Society and Education in Japan [1 ed.]

Table of contents :
Foreword
Introduction
Note on Japanese Words
Contents
PART ONE Japan as an Undeveloped Country
1. Education Modernization-The Japanese Model
2. Tokugawa Education: A Portrait
3. Portents of Modernity
4.
PART TWO
5.
6.
7.

Citation preview

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61({3

SOCIETY AND .

.

EDUCATION

::

IN JAPAN • Herbert Passin

*MHE0006106* TEACHERS COLLEGE PRESS TEACHERS COLLEGE • COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

AND EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

ABRAHAM FLEXNER'S UNIVERSI11ES AMERICAN, ENGLISH, GERMAN Introduction by ROBERT UUCH

SOCIETY AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN

© 1965

BY TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER:

65-19168

SECOND PRINTING 1966

This book is one of the

Foreword t

STUDIES OF mE EAST ASIAN

Other books in the series, published by Columbia University Press, are: Ping-ti Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China (1962); Shun-hsin Chou, The Chinese Inflation, 19371949 (1963); Samuel Chu, Reformer in Modern China: Chang Chien, 1853-1926 (1964); and Herschel Webb, Research in Japanese Sources (1964).

INSTITIJTE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

t

Professor Passin's volume on Japanese education is the first of the COMPARATIVE EDUCATION STUDIES devoted to schools in one country. It combines all the attributes postulated for proper area studies in comparative education. It has been executed by a sociologist of distinction, superbly attuned to Japan and its people through his command of language and long residence. The volume reaffirms the interdisciplinary collaboration between the East Asian Institute and Teachers College, Columbia University. Its pages are equally divided between interpretative essays on particularly important aspects of Japanese education and a comprehensive collection of primary educational documents. There are excellent reasons for the choice of Japan as the first of a proposed series of area studies. That ancient culture has shown itself ingeniously capable of preserving old traditions and at the same time of rapidly adapting to industrial modernization. Her steady economic growth, the nearly universal literacy, the discipline and industry of her people, the family loyalty and cohesion are well known and admired. More specifically, in comparison to the United States, here is an almost equally widespread mass culture which has managed to retain much more seriousness of purpose, dedication to esthetic contemplation, and high academic standards. Like all school systems, Japanese education has its faults: the excessive domination by a central ministry, the "examination hell" at the point of university entrance, and a certain inflexibility in thinking. But on the whole, and working with remarkably modest equipment, the Japanese school system has achieved great results. It can claim to serve in many ways as a model to metropolitan and developing countries alike.

G.Z.F.B.

Introduction

Japan is the first of a class of nations that now occupies a large part of our attention: the underdeveloped, non-Western society determined to modernize herself. So far, she is the only one that has succeeded. Perhaps she had a head start, or the good luck to start her modernization in a relatively benign international environment; or perhaps her "premodern" society was uniquely prepared for the modern adventure. Standing. as we do, in the midst of this long historical process, it will be a long time before we can judge. Nevertheless Japan succeeded. And this success is significant even if the particular manner of achieving it turns out not to be relevant. It says to present-day emergent nations that "it can be done." If Japan caD do it, so can they. Students of Asian political history will recall how Japan's defeat of Russia in 1904-05 brought the first, and perhaps psychologically most important, hope to Asian nationalists: White, European imperialists can be beaten by Asians. We may wince at this message; it is not, after all, in the best spirit of liberal, international humanism. But it takes only a little sympathy-or better, empathy-to appreciate that people who consider themselves, justifiably or not, oppressed and inferior must at some time in their lives be able to sense the possibility of rectifying the balance. Japan gave them this possibility. Indeed, our sympathy and understanding have grown. Everybody knows about "underdevelopment" and "emergent nations." Political modernization, development of modern institutions, and self-sustaining economic growth are everyday terms. But the informed public is only now beginning to realize the unique role education plays in the total design for development. An increasing amount of scholarly thought and

x

INTRODUCTION

practical work are going into this problem. We see it as "over_ head" social investment, "infrastructure" of modern instituw tions, source of trained manpower, and yield from educational investment. This new wave of interest brings many to thoughts of Japan. If the Western experience does not seem entirely relevant to the problems of the newly emergent nations, who must compress the centuries of "normal" historical development into decades, then perhaps Japan's forced-draft modernization provides more cogent lessons. This author's examination of some of the problems is quite literally an essay-an attempt--or more accurately, two essays. In Part One, Japan is viewed as an underdeveloped country entering the stage of modern development. To do this, it seemed useful to present a reasonably full portrait of the starting point-the educational system that developed in the latter period of the Tokugawa Era (1603-1867). This corresponds to the pre-independent, or pre-emergent, state of the contemporary underdeveloped countries. The problems of building a modern school system and some of the measures taken to deal with them are then examined. Until the period of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 the account is fairly full; after that it becomes increasingly sketchy. By that time Japan had achieved the essential structure of a modem educational system with virtually full school attendance. In Part Two, instead of looking at Japan as an underdeveloped country we examine her as an advanced industrial society. Japan is obviously still "developing," but she is doing so under entirely different conditions from those we usually associate with the underdeveloped countries. The focus here is on the relation between the educational ladder and the social ladder-how the educational system becomes the inner core of the ladder of success, of the class system, of the structure of opportunity, of social mobility-however one prefers to phrase it. From this point of view Japan belongs to the class of industrial societies, no longer to the class of underdeveloped societies. She may be the onJy non-

INTRODUCTION

xi

Western specimen in her class-so far-but she belongs there unmistakably in spite of her distinctive form, color, flavor, and development. The main emphasis in Part Two is on the past few decades, primarily the 1930's through the 1950's, with some probings into the neighboring decades. There are therefore several important historical gaps in this account. From the end of the nineteenth century to the 1930's, little is said, except to outline the general trend. Nor is there any attempt to give an account of present-day issues and problems in Japanese education. For a complete narrative history of Japanese education or an up-to-date analysis of contemporary problems the reader will have to look elsewhere. This study is to be taken quite literally as two essays on Japanese education. This book developed from two longish papers. One was prepared for a Conference on Education and Economic Development,' directed by Professor C. Arnold Anderson of the University of Chicago. The other was originally presented to Professor James Coleman's Conference on Education and Political Development. 2 The present version is so different from the early drafts that the sponsors may well find ditliculty in recognizing them. It would be impossible to list all the people to whom the author is indebted. First and foremost, thanks are due to the numerous and distinguished Japanese scholars whose works have been drawn upon freely. There has recently been a great outburst of research on the late Tokugawa Period of which this author feels himself the undeserving beneficiary. To Professor Hayashi Takeji of T6hoku University, Sendai, Japan, go special thanks for his patient generosity and for a much better comprehension of the way the Meiji educators perceived their problems than could have been obtained from 1 Sponsored by the Committee on Comparative Education of the University of Chicago, April 1963. 2 Sponsored by the Committee on Comparative Politics of the Social Science Research Council. Lake Arrowhead, California. August 1962.

INTRODUCTION xii reading alone. Professor Kobayashi Tetsuya of International Christian University, Tokyo, has read portions of the manuscript and patiently corrected its many errors. Mr. Hasegawa Tsuneo, of the Industrial Economic Research Institute of Keio University, Tokyo; Professor Marius Jansen of Princeton University; and Professor Herschel Webb of Columbia University have all read one or another portion of the manuscript. Sometimes we have not agreed, nor have all their suggestions been accepted, but in every case the study has benefited from their observations. They should not be held in the slightest degree responsible for the author's mistakes or views.

HERBERT PASSIN

Note on Japanese Words Foreign words place a heavy burden on the reader. The author has tried to ease this as much as possible. However. the issue cannot be completely escaped. The following conventions have been adopted: All names are given in the Japanese fashion, that is, with the family name first and the personal name last. Thus, Tokugawa Ieyasu should be understood to mean that "Tokugawa" is the family name and "Ieyasu" is the personal (or first) name. The only exception occurs when the individual himself lists his name in the reverse order (in the case of JapaneseAmericans, for example; or of publication in an Englishlanguage journal; for example, Jiro Numata, in which case the English-language journal has followed the Western usage and listed his personal name first and his family name last). A single line over a vowel means that the vowel is to be ¥.iven approximately double its usual length. For example, Okawa should be read approximately as O-o-ka·wa. (This particular name is sometimes transcribed as "Ohkawa," to suggest the lengthening of the vowel. Some authors adopt the convention of doubling the vowel, as follows: "Ookawa"; but this has been avoided in the present volume because of the danger that English convention would lead the reader to pronounce "00" as in "moon.") Long marks are dispensed with in the case of commonly known names, places, and words, as for example, Tokyo (not Tokyo), Kyoto (not Kyoto), Shogun (not Shogun). An apostrophe is used to separate two syllables that might otherwise be run together-as in Hiro'oka and ka'ne. An acute accent is used to indicate that a vowel is to be pronounced-as in hade. The basis of the transcription of Japanese words is the Hepburn system. The only exceptions will be found when

xiv

NOTE

JAPANESE WORDS

an author himself prefers to write his name in the Kunrei or some other system of transcription. Thus, usually the name Hayasbi will be spelled in tbis form; but if the author lists himself in some other way, as, for example, "Hayasi," that form is used.

Contents ix

INTRODUCTION PART ONE: JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

1

1.

Educational Modernization-The Japanese Model

3

2.

Tokugawa Education-A Portrait

13

3.

Portents of Modernity

50

4.

Education in tbe New State

62

PART

Two:

EDUCATION AND SOCIETY IN MODERN JAPAN

101

5.

The Modern School System-An Overview

103

6.

The Ladder of Success

117

7.

Education and Ideology

149 161

DOCUMENTS ON JAPANESE EDUCATION ApPENDIX

1: THE

JAPANESE SCHOOL SYSTEM,

1937

308

APPENDIX

2: THE

JAPANESE SCHOOL SYSTEM,

1963

309

APPENDIX

3: A

NOTE ON TOKUGAWA EDUCATIONAL

STATISTICS

310

GLOSSARY

315

BIBLIOGRAPHY

327

INDEX

339

Documents on Japanese

Educat-Ion

TOKUGAWA PERIOD

1. 2

163 163

Laws Governing th M'li N k .'. e I tary Households 1615 Control of the Mind Is True Learn.

. in;,

3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9

.

10. 11. 12. 13 . 14. 15.

I

I I

167 Ansai: Principles of Education ItoJlOsa/: On Education, 1666 1650 168 171 Kalbara Ekken'. Th e Greater L . Women, 1672 earDing for 173 Kaibara Ekken' Th W Kum B' e ay of Contenlment 1672 177 anZ30: Questions about the Greater

°.

Dazai Jun' Es E . S : say on ducatlOnal Control 1714 gyu Oral: Education, 1721 • Azumamaro: Petition for the Establi h o a School of National Learning 1728 s ment The Kansei Edict 1790 ' Hirata Atsutane' '0 J S k . ' n apanese Learning 1811 a uma Sbozan' Refte f ' Y h'd ..' c IOns on My Errors 1855 as, 1 a ShoIn: Arms and Learning • DOshlm.a Takato: Memorial to the Lord of Nambu omam, 1863

MEIJI ERA 16. Fukuzawa Yfikicbi: Encouragement of Learning, 1872 17. to the Fundamental Code of Education, 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Ari?ori: Education in Japan Mon Armon: Opinion on the Ed . Draft, c, 1879 ucatlOn Law

179 185 190 195 197 198 200 202 204 205 205 209 211

225 Imperial Rescript: The Great Pri . I cahon, 1879 nClp es of Edu226 ItO Hirobumi' . . . plDlon on Education, 1879 229 ExplanatIon of School Matters, 1891 233

° ..

DOCUMENTS ON JAPANESE EDUCATION

xvii

23. 24. 25.

Uchimura Kanzo: The Case of Lese Majesle, 1891 Fukuzawa Yukichi: Autobiography, 1898 Nishimura Shigeki: Memorial to the Minister of Education, 1899 Okuma Shigenobu: Education-A Pluralistic View, 1901 Lafcadio Hearn: Official Education, c. 1904

236 239

THE PRE-WAR YEARS 28. Amur Society: An Anniversary Statement, 1930 29. Educational Study Group (Kyoiku Kenkyii Kai): Proposed Reform Plan, 1936 30. Principles of the National Polity, 1937 31. Extracts from Morals Textbooks 32. Educational Reform of 1941 (Imperial Ordinance No. 148) 33. Ministry of Education: Policy on Instruction, 1943

252 252

26. 27.

242 243 246

253 257 259 266 268

'THE POST-WAR PERIOD 270 34. Administration of the Educational System of Japan (SCAP and CIE), 1945 270 35. CIE Directive Ordering tbe Suspension of the Teaching of Morals, Japanese History, and Geography, 1945 272 36. Abe Yoshishige: Bases for Educational Recon· struction, 1946 274 37. Report of the United States Education Mission to Japan, 1946 278 38. Resolution Passed by the Japanese Diet: Reconstruction of Japanese Education, 1946 284 39. Provisions of the Japanese Constitution Relating to Education, 1947 285 40. United States Department of State: Revision of the Japanese Educational System, 1947 288 41. School Education Law, 1947 292 42. Fundamental Law of Education, 1947 301 43. Morito Tatsuo: Appeal to Educators, 1947 304

n SOCIETY AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN

I

PART ONE Japan as an Undeveloped Country

1: Educational ModernizationThe Japanese Model In February 1872, Mori Arinori, twenty-five years of age,

Japan's first diplomatic representative to the United States, addressed a letter to a group of prominent Americans seeking "advice and information" on "the educational affairs of

Japan." "[The) particular points to which I invite your tention are as follows: The effect of education (1) upon material prosperity of a country; (2) upon its commerce; upon its agricultural and industrial interests; (4) upon social, moral, and physical condition of the people; and its influence upon the laws and government."!

atthe (3) the (5)

THE RECORD In the light of retrospect, the "prominent Americans" showed rather impressive foresight. Education, they advised Mori, would awaken isolated peasant minds to new possibilities, tie Japan into a world exchange economy, stimulate new

appetites requiring new industries and expanded trade to satisfy, improve the quality of peasant as well as technician,

instill loyalty and morality so that government can rule benignly rather than harshly; in short, it would lay the basis for prosperity and prestige among the nations of the world. Broadly speaking, this is exactly what happened. In a sense the history of Japan since 1872 can be written as an extended commentary on Minister Mori's questions, or perhaps as an extended confirmation of the prominent Americans' pre.dictions. Each new emergent nation must ask itself the same questions: What effects will education have on our economy, 1 Morl Arinori, Education in Japan-A Series of Letters dressed by Prominent Americans to Arinori Morl (New York: D.

Appleton·Century, 1873). See

DOCUMENT

18 for some extracts. 3

4

JAPAN AS AN UNDE':'ELOPEO

society, and polity? Does Japan's experience have any answers to give? To approach these problems, we must compare Japan and the underdeveloped countries at roughly comparable points of development. . Japan of 1964 is obviously not such a point. Japan, along wIth the other developed nations, can provide models, techniques, expert help, and educational materials. But her problems today, given universal literacy, a fully developed modern school system, and almost seven college students per 1,000 population, are obviously of a different order from those of a new African state struggling to establish an elementary school system, and perhaps a specialized high-level university for the training of technicians and administrators, in the face of nearuniversal illiteracy and economic stagnation. How Japan reached her present point may be relevant, but to see how it is so we must look to the Japan of a similar stage of development. This would be approximately the period from 1855 to 1912, that is, the twelve years preceding the "opening" of the country to the end of the Meiji Period (1868-1912). In this half century, Japan did what the contemporary underdeveloped countries are hoping to do: She moved from her industrial, agrarian. feudal past to modern industrial nationhood. By the end of the Meiji Period, her principal modern institutions were well established. Virtually the entire population had attained functional literacy. and compulsory school attendance was as close to 100 per cent as it could be. Japao today has entered the same league as the advanced countries of the world. and in some respects she has even outstripped them. Elementary school attendance has been practically 100 per cent since the end of the Meiji era. Japan Country

United States France Japan Germany United Kingdom

Secondary School Attendance

93 % 69

62 57 37

Year

1958 1959 1961 1959 1959

EDUCATIONAL MODERNIZATION-THE JAPANESE MODEL

5

ranks close to the United States and France in ratio of secondary school attendance as shown on page 4. In university attendance, she ranks only below the United States (and

possibly the Soviet Union). 2 The record is indeed a remarkable one. Effective universal compulsory attendance was achieved within about thirty years of the beginning of the modern school system, and nearuniversal literacy was achieved within another twenty years.

But what was spectacular by the standards of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century may appear plodding to those of the more exigent mid-twentieth. Our contemporary nation builders may oot be content, and perhaps rightly, to

settle for a pace of development that takes thirty to fifty years for fruition, that is, from one to two generations. Seen macroscopically. the smoothed-out long-range curves seem to

climb relentlessly in an unbroken sweep. But the ant's-eye view, toiling laboriously up and down the short-term curves, may be closer to present realities. Thirty years after the Meiji Restoration Japan still had only one university, and even by 1904, when there were two, together they had produced only S,OOO-some graduates. 3 For a nation that then numbered about 45,000,000, the figure is somewhat less than impressive.

The rate of production of higher school graduates did go up rapidly. In the period from 1912 to 1925 there were 42,654 university graduates and 240,357 college graduates (total, 283,011), and from 1926 to 1939 there were 159,839 university graduates and 470,271 college graduates (total, 630,110).' The Soviet Union bas 10.8 university-level students per 1,000 population, while Japan bas 6.9 (Soviet data for 1959-60; Japanese data for 1958- 59). However, the Soviet tally includes students taking correspondence courses. If these are excluded to make the figures comparable to the Japanese, the Soviet ratio goes down to 6.4 per 1,000. (The United States figure is 18.5 per 1,000 for 1958-59.) 'Alfred Stead, ed., Japan by the Japanese: A Survey by Its Highest AlItllOritie'S (London: William Heinemann, 1904), p. 238. "Ministry of Education (Research Section, Research Bureau). Demand and Suppl:y for University Graduates-Japan, August 1958, Appendix, pp. 64-69.

, JAPAN AS AN uNDEVELOPED COUNTRY,

6 But the first thirty years, even the first fifty

which con-

stitute the effective life of any "present" generahon, must have seemed slow indeed. th thed curve of eleIn the same way, although e smoo th mentary school attendance is a dramatic upward one, hie ra:

urve shows some serious dips, which were as wren.c ng. spirits of the Meiji nation builders as present difficulties Th fir t five years of the new are to contemporary ones" e t definite decline in regime saw not only no mcrease u a f the modern school attendance. 6 The opening attendance

0

system was little better. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL A'ITENDANCE RATES FOR SELECTED YEARS

Rate Year

1873 1878 1880 1883 1887 1891 1892

(Boys and Girls Together)

28.12% 41.26 41.06 51.03 45.00 50.31 55.14

EDUCATIONAL MODERNIZATION-THE JAPANESE MODEL

mentary school in

1909.6

7

Yet a survey in a weaving factory

nine years later showed that almost half of the male workers and more than two-thirds of the female workers had not finished their compulsory schooling.7 As late as 1925, 20 per cent of the population of productive age was estimated as not

having finished elementary school. SCHOOLING OF THE PRODUCTIVE AGE. POPULA.TION

1895 1905 1925 1935 1950 1960 Not finished elementary school 84.1 57.3 20.0 7.1 2.3 0.5 Graduated elementary school 15.6 41.6 74.3 82.1 78.5 63.9 Graduated secondary school 0.2 0.6 4.9 9.2 15.8 30.1 Graduated higher school 0.1 0.2 0.8 1.6 3.4 5.5 SOURCE: Tokei Kenkyukai, ed., Nihon no Kogyiika no Katei ni okeru Kyiiiku no Yakuwari (The Role of Education in the Process of Japan's Industrialization), No.9 in Kyoiku Keizai Kenkyu Shiryo (Educational Economics Research Materials). Tokyo,

March 1963 (mimeographed).

SOME CAUTIONS There are reasons, therefore, for the underdeveloped countries to study Japan's experience. First, this was the first serious and sustained effort by a non-Western underdeveloped country to modernize herself. Second, it is the first-and the

SOURCE: Mombusbo, Gakusei 80-nen-shi (80 Years of the School System), 1954, Table 1, pp. 1,

only-successful one. Third, the trajectory of her effort now

36-37.

extends over ninety years, so that Japan has gone through

·t only twenty years after the start of the In other werd5 1 was 1 t modern school' system in 1872 that the curve of e emen .ary school attendance took an unwaveringly upward beanng. Whether 50 per cent school attendance after twenty ye.ars of effort is a good record or not is perhaps the old the half-filled jug: For some, it is half full; for others, It IS half empty. I art f th twentieth This estimated attendance in the ear Y p o e . also have been overoptimistic. Accordmg to 98 per cent of all children were attending ele• See discussion on page 44.

many of the problems and stages that other underdeveloped countries still must face.

But the experience must be assessed carefully. It should not be assumed, for example, that the specific measures adopted by Japan are necessarily relevant to the problems of particular countries today, or even that they were necessarily the best measures for Japan at the time. Japan, for example, • Ministry of Education, Japan's Growth and Education (Tokyo,

1963), Table 3, p. 160.

f Shibusawa Keizo, Japanese Life and Culture in the Meiji riod (Tokyo, 1958), p. 298 .

JAPAN AS AN UNDEYELOPE:D COUNTRY .

8 started out with a combination of universal compulsory education and an extremely limited amount of high-quality university education. That this particular mix appears to have been successful does not mean that it would be so for other countries. Nor that it was necessarily the best method for Japan. Some other mix. might have given better results. Similarly, although the author believes that Japan's elite university system was good for her, he would not argue that all underdeveloped countries should follow her example. An elitist system suited Japanese tradition as well as the zeitgeist of the latter nineteenth century. But it may be completely unrealistic for a contemporary underdeveloped nation modernizing in the populist atmosphere of the twentieth century. Nor can any lessons be directly deduced from the early Japanese approach to the problem of central vs. local financing. Japan was able to place much of the burden of elementary schooling on local governments and the public, reserving central funds for higher levels of education. This undoubtedly had many advantages: It assured a closer correspondence between public demand and availability of school facilities than might otherwise have prevailed; and it corresponded with her ministrative traditions and with the new administrative ture developed by the modern regime. But in some countries this particular mix might result in complete stagnation, Nor, it would seem, does Japan's experience tell us a great deal specifically about the relative value of vocational vs. general education in the early stages of modernization. Japan's serious modern industrial development only gan about the time of the Sino-Japanese War, 1894-95. But this could not be credited to her foresight in investing in tional training because serious efforts in this field were only made at about the same time. In other words, rather than a prior investment in vocational training having paid off in 1894, industrial development may have stimulated the development of vocational training, Perhaps an earlier start on vocational training might have improved the yield; but haps, even probably, the improvement of the "quality" of the

EDUCATIONAL MODERNIZATION-THE JAPANESE MODEL

9

working population through general education . portant as. specicfvocatIOnal i' skills taught in thewash asI ·f not more Important, sc 00 S, 1 It is also necessary to avoid the post hoc ergo pot IlGC fallacy: Because Japan succeeded in establishing un' r p elr d cation q,lliC 'kl y, t h ere/ore she quickly achieved lversa e ueconoml,c growth. This may be true, but it cannot be by the SImple sequence from universal education to .c gro:vth, growth might very well have b: achieved wIthout a successful system of compulsor d n the talents and enterprise of en:e lal elements, the general skill level of the populatio; over. from premodern times, and many other factors, A offiCIal study, for example, contends that

The fact that the rapid economic progress of this countr h been dependent upon the high rate of savings Pd. ent of the natIOnal lUcorne) since around 1900 would

a certain ,SOCial discipline is necessary to sustain so a rate of savmgs. But whether the particular morals responsible is quite a different question. e apanese, to save may very well have stemmed fr?m deep-laid traditIOnal attitudes, familial habits of discipline, and the partIcular economic outlook of the J peasantry ,ra ther t,h an from specific moral indoctrination apanese in Even If the particular teachings on diligence and t ,I t 10 the school morals course may have been effective thIS not that the underlying moral theory and s tern employed were the best or the only y to achleve thiS, way ,we should not attribute more purposefulness to early ment h!DIllallvest than they in fact had,That a 1ater developappens a confirm an earlier expectation does not mean 1

• Ministry of Education, Japan's Growth and Education, p, 90,

I

10

JAPAN AS AN UlIDEVELOPED COUNTRY

that the basis of the prediction was necessarily correct. The outcome may have been accidental. Educational authorities in

the 1880's, for example, did not introduce morals into the school curriculum because they believed it would encourage a high rate of savings. Whether the morals training did (or did not) affect the rate of savings, their reasons for putting it into the schools were entirely different: to overcome excessive Westernization; to create an obedient patriotism as the basis for a strong state; to reconstitute a Japanese center of identity as against the corrosive effects of Western ideologies and

EDUCATIONAL MODERNIZATION-THE JAPANESE MODEL

ab:oad for study. only to return to a Japan in which foreign umverslty education had declined sharply in public estimation. In other words, the labor market, economic conditions, political and technological requirements all change much more rapIdly than the capacity of education to plan for them. Much of educational planning is a gamble, a prediction about conditions X number of years hence. But the prediction may be wrong.

tastes. Again, we find that after the First World War there was a vast increase in the number of universities. This was both a response to increased public demand and an anticipa-

11

mE STARTING POINT Another possible limitation on the pedagogical usefulness

tion of the needs and absorptive capacity of the economy. The

of Japan's experience is that her modern career started from

net result was an enormous growth of educated unemployment.

a

Many proposals were thereupon brought forth to cut back the

showmg every diSpOSItIon and readiness for a modern transformation. In Bertrand Russell's apt definition she was an "economically but not culturally backward" She was a highly centralized national state, with most of her "na_

number of universities. But no sooner were they made (al-

though not put into effect) than the booming war economy began to absorb all the graduates. Was the original plan for university expansion more prescient than the later plan for

their cutback? What we must remember, as Ito Hirobumi stated in 1879,9 is that education is a long lead-time investment and quick results cannot be expected. Educational planning shows its results five, ten, or twenty-five years later. And this is as

true of the official planning for a whole system as of the individual planning his life. In the early years of the twentieth century, when high-level government appointments were easily available, many ambitious young people entered the Law Faculty of Tokyo Im-

perial University in the full expectation that their university career would be crowned by a good government job. By the time they graduated, the employment market had changed, and many of them had to look for other jobs. Even more tragic was the large number of young people encouraged to go

hig.h

Japan of 1855 was already a society

tional" problems well behind her. Her population was ethnically homogeneous, acknowledging the same systems of authority, sharing a common religious and ethical outlook.

She had the incalculable advantage of a unified national language (in spite of dialectical variations) that proved capable of modem development. By contrast with many other underdeveloped countries, she was therefore very quickly able to carry on her educational system in her own language.ll Japan

of the middle of the nineteenth century was a country with a long tradition of secular literature and of speCUlative philosophy, a well-developed script, and a differentiated intellectual class. The considerable literacy, particularly of her upper classes and urban population, provided substantial audiences for writers and artists. Bertrand RusselI, The Problem 01 China (London 1922). See Herbert Passin, "Writer and Journalist in the'Transitional Society," in Lucian W. Pye, ed., Communications and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1963) pp l§

U

• In his "Opinion on Education." See DOCUMENT 19 for full text.

87-93.

'

,.

12

JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELOPED COUNtRY

By the Genroku Period (1688-1704)12 a surprisingly modern publishing industry had developed, characterized by large publishing houses and professional writers and book illustrators. Books were often published in editions of more than 10000 copies to satisfy the audiences created by the spread of and the cultural efflorescence of the cities. There were even commercial lending libraries to distribute books to larger audiences. All this reflects a relatively high literacy rate for a premodern nation and some institutional arrangement whereby this literacy was produced. In 1868, from which date we usually count the start of her "modernization," there already something on !he order of 17,000 schools of all kmds, ranging from Confucian "colleges," the iron frame of Tokugawa orthodoxy, to terakoya (parish schools) for the c?mmoners. When the modern school system began to be put IOta effect, from 1872, much of !his had to be scrapped. But what is equally important is that much of it proved to be salvageable. Hundreds, if not thousands, of the older schools served as component units of the new school system, particularly during the transition period. Before the new normal schools started to turn out enough teachers with modern training, the terakoya teachers helped fi.ll !he gap. Japan did not therefore start a modern school system entirely from scratch. The concept of formal education, if not of a school "system" itself, was already part of the intellectual climate of late premodern Japan, and millions of people had experienced some kind of schooling. It will be useful, therefore, for understanding the early developments in modern education, to look briefly at the system of education that prevailed toward the end of the Tokugawa Period. 11 For a detailed account, see Howard Hibbett, The Floating World in Japanese Fiction (New York: Oxford University Press,

1959).

2: Tokugawa Education: A Portrait In 1615, as part of the settlement that ended Japan's civil wars, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa regime, issued a set of instructions for the regulation of the military houses (Buke Shohatto).' Article 1 called upon !he samurai to devote themselves to both learning and the military arts, learning, it should be noticed, being placed in the first position. The injunction was piously repeated over the succeeding centuries by later Shoguns, and then echoed on down by leading daimyo (feudal lords) to their own retainers. In 1629, Shogun Iemitsu repeated the injunction in his revised instructions to the warrior class: "Learning on the left, and arms on the righl." In 1662, Shogun Ietsuna ordered !hat samurai "always be concerned with learning and arms." Shoguns Ienobu in 1710 and Yoshimune in 1716 again repeated the same sentiments.

The bushi (samurai)-said the Budo Slzoshin-slzu 2-stands above the three classes [of commoners]. In order to fulfil his vocation of managing affairs, he pursues Learning and he discriminates the Reason of things. . . . It is therefore "impermissible that a bushi, whose duty it is to govern, should be unlettered and ignorant." Whether by "learning" Ieyasu meant something more than the Confucian virtues needed for the proper governance of the state is not certain. Nevertheless the shift in direction

from bu (arms) to bun (learning) was a fundamental one, and the consequences in the long run far exceeded anything that could have been imagined in 1615. As an earnest of their See DOCUMENT 1. A compilation of moral instructions on "the way of the warrior," published in 1834. See the re-edition by Hisada Sanae, published in 1894. This quotation is taken from pp. 3-4. 1

2

13

14

JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

intentions, the Tokugawa supported the establishment in 1630 of a Confucian academy, the Sh6heik6, under the hereditary

1661-1687 1688-1715 1716-1750 1751-1788 1789-1829 1830-1867 1868-1872 Date unknown Evidence not conclusive

6 8 17 49 89 50 32 3

Q'

z :l

_ Z < < 0

modern school system.

:>i

TerakoyaO

u

26 78 304

47 42 44 18

54 68 122 322

I

I

2

7

558 3,050 6,691 1,003

416

152

568

11,302

• From Ishikawa Ken, Kinsei no Gakko (The School oj the Early Modern Period) (Tokyo: K5riku-sha, 1957), p. 264. , Ibid., pp. 267-268. o From Ishikawa Ken, Nihon Shamin Kyoiku-shi (History 0/ the Education of the Common People in Japan) (Tokyo, 1929), pp. 121-122. The years covered in this column are slightly different; from top to bottom, in order: Before 1803; 1804-1843;

Of the lower-level commoners'

schools, the terakoya, 558 were established before 1803; then between 1803 and 1843, another 3,050; and between 1844 and 1867, 6,691 more. THE SCHOOL SYSTEM It will be useful to keep three considerations in mind as we pursue our account of the Tokugawa educational system.

First, Tokugawa Japan (1603-1867) was neither a fully national state nor a completely decentralized feudalism, but rather a combination. 4

23

277

Commoner education

started later but snowbaIled even more spectacularly. Of the 416 gogaku (local schools) for commoners in 1872, 7 had been established before 1789, 104 between 1789 and 1867, and 305 in the five years before the establishment of the

Local Schools (Gogaku)

I

15 of the eighteenth century growth was rapid in all types of schools in Japan. Between 1781 and 1871, perhaps 200 domain schools were established.

NUMBER OF NEW SCHOOLS OF VARIOUS TYPES, BY PERIOD OF ESTABLISHMENT

Domain

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

Over time, the balance gradually

shifted toward greater centralized rule. The feudal wars of the sixteenth century had ended with the Tokugawa family in substantial overlordship of the country. They ruled as Shogun, or "generalissimo," in the name of the Emperor. The Shogun's government, called the Bakufu, or "tent government" (referring to its military origin), was both the national government-to the extent that there was one-and

1844--1867; after 1868.

the administrator of the Tokugawa family domains. These domains accounted for about two-fifths of the assessed pro-

direction of the Hayashi family.> This was followed by other Shogunal institutions and quickly became the model for

ductivity of the country. At the same time, however, the remaining three-fifths were under the authority of their

Confucian schools for the samurai in the feudal domains. Educational institutions, and with them literacy, expanded

slowly throughout the seventeenth century. But from the end 1 For an account of the development of Confucian education, see John W. Hall, 'The Confucian Teacher in Japan," in D. S. Niveson and A. F. Wright, eds., Confucianism in Action (Stan-

ford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1959).

'The best accounts of the Tokugawa order will be found in John W. Hall, Tanuma Okitsugu, 1719-1788, Forerunner of Modern Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955). and "The Nature of Traditional Society: Japan," in Robert B. Ward and Dankwart A. Rustow, eds., Political Modernization of Japan and Turkey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964). In Japanese, see Kanai Madoka, Hansei (Fief Government)

(Tokyo, 1962).

16

JAPAN AS

UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

own feudal lords, the daimyo, who held their office as vassals of the Shogun. These relatively autonomous provinces, of which there were on the average about 280 during the Tokugawa Period, were called han.. (referred to in the text as domain, province, or fief).

Second, the situation of the later part of the era, the

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

17

times. Few in numbers, and with practically no political influence, their life was an anachronistic echo of their Heian

Period (794-1192) heyday. In the 1840's an officially sponsored school for the court nobility, the Gakusho.in, was established in Kyoto. Here Confucian studies were taught to members of the court nobility between the ages of fifteen and forty. It

Bakumatsu, to use the Japanese term, was very different from

became politically important in the Bakumatsu Period because

that of the earlier period. From the end of the eighteenth

"Imperial Restoration" had been one of the main slogans

century Japan was becoming increasingly aware of the West, and increasingly restive about it. Disastrous economic problems that led to a series of reforms in the 1840's were soon

shOin was the first institution of higher education reopened

followed by the problems of Western pressure opened by the arrival of Commodore Perry in 1853. The fourteen years between Perry's arrival and the overthrow of the Shogunate were years of political turmoil and intellectual ferment as Japan sought some mode of accommodation to the Western presence. The rapid final spurt of educational development came in this period.

Third, the underlying conception of Tokugawa education was essentially a class one. Higher education was required by the samurai to maintain their position and efficiency as the governing class. It was therefore officially supported and carefully watched. For the common people, however, an education suitable to rulers was inappropriate. 5 Although commoner education was not prohibited, neither did it receive

much patronage or official interest. Only toward the end of the era did the higher authorities begin to give it serious attention. Yet although the class separation was very strict, it was not absolute. By the end of the era there was a very considerable mixing. EDUCATION FOR THE NOBILITY

Before the Tokugawa Period, when the military classes rose to dominance, learning and the genteel arts had been virtually

a monopoly of the court nobility and the Buddhist clergy. But with the new regime the traditional nobility fell on difficult a See DOCUMENT

9.

of the movement to overthrow the Shogunate. The Gakuby the Meiji Government (March 1868) during the confusion of the Restoration. EDUCATION FOR THE SAMURAI

Shogunal Schools. The establishment of the Sh6heik6 in 1630 may be taken as a convenient date for the start of officially sponsored education for the governing classes. This became the supreme institution of Confucian orthodoxy and was influential in both the domain and the private Confucian academies that grew up later. At one time, for ex-

ample, of 657 chairs in domainal schools, 242 were held by Sh6heik6 graduates.. Founded on the Chu Hsi version of Confucianism, which became official Tokugawa doctrine, it

was formally forbidden in 1790 to teach other doctrines.' Although established only for samurai retainers of the Shogunate, eventually it was allowed to register commoners, on a low priority basis, who intended to enter scholarly professions.

By the end of the era there were some 27 Shogunal schools for samurai, many of them among the most important in the country. Children of the Shogun's bannermen (hatamoto) and of the Tokugawa domain samurai were required to at-

tend school between the ages of eight and fifteen. Beyond that, further education depended on their status and personal aspirations. They had, however, a wide range of Shogunal • Ishikawa Ken, Nihon Gakkoslzi no Kenkyu (Studies in the History of Japanese Schools) (Tokyo, 1960), p. 202. f

See

DOCUMENT

11.

18

JAPAN AS AN UNDBVE.LOPED COUl:lTRY

institutions to choose from. Nor were all of them orthodox Confucianist; the Shogunate took the leadership in the development of certain kinds of Western studies. Some Japanese scholars argue that the Shogunate's purpose was to defang these potentially subversive fields of learning by bringing them under official control and to monopolize their practica! benefits. As long as they confined themselves to practical

matters-medicine, gunnery. technology, cartography-and did not stray onto the fields reserved for othodoxy, they were acceptable. In any event, whatever the complex of motives may have been, in 1740 Shogun Yoshimune ordered two of his retainers to study the Dutch language under Dutch teachers,' and this set the official sea! of approval on what had until then been the preserve of medical men or of philosophical dissidents. In 1756 a Western medical college that later formed the nucleus of the Tokyo University Medical School was established. As early as 1811 the Bansho Wage GoyiJ (Office for the Translation of Barbarian [Western) Writings) was established, a forerunner of the later and far more important Bansho Torislzirabe-dokoro (Institute for the Investigation of Barbarian Writings) of 1856, where Western learning, or yiJgaku, was supported. The Kobusho, or Western-style Military School, was started in 1854; a naval school in 1857; and the Meirindo in the city of Nagasaki, where foreign languages, particularly Dutch, were taught. Even the Unational learning," which is often considered by later historians to have, at least implicitly, challenged the legitimacy of the Shogunate, was supported in the Wagaku KiJdansho, established in 1790. The Domain Schools. Tokugawa Japan was divided into approximately 280 feudal domains (!zan), both large and small, under the rule of their own feudal lords, or daimyo. I See Jiro Numata, "Acceptance and Rejection of Elements of European Culture in Japan," CaMers d'Histoire MOlldiai, vol. 3, no. 1, 1956.

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

19

Almost everyone of them, except possibly the very smallest, had at least one school (honkiJ)-generally modeled after the Shogunal schools. In the course of time, about one-half became active in extending education to the commoners. The giJgaku (local schools), which developed rapidly atter the middle of the nineteenth century, very often started out as or soon turned into virtually a "branch" of the main domain school, which meant that they came to some extent under official patronage as well as supervision and that the domain authorities paid careful attention to their curricula, text materials, and general conduct. Toward the end of the era some of them had mixed samurai-commoner student bodies. It would not be unreasonable, therefore, to assume that there were upwards of 300 domain schools maintained for the education of the domain samurai. Although there was much diversity, in general they were based on a classical Confucian curriculum to which was added, in differing proportions, such subjects as "national learning," history (both Japanese and Chinese), calligraphy, composition, and etiquette. Toward the end of the era a good number of the domain schools made further additions to this core curriculum: 45 schools included Chinese medicine, 12 Western medicine, 1 Western medicine and Western studies in general, 29 Western studies, 3 Dutch studies, 6 English (which meant not only language, but military science, ordnance, geography, astronomy, etc.), and 16 national studies.9 These schools were usually set up in their own buildings, separate from the main domain school quarters. For more advanced study of these subjects, promising students were often sent to Shogunal or private schools in Edo (renamed Tokyo in 1868), Osaka, and Nagasaki. The domain schools, no less than the Shogunal ones, maintained strict class divisions. Separate education was provided for the different ranks of the samurai. In the Mito domain 8

Ishikawa Ken, Killsei no Gakko (The School in the Early (Tokyo, 1957), pp. 265-266.

Modern Period)

20

JAPAN

AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

school, for example, the attendance requirements varied by family rank: For the older sons of families of 300-koku'O income or above, 15 days attendance per month was required; for the junior sons of 300-koku families and the older sons of 150--300-koku families, 12 days; for the junior sons of 150--300-koku families and the older sons of below 150koku families, 10 days; and for junior sons of below 150koku families, 8 days.n Differences in dress, number of attendants permitted to accompany the student to and from school, seating position, and even classroom were often carefully specified. Many of the domain schools provided separate curricula for the various ranks. The higher samurai, for example, looked down upon arithmetic as fit only for merchants. Fukuzawa Yl1kichi tells a revealing story about this in his autobiography. His father, who had the traditional samurai contempt for money, . . . once sent [his children] to a teacher for calligraphy and general education. The teacher lived in the compound of the lord's storage office, but having some merchants' children among his pupils, he naturally began to train them in merals: "Two times two is four. three times two is six, etc." . . . When my father heard this, he took his children away in a fury. "It is abominable," he exclaimed, "that innocent dren should be taught to use numbers-the instruments of merchants. There is no telling what the teacher may do next."12 But for the lower samurai, arithmetic was often compulsory. (For the middle ranks, it was optional.") It is only fair to 10 One koku equals approximately five bushels of rice. n Kasai Sukeji, Kinsei Hanko no Kellkyl1 (Studies on the Domain Schools of the Early Modern Period) (Tokyo, 1960). p. 202. U E. Kiyooka. ed., The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi (Tokyo, 1948),pp.2-3 . U Karasawa Tomitaro, Nihon KyOiku-sl!i (History of Japanese Education) (Tokyo, 1962), pp. 171-172.

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

21

note, however, that in some of the schools mathematics was treated as one of the "six Confucian arts," and therefore as entirely suitable to persons of high status. Even in the strictly military arts a division was made. Swordsmanship. riding, and archery were taught to the upper-class samurai as a form of spiritual training, but lower-class samurai were taught jujutsu, lancemanship, group tactics, and rifle. a Samurai education was considered education for acter rather than specialized training. The specialist was looked upon as a mere technician ratber than a person of general culture. Therefore, although Western subjects were gradually introduced into the domain schools, characteristically they were provided only for the lower samurai ranks, rather than for the higher, and it was Western military science that attracted most attention. The orthodox view was that Western learning was quite appropriate to practical matters, perhaps, but it was entirely unsuitable for the realm of wisdom and virtue, and therefore not for the governing classes. Sakuma Shozan had summed it up in the famous phrase: "Western science, Oriental morality." As long, therefore, as Western studies were confined to technical matters, many domains were willing to allow them. The regulations of the Meishinkan School in Echizen Province specified that Western studies were to be taught but that they must not contravene what was permitted by the Shogunate. By 1871, 28 of the han had established schools of Western studies, 35 medical schools, and 18 schools of Japanese studies, entirely apart from the regular domain schools.t tl Whether all the qualified samurai children went to their domain schools is not clear. If they did not, then it was very likely-at least toward the end of the era-because there were so many other types of school available to them, often private or only partly official. Moreover, the domain schools varied Kasai, op. cit., p. 229. See Ishikawa Ken, Gakko no lfattatsu (The Development 01 the Schools) (Tokyo, 1951), p. 262. 14 l.$

22

JAPAN AS!,--N UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

considerably in level. Some provided only educa. tion, obliging ambitious students to go elsewhere for advanced work. while others provided only intermediate or advanced

work so that students had first to acquire the rudiments of education either through a private tutor or in a private school.

A survey of 238 such schools found that 48 took students only after the

of

so that they must have had their pri.

mary schoolmg privately; and 55 ended schooling before the age of fifteen, which means the students had to carry on their advanced work elsewhere. 16 It is at any rate quite clear that

a good part of the elementary military training was provided first in private fencing academies, and that only later the

students went on to the domain school. By the end of the Tokugawa Era, there were some 236 of these in existence.1T Home education, however, was considered very important for the samurai class. It is very likely that most of the education of samurai women was provided by the family or within

the home by a tutor. But shitsuke (proper upbringing) was equally important for sons. Samurai children took their first steps in in their own homes, acquiring not only some rudImentary, ritual military skills but, more importantly,

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

23

trators grew up. Many of the domains began to provide schools and academies in their Edo headquarters for children and young people in their retinue, and some of these went beyond mere primary education. Ambitious youth could ad-

vance their studies while living in Edo by utilizing the facilities and libraries of the great Shogunal academies, such as the

ShOheik6. Toward the end of the era, commoners were increasingly

permitted to attend the domain schools. Ototake estimated that of the 234 domain schools he studied 120 "did not forbid" the entry of commoners; of these 27 had no commoner stu-

dents, 10 had a smaIl number, and in 83 the number was not known. Eighty-nine schools forbade the entry of commoners,

and in the remaining 25 the policy could not be clearly determined. IS

One of the earliest examples was the Meirind6 of Kanazawa, which carried on what might be called "adult education" among the merchant classes. Once a month commoners were permitted to sit among the two-sward-bearing

samurai students and listen to the lectures. But even the

status. The upbringing was severe, emphasizing the development of character traits considered appropriate to potential rulers: proper manners, proper language to superiors and inferiors, self-respect, frugality, toughness, moderation in food

domain schools that refused entrance to commoners such as the Meirinkan of Hagi, for example, felt increasingly impelled to provide special facilities for them. When commoners were permitted to attend domain schools, they were usually required to wear clothing suitable to the samurai class.

and drink. Therefore, by the time the young samurai lad went on to formal school- and by the end of the Tokugawa Era most of them did so-he was already started on the road

wide variety of private academies, or shl;uku. grew up. Although most of them can be fairly characterized as institutions

the elements of a self-image proper to their class and family

to proper class behavior and manner. Under the sankin kolal (alternate attendance) system, dai':'YD required to maintain a residence in the Shogun's capItal Clty of Edo. Around these residences very considerable retinues of servants, family members, and adminisIt

11

Ishikawa Ken, ibid., p. 265. Ishikawa Ken. ibid .• p. 261.

Shijuku.

Alongside the officially supported schools, a

of higher education largely for the samurai, they ran the fuIl range from elementary schools offering the bare rudiments of literacy all the way to advanced institutions of learning that functioned much on the order of colleges and research institutes. Many of them also opened their doors to com11 Ototake Iwazo, Nilton Shomin Kyoiku-shi (History of the Education of the Commo" People ill Japan) (Tokyo, 1929), vol. 6, p. 902.

24

.JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

25

moners. In the later Tokugawa Period there were at least 1,500, ranging from tiny schools with twenty to thirty students all the way to huge academies rivaling the Shogunal and domain colleges. with thousands of students. According to a recent analysis,lO there were 437 slzijuku in 1829, 1,066 in 1853, 1,528 in 1867, 1,374 in 1870, and 1,182 in 1871. Where the student body was large, senior students were often called on to help out in the teaching. The more important shijuku offered specialized curricula such as medicine, Dutch studies, Western learning, military subjects, and navigation. Because they were private, they were freer than the official schools to teach unorthodox doctrines, such as the "national learning" or one of the forbidden varieties of Confucianism. Some of them therefore became centers of unorthodoxy and opposition to the regime. In the Chashil domain, for example, that played such a leading role in the overthrow of the Shogunate, Albert Craig has described for us how important it was that most of the young rebels had come under the infiuence of Yoshida Shein and his academy.20 Usually these schools centered around some distinguished teacher who had strong views, whether political, philosophical, or educational, that be wished to propound. It was his personal qualities that attracted students, and a great teacher would draw his students from many parts of the country.21 The

most important of the shijuku were essentially institutions of advanced education. The teachers were dedicated scholars, usually of samurai or ronin (masterless samurai) origin. Often they were men who had taught in domain schools and then resigned to establish their own schools. In Tokugawa Japan, as John Hall has observed, "it was possible for an independent Confucian teacher to make a living by writing and taking in pupils. "22 But not all were of samurai origin. In a study of the background of 118 shijuku teachers in the single province of Echigo--one of the less advanced provinces- the following distribution was found: 65 commoners, 33 doctors (or priests), 14 samurai, and 6 others.2S Originally the shijuku were conceived as schools for the education of people who wanted to enter the scholarly professions. Therefore, although samurai were normally in the majority, from their very start many of them came to take commoner students and even, as we have seen in the preceding paragraph, to have commoner teachers as well. One of the most famous of all, Ito Jinsai's Kogid5, established in Kyoto in 1680, had, at least for its earliest years, a majority of commoner students.24 In the Nariyoshi-en, which was the largest, one-third of the students were sons of Buddhist And in the school of Moto'ori Norinaga, the founder of "na-

1·Sano Yoko and Hasegawa Tsuneo, "The Estimated Number

1952), pp. 354-374 : In the Tojii school established in 1626, only 40 per cent of the students came from the immediate province, the rest coming from varying distances; in the Baien, established in 1754, only 23 per cent came from the immediate area; and in the Nariyoshi-en, the largest shijuku during the Tokugawa Period, established in 1805 in the Shogunal area of Oita, 79 per cent came from all over the island of Kyushu, and the rest from virtually all the other provinces. :D Hall, "The Confucian Teacher in Japan," op. cit., p. 272. 23 Ito Tasaburo, "Kokumin Seikatsu-shi" ("History of Popular Life") in Seikatsu to Gakumon KyOiku (Life and Scholarly Education) (Tokyo, 1958) , vol. 3, p. 367. :M See Joseph John Spae, Ito Jinsai, Monumenta Serica, Monograph XII (Peiping: The Catholic University of Peking. 1948), p. 161. For some representative views of Ito, see DOCUMENT 4. :IG See S. Ishikawa et al., op. cit., pp. 354-374.

of Pupils in All Japan-1854-67 and 1868-70." (Unpublished report, July 31,1962.) 110 Albert Craig, Chosha in the Meiji Restoration (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961). For a representative statement of Yoshida, see DOCUMENT 14. :n For example, between 1863 and 1871, only 13 per cent of the students at Fukuzawa's Keio Gijuku were from the immediate Tokyo area. The rest came from every section of the country. In fact, students from Kyushu (22 per cent) and from the KyotoOsaka area (21 per cent) outnumbered those from closer !Jy. (From data compiled in Sano and Hasegawa, op. cit., Table d-m.) A few examples are cited in Ishikawa Saihei et al., KyOiku

no Shiteki Ken Hakushi Kanreki Kinen Rombunshu (The Historical Development of Education-Essays tn Honor of Dr. Ishikawa Ken) (Tokyo: Yiibenkai Kodansha,

26

JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

27

tional studies," almost all of the 500 students' were from 'well-

If at the hlgher levels the shijuku were institutions for ad-

to-do merchant families. It was in these schools that for tbe first time the modern principles of merit and achievement began to come into con-

vanced education, at their lower they were scarcely dis·

flict with class ranking. In the formal Confucian lecture halls, it was perhaps possible to maintain the official fiction that

tinguishable from the ferakoya, whlch might be characterized as primary schools for commoners. EDUCATION FOR THE COMMONERS

students of upper-class origin were inherently superior to commoners. But when students lived together in dormitories, as was often the case in the private academies, and were stimulated to competitive individual performance, the fiction began to wear thin. Examinations, grades, and individual recitations

The Terakoya. The most important and widespread institution for commoners' education was the terakoya. 27 AI·

emphasized the individual rather than his class. The fiction was further eroded by the growing interest, on the part of both the Sbogunal and domain authorities, in the "cultivation

Period (1392-1573), the ferakoya had indeed been organized and run by Buddhist priests. Many temples main-

of talent" and of "human resources." Although these ideas were never carried to their logical conclusion during the Tokugawa Era, they were sufficiently widespread to be an

important part of the amalgam of ideas that formed the ideology of the Restoration, and they explain much about the ease of transition, in the early Meiji Period, to a merit system. It was also important that most of them, and certainly the famous ones. were located in the metropolitan centers and

domain capitals where their political infiuence could be felt. Until the end of the eighteenth century Kyoto was the great center of the shijuku. But by the nineteenth century Osaka and particularly Edo took the lead. Not only was it the Shogunal center and the home of the Shoheiko, but its increasing population and commercial importance gave it the greater weight. Nevertheless, the shijuku in rural areas and

small towns should not be underestimated. They produced many local leaders and helped spread Western ideas as well as knowledge of the political controversies going on during the late Tokugawa Period. 2o til! See Marius Jansen's account of the political importance of the fencing academies in Tosa as the Meiji Restoration drew near (Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration) (Princeton: Prince. ton University Press, 1961).

though the term suggests that they were schools run by Buddhlst temples, somewhat on the order of the "pagoda schools" of Burma, this is misleading. In the Muromachi

tained schools for the training of novitiates, and these were increasingly opened to samurai children and eventually to

commoner children of the neighborhood. But by Tokugawa times the terakoya was a purely secular institution for the common people having no particular connection with the temple. A survey of the social origin of terakoya teachers in late Tokugawa shows the following distribution: commoners, 38 per cent; samurai, 23 per cent; Buddhist priests, 20 per cent; doctors, 9 per cent; Shinto priests, 7 per cent; and 3 per cent, unclassified. 28

Throughout most of the Tokugawa Era, officials were mainly interested in samurai education. Commoners were left to their own devices. All the more remarkable, therefore, IT Usually translated as "temple school." More accurately, bowever, the term refers to the "children of the temple," or to children who were sent to study in the temple. By the Tokugawa Period, the term "terako" (literally "child of the temple") continued to be used for people who received education in private, local schools. Professor T. Kobayashi of International Christian University has suggested that they are equivalent to the "dames' schools" of England. But if the temple is conceived of as having a geographic area of authority, the parish, then perhaps we can hold close to the original and render the term as "parish school." This should, however, be understood to have no religious connotation whatsoever in the Tokugawa Period. !II Quoted in Ototake, op. cit., p. 883.

28

\

.

JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

was the rapid growth of popular education. Schools were started by public-spirited citizens either as an expression of their own conviction of the need for public education or in response to growing demand from the urban and rural commoner classes. Shrines, temples, vacant buildings, or private homes were used. As often as not, the teacher simply gathered pupils into his own borne for instruction. The most rapid development of the terakoya came in the nineteenth century. By the year 1850 there were certainly 6,000 or more, and in another twenty years they doubled their numbers (see page 14). In the last twenty years of the Shogunate there must have been few areas of the country hopelessly beyond their reach. Among the reasons for nonattendance offered by Ototake's respondents, "distance from a school" ranked very low. 29 The distribution of schools, however, was very uneven. The greatest concentration was in the urban areas. In Edo, for example, it is estimated that there were about 1,200 at the end of the Tokugawa Period. so As against this relative density. many rural areas were extremely deficient. The demand for education in the cities and towns was very high, and it is a fair presumption that a majority of the children, at least the boys, attended school for some period or other. Many children of affluent merchants and city families went on to private schools for a much higher level of education than they could obtain in the terakoya. The demand for education in the rural areas came primarily from the upper strata, who needed literacy and basic educational skills in their administrative work. This need prevailed not only among the top village leaders, but penetrated right down to the level of heads of neighborhood associations (gonin-gurni-literally, five-household groups). Bare literacy was not enough. As a governing group, the village leader class shared much of the outlook of the samurai, and "Ototake, op. cit., pp. 939-940. 30 Ogata Hiroyasu, Nilzon Kyoiku Tsiishi (Simple History of Japanese Education) (Tokyo, 1960), p. 151.

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

29

in many areas they came increasingly, in time, to resemble them in their styles of life. Very often the only private collection of books in a village would belong to the shiiya (village chief). And in many villages there were great landowners who carried on a life of considerable cultivation, guided by Confucian standards essentially similar to those of the samurai, and as deeply imbued with a sense of political responsibility. As the "representatives of the people" they often had an even more immediate feeling of responsibility than the remote and bureaucratic samurai. Watanabe Kazan, one of the great intellectual figures of the early nineteenth century, described his astonishment when, on a survey of rural conditions, he encountered the forthrightness, courage, and political sharpness of a village chief complaining of the corruption of the local lord." It is not surprising, therefore, that it was usually the village heads who took the initiative in the establishment of schools. In many areas it was only their children who attended the schools. But as time went on atM tendance from the lower strata continued to increase. In these times-a contemporary notice tells us--even the farmer, trying to improve himself, must learn a skill, rectify his heart by acquiring learning from people, and aim to comprehend the principles of filial piety [that is, of Confucian ethics].32 n Nakano Shigeharu, "Mibun, KaikyU to Jiga" ("Status, Class and Self-Other Image"), in Kindai Nihon Shiso-shi Koza (Lectures on the Ideological History of Modem Japan) (Tokyo, Chikuma Shobo), vol. 6, 1962, pp. 361-363 . See also Hayashi Takeji, "Teik6 no Ne-Tanaka Sh6z6 KenkyU e no Yosho" ("The Root of Resistance-An Introduction to Research on Tanaka Sh6z6"), Shiso 110 Kagaku, September 1962, for a similar example; and Marius Jansen, op. cit., for an account of the complex relations between the sil6ya, the village leaders, and the goshi (low-ranking "country samurai") in the Tosa Domain. 1:1 Quoted in Ishikawa Matsutar6, "Terakoya to Shingaku" ("Terakoya and Shingaku") in Toky6 Ky6iku Daigaku, ed., NilJOn Ky6ikll-shi (History of Japanese Education) (Tokyo, 1951),

p.307.

30

JAPAN AS:AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

This rise of the commoner class, which was

ODe

of the most

important developments of the late Tokugawa Period, is fleeted in the distribution of terakoya teaching staff. If,

before 1623, priests (both Shinto and Buddhist) constituted 45 per cent of the operators of terakoya, by 1867 the number had fallen to about 25 per cent. Commoner management went up from 27 per cent in the earlier period to 41 per cent by 1867.' 3 The teachers were usually men, but women teachers began to make their appearance as the

Tokugawa decades unrolled themselves. Toward the end of the period they were fairly numerous in the big city schools, particularly in districts with a majority of commoner-managed schools.s4 More significant than the over-all figures was the regional distribution. Priests and doctors were predominant in isolated rural areas. In the castle and post towns, samurai were in the majority, But in the large cities and commercial ports, where the commoner culture was most advanced, it was the commoners who were predominant.8 5 What was terakoya education like? In many cases, it must have been not too unattractive. Later, after the modern school

system begins, we find many people looking back on their terakoya days with the utmost nostalgia, In fact, when in the

1870's and 1880's the Meiji Government was having great difficulty maintaining regular school attendance, a common

complaint was that the new schools lacked the warmth and practicality of the old terakoya. A report from Aichi Prefecture officials in 1875, analyzing public resistance to com. pulsory education, listed, among other causes, that the people "miss the old terakoya."86 III K. Uchiyama, C. Kumaya, and S. Masuda, Kinsei Nihon Kyoiku Bunka-shi (Cultural History of Early Modern Education

in Japan)

(Tokyo, 1961), p. 76.

See the figures assembled for Edo (Tokyo) schools in M. Ishikawa, op. cit., pp. 333- 336. a Ototake, op. cit., pp. 885--1192 . .. Tamaki Hajime, Nihon Kyoiku Hatlalsu-shi (Hfstory of the Development of Japanese Education) (Tokyo, 1954), p. 31. M

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

31

Among the more than 14,000 terakoya (and over 17,000 teachers), conditions were obviously very diverse. Some of the schools were outstanding, others extremely poor. In general, however, they averaged between 30 and 60 pupils per school, usually under a single teacher, or the teacher and

immediate members of his family. Although coeducation was the norm there were far fewer girls than boys, and the two groups were rigidly separated in seating arrangements. Boys usually entered between the ages of six. and eight, leaving between eleven and thirteen, that is, in time to begin work or apprenticeship. For girls, the leaving age was usually one year later. At a rough guess, boys averaged about four years

of schooling and girls perhaps as much as five. Attendance requirements were casual and easily adjusted to the work routines of shop or farm. During the busy agricultural season

village schools were recessed. Children were given plenty of time to keep up with their household chores. The children were not divided into grades. If there was any separation it was on the basis of the teacher's intuition. The usual daily stint was between three and four hours. The teacher would instruct each student in turn, and in between individual drill or recitation the students practiced their writ-

ing or reading. Reading and writing were the heart of the curriculum, followed in order of importance by the third R. To this basic core curriculum some schools added vocational or moral subjects such as etiquette, morals, and accounting. Some of the terakoya added more academic subjects,

such as Chinese (kambun!, history, geography, and composition; and later, occasional Western subjects, such as science, military arts, and in a few cases even English, were added. More advanced students might be assigned the simpler Confucian classics such as the Four Books, and girls some suitable Confucian work or Kaibara Ekken's improving tract, the Greater Learning jor Women (Onna Daigaku),37 But these were the minority. For the overwhelming majority, the cur. 17

See DOCUMENTS 5 and 2.

32

JAPAN AS

UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

riculum was basically the three R's plus some instruction in morals and manners.

Teaching methods were unstandardized.

Pupils studied

and made their recitations individually rather than as a group.

In most schools the basic subjects were taught either from teachers' prepared texts or from simple primers, the Oraimono.

The Oraimono were usually closely linked to the daily life and occupational expectations of the children, as may be seen in the following sample" of titles: Title RURAL SCHOOLS:

Country Reader Farmer's Reader

Farming People's Reader Increased Profits for Farmers Bumper Crops

Agricultural Reader URBAN SCHOOLS:

Commercial Reader New Commercial Reader Merchant's Reader Wholesaler's Reader Navigation and Shipping Reader Good Business for the Clothier

Date 01 Coming into Use

1758 1766 1789-1800 1811 1836 1762 1693 about 1751 before 1781 1772

1823 1825

It was this quality of closeness to practical needs that later came to be missed in the early days of the modern school sys-

tem and that often made its opponents look back nostalgically on the good old days. Arithmetic texts were rare, except in Osaka, Edo, and two or three of the other larger cities, where the standards of the merchants were somewhat more exigent. Normally there were neither examinations nor grades. Most of the teaching was a voluntary labor of love, particularly in the rural areas. Part-time teaching by publicU

Summarized from M. Ishikawa, op. cit .• pp. 319-320.

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION ; A PORTRAIT

33

spirited samurai, ronin. village officials, and educated commoners was not unusual, and retired village officials often devoted their final years to teaching. But even when, as in some of the large cities, the teachers were professional-in the sense that they earned their living from their work-there was no uniformity in their preparation or methods. Unlike the domain school teachers, those of the terakoya were neither licensed nor inspected. Anyone with the will was free to become a teacher. Nevertheless, he was a respected, and if contemporary accounts are to be believed, sometimes awesome figure. "The teacher," preached the Jitsugo-ky6, one of the most widely used of the Tokugawa Period textbooks, "is like the sun and the moon." According to another well-known textbook, the pupil should be careful not to step on the teacher's shadow or to come within seven paces of him. Since his teaching was a gracious benevolence, rather than a paid profession, he was deeply respected and had great authority. "The Thunderer," some contemporary accounts call their teachers, who punished them physically and whose voice could be heard roaring throughout the village.'· Regular fees were therefore not levied, and the schools were generally supported by the patronage of wealthy individuals and by contributions. These "donations" were usually paid in kind, proportionate to the capacity and status of the individual family. More amuent families gave presents of dried sardines, sweets, lengths of cloth, or even occasionally money; farmers might pay in agricultural produce; others perhaps in personal service, such as repairing the teacher's house mats. Many of the schools took in a small number of boarders who acted, in effect, as servants in the teacher's household. But from the eighteenth, and especially from the nineteenth century on, official attention to the terakoya grew. This attention usually took two forms: the awarding of prizes It

Karasawa Tomitaro, Kyoshi no Rekishi (History of Teachers)

(Tokyo, 1956), pp. 1-5.

34

JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELqPED COUNT!lY

to meritorious teachers and the prescription of textbooks. 40 Later on there were occasional examples of more exigent intervention or of modest financial aid. In the areas of the country under the direct control of the Shogunate, this interest dates from Shogun Yoshimune, who had a particular interest in learning and education. In 1722 he established an important precedent. "Deeply touched," the canonical writings have it, to learn that a mere rural school teacher in the village of Shimane. Province of Musashi, had been giving instruction in the Gohatto-sho,41 Yoshimune awarded him a prize.42 In 1723 he set another precedent by ordering the use of the Gohatto-sho and the Gonin-gumicho (Five-Family Group Register) for the study of reading and writing not only in the schools but in local groups and associations of all kinds. This example was followed by later Shoguns, and textbooks were occasionally either specifically prepared for terakoya use or were assigned from the Confucian schools. In 1833-34 the Shogunal Chancellor, Mizuno Tadakurri, awarded prizes to 62 school teachers.43 These prizes were usually some improving text, so that a close relationship between the prize awards and the control of textbooks might well be suspected. In Edo we find that several gokenin (close retainers of the Shogunate) opened schools for commoners that were run on high standards. The Shogunal example was soon emulated by the more enlightened domains. In 1796, for example, in Hikone Province a teachers' group, limited to twelve persons, was encouraged by han officials to deliberate on the improvement of popular education.44 A similar group in Kanazawa Prov-

M. Ishikawa, op. cit., p. 312. A compilation of the main Tokugawa law codes. Date of completion and author unknown. a M. Ishikawa, op. cit., p. 312. CJ Ibid. These teachers' associations were often formally organized as a kind of teachers' guild (or kabunakama) in which membership was bought and sold like seats on the stock exchange or like stock. M. Ishikawa, op. cit., p. 313. «J

'l.

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

35

ince, formed in 1837, offered a plan to make the terakoya the elementary sector of a comprehensive han-wide school system.45 Although this plan Dever went into effect, it was the basis for Kanazawa's anticipating the Educational Code of

1872 by trying to start a system of universal compulsory education in 1871. Ototake estimated that 31 of the domains he inquired into were positively encouraging commoner educa-

tion toward the end of the Shogunate. 4 ' Although the figure must be accepted with some reservation, it does suggest the approximate extent of domain interest. Some of the domains not only encouraged the commoner schools but even gave financial support. As in the Shogunal areas, they sometimes awarded prizes to teachers and in a few cases assigned the prescribed textbooks of the domain schools for use in commoner schools.

While Yoshimune and his followers may very well have been motivated by altruism and love of learning, there were doubtless very practical considerations as well. Yoshimune

was the first of a long line of Shogunal authorities who had to deal with the growing conflict between the feudal theory of the early Tokugawa period and the divergent social reality of the later period. Among his other measures-which it would take us too far afield to analyze here-he adopted a number of control devices. The gonin-gumi (neighborhOOd associa-

tion), an institution Japan had adopted from Tang Dynasty China in the seventh century, was revived as a unit of collective responsibility assuring close control over the lives of commoners. How effectively and how widely this was put into effect cannot be estimated; the question remains the subject of lively controversy in Japanese historiography. Nevertheless the effort was made, and certainly there were many areas of the country where these associations were organized ., Ibid. 4(lOtotake', op. dt., p. 903. M. Ishikawa's estimate is higher212-for those whom he considered were either doing something or seriously planning something, about popular education. M: Ishikawa. op. cit., p. 313.

36

JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

and operated to some extent. In the same way, Yoshimune saw the schools as an instrument for greater control and, whether he was willing to establish new ones or not, he was certainly willing to use them for this purpose. Instead of the degree of official "support" for the schools, many Japanese scholars prefer to speak in terms of the degree of "intervention." There is also some evidence that traditional systems of apprenticeship were breaking down, so that substitutes were needed. It many of the terakoya did little more than provide the bare rudiments of literacy, others, particularly in the cities, attained rather high standards of primary education. In some of them, what might be called prevocational preparation was very thorough. But for ambitious, not to say affluent, city people, particularly the wealthy merchants, this was not enough. They too wanted for their daughters, no less than did the samurai for theirs, the arts of flower arrangement, the koto (Japanese zither), and poetry, and some of the terakoya began to offer this more elegant and gracious educational fare. I! is also quite clear that toward the end of the Tokugawa Era some of these schools were sufficiently effective to awaken in their pupils a high degree of awareness of the political problems of their times. Education-Thomas Smith writes-was apparently widely used to indoctrinate local youth. Take, for example, the activities of Sugita Senjuro. . . . The elder Sugita . . . was a fervent supporter of the imperial cause and his home was a regular stopping place for pro-Emperor samurai. . . . In 1857 Sugita established a school at his own expense, we may believe for a political purpose,_since the Fukui han (domain) stripped him of his offices of OshOya, a kind of super village headmanship, and put him under house arrest. 47

At the very least the terakoya provided a sufficient level of literacy to enable its products to read the kawara-ban (notice CT Thomas C. Smith, Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan: Government Enterprise, 1868-1880 (Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1955), pp. 19-20.

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

37

boards) containing instructions and orders that used to be circulated around the gonin-gumi. It also created the extensive readership of popular literature that made the publishing houses of the times so successful commercially. Gogaku. But the official authorities placed greater emphasis in their promotion of commoner education on a different kind of institution, the gogaku, or, translated literally, the "local school. "48 As tbe concern for commoner education progressed, the authorities began to encourage schools at a higher level than the terakoya, emphasizing not only the usual rudimentary and prevocational training but Confucian moral training as well. The first of this type was established in Okayama Province in 1667 by Lord Ikeda Mitsurnasa, and they spread rapidly. By 1674 there were 124 in the rural areas of the province. But the experiment died away as rapidly. In 1674-75 the number was reduced to 14 and then they were abolished entirely. Nevertheless, within a few decades the concept was revived in various provinces and the number of g6gaku increased steadily throughout the remainder of the Tokugawa Era. Most of them were established in the feudal domains directly by the lords themselves. Others were established by high vassals, by public-private collaboration, by private persons alone, and a small number by groups of villages or townships joining together. The Shogunate itself supported three, and perhaps another 50 were maintained in direct Tokugawa fiefs, most of them by groups of villages and towns. In spite of official interest and support, a good part of the financial burden was left to the local people. In the case of an ... A1so called goko. Varieties of this type of scbool went by many different names, some of them of purely local use, others signifying some variation in their main emphasis. Among them are: tenaraisho (writing schoo1); kyoyusho (hall of precepts); shogakusho (elementary school) i shugakusho (writing school); kyodosho (educational guidance school); jogakko (girls' school). Ishikawa Ken classified the Shingaku, a type of religious school discussed later, among the g6gaku type. (See his Kinsei no Gakko, op. cit., p. 268.)

JAPAN AS AN: UNDEVELOPED

'38

Okayama school established in 1671, for example, the domain provided the initial capital cost plus the first five years of operation. After that it was expected that the local people would have developed enough interest and understanding to take over the operation themselves. 49 In Isezaki Domain, which managed to build 25 of these schools in its tiny area of 25 squa«, miles, public-private cooperation took a slightly different form. The domain authorities paid none of the reet expenses, rather encouraging the local people to do so: Village notables provided the funds, and ordinary villagers the labor. materials, and repairs. The domain's interest was expressed through its control of the educational aims, by sending teachers from its Confucian academies to lecture three times a month, exempting the school land from taxation, and providing special privileges for the teachers. GO Some variant of these arrangements would be found in all the provinces.

These schools aimed at the improvement of the level of the ruling elements of the commoner class-village heads in the rural areas and town chiefs in the urban areas. An instruction of the year 1671 on the establishment of a tenaraisho (writing school), a variety of the gogaku, in Okayama Province, reads that the children of village masters, elders, and hirabyakushO (solid farmers)-that is, children who can be expected on maturity to take over village affairs-are to be placed in a school to study writing and calculation, in order to be able to carryon public business, and morals, in order to be able to lead the community." This could also mean, of course, indoctrination, and no doubt many of the domains had this explicitly in mind. In Mito Province, for example, which was bitterly torn by inIshikawa Ken, ibid., p. 189. lIO See Takai Hiroshi, "Isezaki Ryoshugaku no Setsuei KateiSoshiki Keitai to Kyoiku Katsndo" ("The Process of Establishment of Isezaki Domain Schools-Organizational Forms and Educational Activities"), Nihon no Kyoiku Shigakll, No. 1 (Tokyo, 1958). «t Okayama-ken Kyoiku-shi (History of Education in Okayama Prefecture), vol. I, p. 188. From Ishikawa Ken, op. cit., p. 190. til

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

39

ternal dissension during the last years of the Tokugawa Era, these schools became deeply involved in fief politics. Until 1856 their main purpose had been the training of country doctors and providing moral education for village notables. But the nine new schools established in 1856-57 brought forward a new emphasis. Called "local schools," but alsosignificantly-bumbu-kan (halls of learning and arms), they were equipped with fencing halls" and training grounds. The local schools became battlegrounds for the contending parties within the province, the Tengu-t6 (exclusionists) and the Shoseilo (pro-Tokugawa element), and in the fighting many of them were seriously damaged. Mito's experimental nohei (farmer-soldier) drafts were, for a time, given their military training in these schools. When the pro-Tokugawa party finally won out in January 1865, the local schools were closed down.lSs By contrast with the terakoya, it was not unusual for commoner and samurai children to attend together. The schools were originally established, it will be recalled, for commoners of the higher levels. But increasingly samurai children came to attend them, often instead of going to the regular domain school. By the end of the Tokugawa Era, most of the gogaku had mixed commoner-samurai student bodies. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century the number of gogaku slowly increased, as one after another of the more enlightened domains established them. Their official character was so strong that for all practical purposes the best of them were treated as branches of the domain schools,G4 and they were subjected to similar superOn the political role of fencing academies in late Tokugawa, see Marins Jansen, op. cit., ch. II. Although he is speaking of the shijuku type of school, rather than the gogakll. the political tendencies were similar. A See Seya Yoshihiko, "Mito-han no G5k6 ni tsuite" ("On the Local Schools of Mito Province"), Nihon 110 KyOiku Shigakll, No. 4 (Tokyo, 1961). IH Ishikawa Ken, op. cit., pp. 267-268. See tabu1ation on page 14; gogaku (in the third column) is defined as an "extension of domain schools."

40

JAPAN AS AN .uNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

vision in text materials, programs, and teachers. Many of the.r;n were equipped with excellent, if small, collections of books. In level they lay somewhere between the terakoya and the domain school or the better shijuku. That is, they formed

a kind of secondary educational level. Their greatest thrust forward, however, came in the few short years between the overthrow of the Shogunate and the establishment of the modern school system,ti5 Popular Religious Schools. We may conclude OUf scription of formal education for the commoners with a brief mention of two other developments, essentially of religious origin. Shingaku was a movement started by one of the great religious figures of the early eighteenth century, Ishida Baigan. It would take us too far afield to discuss his views, but suffice it to say that his insistence that people could improve themselves by their own efforts had revolutionary implications for a society in which the prevailing conception had been that people were completely at the mercy of destiny. His doctrines appealed primarily to COmmoners, particularly the merchants. 56 As for the way of gakumon (learning)-he wrote-firstly behave prudently, serve your lord with righteousness and serve your parents with love, treat your friends with faithfulness, love men at large and have pity on poor people. Though you have merit, do not be proud. Maintain economy with respect to such things as clothing, furniture and the like and do not seek elegance. Do not neglect the family business, and as for wealth, measure what comes in and be aware of what goes out. Obey the laws and govern the family. The way of gakumon is roughly thus." A In Isezaki, for example, between 1803 and 1868, eight of them bad been established; but between 1868 and 1871, another 18 came into existence. When the new school system started, they .were turned into modem elementary schools. (See Takai,

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

41

The chief objective of the movement was to elevate the moral standards of the common people by teaching them true morality, which for Shingaku was largely Confucianism with some Buddhist overtones. However, to many orthodox Confucianists these doctrines smacked of subversion because they implied that commoners were as capable of Virtue and Higher Learning as the samurai. This is the burden of Sakuma Sh6zan's attack on Shingaku delivered in his "Memorandum on the School System" ("Gakusei lkensho") in 1837. 58 Nevertheless, Shingaku had a modest efflorescence, attracting some support even in official quarters since it was believed to have a civilizing effect on the lower orders. Shillgaku schools first opened in Kyoto and Osaka and then gradually spread to Edo and to a number of rural areas. By the end of the period there were almost 200 of all typesterakoya, gogaku, and private academies---claiming to base their curricula and training on Shingaku concepts. 159 Since Shingaku believed firmly in the necessity of training in the higher virtues for the common people, its schools taught morals along with the usual useful and practical subjects. They were noted for their special pedagogical methods, which made extensive use of such devices as moral tales and pictures rather than simply the laborious repetition of difficult and uninteresting texts. One of Shozan's complaints about Shingaku was that although its moral tales did not fail to make some distinction between commoners and samurai, they violated the Confucian principle that "the people must not be informed; they must be made to follow." Another important movement that bad some educational repercussions, particularly in rural areas, was Sontoku's Hotoku-kyo. This movement, which also had religious overtones, reached its greatest extension in the period following the disasters and famines of the early nineteenth century,

op. crt.) !III For the best account of Baigan in English, see Robert Bellah, Tokugawa Religion (New York: The Free Press, 1957), ch. 6. "Quoted from Bellah, ibid., p. 149.

A See Ishikawa Ken, op. cit., pp. 96--97. Also, Jansen, op. cit., on the suspicion of Shingaku in Tosa Province.

a

Bellah, op. c;t., pp. 17G-172.

42

JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

and preached an association of ethics, economic ideas, and the virtues of work. VOCATIONAL TRAINING

Apart from formal schooling, a highly developed apprenticeship system provided direct vocational training. A goodly portion of vocational training, as might be expected, took place within the family, since the family itself was to a considerable extent the functional economic unit. In the more extended families, or Houses, that grouped varying numbers of individual households in closer, hierarchical relations centering around a common family trade or enterprise, as in the case of some of the large commercial houses, formal provision was often made for the education of its own younger generation. This combined apprenticeship, discipline, learn-

ing, and proper behavior.60 But formal apprenticeship systems outside the family were extremely important. In the large commercial houses, for example, young boys, usually at the age of ten, were articled for long periods of service and training. Junior sons were preferred because of the danger that a senior son might have to leave to take over his family's occupation. For the first period of his apprenticeship, the young man was kept at chores around the

home and shop. At a later stage he would be assigned occasional errands and tasks outside. By the age of fifteen or sixteen he was given a new name symbolizing his relation to the mas-

ter's House, along with enlarged responsibilities. Absolute obedience was required of him, and his personal life was

regulated down to the smallest detail. Discipline and punishment were severe. Perhaps as heavy a burden as any was the constant admonitions to which he was subject: ". . . do not speak unnecessarily to the Master; do not be resentful; do not talk back . . . ." Evenings were usually spent in imeo

See, for example, Irie Hiroshi, "Chanin Shakai ni okeru

Kagyo Ishiki to Kyoiku-(Ie) Seido to Kyoiku- 1" ("The View of

Hereditary Family Occupation in the Merchant Society and Education-The Family System and Education-I"), Nihon Kyoiku Siligaku, No.4 (Tokyo, 1961).

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

43

proving occupations, including academic study, particularly

the three R's. If he managed to survive the discipline, by the age of eighteen or nineteen he became a tedai, which signified a kind of half-maturity. On attaining his majority, perhaps a year or two later, he was finally taken into the warm

bosom of the fantily. A great party would be held for him, presided over by the master and the bantii (head clerk), where he was overwhelmed with presents, presented with

clothing suitable to his new status, and treated for the first time as a full member of the family. The next stage in his progress would be the charge of some entire operation in a shop. If all went extremely well he might reasonably look forward to becoming a formal "branch family" of his master's house and be set up in business, perhaps as a branch of the main firm, or as a subcontractor, or as a retailer in the main firm's trade. Artisanal apprenticeship was also widespread, particu-

larly in the skilled crafts. By contrast with the great commercial houses, however, this training was usually more narrowly vocational. In the case of carpenters, for example, the

youth would be taken at the age of twelve or thirteen, when he had presumably completed his terakoya education, and kept on until the age of twenty-one or twenty-two. During these years he lived in his master's home and, in return for his room, board, and clothing, he was constantly at his mas-

ter's beck and call. SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

By the end of the Tokugawa Period, it would be fair to say that practically all the children of the samurai class (and of the much smaller court nobility) attended some kind of school for some period of time. Private tutoring at home was also fairly common. For commoner male attendance, ingenious

calculations by Ototake61 suggest that an average figure of about 40 per cent by the 1860's would not be far wrong. «lOtotake, op. cit., vol. 6, ch. 2, pp. 926-946. For an evaluation of pre-Meiji educational statistics, see Appendix 3.

44

JAPAN AS AN llNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

Some recent work in progress, although far from complete, provides strong confirmation of these estimates. A re·estimate of available Tokugawa materials arrives at the following tentative conclusions. These are to be understood as absolutely minimum figures; there is every evidence that they represent a considerable underestimate : 62 AVERAGE ATTENDANCE IN SCHOOLS IN SELECTED PERIODS'

Type of School

-1829

1830-53

1854-67

Terakoya Domain schools Gogaku

219,604 51,502 9,752 44,574

593,790 61,982 14,695 96,798

921,720 63,750 29,990 121,708 6,000'

Shijuku

Sbogunal schools

Total

-' 325,432

-

,

767,265

1,143,168

• Adapted from Sana and Hasegawa, op. cit. b No estimate made, e Rough estimate.

Allowing for the underestimates, it does not seem unreasonable to assume an attendance in the immediate pre-Meiji Period of about 1,300,000 children. If this figure is permitted, then it corresponds almost exactly to school attendance in 1873, the first year of the modern school system (1,332,220). There is, in fact, reason to believe that school attendance declined during the confusing years of the Meiji Restoration, between 1867 and 1872, and then only began to pick up again in 1873. (The Sana-Hasegawa estimates list 1,074,510 for the years 1868-70, and 951,021 for 1871.) In other words, the opening school attendance for the modern scbool system was about the same, and even possibly smaller, than that for the last years of the Tokugawa Era. The 1854-67 ratio of male-female attendance (based only on terakoya figures), 79 per cent boys and 21 per cent girls, corresponds quite closely to the distribution for 1873-75 per cent boys, 25 per cent girls. e3

See Appendix 3, p. 315.

TOKUGAWA EDUCATION: A PORTRAIT

45

However, the variation by urban-rural distribution, relative affiuence, and rank appears to have been considerable. In the city of Edo, for example, commOner school attendance in the period 1848-1860 was about 86 per cent.·' "It would not be wrong," a recent study concludes, Uto think that above the level of petty shopkeepers, practically all children in Edo went to the terakoya."64 Similar high figures seem likely in the other metropolitan centers, Kyoto and Osaka. While we have no exact indications for Osaka, it is quite clear that this center of merchant culture valued education highly. Education was at least sufficiently widespread among commoners that toward the end of the Tokugawa Period it spilled over into schools for outcastes both in Osaka and in Edo,·' Ototake found that virtually all reports of "practically complete attendance" were from the great metropolitan centers, the castle towns (which were the headquarters of the domain lords), post towns on the great administrative circuits, and port towns. 66 In other words, it was in the more "advanced" urban aggregates, the centers of administration, culture, commerce, and publishing, that school attendance achieved its highest ratios before 1868. As against these impressive urban rates, however, there were many isolated rural areas where practically no children attended school. H the advanced centers of the Kanta (Tokyo area) and Kinki (the area including Kyoto and Osaka) could boast of a majority of children attending some kind of school, the Tohoku (the backward Northeast), which remains relatively "backward" even today, and the southern island of Kyiishii probably had, at best, about 25 per cent of their children in schools.67 In Okinawa, apart

I' I;

Kaigo Tokiomi and Hiro'oka Torazo, eds., Kindai Kyoiku-shi (History of Modern Education) (Tokyo, 1951), p. 317. Ototake's estimate is slightly lower-70 to 80 per cent (op. cit., vol. 4, ch. 5. section 2j also, vol. 6, ch. 2, p. 935). "Kaigo and Hiro'oka, op. cit., p. 318. Ototake. op. cit., vol. 6, ch. 2, p. 944. • Ibid., p . 935. Ibid" pp. 930, 932. G3

I'

46

JAPAN AS AN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRY

from two or three areas, there was virtually . no education available for commoners.08 However, rural villages in the advanced areas of the country often showed urban rates of attendance. An analysis of school records in a mountain village near Kyoto yielded an attendance ratio of 56 per cent for boys and 15 per cent for girls.'· The rural-urban difference was perhaps even more striking in the case of female attendance. The Confucian CODception of the role of women tended to keep them out of the schools and in the homes. 7