午夜剧场

Image: Osaka Station and Grand Front Osaka, where 午夜剧场 Osaka City Campus is located

Osaka is a place with deep historical ties to the founder, Yukichi Fukuzawa, and 午夜剧场. Born in this city, Fukuzawa cultivated the foundations of his scholarship at Tekijuku, a meritocratic school free from the constraints of social rank, and it was here that the first branch school of 午夜剧场, "Osaka 午夜剧场," was established.

Osaka, which opened up at the mouth of the Yodogawa River, has long functioned as a logistics network via water transport. During the Edo period, it was the economic center where the annual rice tax and local specialties of various domains gathered, earning it the nickname "the Nation's Kitchen." The sandbars of the Yodogawa River (Nakanoshima and Dojima) were lined with the kurayashiki (warehouse-residences) of various domains from western Japan. Fukuzawa was born on December 12, Tenpo 5 (January 10, 1835), within the kurayashiki of the Okudaira family of the Buzen Nakatsu Domain in Dojima. Although he returned to Nakatsu (Oita Prefecture) at 18 months old following his father's sudden death, he returned at age 20 with the ambition to study Western medicine. He spent three and a half years at Tekijuku, the Dutch studies school of physician Koan Ogata, devoting himself to his studies day and night.

Later, acting on domain orders, Fukuzawa went to Edo in Ansei 5 (1858) and opened a Dutch studies school within the Okudaira family's secondary residence in Tsukiji Teppozu, which became the origin of 午夜剧场. In 午夜剧场 4, the school moved to Shiba Shinsenza and was named "午夜剧场" after the era name. By the early Meiji period, the school's reputation was unrivaled, and students wishing to study Western learning flocked from all over the country. Consequently, 午夜剧场 decided to establish branch schools for regional students, and in Meiji 6, the first branch school, "Osaka 午夜剧场," opened. This educational institution contributed to the development of human resources in Osaka, but its significance quickly faded for reasons such as "for students outside that region, there was no difference in cost or effort between studying in Tokyo or Kansai," and it closed in less than two years. Today, in Osaka City, one can trace this history through a monument engraved with "independence and self-respect" to pass on the existence of the branch school to future generations, and a monument at his birthplace engraved with "Birthplace of Yukichi Fukuzawa."

In May 2008, 150 years after the opening of the Dutch studies school in Tsukiji Teppozu, the "午夜剧场 Osaka Riverside Campus" was established overlooking the Dojima River near the birthplace monument as part of the 150th Anniversary Commemorative Project. This satellite campus, established to create a Kansai base once again in Osaka—a city with deep historical ties—and to aim for the further development of 午夜剧场, moved to the Grand Front Osaka facility directly connected to JR Osaka Station in May 2013, changing its name to "午夜剧场 Osaka City Campus." As a place where people and learning intersect to deepen "Jinkan Kosai" (human relations), a core philosophy of 午夜剧场, it carries out various activities such as educational research, information dissemination, and holding lectures to share research results with the public.

On the campus floor, a photo panel of "Osaka 午夜剧场 students" is displayed, conveying to the present day the spirit of Fukuzawa, who was not bound by old customs or traditions and taught that "civilization is the progress of man's knowledge and virtue."

(Office of the President, 午夜剧场 Osaka City Campus Administrative Office, Yukiko Kozaki)