Private Academies of Chinese Learning in Meiji Japan: The Decline ...

136 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANTokyo his students could easily have gone to other juku, but itmay well be that his oldest students, perhaps in their twenties,kept the juku going in the master’s absence.For some juku we have information about different offices heldby students. The most important was jukutō, or gakutō, thestudent teacher. This would be an older student who had studiedwith the master for several years and had his confidence. Hehimself taught and was responsible for enforcing the regulationsregarding teaching and learning. He would have been in chargeof the teaching when the master was absent and in some cases hewould become the master’s heir.At Nishō gakusha students held several posts. Yamada Jun, astudent of Nishō gakusha who became head of the school in1926, reports that these posts enabled students to earn theirtuition if they could not afford to pay and also taught them totake responsibility. 64 Smaller juku than Nishō gakusha couldfunction with a less elaborate system of offices. In YamamuraBenzai’s juku in Hirose, the prefect (jukuchō) and his deputycorrected students’ behaviour and encouraged them in theirstudies, clarified their questions and taught reading. They werealso in charge of food, clothing, daily actions and coming andgoing (which had to be reported to them) and thus had farreachingresponsibilities. The teaching supervisor (kankō) and hisdeputy were mainly responsible for teaching reading but werealso expected to promote correct behaviour. Yamamura relied onhis helpers to support him in his ill health. 65 Some tasks,especially those connected with keeping order and cleaning up,were performed by students taking turns.Much about the day-to-day running of the juku can beglimpsed from the regulations which survive for a number ofjuku. They were commonly included in the applications andreports to the local government, sometimes, but by no meansalways, divided into kyōsoku, regulations for lessons, andjukusoku, regulations for boarding house life. 66 These regulationsvaried in length and scope, but some rules were common to mostjuku. Students were urged to study hard and attend all lessons.Failure to attend could result in expulsion. Students were notallowed to leave the grounds, except with permission in certain,specified circumstances. Alcohol was forbidden; so waschattering, especially political discussions. 67 Punishments rangedfrom performing additional tasks (household or writing) andconfinement to expulsion. Corporal punishment also existed.