明治前期出版界の動向 : 出版における人間関係の試論

The aim of this article is to describe the publishing world and the mutual relation between publishers, authors, and readers in the first half of the Meiji Era. There were three groups in the publishing world. The traditional book-stores run since the Edo period gradually died out. Some of the newly-established book-stores in the provinces gained much favour by free competition. Private publishing by authors, which was prohibited in the twentieth year of the Meiji Era, was not a great power and could not hold the leadership in the publishing world. The greatest number of scholars was to be found in the field of Western learning. Although they were able, their leadership was very weak for most of them considered their publications as a means of becoming distinct in the world. Therefore, the Confucianists, gaining the support of the statesmen, became powerful over the scholars of Western learning and won the leadership in learning. The common citizens read yellow papers, and were delighted with the cheap novels in them. Those who were previously the retainers of Tokugawa criticized politics in the newspapers and cultivated general opinions; later, the liberalists took over that role. The political novels much excited the young people. The men who were most influential in the general opinions were Yukichi Fukuzawa and Chomin Nakae, but the government and the Confucianists oppressed them. Among the readers, there slowly rose a group of students who, acquainted with Western writings, tried to translate them into Japanese, and another group of those who liked to recite Bakin, and they all supported a new type of literary works and new doctrines. The common people were rather conventional and conservative; they welcomed the newspapers and the cheap books for rent. The readers were not many but ardent. Inspite of the common advocacy of the "Japanese spirit and Western sciences," the Confucian spirit was predominant and difficulties were caused by importing Western civilization without paying any attention to its fundamental spirit nor preparing any sufficient ground for receiving it