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Foreign Notes

EDUCATION IN JAPAN

The rapidity with which Japan has risen out of the patriarchal and feudal stage to that of organization for industrial and competitive purposes would challenge attention under any circumstances; but in view of the part that empire is now playing in international policies, its internal transformation becomes one of the marvels of current history. This change wrought in less than thirty years has been accomplished in the main through the agency of an effective educational system. Japan has, in fact, realized the dream of the French Revolutionary leaders that a nation might be recreated, "born," as it were, "in a day," if the educational conditions were properly adjusted.

The main features of the Japanese system of public education have been borrowed from Western nations,—from Germany, from the United States, and particularly from France,—but in combining these detached parts the government has shown the same genius for organization and direction as in the creation and control of its army and navy. This power of originating combinations and inventing adaptations of borrowed appliances was strikingly shown by the Japanese exhibit in the educational section of the Paris Exposition. It is not confined to the formulated theory of a system, but extends to every detail of its practical working, so that ideas, methods, and instruments imported from the West reappear in a novel form with unsuspected applications. Thus the Superior Council of Education, which plays an important part in the administration of that interest, is modeled on the French Superior Council; but unlike the latter, its membership includes the chiefs of other administrative bureaus, so that education is directed in full view of the interests of the commerce, of the agriculture, and the internal economy of the kingdom. So, also, in respect to manual training, which has great recognition in Japan, though the general idea and method are copied from the West, there is no servile imitation in respect either to the tools employed or the exercises followed. Only that is taken which can be skillfully adapted to native conditions and demands.

The system of education is thoroughly organized and carefully supervised. The minister makes frequent inspection tours for the purpose of seeing for himself the manner in which the education laws are carried out, and specialists from the Tokyo University, the Higher

Normal School, etc., are from time to time sent out to report upon the manner in which their special subjects are taught and to suggest improvements in methods or standards. These tours are quite independent of the regular inspection service, which is entrusted to men of approved qualification and distinguished rank, who are held to strict. account for the discharge of their duties.

Education is compulsory for children between the ages of six and fourteen, or until a prescribed course of study is completed, which may be done in four years. Following this limited course of the "ordinary elementary school, which includes morals, the Japanese language, arithmetic and gymnastics, with a choice of one or morė subjects— drawing, singing, manual work (for girls, sewing)-according to local conditions, there is a higher elementary school course extending over two, three or four years. The branches of the higher elementary schools include besides the continuation of those of the lower schools, Japanese history, geography, science, drawing, singing and gymnastics. In a higher elementary school having a course of four years, agriculture or commerce may be taken instead of singing, and the English language may be added.

The total number of elementary schools reported for 1902 was 27,010, the number of teachers employed in them, 102,700, and the number of pupils enrolled, 4,980,604. As the total number of children of legal school age (6-14) was 7,408,179, it will be seen that the enrollment was equivalent to 67 per cent of the school population. For the training of teachers for the elementary schools the government maintains 54 normal schools, having in 1902 1,032 teachers and 17,982. students, and 2 higher normal schools, having 118 teachers and 860 students. These higher schools, like the corresponding class of schools in France, are intended to train professors for the inferior normal schools. The latter graduate about 2,500 students annually, which does not suffice to meet the demand for recruits in a force numbering above 103,000. Great difficulty is experienced in getting enough teachers even from the ranks of the untrained, and strenuous efforts are now being made to provide larger facilities for training candidates who cannot be accommodated in the regular normal schools. Teachers' institutes corresponding somewhat to those of our own country have been organized, and more liberal salaries offered to attract young men and women to the service. Naturally the proportion of available women teachers is small, and the men are drawn off to other careers.

The solution of the difficulty lies evidently in improving the general education of women and accustoming them to the idea of professional life. The pressure for teachers is likely to be greatly increased

by the prospect of war, and added inducements will thus arise for improving the intellectual status of the Japanese women. The proportion of girls under elementary instruction is still much lower than the proportion of boys, the percentages to school population being respectively 81.08 per cent and 93.78 per cent. The proportion of girls enrolled to the total number of girls of school age has, however, greatly increased in five years, viz., from 50.86 per cent in 1897 to 81.08 per cent in 1902. The number of young women in the normal schools has also greatly increased in the same period, rising from 720 in 1897 to 2,000 in 1902; in the same time the number of male students increased by a smaller proportion, viz., from 6,200 in 1897 to 11,900 in 1902. There is also a noticeable increase in the number of higher schools for girls, viz., from 25 in 1897, with an attendance of 6,406 pupils, to 66 in 1902, with an attendance of 17,215 pupils. No one is admitted to the higher schools under 12 years of age, and who has not completed at least two years in the higher division of an elementary school. It is evident that in the solicitude of the government for the universal spread of education, the interests of women are as carefully considered as those of men.

While the government has been thus steadily extending the means of popular education it has made liberal provision for higher education, including under that term the very ample provision for general culture and research in two Imperial Universities, and in special schools intended to prepare experts for the service of the state. There are eight of these schools supported by the government and under the charge of the minister of public instruction, of which five are schools of medicine, and the remainder as follows: The Tokyo Foreign Language School, the Tokyo Fine Arts School, and the Tokyo Academy of Music. Besides the government special schools, there are four public and forty-five private schools of similar character. The lavish equipment and thorough organization of the schools of medicine are signs of the solicitude of the government for the physical welfare of its people. Only such students are admitted to the special schools of medicine as have successfully completed a thorough course of preparatory training. The course of study in the medical schools covers four years for medicine and three years for pharmacy. In addition to the professional branches of study there is a required course in ethics, and also in the German language. The report for 1902 shows that 99 instructors were employed in the five schools of medicine, and 2,028 students enrolled, of whom 1,889 were in the medical faculty, and 139 in pharmacy. The number of graduates for the same year was 307 in medicine, and 37 in pharmacy. It is specially noticeable that of these

graduates 28 were appointed as military or naval surgeons, 55 as physicians in hospitals, and 57 joined the army. The medical inspection of elementary schools, which is an important feature of the general system, offers a career for many medical graduates.

The

In the Tokyo Foreign Language School instruction is given in all the leading European languages, and also in Chinese and Corean, the course of instruction in each case extending over three years. graduates of these schools find employment as government officials, and in banking and other business companies.

The University of Tokyo includes all the faculties recognized in Western universities except theology. The College of Science and Engineering has ample equipment for instruction in chemistry, pure and applied; in mining and metallurgy; in civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering. Of 406 students enrolled in the university in 1902, the College of Science and Engineering attracted 202.

The nine technical schools supported by the government include the Sapporo Agricultural School, the Higher Commercial School, and three institutes for the training of technical teachers. The remaining schools of this class pertain to the industrial avocations.

It is worthy of note that whereas twenty-five years ago. Japan depended almost entirely upon foreign countries for its supply of professors and teachers, it is now able to recruit the teaching service from native scholars. The number of foreign instructors reported in government schools in 1902 was 66, of whom the United States furnished 12, England 15, France 5, Germany 21, and Russia 2.

The actual expenditure by the government for education in 1902 was 6,228,000 yen (about $5,783,000).

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

In its efforts to ameliorate the condition of its elementary school teachers, the French parliament has just abolished the clause of the law of 1889 fixing the proportion of teachers allowed in each of the six grades or classes established by that law. This removes the obstacle to promotion which has made the term "le pourcentage" the synonym of hopelessness in the teaching service.

The seventh annual congress of the "Deutscher Fortbildungsschultag" (German continuation schools) held at Hamburg in October last has just published an interesting report of its proceedings. The subject specially prominent in the papers read and in the general discussions was that of promoting social solidarity by means of the association and instruction of young people who have passed the period of school life and are on the eve of the full responsibilities of mature years.

The London County Council has authorized the London School Board to carry on until next April that part of its work which under the new law belongs to secondary education.

A. T. S.

Book Notices

NOTE.-The number of books now published monthly is so large that we shall hereafter adopt the plan of promptly acknowledging by title, author, publisher and price, all books sent us for review; and later, as space is available, give more extended notice to such as seem most likely to be of interest and value to our readers.-PUBLISHERS EDUCATION.

A Broader Elementary Education. By J. P. Gordy, Professor of the History of Education in the School of Pedagogy, New York University. The oldtime facetious remarks aimed at the narrowness and priggishness of schools and teachers must soon give way to a wholesome respect for the efforts made in the training of children if the appeals of the writers of to-day for a larger and broader education meet with a favorable response. In Dr. Gordy's latest book he impresses the reader at the start with the statement, "The art of living is the art, and whoever is ignorant of that, whatever else he may know, knows nothing to the point." This conviction is followed by a second; namely, that, "to contribute to this art there must be a broader education in the elementary schools." Those who have seen dire results from the enrichment of the program up to the present time, and who would cry, "Not more studies, but more study," are induced to consider the author's plan, since he vigorously asserts that, in his opinion, the Herbartian theory, which holds that everything should be made to depend upon interest, and that there should be no must in education, is a thoroughly pernicious one. And could the most conservative devotee of the three R's find any flaw in the claim that, "The elementary schools can intelligently have in view such ends of liberal education as thought, appreciation of beauty, loyalty to duty, affection, and sympathy"?

Dr. Gordy shows no rash haste or dogmatic tendencies in coming to his conclusions as to what will bring about a broader elementary education, but carefully weighs the educational value of each grammar school subject. These chapters are most suggestive in pointing out the large lines along which the subjects can be made of benefit, and also in showing that much, upon which in the past great effort and long periods of time have been spent, does not develop either intellectual, emotional, or will power.

In the consideration of arithmetic, an interesting theory is stated, in fact a conviction of the author, that reasoning power gained in the study of mathematics is effective in such subjects alone, and of little value in other lines, such as history and literature; indeed, that “An increase of intellectual power may as certainly result from the study of a poem as from that of a problem in geometry." Added to his claim for the intellectual power gained from the study of literature, there must follow, also, the writer says, the cultivation of the emotions and the training of the will. Therefore, a triple plea is made for "the study which Plato said should dye the character so indelibly with a love of the principles by which life is to be guided that all the temptations to which life may be subjected will not avail to wash out."

Not alone for improvement does Dr. Gordy regard literature as an important subject in the curriculum, but also because of the pleasure derived from it. Since he has said that education should be a training for the art of living, the following is quite what we should expect, "The delight and appreciation of

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