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

212 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANabove; an introduction which mentions the author’s relationshipto the deceased, a short biography, praise of his virtues, a fewdetails of his family life and a poem. Thus grateful disciplesensured that their master would be remembered by posterity. Insome cases an inscription on a memorial stone is the only sourceof information about a juku.That grateful students honour their teacher’s memory is notunusual, in Japan or elsewhere. More remarkable is the waycommemoration of masters and their juku has in some casescontinued beyond the death of their students and thrives to thisday, even where the juku has long ceased to exist. Thanks to theefforts of devoted students to preserve information about theirmaster, many juku, instead of follow ing the majority ofacademies into oblivion, could be examined here. Particularlyinteresting are the attempts to continue a juku in some form afterits demise. Ikeda Sōan’s Seikei shoin is an excellent example.Sōan’s adopted heir and his descendants, down to the presentheir, Ikeda Kumeo, have actively promoted his memory. In 1956the Society to Preserve and Honour Seikei Shōin (Seikei shoinhozon kenshōkai) was launched, and restoration work on thebuildings of Seikei shoin begun. Anniversaries are celebratedregularly. During the celebrations for the centenary of his death,in 1977, a statue was unveiled, lectures were held and Sōan’sworks exhibited. That year a society to learn from Ikeda Sōansensei(Ikeda Sōan sensei ni manabu kai) was formed, which had 150members in 1993. In 1983 a little museum was built near Seikeishoin to exhibit materials relating to Sōan and his juku. In June1995 Seikei shoin and its grounds received national recognitionwhen they were shown in a television programme on the historyof education. 6Among the activities of the Society to Preserve and HonourSeikei Shoin has been the continued publication of Ikeda Sōan’swritings. They include diaries, letters, poetry and notes on hisreadings of Chinese classics. 7 Other works relating to him or hisassociates and students have been published, and sometimes republishedas the commemorative activities themselves become anobject of commemoration. The publication commemorating the150th anniversary of Seikei shoin’s foundation includesdocuments relating to previous events. They include oldnewsletters reporting on activities of the society and of theSociety to Learn from Ikeda Sōan-sensei or visits by schoolteachers with their classes, pilgrimages they could be called, with