Freedom Education, Self-governing Churches, Both Together（自由教育、自治教会、両者併行）

Background

This is the last sentence of a letter dated November 23, 1889, that Neesima wrote to Yasutada Yokota during a business trip. Neesima often wrote letters like this to students he trusted. These words are a spirit that Neesima cherished and repeatedly conveyed to those around him, so much so that a banner bearing these words was displayed at Neesima’s funeral. In the letter containing these words, the following sentence from “Self-governing Independence and Freedom” also appears.

Freedom Education

Freedom education is an education that makes students aware that they are free people (see “Freedom”), liberated by the love of Christ and renewed from the bottom of their hearts, from what binds them from the outside, such as detailed rules and customs, and from what binds them from the inside, such as various prejudices, so that they may pursue the truth rooted in love. We are the ones who make our students aware that they are free people (see “Freedom”), liberated by love and renewed from the bottom of their hearts. Freedom education is an education that uses self-study as its method while speaking the truth to each other, teaching each other, and growing the whole school of Doshisha by being bonded and knit together (Ephesians 4:14-25).
　Jo Neesima was living in Edo (the former name of Tokyo), the administrative capital of the Tokugawa Shogun at the time. In Edo, he read the Japanese translation of Robinson Crusoe and the Chinese book on the U.S. geography, Renpo-Shiryaku, and became fascinated by foreign civilizations. Neesima then decided to escape the cramped life of the Annaka Clan’s cramped Edo residence, where he was bound by numerous rules and customs, and to live freely and independently in the democratic country of the United States (see “Self-governing Independence and Freedom”). Thus, Neesima finally escaped from his country and came to the U.S. in violation of national law, studied in New England with its strong tradition of Puritan faith, and experienced being a free man, freed by Christ from the sins he bore and from various chains or restrictions. Neesima, in the formation of such a free personality (see “An Extraordinary Person”), returned to Japan and founded Doshisha.

Self-governing Churches

There was a movement to unite the Japan Congregational Christian Church to which Neesima belongs and which has close ties with Doshisha, and the Japan Church of Christian Unity, a Presbyterian church group. Self-governing churches, or churches based on the principle of autonomy, refer to the Japan Congregational Christian Church (see “Self-governing Churches (Congregational Churches)”). Neesima feared that the Japan Congregational Christian Church would be swallowed up by the Japan Church of Christian Unity and churches based on the principle of the Japan Church of Christian Unity as a whole would be established, even though churches should be free to develop, and opposed the idea of church union because he believed it would prevent the idea of self-governing independence and freedom from taking root in Japanese society.

Both Together

Neesima believed that school education and Christian evangelism were two wheels of a cart and that it was necessary to realize both freedom education and self-governing churches, which would lead to the prosperity of the nation of Japan.
　Freedom education was practiced in boarding houses during Neesima’s lifetime. Many of the students lived in boarding houses, and unmarried teachers also lived with the students in the boarding houses. All students prepared for each subject in English books, and classes were conducted in a question-and-answer format based on their preparation. Students conducted research through self-study, rather than knowledge imparted by the teacher, and the best upperclassmen taught the younger students. Teachers and students sometimes differed in their interpretations of texts, and students would sometimes challenge teachers in discussions. Both teachers and students were new to modern Western learning and culture, and teachers were not superior to students in terms of knowledge of these things; they were equal. So much so that it was impossible to tell who was the teacher and who was the student just by looking at the classroom scene. Teaching was learning. Classes were held only three hours in the morning, and afternoons were devoted to self-study. There were no final exams; daily grades determined pass/fail. Saturdays were devoted to physical education, and students were free to go on excursions and other physical activities. Sundays were the Sabbath for spiritual training, and almost all students attended church services in the vicinity of the school. Thus, students were freed from time as much as possible. In addition, being exposed to Christ’s words in worship services would have contributed to the liberation of the mind from captivity (see “The Basis of Moral Education at Doshisha University”).

Contemporary Significance

Robinson Neesima and the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

The first book that Neesima purchased upon his arrival in Boston was Robinson Crusoe after he arrived in the United States in search of freedom. The official title of this original book is The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. “Adventure” is derived from the Latin “adventus.” The Latin word “adventus” means “Advent,” approximately four weeks before Christmas. When unexpected things happen to you and come toward you, that is “adventure,” and climbing the Himalayas or exploring the Antarctic is not the only kind of adventure.

Our Free Adventures

In this sense, both entering college and finding a job are adventures. With Covid-19 living with numerous constraints is also an adventure. Life is a series of adventures. So, is it an adventure to just passively let something unexpected happen and let it happen? Probably not. Adventure is accepting unexpected encounters proactively and wrestling with them. We can be adventurous because we are free, and freedom means to be adventurous. Just as Doshisha’s freedom education in its early days was based on self-learning and self-study, and teachers did not carefully teach every detail, we must be free to tackle problems for which there are no answers. The conventional wisdom does not apply.

Freedom Education: Foundation for Free Adventure

However, Robinson Crusoe was able to live on a desert island because of the scholarship and practical knowledge he had developed and the Protestant faith that had been nurtured in his family. He was afflicted with malaria and prayed to God amid a life-threatening crisis. It was also Neesima’s childhood studies of Chinese and other subjects, and his early translations of the Chinese Bible and later his New England Puritanical Christian faith, that sustained Neesima. Just as Robinson met Friday and Neesima met Alfius Hardy, we are given time to meet many teachers and friends at Doshisha, encounter the Word of God at Doshisha chapel services and Christianity classes, and build a compass for our lives through a series of moving experiences. The time is given to us to build a compass for our lives.
　Adventures are to be made freely, but we are not to fall into selfishness and licentiousness (see “Freedom”), and we are not to harm others. Freedom is freedom as those freed from sin by Christ and such freedom demands self- government. Long gone are the days of the early Doshisha, when people learned from each other, and today, even in the academic world, there is competition for profit and efficiency, not just the pursuit of truth. We must not darken the intelligence entrusted to us (see “The Juxtaposition of Knowledge and Morality”). We should take seriously the fact that Robinson Crusoe killed several native men, stretch ourselves toward the light of truth, to walk in the light of peace overcoming Robinson (see “Pacifism”). In this sense, rather, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which features a free man who rejects the temptations of murder and fraud to save the slave, Jim, must be the text on which we should rely today.
　Thus, as Neesima said, “Freedom Education, Self-governing Churches, Both Together,” freedom education at Doshisha should be conducted in the context of Christian-based autonomy (see “Self-governing Independence and Freedom”). Respecting each other as individuals and seeking truths that can be shared with others (see “Freedom”) rather than one’s trivial interests must be the foundation of freedom education at Doshisha.

The Necessity of the Revival of Freedom Education at Doshisha University

The university itself is a universe (see “The University as Institutes of Cosmological Principles”), inhabited by various members (see “An Extraordinary Person,” “Deep Forests and Large Lakes”). And just as many of those who left Doshisha in its early days were sent throughout, or almost all parts of Japan to become “salt of the earth” and “light of the world” (Matthew 5:13–16; see “The Basis of Moral Education at Doshisha University,” “Local Education”), we too should not keep what we have cultivated here at Doshisha inside of it. We should not keep what we have cultivated here in Doshisha but spread it to the wider world. Neesima seems to have believed that the development of “freedom education” would bring about “long live the state,” and now that environmental destruction, infectious disease risks, energy and resource problems, and war risks are becoming impossible for a single country to solve, promoting “freedom education” and aiming for “long live the state” are the challenges we face today.

(Itaru Fukaya)