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

LIFE AT THE JUKU 165Ikeda laments the changes of his time and expresses fears aboutthe future of kangaku. Yet he is resolved to comply with the neworder, however distasteful, so that he can continue to teach, sincehe feels that his teaching is needed more than ever:Look at it this way; now schools are built in all the villagesin the realm, and the learning that is proclaimedeverywhere is all about technical skills and making profits.There is no one at all to explain even the rudiments ofhumanity, justice, loyalty, filial piety and duty (jingi,chūkō,giri). 136For Sōan the issue of fees is just one aspect of the repressivepolicies of the government towards kangaku juku. He obviouslysaw himself as a professional, as the memorandum shows, butcharging fees for his services did not belong to this image. Aprivate student of Yasui Sokken’s heir, Bokudō (NagasawaKikuya, 1902–80), stated that Bokudō refused to charge for lessons.Nagasawa sent him a midsummer present of soy sauce for manyyears, until Bokudō asked him to stop. 137 Bokudō wouldpresumably have derived his main income from teaching atregular schools.In the end the success or otherwise of a master to place his jukuon a sound financial basis may well have been one of the mostsignificant reasons determining whether a juku survived or not.The master had to offer something that was in demand, whichoften meant supplementing kangaku with other subjects. He alsohad to comply with regulations governing private schools. If heemployed additional teachers, he had to find money to pay them.If he had many students, he needed buildings to accommodatethem and these had to be maintained. In short, for anythingbeyond a small number of private pupils taught informally in hisliving room, a master needed money and business sense, butsuch thinking was alien to many kangaku scholars. Masters of jukufor Western learning appear to have found it easier to shake offtraditional attitudes. They were, for example, more likely toadvertise their juku in the newspapers. 138As the example of Nishō gakusha shows, it was possible for akangaku master with determination to create a permanentinstitution, if he had enough support. Mishima Chūshū was ableto fill a niche in educational provision and, perhaps mostimportantly, to use his influential connections. Although his juku