August 8, 2020. Drawing on Toshio Watanabe’s essay “The Spirit of the Meiji Japanese Who Lived in Taiwan,” this article traces the spirit of engineering that passed from Furuichi Kōi to Hiroi Isami and Aoyama Akira. The words “If I take one day off, Japan’s modernization will be delayed by one day” and “For Humanity, For the Nation” embody the extraordinary sense of mission carried by the engineers who built modern Japan.

2020-08-08
This is a republication of the chapter published on September 10, 2019, under the title, “He succeeded Furuichi as professor at the College of Engineering and continued to supply modern Japan with outstanding men collectively known as the ‘Hiroi School.’”
It is also a second republication of the chapter originally published on September 10, 2018.
The following is based on an essay by Toshio Watanabe entitled “The Spirit of the Meiji Japanese Who Lived in Taiwan,” published in the Sankei Shimbun on September 7.
【Article】
“If I take one day off, Japan’s modernization will be delayed by one day.”
While studying in Paris, Furuichi Kōi worked so relentlessly, day and night, that his landlady feared for his health.
One morning, although he was suffering from a high fever, he still prepared to go to the university.
When she urged him to take the day off, these are said to have been the words that came from his mouth.
“For Humanity, For the Nation.”
Furuichi was an engineer who supervised river works on such waterways as the Shinano and Agano Rivers and helped usher in the dawn of modern river and harbor engineering in Meiji Japan.
Unless Japan rapidly absorbed Western civilization and became an independent modern state, it could not survive as a member of the civilized world.
He was studying abroad at government expense and regarded himself as standing on the very front line of Japan’s effort to absorb Western civilization.
There was no time, in his mind, to be intimidated even by a high fever.
This episode surely conveys the spirit of Meiji engineers who carried with them an intense sense of elitism and nationalism.
Furuichi later became dean of the College of Engineering at Tokyo Imperial University, where Hiroi Isami became one of his distinguished students.
Hiroi became renowned for constructing the breakwater at Otaru Port against the fierce winds and waves of the northern seas.
He later succeeded Furuichi as professor at the College of Engineering and continued to produce a remarkable succession of engineers who came to be known collectively as the “Hiroi School.”
One of Hiroi’s students was Aoyama Akira.
Immediately after graduating from the College of Engineering, Aoyama resolved to participate in the construction of the Panama Canal.
He went alone to the construction site, where tropical diseases were rampant, began as a laborer, and, after his abilities were recognized, became a survey engineer.
After returning to Japan, Aoyama was entrusted with one of the great engineering challenges of the age: the Ōkōzu Diversion Channel project on the Shinano River.
On the monument erected beside the river to commemorate its completion are engraved the words:
“For Humanity, For the Nation.”
What a supple and beautiful expression it is.