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

2 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANthe qualities it fostered, the deep tie between teacher andstudent, the peculiar enthusiasm for moral and intellectualimprovement, the sense of honour and integrity, thecharacteristic gaiety, that grew naturally out of the life ofsuch a small community.Here we have all the elements now commonly associated withthe traditional juku.Do the two images associated with the word juku haveanything to do with each other? What happened to the juku of theTokugawa period after the Meiji Restoration and—moresignificantly—after the proclamation of the Education Law in1872? These were the questions that fuelled my interest in juku.The brief answer to the second question is that the juku playedan important role for several years after 1872, when theprovisions of the new law had not yet been fully implemented. Atthe same time the establishment of a national school systemmeant that their place in society changed significantly. Differentjuku fulfilled different functions under the new conditions;survival depended on adapting to the changed circumstances,and ultimately this meant becoming less like juku and more likemodern schools.THE JUKU IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATIONFirst, however, what is, or was, a juku? The dictionary defines itas an educational institution, where an individual teachesstudents in his own home, who are attracted because of hisscholarship and character and study his personal brand oflearning. 3 Students could come from most social classes andgeographical regions and their age varied. The earliest jukuexisted in the eighth century, but from the seventeenth centurythey greatly increased in number. The subjects taught at a jukubelonged to the field of kangaku (Chinese Learning) in the widestsense, that is, the study of classical written Chinese and theliterature, history and philosophy of China, the composition ofChinese poetry (kanshi) and, from the late Edo period, the studyof Japanese works written in Sino-Japanese (kanbun). A canon ofclassical Chinese texts, beginning with the Classic of Filial Pietyand continuing with the Four Books and Five Classics, was centralto the curriculum of most juku. In the second half of the Edo