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

PRIVATE ACADEMIES OF CHINESE LEARNING IN MEIJI JAPAN 73matter had been referred to the guarantor. Temporary absencesdue to illnes or accident also had to be notified by the guarantor,and the secretary (kanji) had to be informed. Students wereforbidden to borrow or lend money or to read aloud between 10p.m. and 6 a.m. They were allowed to take walks outside the jukubetween 5 and 8 p.m. Holidays were from 25 December to 7January, from 20 July to 20 August, the 3 setsu festivals (5 May, 9September, 21 December) as well as Saturday atfernoon andSundays.In November 1877 an application for a branch school, namedNishō gakusha gaijuku, was made. The subjects were to beShinagaku (Chinese studies) and the study of translated texts oneconomics, law and other topics. The juku was opened in theresidence of a former samurai from Okayama, who was also thejuku’s main teacher and administrator. The number of studentswas given as 20, and for the time being there were no boarders.Teaching regulations and textbooks were similar to those ofNishō gakusha. Not much is known about the branch schoolbeyond the application, and it merged with the main school inMay 1879. 22Together with the application for the branch school anapplication to introduce yōsan (Western arithmetic) as anadditional subject was made, taught by a young man who hadstudied at juku for Western learning in Tokyo. It appears thatChūshū aspired to the status of “middle school with modifiedregulations” (hensoku chūgakkō) from the start, and the addition ofyōsan was part of meeting the demands for this.Not much is known about the early years of Nishō gakusha.Between October and December 1877 it had 32 students, 12 to 25years old. Nominally, Chūshū was the only teacher, although infact he had assistants; lesson times were not specifically fixed,but started at six in the morning and each lesson lasted from oneto one-and-a-half hours. The school’s regulations were written byChūshū himself and hung in the entrance and the lecture hall. 23In 1879 new regulations were printed. 24 They include astatement on the aims of Nisho gakusha, entitled Kangaku tai’i[The Main Purpose of Chinese Learning] with the following text:The aim of kangaku is to cultivate oneself, to govern otherpeople and to become a person who will be useful in theirlifetime; it is not to become merely a Confucian scholarwhose learning and literary skills are without practical