The purpose of this paper is to analyze Yukichi Fukuzawa's thought on geography and geographic education.
Various people learned geography via Fukuzawa's texts, which he wrote using Western books as a reference. We can find his many new techniques and ideas which were absorbed by these studious readers. For example “Sekai-Kunizukushi”, was used as a textbook by the oldest public schools in the Meiji era. These contents are simplistic and basic. However, they developed Japanese people's knowledge of geography, especially children and women, in those days.
Trying to consider him as an enlightenment philosopher, his basic thought toward geography and geographic education is “the theory of development stages of civilization”. According to his opinion, Japan must achieve highest level of civilization in the future. He stressed to learn practical knowledge and sciences, including geography, as a subject everyone must learn in infant days, because they consist of basic knowledge.
Fukuzawa also insisted on the importance of “independence”, because this is the fundamental problem for his “theory of the development stage of civilization”. We can understand them through the course of study of Keiogijuku. On the other hand, he didn't think of geography as a field of science to promote the civilization, but, (1) he understood geography as fundamental knowledge for everyone, (2) moreover his own knowledge of geography did not exceed elementary level, and finally (3) he didn't consider the geography as a study of humanities.
