Meiji Ambition: The Era When the State Designed 'Study Abroad' - No. 16

Last time, I ended with these words: 'Since long ago, Japan has sent people abroad to live strongly in the international community.' This time, as promised, I will go back 150 years to the era before numbers were born.

There are no numbers left from the Meiji era

The number of government-sponsored students sent throughout the Meiji period is said to be in the hundreds. If we include those who were privately funded, it might have reached the thousands. Even the number of students who traveled with the Iwakura Mission is said to be either around 40 or 60, depending on how they are counted. There are no annual figures, no return rates, and no follow-up surveys.

That is why, this time, I stopped counting.

Instead, there are things that remain clearly. Who was chosen, how much was spent, how many years they were sent for, and what to do after they returned. These are the blueprints of the system that decided those things.

Records of the number of people are thin. Yet, records of the system remain thick. They were not aiming for numbers.

A 6-year-old student and a 10-year promise

On December 23, 1871, in Yokohama, students boarded a steamship along with a mission of 107 people. Among them were five girls. The youngest was 6-year-old Umeko Tsuda—the face on the current 5,000-yen note.

They did not cross the ocean to 'chase dreams.' They responded to a recruitment by the Hokkaido Development Commission and were sent at government expense on the premise of studying abroad for about 10 years. From travel expenses to tuition and living costs, this was exceptional support for the time.

What I want to focus on is not their age. It is the fact that the state set the conditions and sent people out.

What was written in the blueprint

In 1882, the Ministry of Education established regulations regarding government-sponsored students. Upon returning home, they were obligated to serve in assigned positions for twice the number of years they had studied. At the entrance of their study abroad, the exit was already decided.

Moreover, what awaited the returnees were the newly formed universities and the core of government offices.

What was being designed here was not study abroad, but the circulation of human resources itself.

In the Meiji blueprint, three paths were written simultaneously.

The path out—government funding.
The path back—the obligation to serve.
The path to reward—the placement.

What was written in the blueprint was not numbers, but paths.

However, this three-piece set came with a caveat. What was written was the path for men.

It is said that when Umeko, who went abroad at age 6, returned 11 years later, she could barely speak Japanese. And the places where she could fully utilize the skills she had learned were limited in Japan at the time. Even if she could stand at a lectern, the path beyond that was narrow.

That is why she turned to the side of creating paths herself—the current Tsuda University. Ironically, the best witness to the power of design was someone who had been placed outside of it.

'Back then, there was no other way'

Here, there is a valid counterargument.

Back then, it took weeks by steamship, the costs were on a different scale, and there was no private market selling study abroad. Since the state had to provide the funds, wasn't that just necessity, not design?

There is some truth to that point. Necessity explains 'who paid the money.' However, two things remain that cannot be fully explained.

One is that paying money and writing the path back are separate decisions. If you only want to provide scholarships, you don't need an obligation to serve or a placement. Modern Japan also provides money. What is not written is the latter part.

The other is the existence of the Qing dynasty.

In 1872, the Qing dynasty also sent a total of 120 boys to the United States as the 'Chinese Educational Mission.' The same Pacific Ocean, the same steamships, the same sense of crisis. However, in 1881, the plan was cut short, and most of the boys returned home.

If the constraints were the same but the outcomes were different, the turning point was not the constraints.

Of course, one cannot say that the system was everything. There was the fervor of the era, like the young people at the end of the Edo period who crossed the ocean even as stowaways. However, it was the design that turned that fervor into scale and sustainability—that is how I read it.

The Meiji era is not extinct

I do not want to talk about how 'things were great in the old days.' In fact, this design is still active today.

Based on a law enacted in 1929 (No. 1416), Turkey has operated a system for nearly a century that imposes an obligation on government-sponsored students to serve for twice the duration of their study abroad. It is surprisingly similar to the 1882 Meiji regulations.

Kazakhstan's Bolashak Scholarship has also required a service obligation after returning, ranging from 2 to 5 years depending on the workplace, and has even demanded collateral and guarantors. The mechanism of sending people at government expense and setting conditions for their return lives on in different forms.

If that were a 'fossil from an era when travel was expensive,' it should have disappeared once travel became cheap. It has not disappeared. Even in the era of budget airlines and online applications, there are countries that continue to do this, even to the point of taking collateral.

That was not a product of constraints, but a choice.

What I notice is the asymmetry that it is the 'chasing' countries that use this tool. Japan also used this when it was a chasing country, and let it go once it had caught up.

It is not that there were no shadows. Only a very small number were chosen, and the obligation to serve was also a restriction on freedom. It is likely not something that should be transplanted as is.

Even so, the principle that can be extracted remains.

The principle of designing not only the path out, but also the path back and the path to reward, simultaneously.

Where is the path back now?

In Japan's current support for study abroad, is a 'path back' designed?

Goals for the number of people sent are being set. But where, and how, are the people who return being awaited?

I will leave just one number here. Among Japanese people living overseas, the percentage of permanent residents who have put down roots locally has now exceeded 45%. Even though the total number has not increased, only this ratio continues to rise quietly.

The mechanisms for counting have increased. Where are the mechanisms for waiting?

In the Meiji era, there were no numbers. In the next era, there are.

Next time, we will visit the 1980s, when Japanese people went abroad the most—an era when companies and families, not the state, pushed people out.