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

18 PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPANEducation), drawn up by Motoda Eifu, heralded a conservativereaction to the previous liberal trends. The document deploredthe extremes of Westernization and reasserted Japanese valuesand the importance of Confucianism in moral education. At thesame time a new Education Ordinance (kyōikurei), also issued in1879, continued the policy of Westernization and devolvedauthority over education to local levels. However, before it couldbe fully implemented, the Revised Education Ordinance of 1880reversed some of its provisions. More specific measures followedin the Elementary School Regulations in 1881 and in the moves toreform and regulate the publication of textbooks.The centralization of education culminated in the reforms thatwere introduced by Education Minister Mori Arinori in 1886.With the backing of Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi, he transformedthe education system and gave it the shape it retained until theend of World War II. 26 Itō was engaged in preparing Japan’s firstmodern constitution and the reforms in education were part of ageneral reorganization of the government. The result was acentralized, hierarchical and elitist system, characterized by amarked distinction between primary and some secondaryeducation for the general public and further secondary andhigher education for a small privileged elite. At the top of thehierarchy was the Imperial University (from 1897 Tokyo ImperialUniversity to distinguish it from Kyoto). Compulsory schoolingwas four years. There were two divisions of middle schools, aterminal one and one leading to university. The number of publicmiddle schools was reduced and entry to the remaining ones wasby a rigorous examination.The “higher middle schools”, which became “higher schools”(kōtō gakkō) under Minister Inoue Kowashi in 1894, were toeducate the future leaders of society, whether they went straightinto the business world or continued into higher education aftergraduation. Only a small number of graduates gained entry intothe imperial universities. Others attended one of the manydifferent types of “specialist schools” or senmon gakkō. Thisofficial category first appeared in the ordinance of 1879, todescribe a tertiary-level institution that offered only one ratherthan several subjects. In reality many private schools, whichoffered a range of subjects—such as the future WasedaUniversity (established in 1881 as Tōkyō senmon gakkō)—wereincluded in this category. Until private schools were allowed tobecome universities in 1918, the category of senmon gakkō was the