Traditional Learning, Western Thought, and the Sapporo Agricultural College: A Case Study of Acculturation in Early Meiji Japan

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century the Japanese embarked upon a swift ideological transition that enabled them to accept a considerable influx of Western ideas and systems. A key to their successful adoption of the values of ostensibly different cultures has often been attributed by observers of Japan to the receptivity and adaptability of the Japanese to new, alien elements. Yet, the receptivity of the Japanese to alien elements as the key is inherently connected to their recognition of affinities found in different cultures. Valuable insights on the process of Meiji acculturation will be gathered from a case study based on the examination of the early years of the Sapporo Agricultural College, established to accelerate modernization, and the impact on the students of the values inculcated by the New Englander staff. A study of their interaction suggests that it was the affinities the Japanese found between Japanese syncretic, revisionist, thought development and values of different cultures that formed the foundation for successful assimilation of elements of Western culture, a process that also helped the Japanese to reinvestigate and remould their own cultural tradition.