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

EDUCATION IN TRANSITION FROM THE TOKUGAWA TO THE MEIJI PERIOD 29How did the kangaku juku fare within the process? Thestatistics on juku (see following chapter), however unreliable,clearly show that although most juku and terakoya were formallyabolished with the Education Law of 1872, many continued toexist, often under a new name. Kangaku juku were listed asprivate elementary or middle schools and later as “miscellaneousschools” (kakushu gakkō). Not only did older kangaku jukucontinue to thrive, new ones were established even as late as the1880s. In some areas juku survived into the early twentiethcentury. Others transformed into regular schools and prosper tothis day.The kangaku juku as an institution continued long after 1872, butthat does not mean that a kangaku juku in 1885 was the same asone forty or fifty years earlier. The juku of the Tokugawa periodwas seldom subject to regulation, and anybody could establishone. Most people who did were samurai, who often could not getofficial appointments in an already overstaffed bureaucracy.Attendance of juku was also open, although in practice it waslimited to samurai and the more wealthy merchants and farmers,who could afford to take time off for pursuits not linked tomaking a living. Although the significance of yūgaku (travellingto study) has been stressed, the evidence seems to suggest thatmost juku, at least outside Tokyo, catered mainly forlocal students. Even in the more famous juku, with manystudents from farther afield, local students predominated.Nevertheless there was a group of students who attended severaldifferent establishments, a tendency that continued into Meiji.Although most of the known juku had boarders, the majority ofstudents were often day pupils. Boarding house life wastherefore not necessarily a dominating feature of juku education;it was incidental rather than part of a conscious educationalprogramme.Since kangaku was the mainstream of learning, the generalcontent of what kangaku juku taught was undisputed; such rivalryas existed was between different schools of kangaku. There wasno system of compulsory education that demanded the teachingof a certain curriculum or linked academic achievement to socialmobility. 61 Thus, although the rigid class system limited people’schances to choose their place in society, the lack of central controland the absence of a strong link between schooling and socialadvantage meant that freedom of intellectual pursuit was areality for those with sufficient means.