Japanese education during Edo and Meiji
Mason C. Oury
History 3633: Modern Japan
September 17, 2023
2
The transition from the Edo period (1603 to 1868) to the Meiji period (1868 to 1912) saw
a great number of changes occurring in Japan. Some of the most significant changes were the
dissolution of the Tokugawa bakufu, the consolidation of daimyō territories into prefectures and
the relocation of the imperial government from Kyōto to Edo (which was later renamed to
Tōkyō). Another significant change that occured, carrying great impact, was a revision of the
nation’s education system.
During Edo, there was no “central office of education”1 in Japan and the system was very
conservative in that it was “a most effective tool for conserving the status quo” with its aim
being to “fit the people into the existing social and political order.”2 Because of this system,
education was different for each social class, mainly between the samurai (who were provided
“qualities deemed necessary for rulers”) and commoners (who were molded “into efficient and
obedient followers”).3 An example of this difference can be seen in Chapter I of The
Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa when the author discussed a “teacher for calligraphy and
general education” who “lived in the compound of the lord’s storage office.” Fukuzawa
Yukichi’s father, Fukuzawa Hyakusuke, tried “to give [his children] what he thought was an
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern Period.”
Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 12. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1976.
https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
2
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Tokugawa Education as a Foundation of Modern Education in Japan.”
Comparative Education Review 9, no. 3 (1965): 288. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1186062.
3
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern Period.”
Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 11. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1976.
https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
1
3
ideal education” and so “he once sent them” to said teacher. However, there were “merchants’
children among [the teacher’s] pupils, and so “he naturally began to train them in numerals...”4
During the Edo period, Japan adapted the “Four Occupations” system used in China to
include the samurai class. At the bottom of this system is merchants, who many in Japan did not
trust at the time because they interacted with outsiders. While Japan was not closed off from the
outside world as many believe, Portuguese missionaries attempted to Catholicize the subjects of
Japan in the sixteenth century, and so they were wary. Fukuzawa Hyakuske, being a member of a
samurai family who “belonged to the Okugaira Clan of Nakatsu on the island of Kyūshū,”5 “took
his children away in a fury” when he learned what they were being taught and was quoted as
saying “‘It is abominable that innocent children should be taught to use numbers—the tool of
merchants. There is no telling what the teacher may do next.’”6
Members of the samurai class were typically educated to become “professional scholars,
priests, or doctors”7 and throughout his Autobiography Fukuzawa Yukichi documented his path
to becoming a scholar (something that he notes his father had been8). He began to attend school
in 1852 at the age of fourteen or fifteen and studied Chinese classics mainly “under the care of a
4
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Translated by Eiichi Kiyooka. 3.
New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007.
5
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Translated by Eiichi Kiyooka. 1.
New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007.
6
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Translated by Eiichi Kiyooka.
3. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007.
7
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern Period.”
Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 12. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1976.
https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
8
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Translated by Eiichi Kiyooka. 2.
New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007.
4
master named Shiraishi” for “four or five years”9 before eventually going to Nagasaki in 1854 to
learn the Dutch language10 and then joining the Ogata school in Ōsaka during March 185511.
The commoners, on the other hand, relied on an “education institution called terakoya”
that originated prior to the Edo period “when children of all classes received their elementary
education in tera (or temples).”12 Like the samurai schools, there was no central regulation, but
they had a “fairly high uniformity in organization and teaching.” The majority of the terakoya
teachers were directly or indirectly influenced by “education and cultural centers in Edo, [Kyōto]
and [Ōsaka].”13 Another difference was that “both boys and girls” were accepted. Schooling
began “at the age of 6 or 7 and...continued until 10 to 13,” during which students were
individually tutored in literacy and calculation and after which they entered an apprenticeship.
They acquired more than just basic literacy however, as they “learned what are now called social
studies, vocational arts and moral values” in the process. “These provided them with the
knowledge and skills...needed for future jobs and more immediately for apprenticeship.”14
9
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Translated by Eiichi Kiyooka. 67. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007.
10
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Translated by Eiichi Kiyooka.
21. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007.
11
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Translated by Eiichi Kiyooka.
35. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007.
12
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern
Period.” Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 17. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press,
1976. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
13
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern
Period.” Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 13. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press,
1976. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
14
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern
Period.” Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 18. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press,
1976. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
5
While this difference in the education of Japanese subjects (it would not be until after the
Second World War when the Japanese people were considered citizens) was different throughout
most of the Edo period based on social class, there were discussions about establishing a national
education system in the late eighteenth century. Ōsaka scholar Chikusan Nakarai submitted some
advisory notes, Sobo Kigen, to the bakufu between 1789 and 1791. In Sobo Kigen, “he developed
his concept of national education” and “recommended that higher institutions be set up in the
large cities of Edo, [Ōsaka] and [Kyōto], to which the the talented of the society should be sent
regardless of social origin” while the terakoya “should be transformed into publish institutions so
that each town and village would have elementary schools.”15
Debates about a national education system became more frequent in Late Edo, with
various proposals being put forth by scholars such as Banri Hoashi (who proposed the
establishment of a military arts and Confusian learning academy in Edo, the establishment of a
Confucian, kokugaku and Occidental learning school in Kyōto and that all of the Buddhist
temples be transformed into elementary schools), Confucian scholar Tanso Hirose (who “urged
the necessity of searching for talent through the schools, and compulsory attendance for all
children,” regardless of social class), Occidental scholar Nobuhiro Sato (who “developed an
ambitious plan” to establish “a Ministery of Education and Morals...in the capital with the
function of controlling all schools in the country” as well as how the schools would function and
how they would be distributed) and “a disciple of the Hirata school of the Japanese classics”
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern
Period.” Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 21. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press,
1976. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
15
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named Kumaomi Oka” (who “made a strongly nationalistic argument” that “universal education
would implant nationalistic ideology in the people's minds.”16
The bakufu and han governments would eventually “set up [programs] inspired by the
concept of national education,” but they were “short-lived and transitional.” In the 1850s and
1860s, the bakufu established elementary schools in various places while the han established a
universal education system in the late 1860s and early 1870s.17 However, the Meiji Reformation
saw the abolishment of the samurai class and the dissolution of the bakufu, as well as the han
system being replaced by “ken, or prefectures, at the local level.” In 1872, the Fundamental Code
of Education “was drafted by a committee of twelve persons including influential elements of the
Occidentalists.” Following “the French school system,” Japan was “divided into eight academic
districts,” each of which would have a university, that were “further divided into [32] secondary
school districts.” Meanwhile, each secondary school district would “provide a secondary school”
and be divided into 210 elementary school districts, each of which would provide an elementary
school. Normal schools” were “established for training teachers for the new system.”18
Under the Fundamental Code of Education of 1872, all Japanese children of a certain age
had to attend school for four years, making Japan the first country in the entire world to establish
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern
Period.” Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 21. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press,
1976. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
17
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern
Period.” Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 21-22. Oxford, UK: Pergamon
Press, 1976. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
18
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background II: Japanese Education in the Modern Period.”
Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 28. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1976.
https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
16
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a compulsory educational system. The schools were funded by taxpayers and 10% of local taxes
would go to them. However, there was passive resistance towards the new education system and
there were even riots as some commoners believed that it was a waste to educate children and
especially girls. This was probably caused by a fear that compulsory education would interfere
with a child’s ability to help their parents with work and a belief that girls did not need to be
educated since their husbands would take care of everything once they got married. Even so, by
by 1905, 98% of school-aged boys and 93% of school-aged girls in Japan were in attendance.
Bibliography
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. Translated by Eiichi Kiyooka.
New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background I: Japanese Education in the Pre-Modern Period.”
Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 1–22. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press,
1976. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Historical Background II: Japanese Education in the Modern
Period.” Chapter. In Society, Schools and Progress in Japan, 23–49. Oxford, UK:
Pergamon Press, 1976. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-02730-2
Kobayashi, Tetsuya. “Tokugawa Education as a Foundation of Modern Education in Japan.”
Comparative Education Review 9, no. 3 (1965): 288–302.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1186062.
8