Product Description
The History of Modern Japanese Education is the first account in English of the construction of a national school system in Japan, as outlined in the 1872 document, the Gakusei. Divided into three parts tracing decades of change, the book begins by exploring the feudal background for the Gakusei during the Tokugawa era which produced the initial leaders of modern Japan. Next, Benjamin Duke traces the Ministry of Education’s investigations of the 1870s to determine t… More >>
The History of Modern Japanese Education: Constructing the National School System, 1872-1890
Truth Stranger Than Fiction
Over 1000 references to works both in Japanese and English attest to the meticulous scholarship of Benjamin Duke in his definitive work on the creation of the modern Japanese education system. Among these are a multitude of fascinating details of events and personalities which contributed in large part to the quality of the Japanese elementary education system that exists today. A very small sample of these facts include the following:
* In the 1860s clandestine study missions of students were sent by the rebellious clans in southern Japan to Europe and the United States. Several of these students eventually spent time in a religious commune in New York State
* 10 tons of American textbooks were shipped to Japan by a mission of Tokugawa officials on the eve of the Meiji Restoration.
* The instructor of the first class of future Japanese teachers was Marion Scott, a former teacher from San Francisco, who introduced them to the educational reform methods spreading across the US at that time.
* The present-day Japanese elementary music curriculum was established by Shuji Isawa, one of three students sent to the US by the Japanese government to study American educational methods. He returned to become principal of the Tokyo Teacher Training School in 1878.
* Initially the entire Japanese system was pervaded by the influence of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, a Swiss educational reformer whose influence had spread throughout Europe at the turn of the 19th century
* Pestalozzi `s methodology was brought to Japan by Hideo Takamine, another student sent to the US with Isawa. Takamine spent two years studying at the Oswego Normal School in New York while living with Hermann Krusi Jr. ( the son of Pestalozzi’s first assistant in his experimental schools in Switzerland). Takamine assumed the position of vice principal at the Tokyo Teacher Training School on his return to Japan with Isawa.
* Teachers organizations which emerged during the last years 1870s became an integral feature of the professional lives of teachers. Such groups are still a central part of their activities today.
These intriguing facts represent only part of a very thorough account of the development of modern Japanese education. Benjamin Duke, who is arguably the world’s foremost authority on modern Japanese education, also provides an analysis of final governmental power struggles over educational policies and describes the outcomes which determined the direction of the Japanese system at the end of the 19th century. The volume will inevitably become the standard text in its field but also offers a most absorbing reading experience.
Rating: 5 / 5