The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi, Volume 1

Born into a low-ranking samurai family, Fukuzawa Yukichi grows impatient with the rules that determine a person’s place before he has done anything. His memories follow a boyhood in Nakatsu, the struggle to reach Nagasaki, and the demanding, disorderly world of Ogata Kōan’s school in Osaka.

The students study through the night, copy precious foreign books, experiment with chemistry, and venture into the city with more courage than caution. Their comic misadventures stand beside Fukuzawa’s account of the discipline that made Western learning possible.

Travel aboard the Kanrin Maru takes him to California and Hawaii. A later embassy introduces him to Europe, where hotels, public customs, political arguments, and unexpected kindness challenge assumptions he had brought from home.