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

156 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANStudents in Tokyo tended to be older, since they had usuallycompleted elementary and some secondary education beforecoming to Tokyo. In 1872 Hayashi Kakuryō had 8 students, over19. 107 Also in 1872, Oka Senjin reported to the authorities thatSuiyūdō had 3 pupils aged six to nine, 6 aged ten to thriteen, 10aged 14 to 15, 3 aged 17 to 19 and 10 over nineteen, 32 in all, all ofthem male. 108 Tatemori Manpei’s contemporary Taka Otozō, atShigeno’s juku, reported that when he studied there, the 34 pupilshad mostly completed elementary and middle school educationand were around 20 years old, although some were 30 or 40.Most of them were studying English, law, political economy orother Western subjects elsewhere and were preparing for thecivil service examinations. 109Students from kangaku juku had a reputation for being rough,although Fukuzawa Yukichi’s description of life at Tekijukusuggests that this was not limited to kangaku students. TheSpartan life and the fact that most of them where samurai with arelatively conservative attitude may have contributed to thisimage. Descriptions of kangaku students in Tokyo in early Meijisay that they were dressed like savages, hatless or with braidedhats (amigasa), in summer half naked and barefoot, in winterwithout a shirt, only wearing padded cotton clothes, in rainyweather they clattered along in high clogs (geta) hold ing upumbrellas rather than wearing rain coats. Their hair could bedishevelled or they still had topknots. Their behaviour oftenmatched their dress. Students of Taguchi Bunzō’s juku arereported to have stood in a row at Ryōgoku bridge, blocking theway while they shouted at passers-by and commented on thewomen. Tsubouchi Shōyō, in his novella Tōsei shosei kishitsu,writes that the obscene and rude behaviour of juku students didnot bear description. An article from the newspaper Tokyonichinichi shinbun on 26 June 1872 describes a scene in Asakusainvolving students from a kangaku juku who were out walkingwith students from a juku for Western studies:[…] The kangaku students were wearing the usual gussetedhakama of Kokura cotton with high-heeled geta and bearinglarge swords, and carrying fans and blocking the wide streetas they walked. Just then a Westerner was walking along,and the kangaku students made grim faces and flexed theirelbows and, turning round to the yōgaku students asking,“tell us what country is this barbarian from?” When the