refsplat

[wombat1138]

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.

Comments

[redswordheart.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad that practice was done away with. Children need their own parents, not strangers! Look how messed up kids in the US are because they're left in day cares and schools while Mom and Dad work 12-hour jobs for that Hummer and plasma TV.

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?

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I don't think I know anything about how prospective onnagata were chosen for training, although offhand, this site (http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/tokyo.html) provides the term "kagema" for an apprentice onnagata, though other sites say that a kagema was merely a transgender prostitute... and yet others say that all onnagata moonlighted as prostitutes offstage.

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).