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

142 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPAN1) Prospective entrants should consult with the prefect or anolder student; this applies both to boarders and day pupils.2) Students who want to return home should consult withthe prefect and ask for permission in writing.3) Students who have returned home and whose return isunavoidably delayed should ask for permission again bypost.4) Students who stay away for more than thirty dayswithout notification will be regarded as having left the juku.5) Students who apply to be away for more than threedays must settle their fees and return borrowed books.6) The postage for letters notifying juku matters duringhis return home has to be paid by the student.7) Students always have to ask permission if they leavethe premises.The above rules apply to boarders.8) Students who visit tea houses or drinkingestablishments on the way to and from school will not bepermitted to be day pupils.9) Students who disobey the juku rules and misbehave areto be publicly named, even if the offence is small.This applies to boarders and day pupils.At a time when communications were not what they are today,Benzai must have found it hard to keep track of the young peoplein his charge and to be sure whether a student who left intendedto come back or not. It must have caused him considerableanxiety if someone left without notifying him. An announcementto his students in April 1883 illustrates this. Two students hadabsconded, and after referring to the common endeavours ofteachers and students, Benzai condemns their action, telling hisstudents they must speak out if they are dissatisfied withsomething, rather than just disappear:If you suffer in some way, must you hide away like a mouseor a dog? Perhaps they [the fugitives] would say, “If we do,he will report to our family at home and we cannot do whatwe like”. Whereupon my juku becomes a nest for fugitives.Ah, this is unbearable. Moreover, is it not so, that when youcome here to study you do so at the courtesy of yourfamilies? But through my slowness, this is violated in a