wombat1138 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wombat1138) wrote2007-08-25 07:03 pm
wombat1138) wrote2007-08-25 07:03 pm
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 :
various snippets from http://www.tc.columbia.edu/centers/ijhmt/index.asp?Id=International+Bibliography&Info=Japan --
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.
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.
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Maybe not; I suspect the uniforms and dress codes would've started out only in the public schools, though I could be wrong.
This is a terribly roundabout set of directions, but the site doesn't like direct links-- if you go here (http://oldphoto.lb.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/en/), click on "Category or Keyword" in the control bar, and then select "Child" in the "Person" category and run a search, way down near the bottom there's a photo labelled "ID: 4999, Title: Children playing in a small schoolyard". It's from a terakoya in 1904, and the kids still seem to be in traditional dress, though rhe resolution isn't good enough to pick out much more detail than that. There're probably some other useful photos in the lot, but a lot of them don't have any date attached and could be from before the Restoration.
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Aw, those poor kids in the public schools stuck in uniforms. All the individuality just sapped out of life. I guess the Japanese don't embrace individualism as much as Americans do.
I saw the picture you spoke of. It doesn't look like those girls are in unis, though it's rather hard to tell as it's so small.
I think it's definitely easiest for me to set Kenji's elementary years in a terakoya. Then he can drop out of when he's ten to concentrate on swordsmanship. :-D
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In an old biography of Akihito (the current emperor), written around the time of his marriage, it mentions that when he started going to school (against previous tradition, which had sequestered the imperial children with private tutors), he still had relatively long hair with bangs, so all the other (close-cropped) boys thought he was a girl. So his household[*] surreptitiously cut his hair to the standard length, by distracting him with picture books while he thought he was just getting a standard trim. He figured it out that evening at dinner when he saw his reflection in a lacquer dish, and politely asked his attendants not to do things like that without telling him first.
[*: tradition did maintain enough of a hold that, when Akihito was still a toddler, he was separated from his parents to be raised by his own set of courtiers in his own palace compound. They were able to reunite for family get-togethers every week or so, but still.]
It might be interesting to play with the scenario of leaving Kenji's hair long and letting people think he was a girl (as with Kawakami Gensai)... come to think of it, I wonder who he'd model his speech patterns after? He might not've wanted to emulate Kenshin's "sessha" and "de gozaru" archaic formality, but Kaoru uses (of course) girlier pronouns and stuff. But I guess if Yahiko was coming around regularly as an assistant instructor (along with Yutarou as the other shihandai, plus Outa and the other students), there would've been a fair amount of "ore"/"boku" normal macho swaggering going on.
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That'd be a great idea for a story. A new kid comes to the school, sees Kenji's long hair and hits on him, thus ending up with a black eyes. :-D
I heard about that. What was the reason for separating the Emperor from his parents? Was this done to the children of the Shogunate officials and daimyo as well? Is this still done?
I have Kenji say "oro" sometimes, but as he gets older, he doesn't want to do it because he doesn't want to be a copy of Kenshin. Definitely no "sesshas" or "de gozarus".
I also have Sano return in 1884, when Kenji is five. Imagine all the colorful words and phrases innocent ears would pick up from that particular beak! *rolls eyes* As for Yahiko, I bet Kenji probably calls Kaoru "busu" sometimes too.
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Akihito may also have been the first Imperial heir for a long time to be fluent in normal conversational Japanese, thanks to his school attendance. The bio of him and his bride (written shortly after their marriage, although someone pasted a baby picture of Naruhito in the back, from an old newspaper) mentioned that when Hirohito made his radio announcement of the surrender to the Allies, most of his subjects could barely understand him because the entire Imperial Court was practically an alien realm of elaborate, archaic rituals; the way he spoke was probably the equivalent of English from the King James Bible.
There's another bio of Akihito's younger days floating around somewhere (it's been at my favorite used-bookstore for a while, though I haven't checked recently whether it's still there), written by Elizabeth Lee Vining, an Englishwoman who was his tutor from ~1946-1950. There's a page on her here (http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/vining_obituary.htm) that mentions, "It was Vining's influence that led to the decision of the Emperor and Empress to raise their children by themselves, breaking with Imperial tradition and placing emphasis on respect toward others, regardless of family status."
Gotta wonder how Hiko would react to meeting the relatively smartmouthed Kenji, considering how quiet and well-behaved Shinta had been when they first met. (Also, Anji may've taken in orphans at his temple, but presumably no one offered to do the same for Shinta instead of just cashing him in to the group of slave-traders. Ka-ching!)
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I'm not sure about Hiko and Kenji. It would depend on if Kenji really is a little psychopath like Watsuki seems to hint at. I'm sure Hiko would sense that and might be put off by it. Then again, Kenji's philosophy might be closer to his and Saitou's, so maybe Hiko would respect Kenji.
In some stories I've read, Shinta was sold into slavery because the officials thought he brought a curse on the village that killed everyone because of his red hair. Blame the red-haired oni child!
Another RK fan once told me that she thought Shinta was probably going to be sold into prostitution or to maybe work as an onnagata. What do you think?
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However, this site (http://www.androphile.org/preview/Culture/Japan/japan.htm) does say that brothels of boys were fairly common in large cities.
I'm not sure we can really know what Shinta and the girls were intended to be sold for, unless someone can substantiate the claim that hakubaikou was a characteristic prostitute's perfume *and* we assume from Hiko's passing comment near the beginning that he was concretely inspired to mention it because of a passing wisp of scent from the girls. Prostitution is certainly a reasonable conjecture in this context, but so is normal household servitude.
wrt red hair, I was *really* surprised to read that when the current Empress was a girl, her hair had a (natural) reddish color and was slightly wavy, which made her new classmates a bit standoffish when she changed schools. So I guess the taboo can't be universal. I still think that the big question about Shinta's family is why he put crosses over all of the bodies when he buried them, which raises some further questions about the relevance of the Amakusa Arc (which, like almost all of the third season, I still haven't seen).