Deep Forests and Large Lakes（深山大沢）

Background

After the founding of Doshisha English School (Doshisha Academy), Jo Neesima worked vigorously to establish his own ideal university, in response to the School Ordinance (a set of five imperial ordinances regulating the types of schools: elementary, secondary, and higher), which was issued in 1886 to establish a school system with the Imperial University (Predecessor of the University of Tokyo) at the top. In documents arguing the purpose of establishing Doshisha University, he repeatedly referred to a quote from a Chinese classic, which means, “Monsters like dragons and snakes are bornin Shinzan-Daitaku (深山大沢), deep forests and large lakes.” The quoteexpresses his wish to develop students like dragons and snakes who have generous hearts, firm ideas, and big ambitions. The year before his death, Neesima was ill in Kanto district, where he was campaigning to raise funds for the establishment of a university.
From there he sent a letter to Tsurujiro Koga, a senior student of Doshisha English School, encouraging him to keep this quote in mind, to live in the deep mountainous place at Doshisha, and in the future, to live as a dragon serpent to reach the top of Mt. Fuji. In a series of letters sent to Yasutada Yokota (1865–1935), who was also a senior student at Doshisha English School, Neesima’s thoughts in his later years are condensed, including several sentiments such as “I hope that more and more young people will emerge who fill their whole bodies with a conscience” (see “Conscience”) and “My life-long goal is freedom education, self-governing churches, both sides together, long live the state. Please guess my sentiments” (see “Freedom Education, Self-governing Churches, Both Together”). He also wrote of his desire to simplify the school rules and systems as much as possible and make Doshisha like “the deep forests and large lakes.”
　The phrase “Monsters like dragons and snakes are born in deep forests and large lakes,” which Neesima loved to recite, was taken from a passage in a commentary on Spring and Autumn Annals, one of the “Four Books and Five Classics” of Confucianism. This book, Shunju-Sashiden, has long been popular for learning Confucian common sense, and many idiomatic phrases are derived from this text. The phrase “deep mountains and large lakes” is used to describe a place that produces outstanding individuals, but if it is traced back to the original text, “dragons and snakes” were never desirable to the general public, but rather were objects of awe that could bring misfortune. In the passage from Shunju-Sashiden, a mother tells her son, “From the deep forests and large lakes come dragons and snakes. I fear that her beauty will give birth to a dragon or a snake that will bring misfortune to you” (Shunju-Sashiden, Iwanami-bunko, p. 260). Since ancient times, dragons and snakes have been metaphors for floods and landslides, symbolizing catastrophic natural phenomena that cannot be explained by ordinary knowledge. The person born of the “deep mountains and large lakes” is a troublesome being who cannot be easily tamed, which is in keeping with the “extraordinary person” (see “An Extraordinary Person”). It can also be said that the “deep mountains and large forests” are a mysterious window where the world beyond human knowledge meets the world of human beings. Returning to Japan after living abroad for ten years, Neesima must have seemed to the Japanese people in the early Meiji Period like a dragon serpent that had emerged from the “deep forests and large lakes.” Neesima himself did not mind public criticism that compared him to a snake or a scorpion. For example, he wrote a Chinese poem expressing his desire to someday achieve his great ambition and fly to the heavens (Yoshiro Ogawa, The Chinese Poem of Jo Neesima: Picking Up the Shadow of a Poet through Action, 1979, p. 822). What is indicated here is his determination not to be caught up in reputation among the public, and his hope that Doshisha students will understand his aspiration to serve the world even at the cost of his own life.

Contemporary Significance

Leaning in “Deep Forests and Large Lakes”

If Neesima was the dragon serpent, “the deep mountains and large lakes” that nurtured him might be the sea that he crossed onboard the Berlin and the Wild Rover and the land of New England he reached. Exploring the unknown world and being exposed to the winds of new knowledge and ideas, not only in the society of one’s birth, leads to the growth of a person with a tolerant heart, firm ideas, and great aspirations. For today’s students in the globalized world, there may be nothing new about simply studying abroad. However, we should consider that there are more opportunities to head off campus to “the deep forests and large lakes” outside of the campus. The use of online and virtual reality may also expand those opportunities.
　Although academic progress since the Meiji era has brought us much new knowledge, today’s society is faced with complex issues such as environmental issues, energy crises, problems of poverty and human rights that cannot be addressed by conventional academic systems or the efforts of a single country. The unknown frontiers in nature extend beyond the microscopic world and the earth, and it is now possible to explore the solar system and the galaxy beyond. Such frontiers are the equivalent of “the deep forests and large lakes” as points of contact with the other world and resonate with Neesima’s idea of the “universities as institutes of cosmological principles.”

“Deep Forests and Large Lakes” and the Diversity

In his letter to Yasutada Yokota, Neesima expressed his hope that Doshisha would be like “the deep forests and large lakes” that would allow small fish to grow and large fish to develop as they wished. He wished not only producing outstanding individuals like dragons and snakes, but that both small and large fish should serve the world and the nation according to their own abilities. Neesima hoped that students would work for the “improvement of society” according to their individuality. It is becoming an increasingly important task for today’s universities to accept people of different talents and different cultures, and to create campuses where diverse students can flourish according to their individuality. However, it is the practice of the big fish to devour the little fish, and the dragon serpent to overwhelm the others. To realize a symbiotic campus that embraces diversity, it is necessary to make the conscience inside each individual open to society (see “Conscience”).

(Akira Hayashida)