wombat1138 | refsplat

I was going to post these snippets about Meiji education to a thread on RKDreams, but the forum has gone blinky *again* :b the pre-Meiji math stuff is pretty nifty in its own right, though.

http://www.jref.com/society/japanese_educational_system.shtml :

Japan started Westernizing during the Meiji era (1868-1912). Schools before that time were mostly for rich people and were not regulated by the government. The Meiji government immediately instituted a new educational system based on the French, German and American model. Primary, secondary schools and universities were established in 1872. In the same year, the authorities declared 4 years of elementary education to be compulsory for all boys and girls, nationwide. However, school attendance did not exceed 25 to 50% in the first decade of the new system. In 1905, school attendance for school-age children had reached 98% boys 93% for girls, and about 10% of the eligible population continued to middle school. Only a small minority made it as far as high school. Nevertheless, in 1899, the government required all prefectures to have at least one high school for girls.

The Meiji educational system quickly became state-centered. The curriculum had a moralistic approach and promoted Confucian ideals of loyalty to the state, filial piety, obedience and friendship. In 1890, the Imperial Rescript on Education formalised these conservative values. A portrait of the emperor was also to be enshrined in every school in Japan.

various snippets from http://www.tc.columbia.edu/centers/ijhmt/index.asp?Id=International+Bibliography&Info=Japan --

abstract: "The status of mathematics education during the Meiji Period has been well studied especially from a factual point of view. However, there are some facets that have received little attention. One such facet is the relationship between the mathematics education in the Meiji Period and the characteristics of the mathematics that was introduced from Europe. The author throws some light on the topic by looking at the characteristics of Wasan (traditional Japanese mathematics) and historical changes in the concepts of European mathematics."

abstract: "With the Meiji restoration, Western mathematics was introduced in Japan. We needed about 30 years to standardize the curriculum of mathematics in primary and secondary schools. But it went the contrary to the so-called Perry-movement. To innovate it, we had to wait for the advent of Green Cover in primary school and the outcome of the reconstruction movement in secondary school."

article title: "The process of change in the construction principles of instructional contents at the arithmetic textbooks in Meiji kenteiki period: On the properties of fraction, comparison of sizes, the addition and subtraction at the second half of the first stage and the second stage."

article title: ""A study on the reconstructional movement of the calculation with abacus (soroban) in the Meiji middle period"

As for wasan, this English-language page only has a brief introduction-- "During the Edo period (1603-1867) Japan was cut off from the western world. But learned poeple of all classes ,from farmers to samurai, produced theorems in Euclidean geometry. These theorems appeared as beautifully colored drawings on wooden tablets which were hung under one of the roof in the precincts of a shrine or temple. [....]"-- but the Japanese-language site linked at the top has several examples of the form. More info here, here, and here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay, managed to nab three books from the library this time; there was also an interesting-sounding young-adult novel called "Samurai Shortstop", about a Japanese boy at an Americanized boarding school in the late 19th century, but it wasn't on the shelves at this branch and I don't know whether it has solid historical cites.

On first glance, Samurai and Silk seems to cover the wrong era-- the two main subjects were born in 1835 and 1855, so their primary educations were definitely complete by the time of the Meiji reforms-- but there may be some additional material about their kids. The index doesn't look promising, though. OTOH it could be interesting on other grounds, since the noble side of the family was from Satsuma.

High City, Low City by Edward Seidensticker may be a good general resource, since it's an overview of the ~40 yrs of Tokyo history from the end of the Shogunate to the Great Kanto Earthquake. Interestingly, what little he says about the educational system is that weirdly, Tokyo had a much less developed system of public schools than the rest of the country:

In 1879 Tokyo contained more than half the private elementary schools in the country. Despite its large population, it had fewer public schools than any other prefecture except Okinawa. The 'temple schools' of Edo had the chief responsibility for primary education in the early and middle Meiji. It was only toward the turn of the century that the number of pupils in public schools overtook the number in private schools.[p. 87]

As for the nature of those "temple schools", there's a good couple of pages (~53-61) in Merry White's The Japanese Educational Challenge: A Commitment to Children. [ctd. next post]

Seriously? The capital had the fewest public schools and they were the poorest? What the hell does that say about the country? Yeesh!

OK, in terms of RK, would Kenshin and Kaoru be more likely to send Kenji to one of those temple schools in the 1880s? If the temple schools were privately funded, they could probably afford paper and ink, right? (Please say they could!) Since they're temple schools, does that mean they were taught by Buddhist monks?

The capital had the fewest public schools and they were the poorest?

Not exactly; the way Seidensticker explains it, when the Meiji educational reforms started and they started establishing public schools, Tokyo already had so many private schools that they didn't seem to need any new ones, so the government just sort of ignored them for a while. Once Tokyo *did* start to get new public schools, they were considered higher-prestige than the old private ones.

Since they're temple schools, does that mean they were taught by Buddhist monks?

I don't think so-- while the term terakoya is based on the word for "temple", at this point it seems to be used for any private elementary school, like the farmboy's school below where the teacher was just a retired merchant. It also looks like terakoya is a good websearch term-- here's a set of woodcuts (http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/publication/ndl_newsletter/117/173.html) from 1805 showing New Year's activities inside one, with the students writing out auspicious calligraphy (on paper; I have no idea how that slate-on-slate stuff works).

...wrt RK, I think some of the questions that still need to be answered are how did students match up with schools in the first place-- whatever was closest, or anywhere they wanted to go? how much did things like tuition or entrance qualifications enter into it?

This article abstract (http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED060318&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&accno=ED060318) suggests another factor-- private schools were more traditional/Confucian; public schools were more Westernized/secular (except for the growing influence of nationalistic State Shinto throughout the society). While Kenshin himself was clearly traditionalist, I don't know whether he'd object to Kenji learning about a more modern lifestyle... he might just go along with whatever Kaoru preferred.

OK, so the terakoya are the older, more traditional schools. I get that.

Honestly, since I'm a lazy-ass, I'll just have them put Kenji in a terakoya since there were more of them in Tokyo and there was probably one near the dojo (where ever the hell Kamiya Dojo is actualy located!).

I don't think Kenshin would approve of the militaristic teachings in the public schools. All those public schools were were military indoctrination institutions. I can't see him and Kaoru wanting Kenji exposed to that.

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