Цунесабуро Макигути: Жизнь и педагогическое наследие

Educator and founding president of Soka Gakkai

Tsunesaburō Makiguchi (牧口 常三郎, Makiguchi Tsunesaburō; 23 July 1871 (lunar calendar date 6 June) – 18 November 1944) was a Japanese educator who founded and became the first president of the Sōka Kyōiku Gakkai (Value Creating Education Society), the predecessor of today's Soka Gakkai.

Makiguchi was born in the small village Arahama of Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, on 23 July 1871 (lunar calendar date 6 June). After his father abandoned the family and his mother attempted to kill both herself and Makiguchi by drowning, he was adopted by an uncle, Makiguchi Zendayu. Although recognized as an able teacher, Makiguchi's uncompromising attitude toward authorities created problems. His clashes with officials of the Ministry of Education, school inspectors, ward assemblymen, city councilmen, and top officials of the city of Tokyo were frequent and resulted in frequent transfers between schools. His close friend and disciple Jōsei Toda followed his Buddhist conversion in 1930.

His aforementioned work Jinsei Chirigaku (A Geography of Human Life), predates the academic study of geography at the Imperial Universities of Kyoto and Tokyo in 1907 and 1911, respectively, and pioneered a new approach to teaching geography in Japan. Written between the First Sino Japanese War and the Russo Japanese War, the work presents human geography as a subject for both formal and nonformal learning to advance an understanding of cultural differences shaping and shaped by the relationship between human activity and its natural environment. Makiguchi was arguably the first to discuss human geography as a system of knowledge correlating location theory and spatial distribution of human phenomena with economic, social and political geographies. In Makiguchi's words, "it is through our spiritual interaction with the earth that the characteristics that we think of as human are ignited and nurtured within us." In this work, Makiguchi also formulated the concept of humanitarian competition as an approach to international relations, writing that: "The important thing is the setting of a goal of well being and protection of all people, including oneself but not at the increase of self interest alone. In other words, the aim is the betterment of others and in doing so, one chooses ways that will yield personal benefit as well as benefits to others. It is a conscious effort to create a more harmonious community life." In response to problems throughout the education system that resulted from the Meiji government's adoption of the Imperial Rescript, Makiguchi published the first volume of Sōka Kyōikugaku Taikei (The System of Value Creation Pedagogy) together with his close friend and disciple Jōsei Toda on 18 November 1930. The date was later adopted as the Founding Day of Sōka Gakkai. The four volume work, published over a period of five years, sets forth his thoughts on education and proposals for systemic reform. Rather than education serving the state, as embodied in the Imperial Rescript on Education, Makiguchi proposed a student centered education with the purpose of ensuring the happiness of the learner. He also proposed the creation of an educational system comprising a partnership of school, home and community. In this system, a child would spend half a day in school and the other half in apprenticeships and other types of work activities at home and in the community befitting the nature and needs of the child. Makiguchi felt that implementing such a system would change bored, apathetic learners into eager, self directed students.

He distinguished value as that which emerges or is created from the relationship or interaction between self and object; truth, not a value but an object whose existence cannot be created but revealed or discovered; the value of beauty, a measure of sensory impact on aesthetic awareness; the value of gain, a measure of holistic advancement in life; and the value of good, a measure of contribution to social or public well being. For Makiguchi, value is determined by "whether something adds to or detracts from, advances or hinders, the human condition." Makiguchi's theory of value emphasizes a "participatory inter connectedness of individuals through community engagement" that meaningfully enhances the well being of both the individual and society through the transformational process of pursuing value creation. "Human life is a process of creating value," Makiguchi wrote, "and education should guide us towards that end. Thus, educational practices should serve to promote value creation." According to Brian Victoria, Makiguchi had an "absolute faith in Nichiren and his teachings [ ]. Faith in any other religious teaching was, by definition, an evil practice that had to be eradicated. In other words, despite postwar SGI claims to the contrary, Makiguchi had no sympathy for 'freedom of religion' for anyone other than himself and those who strictly adhered to his sectarian viewpoint." However, Stone and Sumimoto argue that notions of "tolerance" or "intolerance" should be seen from the perspective of Japanese historical and cultural context.

Before World War II, Makiguchi justified Japan's annexation of Korea, and cannot be considered as an opponent to Japan's military aggression and colonization, nor war. In 1943, due to his refusal to accept the Shinto talisman as a symbol of acquiescence to the state doctrine, he was arrested and imprisoned as a "thought criminal" together with Jōsei Toda and 20 senior leaders of Sōka Kyōiku Gakkai for violating the Peace Preservation Law revised in 1941 and under which tens of thousands were arrested. Already in his seventies, Makiguchi was subjected to harsh interrogation as the authorities sought to force him to recant his beliefs. Most of the other imprisoned members of Soka Kyoiku Gakkai caved to the extreme interrogation tactics, however Makiguchi never yielded, continuing to assert the value of freedom of religion as a fundamental human right. On 18 November 1944, Makiguchi died in prison of malnutrition. His cremated ashes were buried in a Buddhist Stupa in Taisekiji Temple, in Shizuoka Prefecture right next to the Pagoda where it remains today.

Daisaku Ikeda established a secular worldwide network of Soka schools based on Makiguchi's pedagogy, including several independent secondary schools and two universities: Sōka University of Japan and Soka University of America. "The fairly recent growth in the internationalization of Soka education", writes Paul Sherman, specialist in global citizenship education in higher education, "is a reflection of Makiguchi's ideas on the important function of education in human development, in that he believed a key purpose of education was to cultivate global minded individuals who could be empathetically engaged with the world, while at the same time maintain their roots at the local community level."

The 1973 film Ningen kakumei (The Human Revolution), directed by Toshio Masuda, dramatizes the educational career of Makiguchi, his relationship with Josei Toda, and his WWII imprisonment for his beliefs during which he died.