Katsuron Gakumon Suzume (A Vigorous Debate by the Sparrows of Learning)

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Katsuron Gakumon Suzume ["A Vigorous Debate by the Sparrows of Learning"]

Hattori [Mantei], Ōga [text by]; Ōju Seisei [Kawanabe], Kyōsai [illustrated by]. 

Tōkyō: Murakami Jūzō, Yamazaki Seishichi ... [et al], Meiji 8 [1875]. 

The first issue (of three), in two parts, of Ōga's response to Fukuzawa Yukichi's famous work Gakumon no Susume (1872, "An Encouragement of Learning"). Steele (2010) provides an informative and succinct synopsis of the work in Meiji Twitterings: A Parody of Fukuzawa's An Encouragement of Learning:

"The Sparrows of Learning ... was Ōga’s most sustained critique of Fukuzawa and the spectrum of new ideas coming in from the West. From among his various gesaku skills and strategies, parody was employed as the best means to engage Fukuzawa in debate. The series of three two-part booklets mimicked the first three issues of Fukuzawa’s An Encouragement of Learning. The books looked the same; they measured 19cm, were bound in Japanese fashion (Watoji), and consisted of 12 double-leaf pages. The woodblock text used a similar style, both in appearance and in grammatical usage, although each of Ōga’s booklets included one illustration by Kawanabe Kyōsai as a sort of centerfold ... Abandoning the puns and playful irreverence of his earlier “funny books,” Ōga’s language in the Sparrows of Learning adopted Fukuzawa’s straightforward style. The similarities invited inspection—and inspection revealed messages that were poles apart.

     Book One of An Encouragement of Learning was published in February 1872. It was based upon a speech Fukuzawa had given in Nakatsu, his home town in northern Kyushu at the end of 1871. Local leaders were about to open a new school and invited Fukuzawa to speak on the importance of education for the new age. The text was originally intended to stand alone as a basic statement of Fukuzawa’s approach to learning; it touches upon many of the topics (equality, practicality and utility, independence, freedom, rights, and duties, and the relationship between personal and national advancement) that appear in later booklets."

Jim Dwinger (2019) adds that the work "used typical gesaku narrative tropes to have Fukuzawa’s ‘Western sparrows’ lose a debate against Mantei’s ‘Eastern sparrows’". Gakumon Suzume is perhaps the best-known Kyōsai-Ōga satire, no doubt because of the influential nature and popularity of Fukuzawa's work. No physical copies traced outside of Japan in OCLC. 

First series (of three), in two four-hole-bound (yotsumetoji) volumes, complete, on double leaves, traditional East Asian binding style (fukurotoji). Original wrappers and endpapers lightly stained and soiled. Bindings slightly creased. Light continuous stain to foot of v.1 and opening edge of v.2. 10; 10 leaves. 18.1 x 12.3 cm. 

❧ Steele, M. William. "Meiji Twitterings: A Parody of Fukuzawa's An Encouragement of Learning". Ajia Bunka Kenkyū 18 (2010), 55-77.  

Katsuron Gakumon Suzume (A Vigorous Debate by the Sparrows of Learning)
Price: $2,500.00 (USD)