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

194 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANthe only middle school in the area and percieved as a schoolmainly for samurai. On at least two occasions Sakai studied witha kangaku scholar during the summer holidays. In hisautobiography he mentions that the sons of kangaku scholarscontinued to attend kangaku juku like that of Murakami Butsusanand Kangien (another indication that Kangien was still operatingin some form). In 1886 Sakai received a scholarship from a fundset up by men from the former domain and was able to study inTokyo. Like Mikami Sanji, he states that going to Tokyo wasalmost like going abroad. There he first attended NakamuraMasanao’s Dōjinsha, one of the largest juku, but said to be indecline by his time. He also attended Kyōritsu gakusha beforegaining entry into the First High School in 1888. The followingyear he was expelled and returned home. For a while he taughtEnglish in Osaka, where he also began to work as a journalist.Another journalist, Hasegawa Nyozekan (1875–1969), amerchant’s son from Tokyo, later judged himself lucky to havebeen educated at a time of transition. 64 In 1881 he was sent to oneof the six new model elementary schools in Tokyo, but thefollowing year he followed his brother to a private school, aformer terakoya still run along the lines of a juku. In 1884 he wentwith his brother to Tsubouchi Shōyō’s juku and attended anotherelementary school while living with Tsubouchi. After graduationin 1886 he attended Dōjinsha, the famous juku of NakamuraMasanao. According to Sakai, kangaku was no longer taught therein his time, and he studied the Outlines of the Eight Histories withanother teacher. During the next seven years, his long middleschool period, as he later remarked, he attended a variety ofprivate establishments until entering the private Tokyohōgakuin, forerunner of Chūō University, in 1893. He said abouthis schooldays:From the time when I, having lived through such an age,ended my youth, the age of Japanese nationalismprogressed, and as the devolopment towards a modernstate reached a high degree, so was the education system,both its organization and content, rapidly put in order. Wecould not but think that the young people who camestraight after us and received the well-ordered education ofthis age were fortunate. But at the same time we felt sorryfor these people after us, who were stuck in uniforms withgold buttons, were made to wear the same regulation hats,