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

146 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANpeace and unrest, praise and blame/Wrap your scholarshipup and store it secretly; let it go and spread its fruits over thewhole land/What I ask and wish to say to you all together;that you adhere to your daily lessons dilligently/All thingshave a beginning; I only expect that the end will not belacking. 81Diligent study, perseverance, self-cultivation, good relationshipswith others, not letting oneself be swayed by worldly affairs andfollowing the examples of the great men mentioned in theclassics, these were values Benzai wanted to pass on to hisstudents. Moral education was accorded as much importance asscholarship. Indeed, the two were not regarded as separate andrelegated to lessons and activities after hours respectively, buttreated as one. Without maintaining proper relationships andorder in one’s surroundings there could be no real learning, andthe purpose of learning was to promote moral behaviour. As therules of Yōsei juku stated, scholarship must result in action;otherwise the scholar was no different than the uneducatedpeople and would be condemned by them. Reading was likeconsulting dead senpai, that is, older (and wiser) men, in order tolearn how to conduct one’s life. 82 The rules thus express an idealof a comprehensive or (to use a modern term) holisitc education;morality is inseparable from the external forms of behaviour. Thehumdrum of daily life at the juku was an integral part of thiseducation.At the same time regulating mundane things as well as studieswas a necessity, since both study and daily life were confined tothe same premises, sometimes the same room.BOARDING HOUSE LIFEThe rules cited in the previous section tell us something aboutdaily life at the juku, even if they represent the norm rather thanthe reality, Some suggest the difficulties that could occur withmany boys living together in a confined space, for example rulesforbidding borrowing and lending. Exhortations about how totreat younger students or behave towards older ones reflect aconcern with how boys as young as six to eight and young menin their late teens or early twenties could live together inharmony. Moreover, students in some cases came from all over