think the direction has been to utilize the historical materials collected through the compilation of history and exhibit them in that way over the past 10 to 20 years.

Thank you for the very detailed information. So the flow is that the compilation of history came first, and once those historical materials were gathered, they began to be shown.

Furthermore, what I think is that, especially in the case of private universities, with the recent declining birthrate, they must attract many new students. In that respect, I feel there is also a movement to strengthen public relations activities.

Regarding the themes to be exhibited, what kind of themes is the Keio History Museum trying to place particular emphasis on?

In general, I think there is a direction for exhibitions aimed at experts that show the latest research results, and a direction that broadens the base by getting various people interested in an educational way.

Fukuzawa is a person with high name recognition, but his life is not necessarily well known, so just putting out basic information has an enormous volume. And Keio also has a 160-year history, the longest among private schools, so just showing the main parts is a sufficient amount. Therefore, rather than showing novel things, the focus became putting out basic information.

However, precisely because it is basic information, I wanted to explain it kindly and carefully so that visitors could get some kind of hint or find a clue for exploration, leading to further development.

I think Shibusawa is the same, but Fukuzawa spreads into diverse fields. Business, insurance, statistics, politics, media, literature, sports... there is no end to it, so we decided to take up deep stories in special exhibitions from time to time, including the latest research, and made it feel like we are sowing as diverse seeds as possible. Earlier, Mr. Inoue mentioned a catalyst, and I hope we can create opportunities for people to get inspiration or find something they want to look into through the exhibition.

When taking up a person, what are the key points? In other words, there is the aspect of honoring them, and on the other hand, exhibiting objectively and academically—how do you think about that balance?

Or, since there are various evaluations of a person, there are positive evaluations, or evaluations said to be legitimate, and then there are different theories that are not so. How do you think about such things when exhibiting?

Eiichi Shibusawa is attracting a lot of attention now, but honestly, I think for many people, it's a situation where they are hearing the name Eiichi Shibusawa for the first time. Therefore, I see now as a good opportunity and try to make sure they understand how much he comprehensively did his best to organize society across many fields while modern Japanese society was being built.

Also, when capturing the life of Eiichi Shibusawa, we were able to show a year-by-year exhibition with this renovation, but with our previous capabilities, we were limited to introducing him by field, such as the world of business, social welfare projects, educational projects, and the world of private diplomacy. If you do that, it looks like a story where he achieved results in the world of business and then gave back to society in the latter half of his life by putting his efforts into welfare, medical care, and education.

However, if you take a chronological approach, you can see, for example, that the First National Bank was founded in 1873, and the following year he was involved in social welfare projects. I think visitors are now able to see Shibusawa's way of life, in which he was involved in the world with a comprehensive perspective, more correctly and empirically through raw historical materials.

I see. Mr. Tokura, in the case of Fukuzawa, he was a person who was a subject of controversy and whose evaluation was divided even during his lifetime. What points did you pay attention to when exhibiting?

That's right. I want to value the perspective of relativizing him with a certain amount of distance. I struggled a lot with how to strike that balance.

When people think of Keio, it is sometimes said to be like a religion that worships Fukuzawa, but in fact, there have been many people who have studied Fukuzawa with a cool distance for a long time. For example, Shinzo Koizumi only said "Yukichi Fukuzawa" when he was President, but after the war, he reflected that he had to speak of him as a historical figure, "Yukichi Fukuzawa," and even wrote a piece titled "Yukichi Fukuzawa and Yukichi Fukuzawa." There is a strong awareness in Keio's tradition that he must be seen as a figure in modern history and must not be made into a god, and it could be said that is precisely why there has been no exhibition facility until now.

In this exhibition, we created a corner that collected words from contemporaries who evaluated Fukuzawa in various ways, such as "Fukuzawa for tall tales, Yukichi for lies." There are words that speak very ill of him, and of course, words that praise him.

It's a device to let the words of the time speak, saying, "He was a person who was told many things, but what do you think?" and then let each person think for themselves. As long as the founder is exhibited within the school, it is generally seen as being told on a positive premise.

But the diverse positive and negative discussions themselves can also be an entry point for thinking about modernity. Thinking that showing that also connects to Fukuzawa's awareness of the issues, as he encouraged "independence and self-respect through diverse opinions," we took up quite a bit of space and dared to exhibit it as one of the introductions for looking at history from multiple angles.

That corner is interesting, isn't it? Mr. Matsuoka, what do you think are the key points when exhibiting various figures in Nakatsu?

I think there are regional characteristics, but it is hard to escape from the fact that honoring someone comes out strongly. Personally, I want to judge and evaluate with an equal and bird's-eye view, but for example, for a person named Toyotaro Isomura from Nakatsu, the primary materials used basically might only be a commemorative book honoring Mr. Isomura.

I think figures like Fukuzawa and Shibusawa are in a blessed environment when making judgments because historical materials are quite abundant, but for figures for whom there are few things other than primary materials originally created for the purpose of honoring them, I think they must be handled carefully.

Fukuzawa himself is a person whose evaluation during the war and after the war changed completely. Even when evaluating a person named Sotaro Masuda, who was honored during the war and who plotted to assassinate Fukuzawa, he is highly praised in writings from during the war, and there are doubts about their credibility. I want to hold exhibitions of Fukuzawa's disciples while also paying attention to such points.

I would like to talk about the specific objects to be exhibited. Regarding the use of actual items versus replicas, models, or dioramas, what is the policy of the Keio History Museum?

There are several items that we absolutely want to keep on display at all times, so even if we bring out the originals from time to time, we will also use replicas in conjunction with them.

Otherwise, our policy is to determine the framework of the themes we want to talk about in the exhibition and periodically rotate various actual objects.

We chose exhibits that were not just vaguely related materials, but things that had something to say. I was conscious of whether I would think "Oh, wow" if I were a visitor myself. Since the explanatory text is only about 100 characters, it was quite a struggle to fit that "Oh, wow" factor in there.

Going to see other exhibition facilities, I felt that interest in the history of buildings and campuses is polarized between those involved and those who are not. In other words, the history of a school building you didn't attend isn't very interesting.

Therefore, for the buildings, we created elaborate models. This is because a model itself has appeal as an exhibit. In addition, we carefully researched and wrote down what happened to each building afterwards. If you read it, you can see modern Japanese history through the buildings. Since Keio lacked construction funds, many buildings were relocated, and I even wrote in the model captions that it was said that "Japanese real estate is movable property." I also noticed through this that the Mita school building from the Fukuzawa era was relocated and used at Keio High School in Hiyoshi until the 1970s.

Materials related to Fukuzawa also tend to become exhibitions of paper and characters, so we composed it by incorporating objects as much as possible. I think the power and appeal of objects are very large. Even if the object itself is mundane, if there is a story to tell, it suddenly becomes interesting. We were also conscious of the interest in seeing paper materials as objects—the appearance of the characters, the form of the materials, and so on.

Certainly, unlike paper media such as chronological histories or historical document collections, I strongly feel that there is inspiration to be gained from the objects themselves.

However, academically speaking, it is better to exhibit the text as it is so that it can actually be read, but for general visitors, that would be bothersome, and there will be a strong demand to enjoy it more. There is also a balance in what proportion to make it an exhibition that shows actual objects.

To be honest, among the historical materials related to Shibusawa, so-called physical objects are extremely few. It is centered on paper materials, and moreover, they are management materials or administrative documents, which are not particularly eye-catching in appearance. Within that, we have to rack our brains for a presentation that expresses how meaningful the content written inside is.

Fortunately, photographs, videos, and the actual voice of Eiichi Shibusawa have been preserved, so we are struggling to make people feel Eiichi Shibusawa in a multifaceted way within the same space by skillfully intertwining such things.

For example, he might say something in the business world at the same time, but in a speech about social welfare work, some contradictions might appear, or conversely, a more human image might emerge. We try to find materials that show not just a machine-like person who simply promoted business, but someone who worried and suffered within that, and we devise ways to make Eiichi Shibusawa's achievements as tangible as possible.

In university history exhibitions, it is the same everywhere that most of the collection materials are paper. Since the exhibition inevitably becomes flat, we think about increasing the number of objects as much as possible for that reason, but there are limits to that as well, so for example, we have recently started using VR.

Since Meiji University has a small site, we have been building and tearing down buildings, but there is a monumental building called the Izumi Campus Building No. 2 that will be demolished next year. The other day, we performed 3D point cloud data measurement by laser and texture photography of that building. By preserving the data and utilizing it in CG or VR, the building itself will not remain, but I believe it is possible to let it live on in memory.

Also, for example, some universities are attempting to reproduce the voices of their founders. Nihon University conducted an excavation of the grave of its founder, Akiyoshi Yamada, and professors from the School of Medicine and the School of Dentistry collaborated to attempt to reproduce Akiyoshi Yamada's voice based on his skeletal structure. I heard the excavation also referred to the investigation during the relocation of Yukichi Fukuzawa's grave at Keio.

In this way, I believe that devising ways to present things using new technologies in various forms has become a challenge for exhibitions.

What about the Eiichi Shibusawa android? (laughs)

That one is not ours (Note: on display at the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Museum in Fukaya), but we did supervise its production. It was created by verifying gestures and such from films in our collection. Two were made, and they are truly spitting images.

When the android of Eiichi Shibusawa in his 70s starts preaching the "Theory of the Unity of Morality and Economy," it has a great sense of presence, and it really feels like you are being taught directly (laughs). In terms of exerting that kind of influence, I think it is a tremendous device.

It is not something we can easily create at our museum, but recently, there have been increasing attempts to make people feel closer to the original historical materials by showing them within a space created to be full of presence using VR and other technologies.

There are countless Keio graduates and people related to Yukichi Fukuzawa, so when it comes to deciding who to exhibit, it is difficult to choose. It would be a problem if everyone clamored to be included.

As a way to solve this, we thought of a mechanism called "Shachu Who’s Who" using digital technology, where everyone is packed into a virtual screen for introduction. Portrait photos float around the screen in large numbers, and when you select one person, their brief biography opens, and people related to that person gather around. Through this, we tried to express the multifaceted connections of diverse people.

This is very interesting; for example, if you tap on someone who was active in Keio sports, people related to the Athletic Association appear around them, and if you press that person, their profile comes up. It felt like you could play with it indefinitely.

Since both Yukichi Fukuzawa and Eiichi Shibusawa were people with very diverse personal networks, it might be quite difficult to decide how to exhibit those networks.

What we often used in exhibitions before the renewal were letters. For example, regarding interactions with people in the economic field, we would pick up representative figures, introduce their lives, and explain that they had interactions with Shibusawa as written in these letters.

Now we are creating various digital contents on our website, and we want to show the networks in businesses related to Eiichi Shibusawa there as well, and we hope to utilize that in our exhibitions.

What about the captions attached to the exhibits? There is the question of how specialized the writing should be, and another is the response to internationalization, such as how to handle foreign language notation.

Since we cannot replace everything with multiple languages, we are making sure to always include English for the primary explanations first. We are also adding English to the corner titles, but in the future, we plan to add detailed translations and consider other languages, and we are currently conceiving a system where visitors can scan and view parallel translations on their smartphones in the exhibition room.

The era in which Eiichi Shibusawa lived had various technical terms, and simply writing them in Roman characters and italics does not convey the meaning. How to denote those concepts is a challenge. Also, we are currently building a so-called thesaurus, or something like an encyclopedia.

At the Keio History Museum, we also provide English notation for all captions and explanatory texts. As you just mentioned, we struggled with how to translate technical terms, words unique to Keio University, and quotations. In cases where there were no past translation examples, we had to decide on translated terms in a way that makes sense historically, and the internal translation team devoted a great deal of effort to this.

Regarding the explanatory texts, I tried to draw "auxiliary lines" for viewing, as if to say, "It's interesting if you look at it this way." I was quite conscious of letting the visitors discover things for themselves, so as not to make it a hard sell of what is interesting.

The fact that there are many paper items is the same in the case of Nakatsu. At the Fukuzawa Memorial Museum, the second floor is almost entirely an exhibition of letters. We are currently searching for ways to improve that, but when we held an exhibition titled "The Calligraphy of Yukichi Fukuzawa" this fiscal year, we struggled to create "hooks" to get even those who cannot read cursive script interested, such as by exhibiting as many photos as possible that were close to Fukuzawa's face at that time.

Also, at the Memorial Museum, we have a panel exhibition called the "Fukuzawa Mountain Range" regarding Fukuzawa's personal network, which comprehensively displays portrait photos and brief profiles of his disciples, and we also hold an exhibition called "The Fukuzawa Network in Nakatsu" that features quite local figures.

From the writing style of "The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa," it is often said that Fukuzawa might not have thought very well of Nakatsu, but in reality, he collaborated with influential people in Nakatsu on various activities, such as founding the Nakatsu City School and preserving the Yabakei Valley. Therefore, in view of the fact that cooperation with influential people whose names are well known in Nakatsu was essential, we are holding exhibitions of personal networks unique to the local area.

Regarding the relationship between research and education functions and institutional history education, what trends can you point out, Mr. Muramatsu?

As I mentioned earlier, institutional history education began at various universities around the late 1990s, and in conjunction with regional cooperation, Meiji University has also implemented events to introduce the founders by visiting their birthplaces, and has interacted and exchanged information with local researchers.

Among the three founders of Meiji University, Tatsuo Kishimoto, the first principal, was from Tottori City. Another founder, Misao Yashiro, was from Sabae City in Fukui Prefecture, and the third, Kozo Miyagi, who served as vice principal, was from Tendo City in Yamagata Prefecture. We conducted student dispatch programs and other activities in these locations. Since the founders are not well known even in their hometowns, we had students gather information on how to make the founders better known through interaction with local people, and also held events to revitalize the local areas.

I have been talking only about the "verification" of figures, and haven't talked much about the "commemoration" side of praising them, but I believe both verification and commemoration are important. Professor Yasuhiro Motoi, who researches Jō Niijima of Doshisha, says that to conduct good biographical research, one must do both commemoration (praising) and verification (investigating).

In the case of Meiji, we tended to be somewhat detached, but now Director Kazuhiro Murakami of the center is working on unearthing and re-evaluating the early papers of the founders. Meiji would also like to follow Keio's example and make an effort to do the praising side as well.

In institutional history education, is the Keio History Museum also considering, for example, becoming part of a tour course for affiliated schools, or collaborating with classes related to the history of the Juku in undergraduate or graduate schools?

Yes. We would definitely like people to utilize it, from affiliated schools to the university, whenever there is an opportunity. Although it was before the opening, we already had Keio Yokohama Elementary School students visit the other day. Once it opens, I would be happy if it could be used in a way where a whole class comes to visit together. I think people who think it's a completely unrelated field are more likely to make fundamental discoveries with pure eyes.

I think the locations and buildings where exhibition facilities are established also have a strong message. What about the historical significance of the place where the exhibition facility itself stands, or the building itself?

As I mentioned at the beginning, our base is the former Asukayama residence, which became Eiichi Shibusawa's final home. Moreover, two of the buildings remaining there can now be seen in their original form as Important Cultural Properties. There are parts of the garden where the landscape that visitors walked through with Eiichi Shibusawa in the past remains, and I believe that when you actually step into it, there is an atmosphere where you can experience something more than what can be conveyed through words.

Also, when we exhibit things written by Eiichi Shibusawa inside the building, I believe that the way it is conveyed allows Shibusawa's emotions to come through more than seeing calligraphy inside an inorganic building.

The issue of location is very important, and recently each university has been positioning it as one of the pillars in their exhibitions. Also, the relationship between the location of the campus and the town is very important, and it is necessary to think about them in conjunction.

For example, in the case of Meiji, the reason we had no choice but to place the campus in the city center was, simply put, because we could not afford to hire full-time faculty. The source of faculty for Meiji University, which was born as Meiji Law School, was researchers from the University of Tokyo in Hongo, and the other was legal bureaucrats from the Ministry of Justice in Marunouchi.

Since those people came to Meiji as part-time instructors, we had no choice but to place the campus in Ochanomizu, the midpoint between Hongo and Marunouchi. It was the same for other law schools in the vicinity, such as Senshu, Hosei, Chuo, and Nihon universities, and as a result, schools gathered and a student district was formed in the Kanda area.

In this way, the history of the town and the university are deeply related, so they naturally become subjects of research, and it is necessary to seek cooperation from the people in the town. We formed an organization called the Law School Research Group, which shares the place of Kanda, in collaboration with the five Kanda universities that originated from the five law schools I just mentioned. We obtained KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) and are conducting cross-sectional joint research on the education and figures of the law schools of that period. Within that, we recently held a photo exhibition titled "Memories of the Kanda Student District: Traces of the Five Great Law Schools."

We covered the period from 1880 to 1980, when Chuo moved from Surugadai to Tama, and it was truly interesting. As we collected them, a very large photo database of the Kanda area was created. We are talking about cooperating with local people in the future to collect more photos and start the database in earnest.

The story of collaboration between universities is very interesting. Regarding locality, how is it in Nakatsu?

Nakatsu is a place where the streets and townscape from the era when Fukuzawa lived are fairly well preserved, retaining the atmosphere of the townscape of that time. While it is difficult for the museum to introduce experiential types such as VR, we place great importance on locality through the experience of walking through the town.

The Shin-Nakatsu City School, where I am now, was originally the former residence of Tokujirō Obata. The current Obata Memorial Library was also built on the site of the Shinshukan, a clan school attended by upper-class samurai that Fukuzawa could not attend. Cultural facilities have been passed down through generations, and the characteristics of the place remain as they were.

Nakatsu Castle is also nearby, and as you walk, for example, the houses of Toyoji Wada and Hikojiro Nakamigawa remain as parks. It is a characteristic area where you can trace the birthplaces of figures around Fukuzawa quite extensively. After reading "The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa," if you walk through the narrow streets of Nakatsu, you can feel, "Oh, this person's house is in a place like this." I continue to update maps that reflect such details minutely.

Visitors to the former Fukuzawa residence also seem to feel that the house is large, so in the future, I hope to introduce models or VR to restore the house that was called the "Blood-Stained Spear Residence" (Chiyari-yashiki), which I think would allow for an even better exhibition where locality can be felt.

So the whole of Nakatsu has become like one historical museum. What about the building of the Keio History Museum, or the locality of Mita?

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Keio University's move to Mita. Since Keio did not move from Mita, I think it is a grateful thing to be able to be conscious of the continuity of the place. The building of the Old University Library also allows one to feel the weight of 109 years, even though it has gone through war damage. In that space, we can talk about the history of this school and its predecessors, and through that, we can have people reconsider the struggles of the people who lived through modern Japan.

By being linked by location, people can feel that Fukuzawa was right here on this land, his disciples studied here, and students lived here. Regardless of whether they are related to Keio or not, I hope they can view the exhibition content as a matter related to themselves.

The room where the museum is located was originally the library's reading room, and for our generation, it was the room where we held faculty meetings in the large conference room. It feels like that room itself is a piece of history.

Finally, could I have a few words from each of you regarding the future of your respective facilities?

The underlying research is now truly diverse, and we are trying to re-examine Eiichi Shibusawa within a very broad interdisciplinary study. Based on those results, I hope to convey them to everyone by replacing them with newer exhibitions.

On the other hand, we want to strive even harder to strengthen information dissemination utilizing the digital content we are aiming for. In terms of the physical side, while showing objects firmly, we also want to broadly organize the inherited information in a form that can be utilized more.

This year, in a public lecture with Keio University, we plan to feature a book titled "Nakatsu Ryubetsu no Sho" (A Book of Farewell to Nakatsu) written by Yukichi Fukuzawa for the people of Nakatsu. Since I feel that the impression of Fukuzawa in Nakatsu has not yet improved, we are also planning an exhibition to deepen understanding of the "Fukuzawa Family," including descendants and ancestors.

Since the museum opened in the first year of Reiwa, through several special exhibitions, I have felt a response that reactions regarding Yukichi Fukuzawa have gradually come back from the people of Nakatsu, and I have increasingly received contacts regarding the donation of historical materials of Yukichi Fukuzawa and his disciples. While ensuring research quality, I want to put more effort into dissemination using new historical materials.

Since Keio's museum is also opening, I hope we can also achieve collaboration, such as through special exhibitions.

This year is the 140th anniversary of the founding of Meiji University, and we plan to hold a special exhibition of figures titled "Alumni Mountain Range." I hope to use this as an opportunity to develop research into Meiji University's personal networks.

Due to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, exhibition rooms may have time limits, so for those who cannot come, we want to create a mechanism to make people feel the Meiji University alumni mountain range by uploading videos centered on interviews with famous graduates to YouTube.

Finally, from my position in charge of university history collaboration, there is something I would definitely like to say to Keio, which is a leader driving Japanese universities as a whole. Whether taking the history of the university or Yukichi Fukuzawa, Keio itself is an existence that bears a part of modern Japanese history. Therefore, as an exhibition, Keio University alone and Yukichi Fukuzawa alone can be sufficiently self-contained.

I understand that, but I would like you to lead the way in co-creating exhibitions that generate great value and broad empathy, or education related to university history, together with universities and institutions that share the same values. I sincerely look forward to the future development of your exhibitions.

Mr. Muramatsu just said some very poignant things, but Keio inevitably ends up being self-contained, and the solidarity of its graduates is also very unique. Also, when talking about history, there is so much information that it's almost overwhelming, so to be honest, we don't have the luxury to look around and talk about what kind of position we occupied within that.

I believe that the creation of this museum is a starting point. I think it has provided an opportunity to engage in comparisons and collaborations in the form of exhibitions, so I believe there will be various ways to expand in the future, such as cooperation between universities, between figures, and with regions. And I hope we can contribute to mutually enhancing the values we share.

As mentioned in Mr. Tokura's talk, I have expectations for deepening exchanges in a way that this museum becomes a hub for a network of education and research.

Thank you very much for sharing your valuable stories today despite your busy schedules. We look forward to working with you in the future.

After the Keio History Museum opens on May 15, it will be by prior reservation for the time being. Please see the website for details.