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

PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPAN 65not to be careless, and to strive to govern oneself and tobring relief to the people. If there are people [during groupdiscussions] whose attitude differs, this must not beignored; people must exchange their opinions. That is whythe sages defined the five human relations; ruler-subject,father-son, husband-wife and elder and younger brother, towhich we add friend-friend, so that together we wouldimprove ourselves and work hard, follow the right way andmake the four main relationships all work. Moreover, if wepolish our habits, then later, when we attain public office, wewill be well able to advise rulers as good subjects and todiscuss affairs as colleagues. We must not be careless in ourefforts. Those useless ones of you who say things that areclearly wrong two or three times must be reported to me.2) Confucius’ disciples had four strengths [i.e. virtue,speech, government and scholarship]. Rulers and fatherscannot force the development of talent. Each of us has towork on his strenghts and later offer them for the use of thenation, that is the meaning of scholarship; the way of thesages is vast and without boundaries. But because toprovide truth/ reason of extreme subtlety is not somethingthat one person can complete alone, it is undesirable thatone stubbornly sticks to the teaching of one scholar.However, in view of the fact that the teachings of thevarious scholars all rely on the canon of classics and guidepeople along the right way, each should be left to the type ofscholarship they prefer, whether old or new. But whengroup readings (kaidoku) and discussions are held, harmonyand peace of heart must be placed above everything, andfairness must be sought. If someone insists on their biasedopinion and squashes what for someone else is right, thenat the beginning of his studies he is the first to fall in withwhat is wrong, and thus it becomes a habit and later, whenhe enters public office, the harm he causes is significant.3) It is hard to understand the meaning of a text withoutlearning it by heart. Because understanding the meaning ofa text promotes reading more than anything else, a free dayis to be selected, and once each month a meeting where allread together will be held in the juku.4) At rinkō [group readings] no one must be absent; ifthere is an unavoidable reason, advance notice must begiven.