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

PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPAN 45Most of the evidence for patterns of juku attendance is highlyindividual, glimpsed from biographies or the entrance registers ofjuku. There is, however, a study by the educational historianKaigo Tokiomi, made while he was working for the Ministry ofEducation in 1929–30. 18 He examined the careers of 1,020 peoplewho completed questionnaires. They were born between 1868and 1876 and were living in Sugamo in Tokyo, Hachiōji city andtwo districts in Ibaraki prefecture. Those in Sugamo had comefrom all over the country. Most of them had been to elementaryschool, but over 16 per cent had been to a terakoya or juku andalmost 12 per cent had continued to a juku after elementaryschool where they usually received a Confucian education.Similarly, in Hachiōji, where most of the inhabitants questionedhad been educated in Tokyo prefecture, over half had been to anelementary school, but almost 20 per cent to a terakoya or juku.Less than 3 per cent went to a juku after receiving elementaryeducation, but that was still more than those who went to aformal middle school. In the rural districts of Ibaraki, most ofthose questioned had lived in the same place all their lives andmost had received no formal education (68 per cent); about 12per cent had been to a terakoya or juku, and 4 per cent went on toa juku after elementary education. From these numbers Kaigoestimated that around 20 per cent of the population born at thebeginning of Meiji received education in terakoya or juku, theirproportion decreasing over the years. This figure, however,would appear to apply to people from the lower strata of society,for whom the juku was the only school they attended, apart fromtheir elementary school or terakoya; if we include other forms ofjuku attendance, like the ones suggested earlier, the proportionmay well be significantly higher.JUKU IN TOKYOMost research on juku in the Meiji period has concentrated onTokyo in the early 1870s. The sources are easily accessible in themetro politan archives, where the reports and applications of1871–73 are kept. 19 A number of prominent scholars taught inTokyo, about whom there is also a comparatively large amountof information. Moreover, Tokyo was the main centre ofeducation; the greatest munber and variety of schools wereconcentrated there and many young men flocked to Tokyo incontinuation of the kokunai yūgaku (travelling for study with in