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

4 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANwe know might be an entry in the list of juku and terakoyacompiled by the Ministry of Education between 1890 and 1898,itself an unreliable source, or in local lists. 5 In some cases gratefulstudents erected a stone to commemorate their teacher, and theinscription gives us some biographical details. 6In other cases we are more fortunate. This is especially true ofthe few juku that were transformed into middle schools or othermainstream institutions, since these have often compiled theirown histories. Juku of local fame feature in local histories. Othersare mentioned in the biographies of either the scholars whoestablished them or their students. Primary sources, such asregisters of entrants (monjinchō), rules and curricula sometimesexist. But such records only end up in public archives, if theirowners have donated them. If not, they can sometimes beexamined in the owner’s home—provided one knows of theirexistence in the first place.This may be one reason why there is little research on thesubject of juku, and most of it focuses on individual institutions,usually the most famous ones. There is hardly any study of jukuthat attempts to present a general picture, even for the Tokugawaperiod, much less for the Meiji period. 7 After 1868 more sourcesare available as a result of government attempts to controlprivate education. But official sources alone are not sufficient toobtain a comprehensive picture, which, among other things,requires local studies. Recently a group of Japanese scholars fromdifferent parts of Japan has started to conduct a systematicinvestigation into juku and has published some preliminaryfindings. 8 Like earlier studies, however, the publication limitsitself to the presentation of a few individual examples withoutattempts to generalize.There is another reason why the juku of the Meiji period havereceived even less attention than those of the preceding era. “Ithas now become worldwide knowledge that the institution of theeducational system is one of the factors which has contributedmost to the modernization of Japan during the past 120 yearssince the Meiji Restoration.” Thus the educational historianTerasaki Masao begins his preface to the 1988 issue of ActaAsiatica, which is devoted entirely to the history of education. 9The question of how Japan could establish a unified nationalschool system in a relatively short time has dominated researchon education in modern Japan. 10 This can be traced back to theMeiji period itself; the first histories of education, published in