In "Fukuojiden", the autobiography written in his later years, he describes that the townsmen abhorred the students of Tekijuku in dirty clothes as 'The townsmen seem to abhor eta or something, which is not surprising by thinking that the students appear as such to them.'
晩年の自伝である『福翁自伝』において、市中の人々が身なりの汚い適塾の塾生を避ける様子について「何か穢多でも出て来て夫れを穢（きた）ながるやうだ、如何も仕方がない往来の人から見て穢多のやうに思ふ筈だ」と記している。