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

160 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANwithout being able to wait until his enemy had finished hisexposition, he let out his hard question. Since he hadinvestigated so thoroughly, he stubbornly discussed thecharacter and the speaker was greatly teased, but becausehe was teased too much, he eventually lost his temper andtold his tormentor, “I think it is enough to understand thegeneral outline of the texts I read, so I do not bother withthings like interpreting every detail”, and so the two arguedfiercely. 117Because the boarders of a juku formed a close-knit community, itis easy to assume that ties between students of a juku wereparticularly close and could last a lifetime. But were such tiescloser than school ties in general? There is occasional evidence oftheir political significance. When Inukai Tsuyoshi, a formerstudent at San’yō juku, stood for election to Japan’s firstparliament, some of his former fellow students mounted acampaign to support him. In this case the men in question alsocame from the same region. 118 Another example of juku ties usedfor political ends is that of Makino Kenjirō's and FujisawaGenzō’s role in the 1911 textbook controversy about the depictionof the Nanbokuchō period (period of the imperial schism in thefourteenth century). Aroused by a leading article in thenewspaper Yomiuri shinbun in January 1911, two professors ofWaseda University, Matsudaira Yasukuni and Makino Kenjirō,persuaded Fujisawa Genzō, a son of Fujisawa Nangaku, to raisethe issue in parliament. Makino was a former student of FujisawaNangaku. 119How significant where such ties between students and whateffect did the experience of study at a juku have for the students’future lives? The importance of yūgaku in the late Tokugawa andearly Meiji period has been stressed, although the evidence is notconclusive. Most juku outside the large towns catered mainly forlocal students. Besides, the fact that many future leaders spenttime at a certain juku does not in itself prove that the experiencewas decisive. Many juku can boast a few famous students, yetmost of their students are now forgotten. Thus it is difficult tomake a case that ties between people at juku were closer thanschool ties in general.Perhaps more remarkable is that in some cases ties betweenstudents of a juku extend to their descendants, although the jukuno longer exists. In November 1990 an association of descendants