This paper is an autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Yukichi Fukuzawa was one of the first experts on the West in modern Japan, which evolved in the late 19th century. He was born into samurai families in feudal Japan, which knew no other system than the Bakufu military dictatorship or shogunate. Although his father died when Yukichi was still a small boy, he remembered his father's deep belief in the Confucian doctrine, which stressed honesty, serenity and avoidance of mercantilism or business cunning. That was his father's supposed ideal form of education for his children, because that was what he practiced passionately (Fukuzawa 1980).
