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

178 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANThey were to venerate what is higher, love what is small andchildlike and never to neglect good forms in their actions. (4)Reading lessons (sodoku) were to take place in the mornings fromdawn; the afternoon was devoted to the explication of texts(gikai). (5) Students were to attend on all the days when lessonstook place. 15The application was turned down. It is not clear whathappened to Shijodō subsequently, but later newspaper reports(see below) suggest that it operated for a short while beforeclosing in 1874. Nishinomiya returned to a post in the prefecturalgovernment, responsible for education (shōmuka gakumu kakari). 16Akita’s policy of suppressing private schools was notcontinued with equal force. In 1878 the Ministry of Educationloosened its control over private schools, and Akita too adopted aless radical approach, approving some juku of teachers without alicence. 17 Not everyone was happy with this change; one KatanoShigeo, a student described as a ryūgakusei (from outside theregion?) at the Akita teacher training college, expressed the fearthat allowing juku again would mean the end of the new schools,since the unenlightened preferred the old-style terakoya andjuku. 18 Others, however, welcomed the new freedom and thechoice it gave people; Ishii Kōkyō condemned Katano’s argumentand claimed that people abandoned the public schools in favourof juku because the juku were more appropriate for them. 19Apparently more than one public school found itself withoutpupils, because these preferred the newly permitted juku. InKakunodate even the assistant teachers from the public schoolleft when two scholars were permitted to open juku. A newteacher had to be called in from a neighbouring district and hecalled in the children’s families to lecture them on the importanceof public school education. But people continued to prefer juku,so the district governor himself explained the official view to thepeople. 20The Education Ordinance (kyōikurei) of September 1879 madethe establishment of private schools easier and even made itpossible for them to receive public support. The change of policyencouraged Nishinomiya Tōchō to apply for permission toreopen Shijodō. He resigned from his post with the prefecture on5 December. An acquaintance, styling himself Kizendō Shujin(probably a pseudonym), prepared a publicity text for thenewspapers. 21 He described how Nishinomiya had been forced toclose Shijōdō to his own deep regret and that of his predecessor,