EDUCATION
In England a vast amount was last
year heard respecting education. Speakers on
platforms and writers in newspapers and other periodical
literature day by day and week by week for many months
kept pouring forth words, words, words on this matter.
It is not my intention to refer at all beyond what
I have said to the somewhat lively education controversy
in England which even as I write is by no means ended.
Any such reference would be out of place in a book
of this kind, and even were it not I confess I have
no inclination whatever to rush into this particular
fray. But it seems to me a curious fact that other
countries, Japan amongst the number, have long since
settled, and apparently settled satisfactorily, a
problem which here in England is still under discussion,
acrid discussion, and is yet quite evidently far from
being permanently solved. The provisions and arrangements
a nation has made for the education of its youth are,
to my mind, an excellent test of the precise standard
to which its civilisation has attained; because the
future of a nation is with its youth, and that future
must largely depend on the extent to and the manner
in which its youth have been taught not only all those
subjects which are commonly classified as knowledge
but their duties and responsibilities as citizens.
Judged by this test, Japan has every right to rank
high among the nations of the world. And it can
also be said of her in this matter that the education
of her people is no new thing. It is not one
among the many things she has learned from the West.
Education was in vogue in Japan when that country
was isolated from the rest of the world. Certainly
Japan’s contact with Europe and America has vastly
improved her educational system, enabling her, as it
has done, to utilise to the full the great advance
there has been in scientific knowledge of every description
during the last half-century or so. But, as far
back as the seventh century, if history or tradition
be correct, an educational code was promulgated in
Japan. Certainly this code was limited in its
application to certain classes, but education was
gradually extended throughout the country, and even
in days somewhat remote from the present time every
member of the Samurai class was expected to include
the three R’s, or the Japanese equivalent of
them, in his curriculum. The ordinary Samurai
was, in fact, as regards reading and writing an educated
man at a time when British Generals and even British
Sovereigns were somewhat hazy in regard to their orthography
and caligraphy.
Soon after the Revolution of 1868
a Board of Education was instituted in Japan, and
the whole educational system of the country because
one had existed under the rule of a Tycoon was
taken in hand and reorganised. Three years later
a separate Department of Education was formed at a
time almost synonymous with the setting up of School
Boards in England. As soon as it got itself into
working order the Education Department despatched
a number of specially selected Japanese to various
European countries as well as to the United States
of America to inquire into and report upon the system
of education in existence and its suitability for
adaptation or adoption in Japan. When these representatives
returned from their mission and sent in their reports
a code was compiled and the Mikado, in promulgating
it, declared the aims of his Government to be that
education should be so diffused throughout the country
that eventually there might not be a village with
an ignorant family nor a family with an ignorant member.
It was a noble ideal, and I may remark that, though
of course it has not been realised in all its fulness
and probably will not be for very many years to come,
it has been to a larger extent attained than a somewhat
similar ideal which the late Mr. Forster is supposed
to have entertained in reference to the effect of
the Education Act which established a system of compulsory
education for England and Wales.
In succeeding years various changes
were made in the system of national education, and
in 1883 that which now exists was brought into force.
This is in effect compulsory education. Since
education was first organised on any plan in Japan
the number under instruction has steadily risen, and
at present more than 90 per cent. of the children
regularly attend school. In 1873 the number was
1,180,000; it is now over 5,000,000. There are
about 29,000 primary schools, of which about 6,500
are higher primary schools with a million pupils.
The total cost of the primary schools is somewhere
about L3,000,000.
The question will no doubt be asked,
What kind of education do these 5,000,000 pupils receive,
and to what extent is it adapted to make them good
citizens of a great Empire? The subjects taught
in the ordinary primary schools embrace morals, the
Japanese language, arithmetic and gymnastics.
One or more subjects, such as drawing, singing, or
manual work may be added, and, in schools for females,
sewing. In the higher primary schools the subjects
of instruction include morals, the Japanese language,
arithmetic, Japanese history, geography, science,
drawing, singing, and gymnastics, and, in schools
for females, sewing. Besides these agriculture,
commerce, and manual work, as well as the English
language, are optional subjects. The moral lessons
taught in these schools, I may remark, are not based
upon any particular religious doctrines or dogmas,
but are entirely and absolutely secular.
Children have to be 6 years of age
before commencing their scholastic education, and
have to remain at school until they have attained 14
years. The parents or guardians of children are
compelled to send them to school to complete, as a
minimum of education, the ordinary primary school
course. Education in the higher primary schools
is not compulsory, and it is, accordingly, a pleasing
fact that 60 per cent. of those children who have
passed through the ordinary schools voluntarily go
to the higher primary schools.
Every municipal or rural community
is compelled to maintain one or more primary schools
sufficient, as regards size and the number of the
staff, to educate all the children in the district.
The establishment of higher primary schools is voluntary,
and that so many of them are in existence is ample
proof that the benefit of higher education is fully
appreciated in Japan. Instruction in all the schools
is practically free. No fee may be charged save
with the consent of the local governor, and when one
is imposed it must not exceed the equivalent of 5d.
per month in a town school and half that sum in a
rural school.
As regards secondary education, it
is compulsory for one school to be established in
each of the forty-seven prefectures into which Japan
is divided. The course of study at the secondary
schools extends over five years, with an optional
supplementary course limited to twelve months.
The curriculum of the secondary school embraces morals,
the Japanese and Chinese languages, one foreign language,
history and geography, mathematics, natural history,
physics and chemistry, the elements of law and political
economy, drawing, singing, gymnastics, and drills.
The course of study is uniform in all Japanese schools.
Candidates for admission to the secondary schools must
be over 12 years of age, and have completed the second
year’s course of the higher primary school.
There are about three hundred of the secondary schools
in existence a number, as will be seen,
six times as large as that obliged to be established
by law. The pupils number over a hundred thousand
and the cost approximates L500,000.
There are also 170 high schools for
girls besides normal schools in each prefecture designed
to train teachers for the primary and secondary schools.
The course of study in these schools is for men four
years, for women three years. The whole of the
pupils’ expenses, including the cost of their
board and lodging, is paid out of local funds.
There are also higher normal schools designed to train
teachers for the ordinary normal schools. It
will thus be seen that there is a systematic course
of education for what I may term the common people
in Japan, extending from the higher normal to the ordinary
primary school.
There are besides in Japan higher
schools, the object of which is to prepare young men
for a University education. The expense of these
schools is entirely borne by the State. Japan
prides herself, and justly, in being unique in the
possession of such schools. The course of study
in them extends over three years and is split up into
three departments. The pupils select the particular
department into which they desire to enter, and their
selection, of course, depends on the precise course
of study they intend to take up on entering the University.
The first department is for those who propose to study
law or literature, the second for those who mean to
go in for engineering, science, or agriculture, and
the third for aspirants as medical men. Candidates
for admission to these schools must be over 17 years
of age and have completed the secondary school course.
A reference to these higher schools
naturally leads up to the Imperial University of Tokio,
as well as the kindred University at Kyoto. There
are six colleges in the former, viz., law, medicine,
engineering, literature, science, and agriculture,
while Kyoto University possesses four colleges, viz.,
law, medicine, literature and science, and engineering.
When the Imperial University was established almost
all the Professors therein were Europeans or Americans,
but there has been a material alteration in this respect,
and now the foreign Professors are few. Most
of the Japanese instructors have, however, been educated
abroad. The course of study extends over four
years in the case of students of law and medicine,
and three years in the case of students of other subjects.
There is not the same freedom in regard to study as
exists at Oxford, Cambridge, and some other more or
less leisurely seats of learning. In the Japanese
Universities the students have to enter upon a regular
prescribed course of study with some few optional
subjects. The Universities confer degrees in law,
medicine, engineering, literature, science, and agriculture.
The examinations leading up to and for the degrees
are much more severe than those in any University
in this country, with the possible exception of that
of London. It may interest my readers to learn
that the largest number of degrees are taken in law,
the smallest in science. We have heard a great
deal of recent years respecting technical education
in Great Britain, which many persons suggest is at
a very low ebb. For what is in one sense a new
country, Japan seems to have taken steps to provide
an excellent system of technical education. There
are a small number of State higher technical schools,
agricultural, commercial, and industrious. Technical
schools of lower grades are maintained by prefectures
and urban bodies, and they receive grants in aid from
national funds. There are in all about four hundred
technical schools in the country. The few facts
respecting education in Japan which I have put as
tersely as possible before my readers, should, I think,
convince them of the fact that in regard to this all-important
question Japan has made and is making vigorous efforts and
efforts all of which are in the right direction.
It must be remembered that in the education of her
youth she has to face difficulties which are altogether
unknown in this as in other European countries.
One of these difficulties is the fact that Japanese
literature is more or less mixed up with Chinese literature,
and, accordingly, it is necessary for the Japanese
to learn Chinese as well as Japanese characters, and
also to study the Chinese classics. Another difficulty
is the one I touched on in my remarks on the Japanese
language, viz., the difference between the written
and spoken languages of Japan. In old times the
written and spoken languages were no doubt identical,
but Chinese literature influenced the country to so
great an extent that the written language in time
became more and more Chinese, while the spoken dialect
remained Japanese. The consequence is that the
written language is more or less a hotch-potch of Chinese
characters and the Japanese alphabet. Whether
it will be possible to overcome these obvious difficulties
remains to be seen. Several remedies have been
proposed but none has so far been adopted. One
remedy was the use of the Japanese alphabet alone
for the written language, another the introduction
and adoption of the European alphabet. Manifestly
the difficulty of effecting such a change as the adoption
of either of these plans would involve would be enormous.
Still the retention of the present complicated system
is without doubt the great obstacle in the way of
educational progress in Japan, and it speaks eloquently
for the patience and pertinacity of the youth of that
country that they have effected so much in so short
a time in view of the difficulties that have had to
be encountered.
The strong points of the youth of
Japan in the matter of education are, in my opinion,
their great powers of concentration and their indomitable
application to study and perseverance in whatever they
undertake. Of their powers of absorption of any
subject there can be no question. It has been
urged, as against this, that the Japanese possess
the defect not uncommon among people of any race, viz.,
that the capacity for rapidly assimilating knowledge
is to some extent counteracted or rendered abortive
by an incapacity to practically apply that knowledge.
I may say for myself that though I have often heard
this objection urged I have not seen any indications
of this lack of ability to practically apply knowledge
on the part of the Japanese. I should have thought
that the Russo-Japanese war would have afforded ample
demonstration of the ability of the Japanese to put
to good account the knowledge they had acquired and
assimilated in their seminaries.
I certainly think that the system
of education, as it exists in Japan to-day, is one
not only admirably adapted for the people of that
country, but one from which some Western nations might
learn a few things. Japan has, in her education
system, settled the religious question simply by ignoring
it. Her morality as inculcated in every school
in the country, is a purely secular morality.
I know that there are some persons who will deem secular
morality a contradiction in terms. Indeed there
are many eminent Japanese who do not approve of the
present system. Count Okuma, for example, one
of the ablest men in the country, bewails the lack
of a moral standard. The upper classes have,
he remarks, Chinese philosophy, the great mass of the
people have nothing. In the Western world, he
points out, Christianity supplies the moral standard,
while in Japan some desire to return to old forms,
others prefer Christianity; some lean on Kant, others
on other philosophers. Christianity may supply
the moral standard in the Western world, as Count
Okuma asserts, but if he has studied recent politics
in a particular part of the Western world, he must
have seen that Christianity in that part is by no
means in accord as to the teaching of religion in
its schools, or what moral code, if any, should be
substituted for dogmatic instruction. Perhaps,
after all, Japan has not decided amiss in for the
present at any rate deciding that secular morality
shall be the only ethical instruction given in her
schools. That code which she teaches, so far as
I have had an opportunity of studying it, is one which
contains nothing that could be in the slightest degree
objected to by the votaries of any religious system
either in the East or in the West.
Although it has no direct connection
with morality, secular or otherwise, it may be of
interest if I give here a synopsis of the teaching
given in Japanese schools in reference to the behaviour
of the pupils towards foreigners. These rules
have been collected by an English newspaper in Japan,
and they certainly serve to show that the youth of
Japan are in this matter receiving instruction which,
whether regarded from an ethical standpoint or merely
that of good manners, cannot be too highly commended.
“Never call after foreigners
passing along the streets or roads.
“When foreigners make inquiries,
answer them politely. If unable to make them
understand, inform the police of the fact.
“Never accept a present from
a foreigner when there is no reason for his giving
it, and never charge him anything above what is proper.
“Do not crowd around a shop
when a foreigner is making purchases, thereby causing
him much annoyance. The continuance of this practice
disgraces us as a nation.
“Since all human beings are
brothers and sisters, there is no reason for fearing
foreigners. Treat them as equals and act uprightly
in all your dealings with them. Be neither servile
nor arrogant.
“Beware of combining against
the foreigner and disliking him because he is a foreigner;
men are to be judged by their conduct and not by their
nationality.
“As intercourse with foreigners
becomes closer and extends over a series of years,
there is danger that many Japanese may become enamoured
of their ways and customs and forsake the good old
customs of their forefathers. Against this danger
you must be on your guard.
“Taking off your hat is the
proper way to salute a foreigner. The bending
of the body low is not to be commended.
“When you see a foreigner be
sure and cover up naked parts of the body.
“Hold in high regard the worship
of ancestors and treat your relations with warm cordiality,
but do not regard a person as your enemy because he
or she is a Christian.
“In going through the world
you will often find a knowledge of a foreign tongue
absolutely essential.
“Beware of selling your souls
to foreigners and becoming their slaves. Sell
them no houses or lands.
“Aim at not being beaten in
your competition with foreigners. Remember that
loyalty and filial piety are our most precious national
treasures and do nothing to violate them.”
It seems to me a pity that education
on somewhat similar lines to that embodied in these
interesting rules cannot be imparted to the youth of
this and other European countries. It would certainly
tend, I think, in the direction of good manners which
are, I fear, sadly lacking in many of the pupils who
have undergone a course of School Board instruction
in England.
A question that may arise in regard
to the details of Japanese education is how far and
in what degree do the pertinacity and zeal of the
youth of Japan for knowledge affect their physique.
We know that mens sana in corpore sano is the
ideal at which every one concerned with the education
of young people of both sexes ought to strive.
There is no doubt whatever that too close an attention
to study of any kind, too constant an exercise of
the mental faculties, unless it is accompanied by
a corresponding exercise of the body, very often has
an injurious effect upon the human frame. Count
Okuma, in referring to this matter, has pointed out
that the great difficulty of the difference between
the written and spoken languages is a very serious
tax upon the pupils in all the schools, necessitating,
as it does, the duplicating of their work. So
much time, he considers, has to be spent by them in
study on account of this duplicating that it is quite
impossible for students to have sufficient physical
exercise, while if it were decided to devote more
time to exercise, the years allotted to education
would have to be lengthened a fact which
must involve a serious loss in regard to the work
of the nation. I do not take quite such a pessimistic
view of the lack of physical education of the youth
of Japan. In the first place, gymnastics form
part, an important part, of the course of instruction
in all schools throughout the country, and in the
next place the young people of Japan, so far as I have
been able to arrive at an opinion in the matter, are
almost if not quite as enthusiastic in regard to various
forms of outdoor sport as are those of this country.
The buoyancy and enthusiasm of youth are, indeed,
very much the same all over the world. It is only
when youth comes to what are very often erroneously
described as years of discretion that artificiality
begins to assert itself. Base-ball, lawn-tennis,
bicycling, and rowing are all extensively patronised
by the young men of Japan, and cricket has of recent
years come considerably into vogue. The students
of the Imperial University have not only shown no
disinclination, but, on the contrary, an avidity to
combine athletics with their studies, and in base-ball
especially they have more than held their own against
the foreigner. I confess I have no desire to
see the craze for outdoor sports which is so much in
evidence in this country extending to Japan.
Some of the public schools in England are much more
famous for their cricket, football, and other teams
than for the education imparted in them. Many
a young man leaves those schools an excellent cricketer
or football player, but, from an educational point
of view, very badly equipped for the battle of life.
The happy mean is surely the best in this as in other
matters, and I venture to think that the youth of
Japan in regarding education as the essential matter
and outdoor sport as merely a subsidiary one have shown
sound judgment.
In my remarks on education in Japan
I have dealt principally with the schools for boys.
I may, however, remark that in the arrangements she
has made for the education of the other sex she has
shown the same thoroughness. In the primary schools
the boys and girls are taken in without any distinction,
though separate classes are usually formed. There
are subsequently higher schools for girls. The
percentage of the female sex attending these schools
is less than that of the other. There are in
all about seventy-five of these schools in Japan with
some twenty thousand pupils. The course of instruction
in them is moral precepts, Japanese language, a foreign
language, history, geography, mathematics, science,
drawing, training for domestic affairs, cutting-out
and sewing, music and gymnastics. I think in
regard to these schools the Japanese authorities have
shown sound judgment in decreeing that music shall
not necessarily form part of the education of every
young girl, but may be omitted for those pupils for
whom the art may be deemed difficult. Were a similar
rule to be adopted in this country quite a number
of people would be saved a large amount of unnecessary
torture. There is also a higher normal school
for women at Tokio, as likewise an Academy of Music.
The Tokio Jiogakkwan is an institution established
by some foreign philanthropists for the purpose of
educating Japanese girls of a respectable class in
Anglo-Saxon attainments. This institution has
between two and three hundred pupils, but I am not
in a position to state what measure of success, if
any, it has achieved, nor indeed do I know what “Anglo-Saxon
attainments” are supposed to be. Many of
them I should have thought were quite unsuitable for
the ordinary Japanese girl, tending, as they must,
to destroy her national individuality. There
is also a girls’ college in Tokio called the
Women’s University. It does not confer
degrees, but it gives a very high education, and it
is largely patronised.
I stated at the commencement of this
chapter that I was of opinion the provisions and arrangements
a nation had made for the education of its youth were
an excellent test of the standard to which its civilisation
has attained. I hope the slight sketch I have
given my readers of the system of education in existence
in Japan will enable them to form an estimate as to
the place Japan should occupy if judged by the standard
referred to. In my opinion, seeing that it is
less than forty years since the country passed through
a drastic revolution a revolution which
destroyed all these social forces which had been in
existence and had exercised a tremendous influence
on the life of the people for many centuries it
is, I think, not only extraordinary but highly creditable
to her rulers that Japan should have in that short
interval organised and perfected such a system of
education as exists in the country to-day. Under
that system every boy and girl in the land receives
an admirable course of instruction, and is afforded
facilities for still further extending and enlarging
that course, and, if his or her abilities, ambitions,
and opportunities incline them that way, to proceed
steadily onward in the acquisition of knowledge, until
they obtain as a coping stone, that final course, in
the capital either at the Imperial University or the
Women’s University where the sum of all the
knowledge of the world is at the disposal of those
who have the capacity and the aspiration to acquire
it.