Cipango - French Journal of JapaneseStudiesEnglish Selection
2 | 2013

Language and Literature

Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration
Innovations from the Gakusei period
Christian Galan

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URL: https://journals.openedition.org/cjs/281
DOI: 10.4000/cjs.281
ISSN: 2268-1744
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Christian Galan, “Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration”, Cipango - French Journal ofJapanese Studies [Online], 2 | 2013, Online since 02 June 2013, connection on 08 July 2021. URL:
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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

Language textbooks following the
Meiji Restoration
Innovations from the Gakusei period
Christian GalanEDITOR'S NOTE
Original release: Christian Galan, « Les manuels de langue aux lendemains de la
Restauration de Meiji. Les innovations de la période du décret sur l’Éducation », Cipango— Cahiers d’études japonaises, no 8, 1999, p. 215-257.
1

The Education System Order (Gakusei 学制) period ran from 1872 to 1879, period during
which this statutory text, promulgated on 4 August 1872, remained in effect. The main,and most pressing, task of the newly created Department of Education at that time wasto implement a standardised national curriculum accessible to all children, while
simultaneously unifying the astonishing patchwork of schools that had arisen during
the Edo period.1 The promulgation of the Education System Order marked theculmination of a twin reflection process: on the one hand, the investigation since the
mid-nineteenth century of foreign education systems, and on the other a review ofJapan's traditional Confucian-inspired education system.

2

The education system established by this decree included three levels of schooling:elementary school, middle school and university. All educational institutions weremade the sole responsibility of the Department of Education, 2 which set curricula andsupervised both teaching and teachers. Seen as the keystone of the entire system,
elementary school education was the subject of intense scrutiny.

3

In order to make an irreversible break with Edo-period education, Meiji leaders wanted
to see schools adopt textbooks that differed radically to those used up until then.
However, the compiling and manufacturing of such textbooks proved to be too slow
and their distribution too insufficient to immediately cover needs. 3

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

4

When it became clear to the government that for both practical and financial reasons
the new system was headed straight for failure, in May 1873 the Department of
Education issued an “Amendment to the Elementary School Regulations” (Shōgaku
kyōsoku kaisei 小学教則改正). However, differences with the “Elementary School
Regulations” (Shōgaku kyōsoku 小学教則) of 1872, which accompanied the decree,remained minimal and consisted essentially of a reduction in teaching hours.

5

The classroom reality was that the world of teaching practices was split into two
separate camps. On one side were the new teachers trained at normal schools, veritableteaching laboratories where the methods imported from overseas were presented anddiscussed. On the other side teachers from the old schools, trained in traditional
teaching methods, continued to form the majority.4

6

One of the rare pedagogical innovations from this period to gain rapid currency andtruly be implemented in every classroom was the so-called “simultaneous teaching
method” (issei kyōjuhō 一斉教授法), in which the teacher addressed the entire class
rather than each student in turn. An efficient way of imparting knowledge to thegreatest number, this method enabled the content of lessons to be systematised andstandardised while simultaneously extending the amount of time each pupil spent
studying or reflecting, since the teacher was constantly addressing the entire class. The
drawback, on the other hand, was that it confined children to an essentially passive
role.

7

The period running from 1872 to the beginning of the 1880s is often referred to by
Japanese specialists as the “translated textbooks period” or the “Western-inspired
textbooks period”. These terms can be misleading if taken literally, however, for thisperiod was above all one of great freedom – and confusion – in everything relating to
the editing, publishing and use of teaching materials. Textbook supervision was nonexistent (or proved to be extremely flexible); the official directives mentioned certain
titles but did not impose them. Primary school teachers could thus choose from a rangeof widely diverging materials that can be grouped into three broad categories:• Edo-period textbooks, Chinese classics and ōrai-mono 往来物,5 or any texts which, althoughwritten at the very beginning of the Meiji era, could be considered as such;• books that could be classed as “Westernizing”, in other words, that described Western
morals and customs or served as teaching aids for new subjects such as geography and thesciences. The majority were not written specifically for children and their content could behighly complex. They were frequently used during the first few years of the Gakusei period
to compensate for the lack of appropriate textbooks while conveying the spirit of theJapanese age of civilisation and enlightenment (bunmei kaika 文明開化);• and finally, new textbooks devised and written to be used by children in the type of school
environment established by the official directives: close to 280 textbooks for beginners andmore than 550 language textbooks were published between 1868 and 1885, in addition toaround 300 maths textbooks and 520 geography textbooks.6 Amongst these, language
textbooks were fundamental in modernising the education system of the early Meiji era. 7

New textbooks for teaching Japanese
8

Article 27 of the decree organised the teaching of the Japanese language into sevensubjects: kana transcription ( kanazukai 綴字), vocabulary (kotoba 単語, literally“words”), conversation (kaiwa / kotobazukai 会話), reading (tokuhon 読本), grammar

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration(bunpō 文法), writing (tenarai 習字) and composition (shotoku 書牘). 8 All of these terms,
with the exception of tenarai and shotoku,9 had been newly created based on the subjects
taught in Western schools.
9

These subjects were reprised and further divided in the elementary school regulationsof 1872 and 1873, bringing to fifteen the number of lessons directly linked to language
instruction.10 The regulations indicated the titles of textbooks that could be used foreach of these subjects.11 The fragmented and, it must be said, somewhat vague nature oflanguage instruction – it was difficult to grasp the actual content of each “subject”, oreven to understand the pertinence of creating separate disciplines – was further
reinforced by the great confusion that reigned over the subject names. 12 There was aclear desire to go beyond the reading/writing dichotomy (kaki 書き / yomi 読み or
tenarai 手習 / sodoku 素読)13 of the traditional education system using new terminology;
14
however, in retrospect it also appears to have reflected an extremely fragmented
view of the Japanese language and how it should be taught. 15

Kana-zukai
10

The first kana-zukai textbooks were published in 1873. 16 The most representative among
them was by Sakakibara Yoshino 榊原芳野 (1832-1881), Shōgaku kana-zukai [sic] sho 小
學綴字書 (Kana Usage Textbook for Elementary School), published in August 1874 by
the Department of Education.

11

In his foreword the author informed readers that learning how to read and write kana
was the first step to learning the language and that the textbook they held in theirhands had been written with a view to teaching these skills. The first pages were taken
up with charts presenting kana 仮字 (the most common hiragana given in the iroha いろは format),17 katakana 片仮字 (the most common following the gojūon – fifty sounds –ordering), hiragana variants (kana bettai 仮字別体) and katakana variants ( katakana
bettai 片仮字別体).18 Next combinations of kana were presented. Words (eachcombination had a meaning) were presented in the gojūon order based on their firstsymbol: aka, aki, asa, ashi; ika, iki, ike, ito, for example. Each word in hiragana wasaccompanied by its transcription in Chinese characters (kanji) written slightly to one
side. When two commonly used kanji shared the same kana transcription they wereboth mentioned. Thus 紙 (paper) and 神 (god) appeared opposite kami かみ. Each page
contained one or two drawings illustrating some of the words presented.

12

Once all of the possible two-kana combinations had been exhausted, words beginningwith voiced sounds19 and transcribed with two kana were presented in the samemanner. The textbook then presented several lessons on words containing three kanaand ended with a series of lessons on the kana transcription of kanji containing, for themost part, complex sounds.20

13

While Sakakibara's textbook was heavily inspired by American spelling books, its
contents were entirely Japanese and its form (word lists and illustrative vignettes) evenmade it appear to be derived from the vocabulary ōraimono. Nevertheless, in contrast toōraimono, words were not presented thematically or in the iroha format but instead
were systematically presented following the gojūon ordering and in such a way as tocover all (or almost all) the possible combinations of Japanese syllables. The desire toimitate contemporary Western textbooks by presenting an exhaustive catalogue ofletter combinations was strong, and the influence of the syllabic methods at the heart

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restorationof these Western texts was decisive in the years following the promulgation of the
Education System Order.
14

It is not clearly known in what proportion, or in what manner, these textbooks wereused. Given that no mention is made of them in the elementary school regulations of
the Department of Education or the Normal School, nor in the regulations issued by thevarious local authorities, doubt exists as to whether they were actually used in any
great number.

Kotoba15

The term kotoba-hen (“word textbook”) appeared for the first time in the 1872
regulations which, once the kana syllabaries and rules for transcribing them had beenlearnt, stipulated the use of these textbooks to teach kanji.

16

The first of these “word textbooks21 was the three-volume Kotoba-hen 單語編 publishedby the Department of Education in 1872 (author unspecified). The first five pages ofvolume one (twenty-five pages long) contained various charts: the iroha chart inhiragana, the gojūon chart in katakana and a presentation of the various verb categories.
These were followed by lists of nouns (transcribed in kanji) connected to everyday lifeand classified according to themes: numerals, directions, shapes, colours, geography
and anatomy. Volume two also consisted of words transcribed in kanji and grouped
thematically. These words were more difficult and bore less relation to everyday life
than in the previous volume. Finally, volume three continued to present words
transcribed in kanji and was divided into three parts: historical eras and names ofemperors, family names, and names of places, towns and regions.

17

By dividing the book into three separate volumes its makers underlined the importanceattached to the need to progress by level, gradually increasing the difficulty of thematerial presented (in this case words) with each subsequent book. Although the
influence of Western textbooks was clear, it should be pointed out that the words
presented referred to concepts and objects that were common in everyday Japanese life
(or uncommon, but in this case had strong cultural connotations). It was by no means atranslated textbook. In fact, in some ways it was yet another example of a textbook that
followed the compilatory tradition of the ōrai-mono, consisting solely of lists of words inkanji grouped by theme and semantic field. The third volume of the Kotoba-hen inparticular so closely followed this tradition that it can be considered an ōrai-mono.

18

In this sense, despite its unfamiliar name the Kotoba-hen was not the textbook thatcaused teachers the most difficulty, since the teaching method it implied (having pupils
memorise, recite and write lists of words) was familiar and had been practiced for
decades, if not centuries. In fact, the Kotoba-hen was very well received and enjoyed awide distribution throughout the country. On the other hand, it is easy to imagine thedegree of difficulty that these lists of words studied in isolation, without any context,
must have represented for first year students.

Kotoba-zukai [kaiwa]
19

The Department of Education itself did not compile any kotobazukai hen and those thatwere published came from private publishing houses.22 Although there could besubstantial differences between these textbooks, the most widely used among them

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

seems to have been one by Ōta Zuiken” 太田随軒 (birth and death unknown), Ōta shi
kaiwa [kotobazukai] hen 太田氏會話篇 (Mr Ōta's Conversation Textbook), published inAugust 1873.
20

The first volume opened with three tables of figures23 and the second with apresentation of eight word “categories”: nouns (meishi 名詞), personal anddemonstrative pronouns (daimeishi 代名詞), adjectives (keiyōshi 形容詞), verbs (dōshi 動詞), adverbs (fukushi 副詞), particles that function as determiners (zenshi 前詞),
conjunctions (setsuzokushi 接続詞), and interjections (kantōshi 間投詞). Each of thesetwo volumes was then composed of short sentences that supposedly constituted thebasis of any conversation. The sentences were presented in a strict grammaticalprogression. Their style, expression and structure were heavily influenced by Western
grammar, to such an extent that today this textbook more closely resembles a book on
formal grammar than a guide to conversation. The introduction of numerous
interrogative sentences from the second half of the first volume onwards is the only
thing that suggests the book was designed to teach conversation.

21

The content of the two volumes showed little coherence and the presentation consisted
simply in placing various model sentences side by side. Furthermore, the desired
objectives were not clear and the texts suspiciously resembled translations from aforeign language, including excessive use of personal pronouns that are often
unnecessary in Japanese and structures grafted literally onto Japanese. Directlytranslating sentences that were already somewhat stilted in English stripped theJapanese of all coherence and produced utterances that were not only strange, but
often incorrect and at times incomprehensible. For example, almost all the sentences
began with ware 我 (I), warera 我等 (we) or nanji 汝 (you). Moreover, quite astonishingphrases appeared, such as nanji wa zutsū o motsu 汝ハ頭痛ヲ持ツ or ware wa haita(shitsū) wo motsu 我ハ歯痛ヲ持ツ (lesson 5, volume 2). Translated literally back into
English these would produce something along the lines of “you possess a headache”, “I
possess a toothache”, as opposed to the standard expressions atama ga itai 頭が痛い
(you've got a headache), ha ga itai 歯がいたい (I've got toothache).

22

Nonetheless, this textbook has great historical importance due to its clear desire tocreate a “conversation” lesson in the new elementary school curriculum, and in doing
so establish oral communication as one of the starting points of language instruction.
Despite its failings, its pedagogical intentions were undeniably ahead of their time andwould subsequently lead spoken Japanese to once again take precedence over the
written language.

23

Other kotobazukai textbooks featured dialogues that were more relevant to everyday lifeand contained some rudimentary writing exercises, making the kotobazukai subject
seem like a preliminary step in this type of exercise. The subject matter of the
dialogues made some of them feel rather academic. All, however, had been compiled
under the influence of Western conversation books and had, to differing extents, thesame artificial feel of a translation. According to Nanette Twine, 24 kotobazukai provided
the ideal terrain for advocates of unifying spoken and written Japanese (genbun itchi 言文一致), in other words, simplifying the latter to bring it in line with the former. In
fact, certain members of the Department of Education hoped that teaching this subject
would encourage the dissemination of the national language at the expense of regional
dialects. On the whole, however, the kotobazukai texts were unable to meet these

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

linguistic challenges. Poorly distributed and in small numbers, they disappeared fromthe proposals of the Normal School in 1873, and from teaching curricula in 1881.

Bunpō
24

The 1872-73 regulations introduced the teaching of grammar from the first term of thethird year of lower elementary school to the end of upper elementary school. Thissubject had never existed as such before and the education chiefs of the time had
decided that, in view of Western practices, it was lacking from Japanese language
education.

25

More than any of the other newly created subjects, “grammar” implied conducting an
in-depth reflection on the subject matter to be taught, something that had never been
undertaken before in Japan.25 The confusion of those in charge of setting curricula wasevident. Although they had clearly stipulated the teaching of grammar at elementary
school, they had failed to set out a precise timetable. Accordingly, implementing
instruction in this subject was fraught with difficulty.

26

A number of “grammar books” (bunpō sho 文法書) were produced, however, by private
publishing houses. Since the elementary school regulations had not specified any set
texts, and with good reason, certain prefectures supplemented the list of textbooks to
be used at upper elementary schools with works such as those by Tanaka Yoshikado 田
中義廉, Shōgaku Nihon bunten 小學日本文典 (Book of Japanese Grammar for Elementary
School, 1874), or Nakane Kiyoshi中根淑, Nihon shō-bunten 日本小文典 (Book of
Elementary Japanese Grammar, 1876). However, the content of these works, which
wavered between that of the kanazukai textbooks and kotobazukai textbooks with which
they overlapped, amounted simply to presenting the different word categories and theways in which they could be employed in sentences. In the classroom they served
merely as teachers' guides and are thought to have been distributed to students only
rarely.

Inadequate yet essential textbooks
27

The aforementioned textbooks were never truly used as stand-alone texts in lessons, inother words as textbooks for “subjects” that were distinct from one another. The
division of subjects imposed by the regulations proved impossible to implement inreality. Poorly defined, the teaching content of the new subjects overlapped andduplicated each other as the subjects struggled to exist and find their coherence. The
confusion that reigned over the different course titles and textbook names was
symptomatic of this state of affairs. Kotobazukai textbooks that in reality more closely
resembled grammar books coexisted with grammar books which themselves werevirtually indistinguishable from kanazukai texts. The combined influence of Westernand Edo-period textbooks, the conflict between new ideas and a traditional view of
education, and the discrepancy between what teachers on the ground were truly
capable of and what officials drafting the regulations wanted – and were themselvescapable of – were all at the root of this confusion.

28

However, this confusion was also synonymous with intense activity and intensereflection. The Japanese tested, experimented, studied and made proposals. These
flawed and seemingly incomplete textbooks clearly demonstrate – undoubtedly better

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

than those compiled later – the frenetic activity that characterised the world of
education and publishing during the Gakusei period. Beyond their shortcomings andawkwardness, they perfectly reflected the two major concerns of education specialists
at the time: providing children with appropriate educational materials andsystematising Japanese language instruction to make it simpler, more rational andmore progressive.
29

Finally, from a pedagogical point of view they introduced the learning progression thatwould subsequently become the norm, namely: syllables in kana > words in kanji >sentences. Leaving aside the issue of whether these textbooks were used, how and bywhom, they constitute a vital link in the history of Japanese language teaching, or eventhe language itself!

The educational wallcharts of 1873-1875
30

This learning progression relating to the introduction of writing also featured in the“educational wallcharts” (kakezu 掛圖) published by the Tōkyō Normal School at the
beginning of 1873. These were a completely new innovation. This type of Americaninspired teaching aid was unheard of in Japan and deviated from the tradition ofindividualised teaching and the book as the sole vehicle for conveying knowledge.
The American models for the Japanese wallcharts, the School and Family Charts:
Accompanied by a Manual of Object Lessons and Elementary Instruction (1870s) by Marcius
Willson(1813-1905) and N. A. Calkins, (1822-1895) were introduced to Japan at the
beginning of 1872 on the initiative of the American G.H.F. Verbeck (1830-1898).

31

Immediately translated and adapted, the Japanese version comprised twenty-eight
charts (56 cm x 74 cm):
Fifty sounds chart (Gojūonzu 五十音圖)
Fifty sounds chart in the cursive style (Gojūon sōtaizu 五十音草体圖)Voiced sounds chart (Dakuonzu – handakuon 濁音圖半濁音)Word charts (1-8) (Kotobazu daiichi – daihachi 單語図第一・第八)
Sentence charts (1-8) (Rengozu dai ichi – daihachi 連語図第一・第八)
Lines and angles chart (Sen oyobi do zu 線及度図)
Shapes and solids chart (Katachi oyobi tai zu 形及体図)
Numerals chart (Sūjizu 数字図)Arabic numerals chart (San'yō sūjizu 算用数字図)
Roman numerals chart (Rōma sūjizu 羅馬数字図)
Addition tables (Kasan kukuzu 加算九九図)Multiplication tables (Jōsan kukuzu 乗算九九図)
Colour charts (2) (Irozu 色図)

32

Published at a time when the Department of Education and the Tōkyō Normal School
each produced their own teaching materials independently of one another, thesewallcharts were designed to encourage dissemination of the simultaneous teaching
method and compensate for the lack of textbooks. The series of charts by the Tōkyō
Normal School were reissued the following year, in 1874, under the authority of the
Department of Education. This second version of the charts was distributed by the
Department until December 1878. The content of these charts, the number of which
had grown in the interim to forty-seven, was based on that of the 1873 version but with

Cipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies, 2 | 20137

Language textbooks following the Meiji Restorationa certain number of differences. Thirty of them were devised by the Normal School andseventeen by the Department of Education.

The iroha and the fifty sounds chart
33

Whereas instruction in reading and writing generally began with the fifty sounds chartin katakana, followed by the iroha in hiragana, the first series of charts from the Tōkyō
Normal School in 1873 featured only the fifty sounds. The disappearance of the iroha
reflected the preference of “Westernizers” for the fifty sounds chart. However, the factthat children were more familiar with the iroha through card games, songs andeveryday activities led education officials to reintroduce it with the new series in 1874.

The word charts
34

The first two of the eight words charts (73 cm x 58 cm) each presented thirty or sowords, while the remaining six contained twenty-five, making a total of 210 words and
310 kanji for all eight charts. The words were always presented in the same manner.
Each square on the charts contained a drawing representing the object, plant or animalin question along with a transcription of its name written in square-style kanji. The firstof these eight charts was designed chiefly to help children distinguish between similarsounds (i イ, hi ヒand wi ヰ; e エ, he ヘand we ヱ), while the second sought to teachsome of the words with particularly complicated kana spelling (wa ワor ha ハ, o オor wo
ヲ).

35

Although the vocabulary itself drew on the everyday world of children, the kanji
presented were often graphically complex. The first two charts, for example, contained
the words shokudai / 燭臺 (candlestick), ebi / 鰕 (shrimp), kanae / 鼎 (three-legged
metal pot), tarahi / 盥 (washbowl), and iwashi / 鰯 (sardine).

36

The remaining charts presented dialogues (mondō 問答) between pupils and teachers.
These dialogues were essentially designed to teach children the function andcharacteristics of objects taken from the world around them26 and have them memorise
the kanji used to write their names.

37

The second series of charts authorised by the Department of Education in 1874 differedfrom the first series on a certain number of points: with new illustrations and certain
words replaced, the new version was ultimately considerably more difficult than thefirst. Examples include 糸ito (thread) replaced with 絲 and 大根 daikon (a large radish)with 蘿蔔 rafuku (same meaning). The few words to appear in katakana in the firstversion had also been replaced by words in kanji. In fact, the first version more closely
resembled the Japanese language of today than the second.

38

These changes were the first signs of the reversal in situation that the world of Meiji
education would experience, with the specialists in Chinese studies (kangakusha 漢学者)
at the Department of Education gradually regaining the ground previously abandoned
to the “Westernizers” (yōgakusha 洋学者) at the Tōkyō Normal School.

The sentence charts
39

These charts served as material for training children in sentence construction using
the “word linking” technique (according to a very literal translation of rengozu). Their

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

presentation was identical in both versions of the charts and featured a list of words inkanji followed by short, literary-style sentences that recycled these words. The firstchart, for example, featured the words 神 (kami, god), 人 (hito, person), 天地 (tenchi,
universe), 万物 (banbutsu, all creation), 主宰 (shusai, master), 霊 (tama, soul / spirit),
followed by sentences like: 神は天地の主宰にして、人は万物の霊なり (kami wa tenchi
no shusai ni shite, hito wa banbutsu no tama nari / the gods are the masters of the universe,
men are the kings [literally the “soul”] of creation.
40

In all, 191 words were presented in isolation across all nine charts, 27 as well as 271 kanji.
Only ten words were written in kana, in chart no. 3. Many variant written forms(hentaigana) appeared in the parts transcribed in kana. Just like the word charts, thesesentence charts, which in addition to the number and difficulty of the kanji used
introduced quite complex moral and scientific concepts, were extremely difficult for
language teaching materials that were supposedly designed for very young children.

Distribution of the wallcharts
41

The first annual reports published by the Department of Education in 1873 (Monbushō
nenpō 文部省年報) show widespread distribution of the charts throughout the entire
country. Teachers who had not graduated from the Normal School spent several weeks
learning how to use them at seminars organised by the prefectures. These seminars
taught elementary school teachers how to teach a whole class using the simultaneous
method and how to have children read by showing them the words with a stick and/or
having them run their fingers along under the sentences.

42

As evidenced by the one million copies distributed as of 1874, these charts were notsimply supplementary teaching materials but rather educational resources on a parwith textbooks. To my knowledge this was the first time in the history of Japanese
education that teaching materials other than textbooks were produced and used inclassrooms on this scale. Ideally suited to simultaneous teaching, they enabled allteachers to familiarise themselves with this method without unnerving those who had
only ever known the traditional method.

43

However, the difficulty of the kanji taught in these charts and the complexity of thehistorical kana orthography used (rekishi kanazukai) soon proved to be inappropriate forchildren aged six to eight years old. Mounting criticism led the Department of
Education to publish a new set of ten charts (72 cm x 50 cm) called Shōgaku shikyōzu 小
學指教圖 (educational wallcharts for elementary school) in January 1879. The first six
were word charts in hiragana and the other four served as teaching aids for arithmetic
lessons:
Chart no.1: iroha in hiragana
Chart no.2: fifty sounds in katakana (simple sounds only)
Chart no. 3: voiced sounds in katakana and numerals in kanji
Charts 4 to 6: words transcribed exclusively in hiragana and illustrated with a drawing,such as inu, hashi or hon (24 words per chart)
Charts 7 to 10: tables of maths operations (multiplication, addition, subtraction anddivision).

44

The major difference with the 1873 charts was that instead of being transcribed using
what were often very difficult kanji, all of the words were written in hiragana. This time
there was a real desire to adapt the teaching material to the developmental stage of

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

children and their abilities, and in this respect these charts prefigured the language
teaching policy subsequently introduced in the “Elementary School Curriculum”(Shōgakkō kyōsoku kōryō 小学校教則綱領) decreed in May 1881. Moreover, the elements
relating to arithmetic that remained in the 1879 Shōgaku shikyōzu were directly linked
to the traditional practice of using an abacus and moved away from “Western”
arithmetic. With their focus once again on language instruction using elements that
directly prepared children for reading – iroha, fifty sounds chart, voiced sounds, kanawords, short sentences –, these charts foreshadowed the tokuhon 読本 style readers
published later.

The Shōgaku nyūmon
45

The wallcharts of 1873-1875 were also published together as a collection in the form of
textbooks. The first among these was the Shōgaku kyōjusho 小学教授書 (Book of Lessons
for Elementary School) by Tanaka Yoshikado 田中義廉 (1841-1879) and Morokuzu
Nobuzumi諸葛信澄 (1849-1880), published by the Department of Education in August
1873. It grouped together into one single volume all the charts from the Tōkyō Normal
School published that same year, except for the table of colours.

46

In October 1874 the Department of Education published a second series of charts in asingle 150-page book entitled Shōgaku nyūmon kōgō 小學入門 甲号 (Elementary School
Primer – A),28 the foreword to which stated:
The charts are large and impractical to fold and transport. Furthermore, they are
difficult to purchase due to their high price. We have therefore assembled them in thispractical and lightweight book.

47

The following year, in January 1875, an abridged version of this textbook (62 pages) was
published with the title Shōgaku nyūmon otsugō 小學入門 乙号 (Elementary School
Primer – B).

48

Whichever version we consider, the Shōgaku nyūmon served as an introduction to all thesubjects taught at elementary school but, like the original charts, continued to focus
essentially on learning the language. Reading instruction clearly began with characters(kana followed by kanji) then words, progressing to compound words, expressions andfinally short sentences, each time combining the elements studied separately during
the previous stage.

49

This concern for starting with concrete objects and associating the signifier with as
precise a representation of the signified as possible (influenced by the Pestalozzian
method)29 was clearly visible in the presentation of these word charts and theirmultiple and highly detailed illustrations. As such, the charts, along with the Shōgaku
nyūmon, were evidently teaching resources developed in line with the so-called “object
lessons method” (shobutsu shikyō 庶物指教),30 which emphasised visualising theconcrete object or, in this case, a simple representation of it. In fact, the American
charts that had served as a model bore the subtitle “accompanied by a manual of object
lessons and elementary instruction”.

50

The Shōgaku nyūmon continued to be extremely popular until around 1877-1879, andeven until the beginning of the 1880s. Much has been written about its content and use.
However, the majority of these works – teachers' guides or commentaries – focused

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

essentially on the word charts and on providing highly detailed explanations of theiruse.
51

The educational charts and various versions of the Shōgaku nyūmon had been developed
and published at short notice following the Education System Order, and were chiefly
intended to provide teachers at the newly created elementary schools with textbooks
whose content conformed to the new regulations. The problems that arose once they
were in circulation and being used in classrooms stemmed essentially from the factthat their editors had been more interested in breaking with traditional teachingpractices (notably individualised instruction) than in creating materials truly suited toyoung learners. It must be acknowledged that the reflection conducted on the actual
abilities of young learners was non-existent (or inadequate). Simply copying Westernteaching resources without truly taking into account the children themselves had led
to the publication of materials that were unsuitable and excessively difficult.

52

Nevertheless, the pioneering and modern nature of the Shōgaku nyūmon and theeducational charts must not be forgotten. Their presentation of subject matter for
beginners makes them of prime importance in the history of language textbooks. They
introduced and established a new way of assembling and presenting the elements
necessary for teaching the language, in addition to the first notions of the othersubjects on the curriculum, in particular arithmetic and science. A summary of basic
knowledge and an introduction to the sciences, if only through basic vocabulary,
continued to characterise all readers published until the early twentieth century.

53

A much clearer and more coherent idea of the way textbook authors and the majority
of officials at the time viewed language teaching can be obtained by flicking throughthe pages of the Shōgaku nyūmon (in any case much more than through the chartspurchased by schools individually and not as a set). The influence of Edo-period
textbooks was by now only really perceptible from a graphic point of view. The Shōgaku
nyūmon had all the characteristics of the compendium-like primers used in the West,and of all the textbooks presented in this paper, it is probably one of those in which the
influence of the so-called “civilisation and enlightenment” (bunmei kaika) movement is
the most visible, whether in the content of lessons and underlying ideology, or thepedagogical approach and conception of knowledge on which it was based. In fact, its
disappearance from lessons was concomitant with that of the very notion of bunmei
kaika and the loss of influence of its adherents. This textbook definitively fell out of use
after the Department of Education published the First Manual of Reading ( Yomikata
nyūmon 読方入門) in 1884.

The shōgaku tokuhon of 1873, the first true elementary
school “readers”
54

Of all the textbooks written during the Gakusei period, the most important for language
teaching in general, and reading in particular, were the shōgaku tokuhon, or“elementary school readers”, the first of their kind.

55

First published in 1873, they quickly stood out from other language textbooks andrapidly superseded them in everyday classroom practices. Originally, however, thesetextbooks which prefigured the future combined “national language” (kokugo 国語)
texts were simply a teaching aid for one of the seven subjects that made up language

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

instruction. However, the coherence of the subject “reading” compared to thefluctuating nature of the six other subjects gradually established readers as the coretexts for teaching the language. From the second year onwards, in other words, once
children had been introduced to writing, readers became, in the vast majority ofschools, the textbooks for language instruction.
56

These new textbooks – they did not exist in the old school system – were designed to be
used in teaching “school-based reading” (yomikata) in the strict sense, as well as the“group reading-comprehension-explanation” activity known as rinkō 輪講. The term
tokuhon, which in this new meaning was a neologism 31 to translate the English term
“reader” (riidā リーダー), subsequently became a generic term for all elementary
school reading textbooks as well as the subject itself.

57

None of the textbooks cited in the official regulations of 1872 for the subjects tokuhon noyomikata and tokuhon no rinkō, taught from year two onwards, contained the word
tokuhon in their title. It was only in the supplementary list of textbooks proposed by theNormal School and appended to the 1873 teaching regulations that a text entitled
Shōgaku tokuhon, published shortly earlier in Tōkyō, appeared for the first time. Written
by Tanaka Yoshikado, it was published just before Sakakibara Yoshino's Shōgaku
tokuhon. Though fundamentally different, both of these textbooks were distributed on atremendous scale throughout the entire Gakusei period. Widely used throughout thecountry until 1879, they are considered to be the most representative readers from theperiod.

Tanaka Yoshikado's Shōgaku tokuhon
58

Tanaka Yoshikado's Shōgaku tokuhon was initially published between March and June
1873 by the Tōkyō Normal School, then revised and republished jointly by the
Department of Education and the Normal School in August 1874. All the hiragana used
appeared in their current form and no variants featured in the text.

59

The first three volumes were essentially composed of texts focusing on the everyday
life and games of children. The fourth consisted almost exclusively of texts of ascientific nature (celestial bodies, air, water). Tanaka had faithfully reproduced thestyle of the Willson Reader by Marcius Willson, 32 the American textbook that had served
as a model.

60

Highly representative of the bunmei kaika mentality, this textbook was the most utilised
and imitated of all the readers. Its opening sentence, the only one that was nottranslated from the Willson Reader (and which Tanaka thus wrote himself), wasmemorised by all elementary school children:
The humans inhabiting the Earth can be divided into five races: the Asian race, theEuropean race, the Malay race, the American race and the African race; the Japanesebelong to the Asian race.

61

For the Japanese of the time, this sentence alone symbolised the end of a long period ofclosure and isolation, the opening up to the West and the rest of the world, a breath of
fresh air as well as an entirely new sum of knowledge to be acquired.

62

Except for this opening sentence, the first volume of Tanaka's reader was merely acomplete and virtually word-for-word translation of the First Reader of the Willson
Reader series, while the second volume reproduced the first half of the Second Reader

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

with a few modifications and additions. Aside from a few differences, the third volume
reproduced the second half of the Second Reader. The fourth volume, on the other hand,
owed little to Willson's work, though with its focus almost entirely on the sciences it
respected the same principle.
63

The texts and illustrations used contained many elements belonging to a culture andcivilisation that were different, foreign. They lent the book a slightly odd feel that
disconcerted many Japanese, but at the same time were responsible for its appeal andsuccess. The images, which were identical to the ones used in the Willson Reader, showedchildren playing baseball, sleeping in beds, using music boxes and wearing western
clothes, all unheard of in Japan at that time. The texts all had a certain strangeness thatwas most often due to their being literal translations from English. Their artificiality
was somewhat toned down in the revised version of 1874 and changes to their content
made them more closely coincide with the culture and everyday life of the Japanese.

64

Overall, however, the textbook still read like a translation (overuse of personalpronouns, sentence structures translated literally from English) and in some respects
the second version proved itself to be even odder than the first, notably due to the factthat its prose combined Old Japanese (the interrogative ya, for example) and Modern
Japanese (the interrogative ka). More generally, there was a kind of anachronism in thesecond version between the numerous old forms used (in particular the verbal suffixes
beshi and nari) and a “modern and Western” content that would undoubtedly have been
better served by a more contemporary language.

65

With regards the Japanese script, Tanaka introduced certain kanji right from the very
first lesson of volume one, which was logical since in the Normal School learning
progression the Shōgaku tokuhon was only tackled once kana had been studied. However,Tanaka employed these kanji with no effort to progress from the simple to the more
complex in terms of the form or number of characters presented. Right from theopening lessons of his textbook, all words that would have been written with kanji in atext aimed at an adult readership were transcribed in the same way. No spaces
separated words and punctuation was limited to commas and full stops (which were infact circles the same size as a character).

66

Distributed nationwide, Tanaka's Shōgaku tokuhon found itself at the centre of a wealthof literature: explanatory guides, teachers' editions and dictionaries. Although it
progressively fell out of use at the beginning of the 1880s, given that it was still being
reprinted in places until around 1885-1886, its representative nature is coupled with anastonishing longevity for the period: over ten years.

Sakakibara Yoshino's Shōgaku tokuhon
67

Published for the first time in 1873 by the Department of Education, Sakakibara
Yoshino's Shōgaku tokuhon consisted of six volumes, including an introductory volume.

68

The introductory volume (kubimaki 首巻) began in the same way as the Department of
Education’s Kotoba-hen. It borrowed almost all of the introductory section; in otherwords, it began with the iroha in hiragana (including voiced sounds but not the variant
written forms). This was followed by the gojūon chart in katakana, then a certain
number of lessons presenting one-, two- or three-kanji words classified by theme, 33
giving a total of 1,078 words and at least as many kanji. Remember that this was a
beginners' textbook used during the first six months of school!

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

69

Volume one presented the names of things and objects (one or two per page) classified
according to their first syllable in the order of the iroha. Each word was illustrated by apanel containing a drawing and the first kana character of the word. Beneath this a few
lines provided a simple explanation of the word.34 The second half of the textbook
presented other words in the same way but following the gojūon ordering, with the kanacharacter inside the panel no longer a hiragana but a katakana.

70

This process of presenting over one thousand kanji in less than six months (in the
introductory volume), then returning to a slower pace to study kana or the same kanji
seems extremely bizarre, if not incoherent. However, it seems to perfectly reflect thestill widely held view at the time that the characters had to be learnt before learning toread. From this point of view it was thus logical to have seen as many of them as
possible before recycling them in texts “to be read”.

71

Volumes two and three were composed of short texts containing the words and kanji
studied in the introductory book and volume one. The texts had been adapted to makethem accessible to children and focused on everyday life or very simple subjects. At the
top of each lesson, separated from the body of the text, were questions such as: “Whichis the largest planet?” or “How many satellites are there?”, with the answer provided in
the text of the lesson. These questions, which were designed chiefly to underline theessential points of the text, were one of the main characteristics of this textbook.

72

Volumes four and five,35 on the other hand, had been compiled according to a different
editorial policy that favoured moralistic narratives, anecdotes and Chinese, Japanese orWestern historical accounts. This policy was justified in the foreword in the following
terms:In this volume we have used materials that can be read easily by children and havepresented them simply.
We have employed a vocabulary that is neither common nor sophisticated and haveendeavoured to choose easy-to-pronounce words that can be understood by children
without difficulty when they are heard.
This textbook presents things in a certain order, without distinguishing between theold and the new, or between the Japanese and the foreign.

73“Easily”, “simply”, “without difficulty”: these few lines reveal a clear concern forchildren, which is all the more remarkable considering that, until then, little concern
had been shown in the texts targeting the moral edification of these same children. As
in the previous volumes, questions underlining the main points figured in the upper
margin of the texts: “Why are there wise men and fools?”, “Why do natural things
deteriorate?”

74

In contrast to the artificial, translated feel of Tanaka's textbook, Sakakibara's text,
based as it was on Japanese teaching materials, seemed much more traditional. Initiallyconsisting of simple sentences, its style then evolved towards more sophisticatedlanguage. Nevertheless, like all the textbooks published prior to 1885, the spirit of“civilisation and enlightenment” was not completely absent since there were numerous
foreign stories (albeit with a moralistic tone).

75

This textbook was widely distributed and utilised, in particular volumes four and fivewhich, with their accounts of China and Japan, seemed to remedy one of theshortcomings of Tanaka's book, thus winning over many teachers. In fact, many schools
moved straight on to volume five of Sakakibara's textbook after finishing the four

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

volumes of Tanaka's reader. One compensated for the weaknesses of the other, andthey were often used if not jointly, at least successively. In contrast to Tanaka's reader,
however, use of Sakakibara's increased as the return to tradition in terms of morals andeducation became more pronounced, in particular from 1877-1879 onwards. The five
volumes of Sakakibara's textbook, which were re-issued many times, were abundantly
imitated in the different prefectures and even gave rise to a multitude of explanatory
books and other teachers' editions. Being pervaded as they were with traditional andConfucian thought enabled them to completely eclipse Tanaka's book between 1881 and
1886.
76

The immense popularity of the Shōgaku tokuhon by Tanaka and Sakakibara was suchthat they were simply referred to as Tanaka-hon (Tanaka's book) and Sakakibara-hon(Sakakibara's book). They perfectly represented the two currents of thought apparent
in language textbooks at the beginning of the Meiji era and which, more generally,
were at odds in the world of education: an innovative current, initially dominant thenincreasingly minor – one inspired by the Western textbooks that were translated or
adapted (Tanaka) – and a more traditional current, initially minor then increasingly
powerful, which continued in the tradition of the previous era's education system(Sakakibara).36

77

The two main shortcomings of Tanaka's book were its use of unnatural language unlike
the everyday language spoken by children, and the inclusion of content that was on
occasions beyond a child's grasp. As for Sakakibara's reader, it could be criticised for
adopting a system and overly rapid pace of introducing kanji and acquiring difficult
vocabulary which, beyond the writers' stated intentions, showed little consideration
for the abilities and developmental stage of children. In both cases, moreover, their
specificity as language textbooks was eclipsed by their resemblance to general teaching
textbooks that combined several subjects and differed little from the traditional
readers of the Edo period. This is also undoubtedly one of the factors that eventually
drove teachers to gradually use tokuhon-type readers as the sole language textbooks
and then to establish them as the core elementary school textbooks.

Conclusion
78

An analysis of language textbooks from the Gakusei period shows that not only did they
evolve along the same lines as the official directives, but in pedagogical terms they
were even ahead of them. Indeed, by contenting themselves with merely indicating
what books teachers could use, the 1872 and 1873 directives effectively aligned
themselves with the textbooks available on the market. This was a unique moment in
the history of Japanese education, a situation that would continue for another few
years but would never again be repeated.

79

The new textbooks also reflected the ideological and philosophical views dominating
the world of education and, more generally, society at the beginning of the Meiji era.
The major influence at that time was American and Pestalozzian. But while themajority of textbook writers did indeed take inspiration from Western works, this was
not the case for everyone. The influence of Edo-period textbooks was still palpable inthese so-called new publications. Considered in its entirety, the corpus of language
textbooks published between 1872 and 1879 above all reflects the considerable
educational freedom that existed in Japan at that time: dissemination of new ideas andCipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies, 2 | 201315

Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

practices inspired from abroad, freedom in the writing and use of textbooks, relative
independence of the prefectures, and considerable autonomy of teachers in theclassroom.
80

The consequence of this educational freedom was that a gulf existed during this period
between, on the one hand, what education specialists and officials advocated throughtheir documents and new textbooks, and what actually happened in classrooms on theother. Indeed, the content and spirit of the new textbooks, suffused with the“civilisation and enlightenment” ideal, were rather poorly perceived on the ground.
The materials directly developed from the translation of Western textbooks inparticular were found disconcerting and shocking. Parents, children and teachers, who
had already taken a battering from the new system, were extremely disconcerted bythese books whose content was for many incomprehensible. Many teachers thus
continued to use the old textbooks with which they were familiar.

81

The investigation conducted by the specialists themselves into language and language
instruction appears to have focused essentially on ideological (breaking away from thetraditional education model) and practical aspects (being rapidly applicableeverywhere, by all and for all subjects) that left little room to consider the subject
taught (written Japanese) as well as the learners and learning process. In fact, generalprinciples of education were simply applied to language teaching, just as they were forother subjects. Japanese specialists in fact refer to this period as “gogaku kyōiku jidai” 語学教育時代: literally the “language education period”, in other words, the period inwhich education focused on systematically studying the components of the written
language, a method modelled on the way foreign languages were studied at that time.

82

The extremely synoptic presentation of the writing system thus proposed was based on
an abstract conception of the written code which saw characters as visual or phonetic
units isolated from their function. Despite the recommendations of certain Japanese
specialists, notably those from the normal schools, teaching was mechanical andinvolved little active use of the language apart from extremely formalistic “questions
and answers” (mondō 問答), prepared and learned by heart.37 However, this situation
also revealed a perverse effect of the old Western syllabic method which, encouragedby the extremely syllabic nature of the Japanese language, was used at that time as amodel. Accordingly, kana were presented in the “syllabic” order of the iroha and the
gojūon (Western influence + Japanese tradition) rather than progressing from theeasiest to the most difficult.

83

Similarly, the graphic complexity and frequency with which kanji appeared in theactual texts were not yet truly taken into account (influence of the traditional method).
Kanji were either presented in isolation, without context, or within words grouped
together according to a particular theme, the number of syllables they contained or
shared semantic elements; or else in short utterances that more closely resembled
expressions than sentences. The process of learning to read and write was thus simply
based on an accumulation of graphic and visual elements. Each as poorly suited to theneeds, abilities and developmental stage of children as to the knowledge and practicalexperience of teachers, the new language textbooks, especially those most faithful totheir Western models, continued – paradoxically – to focus essentially, just like theEdo-period textbooks, on Japanese characters as both the point of departure and aim ofeducation.

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

84

The adoption of the simultaneous teaching method and appropriate teaching material
is thus often presented as the main, if not the only, educational advance of this period.
The previously mentioned difficulties and the failings or weaknesses of the new
textbooks from the Gakusei period should not, however, mask other advances made inlanguage teaching, advances that are clearly visible in the textbooks of those years andwhich were equally important and definitive, albeit decidedly less spectacular. These
include breaking away from the traditional model of teaching written Japanese,
promoting the spoken language and oral communication, which were on their way totaking precedence over the written language, and kana being seen as the sole gateway
to the written language for all children. The traditional model was in fact abandoned instages, the first, which took place during the period studied in this paper, being theinversion of the “writing > reading” teaching order (which became “reading >writing”). It was not until the end of the 1880s that the need to teach these skills
concurrently was established.

85

Finally, an examination of the textbooks of this period shows that the major obstacle toimplementing an efficient method of language instruction on a truly nationwide scaleremained the Japanese language itself. All efforts and attempts were doomed to failurefrom the start due to the excessive instability of the language. This is something that isdifficult to imagine today, but the Japanese elementary school teachers of the period
were teaching a language that was not fixed, that varied according to place, period andpurpose, whom it was written by and to whom it was addressed, a written languagethat vacillated between several traditions and whose usage implied a cultural andideological choice on behalf of the writer. A language that, in contrast to contemporary
Japanese, was graphically much less certain. None of the diacritical marks subsequently
chosen were used, for example, while the link between the written form of kana andtheir pronunciation was as complex as French orthography. In fact, the textbooks
presented in this paper provide an extremely tangible illustration of these difficulties
linked to the nature of the Japanese script, since they present little homogeneity interms of form. The size of characters, presentation of texts, calligraphy style,preference given sometimes to hiragana, sometimes to katakana when writing in the
kanji kana majiri-bun style (a mixture of kanji and kana), and punctuation: all of theseelements varied considerably from author to author. Not to mention the problems
relating to the language employed (spoken, written or “translated”), the syntax, andthe kanji chosen. It would be some years before the first signs of a standardisation ofthese elements would become visible.

BIBLIOGRAPHYAKITA Kisaburō 秋田喜三郎, Shotō kyōiku kokugo kyōkasho hattatsushi初等教育国語教科書発達史(History of the Development of Japanese Language Textbooks for Elementary School), Hiroshima,
Bunka hyōron 文化評論, 1977.

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

FURUTA Tōsaku 古田東朔, Shōgaku tokuhon benran 小學讀本便覧 (Guide to Elementary School
Readers), 10 volumes + 1 supplementary volume, Musashino shoin武蔵野書院, 1978 [in this series
the textbooks are reproduced in full, in facsimile; the texts studied in this paper appear involume one and in the supplementary volume].
HIDA Takio 飛田多喜雄, Kokugo kyōiku hōhōron shi 国語教育方法論史 (History of Japanese
Language Teaching Methods), Meiji tosho 明治図書, 1966.
KAIGO Tokiomi 海後宗臣 (ed.), Nihon kyōkasho taikei – kindai-hen 日本教科書体系近代編 (Overview
of Japanese School Textbooks – Contemporary Period), 27 volumes, Kōdansha 講談社, 1964-1967[the textbooks studied in this paper appear in volume one].
KARASAWA Tomitarō 唐沢富太郎, Kyōiku hakubutsukan 教育博物館 (Museum of Education), 4
volumes, Gyōsei ぎょうせい, 1977.
Kokugo kyōiku kenkyūjo 国語教育研究所 (National Language Research Institute), Kokugo kyōiku
kenkyū daijiten 国語教育研究大辞典 (Dictionary of Research on Japanese Language Education),
Meiji tosho 明治図書, 1991.
NAKAMURA Kikuji 中村紀久二, Kyōkasho no shakaish i教科書の社会史 (Social History of School
Textbooks), Iwanami shoten岩波書店, Iwanami shinsho岩波新書, 1992.
Tōkyō hōrei 東京法令 (ed.), Kokugo kyōikushi shiryō 国語教育史資料 (Documents on the History ofJapanese Language Education), 6 vols, 1981 (vol. 2: School Textbooks).
YAMAZUMI Masami山住正己, Kyōkasho 教科書 (School Textbooks), Iwanami shoten 岩波書店,
Iwanami shinsho 岩波新書 [1970] 1984.

NOTES
1. See Christian Galan, « Le paysage scolaire à la veille de la Restauration de Meiji –écoles et manuels » (Japan’s Educational Landscape on the Eve of the Meiji Restoration:
Schools and Textbooks), Ebisu – Études japonaises, no 17, spring-summer 1998, p. 5-48,
and « L’enseignement de la lecture à la veille de la promulgation du Gakusei (1872) »(Reading Instruction on the Eve of the Gakusei Promulgation, 1872), Ebisu – Études
japonaises, no 18, autumn-winter 1998, p. 5-47.
2. From 1872 to 1885, in other words until a true cabinet system of government was adopted inwhich ministers were directly involved in organising affairs of state and public services, it is notreally possible to use the term “Minister of Education” to describe the person at the head of the
Monbushō. This body, translated here as “Department of Education”, was headed by a (mere)
director or secretary general (a position which in fact was often vacant).

3. An Editorial Section (henshūryō 編集寮) was created in October 1871. However, thework of editing and publishing textbooks truly began with the establishment in
October 1872 of a Textbook and Editing Office (Kyōkasho hensei-gakari 教科書編成掛)
within the Department of Education itself. An Editing Bureau (Henshūkyoku 編輯局), set
up at the Normal School, was also given the task of editing and distributing school
textbooks.
4. In 1876 only one eighth of Japan’s 52,000 primary school teachers had graduatedfrom a normal school.
5. Ōraimono is a generic term for the books, other than the Chinese classics, used as elementary
education textbooks prior to the Meiji era (see C. Galan, « Le paysage scolaire », op. cit.)

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Language textbooks following the Meiji Restoration

6. Japanese National Commission for Unesco, Development of Modern Textbook System in Japan
1868-1961, Tokyo, Ministry of Education of Japan, 1961, p. 14.
7. All of these textbooks were analysed in detail for my doctoral thesis (L’Enseignement de la lecture
au niveau élémentaire dans le système éducatif du Japon moderne depuis Meiji (1872-1992) [Reading
Instruction at Elementary School in the Modern Japanese Education System since the Meiji Era(1872-1992)]), supervised by Jean-Jacques Origas, Inalco, 1997). This thesis includes numerous
illustrations taken from the textbooks cited in this paper (and others merely mentioned inpassing), as well as their full bibliographic references and their authors’ biographies. See also
Christian Galan, L’Enseignement de la lecture au Japon – Politique et éducation (Reading Instruction in
Japan - Politics and Education), Toulouse, PUM, 2001.
8. This term literally means “letter, missive, or correspondence”. As in the Edo period it
continued to be used for some time as a synonym for composition (sakubun 作文). The choice of
this term reflects the fact that in the traditional education system, and this continued to be trueat the beginning of the Meiji era, the first (and often only) texts that children were encouraged towrite were letters of a personal, professional or official nature.
9. The textbooks on writing (tenarai) and composition (shotoku), subjects which were afundamental part of the traditional education system, continued to present considerable
similarities with Edo-period textbooks. They will not be analysed here since the reform of
language instruction took place essentially through the other subjects.
10. Kotoba and kaiwa were both subdivided into three subjects: yomikata 讀方 (reading), anshō/sorayomi 暗誦 (recitation) and kakitori 書取 (dictation/copying); and tokuhon into two: yomikata(reading) and rinkō 輪講 (group reading-explanation).
11. With the exception of anshō and kakitori.
12. The readings given in furigana differed from the usual readings of the selected terms: kotoba
zukai no yomikata for 会話読方 (kaiwa yomikata), kanazukai for 綴字 (tsuzuriji), kotoba yomikata for
単語読方 (tango yomikata), or even, more astonishingly, for in this case two different kanji could
simply have been chosen, tenarai for 習字 (shūji).
13. Or su yomi, “reading aloud without comprehending”, “reading-deciphering”, literally“simple reading”. In the traditional teaching model it was considered the first step in the studyof kanbun. See C. Galan, « L’enseignement de la lecture à la veille […] », op. cit and L’Enseignement
de la lecture au Japon, op. cit., p.44-46.
14. Only tenarai, rinkō and shotoku already existed in this context.
15. This epistemological problem of defining the content of the different subjects was resolved in
the 1879 regulations by simply abandoning this terminology and returning to a more traditional
reading/writing-composition dichotomy. In fact, this terminology had already been unofficiallyabandoned as early as in 1873 in training programmes at the Normal School.
16. The three kana-zukai textbooks indicated in the 1872 regulations – Uhimanabi うひまなび(First Lessons, 1868), by Yanagawa Harukage 柳河春蔭 (1832-1870), Eiri chie no wa 繪入知慧の環(The Magic Rings – with Illustrations, 1870) and Chie no itoguchi ちえのいとぐち (The First Steps
to Learning, 1871), both by Furukawa Masao 古川正雄 (1837-1877) – were published between
1868-1870, before the new subject was defined in the official directives. They will not be analysed
here. See Christian Galan, « L’ébauche d’un nouvel enseignement de la langue écrite à la veilledes réformes éducatives de 1872 » (The Beginnings of a New Way of Teaching the Written
Language on the Eve of the 1872 Educational Reforms), Ebisu – Etudes japonaises, no. 22, autumnwinter 1999, p. 77-124.
17. The iroha, or iroha uta いろは歌 / 伊呂波歌, named after its three opening syllables (like our"ABC") is the oldest method of ordering the Japanese syllabary characters. Mnemonic incharacter, it takes the form of a Buddhist-inspired poem from the late tenth century in which
each syllable appears just once.

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18. Each kana, depending on its own particular evolution since their creation in the eighth
century, had several written forms derived from different Chinese characters or which had been
simplified in a different way. The majority of these were labelled “hentai-gana” 変体仮名
(irregular kana) or “itai-gana” 異体仮名 (different kana) at the end of the nineteenth century
when one single written form (for each kana character) was classified as normal and standard.
19. They had been studied previously in words in which they appeared in second position.
20. Two successive vowels, final nasals, contracted sounds, long vowels, repeated consonants.
21. The 1872-1873 regulations distinguished between three separate “subjects” relating to theteaching of “words” (kotoba): “reading of words” (kotoba no yomikata 單語讀方), “recitation ofwords” (kotoba no sora yomi 單語諳讀), and “dictation of words” (kotoba no kakitori 單語書取).
“Reading of words” consisted in the teacher writing words on the board, reading them aloud andthen having students read/recite them together after having explained their meaning.
“Recitation of words” amounted to the children reciting one by one from memory words they
had learnt the previous day (they could also be asked to write them on the board). As for“dictation of words”, this involved the teacher calling out previously studied words and having
students write them on their chalkboards. The teacher then wrote the words on the board andasked students to correct their work. These three “subjects”, which in reality formed one single
discipline, corresponded to the three stages, in this case spread out over time, of a teaching
method that consisted in having children learn words, recite them from memory and then write
them in the form of dictations.
22. The 1872-1873 regulations introduced three “subjects” relating to “conversation”, or more
literally, “word usage” (kotobazukai 會話): “reading of conversations” (kotobazukai no yomikata 會話讀方), “recitation of conversations” (kotobazukai no sorayomi 會話暗誦), and “dictation of
conversations” (kotobazukai no kakitori 會話書取). Just as with “words” (kotoba), these subjects
actually formed one single discipline aimed at having pupils memorise supposedly"conversational” sentences.

23. Cardinal and ordinal numbers, plus a series of numbers with the counter word for
frequency.
24. Language and the Modern State, London and New York, Routledge, 1991, pp. 86-87.
25. Admittedly studies had been conducted, essentially from the 18th century onwards, on thesubject of particles, verbal variations, word categories or vocabulary, notably within the field ofpoetry, but grammar such as it had developed in the West had never been fixed or, for this very
reason, taught in a normative or formal manner.
26. Chart no. 3: fruit and vegetables; no. 4: utensils and crockery; no. 5: writing implements andeveryday objects; no. 6: clothing and anatomy; no. 7: insects and plants; no. 8: birds, animals andfish.
27. Chart no. 1: gods, man and family; no. 2: school; no. 3: places and space; no. 4: stars and theclimate; no. 5: food and hygiene; no. 6: clothing and shoes; no. 7: living places, tools and thehome; no. 8: life; no. 9: moral lessons; no. 10: units of measurement.
28. The letter (A) did not appear on the first version. It was added at a later date when version (B)was published.
29. See Christian Galan, « Pestalozzi, Herbart et la pédagogie japonaise » (Pestalozzi, Herbart andJapanese Educational Methods), Japon pluriel 3, Arles, Philippe Picquier, 1999, p. 53-61.
30. Term chosen to translate “object lessons method”, a method developed in the United States,
at the Oswego Normal School (New York State) in particular, and which was directly descended
from Pestalozzian thought.
31. The compound word 読本 existed during the Edo period, probably with the sole reading
yomihon, and referred to "reading books" as opposed to "picture books" (ehon 絵本).
32. Marcius Willson, The Readers of the School and Family Series, New York, Harper and Brothers,
1860 (alternative edition: The First Reader, The Second Reader, New York, 1863).

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33. Numbers, directions, zodiac signs, the ten Heavenly Stems of the Chinese calendar, shapes,
colours, angles, quantity, weight, measurements, currencies, heavenly bodies, units of time,
geography, buildings, society, anatomy, fabrics, clothing, food, taste, objects (4), metals,
vegetables (2), fruits, plants and trees (1), plants and trees (2), animals, birds, fish, and insects.
34. Or in any case an explanation of the word that was intended to be simple. The first word“house” (ie) was presented in the following manner: [drawing of a house, kana i い], “This is thegeneric word for the place where people live. It consists of pillars, joists, beams and rafters. On
the roof there are also tiles, wooden planks or straw. The place where light enters is called awindow. The place from which one can leave is called a door”.
35. Only the first three volumes were by Sakakibara, the remaining two were written by Naka
Michitaka 那珂通高 (1828-1879) and Inagaki Chikai 稲垣千頴 (birth and death unknown).
36. Sakakibara was one of the most fervent supporters of historical kana orthography.
37. See Christian Galan, « Le nouveau paradigme éducatif du début de Meiji : analyse d’une liassede copies de compositions d’écoliers des années 1876-1877 » (The New Educational Paradigm at
the Beginning of the Meiji Era: Analysis of a Bundle of Copies of School Children’s Writing
Compositions from 1876-1877), Cahiers du GREJA, no 2-3, « Éducation au Japon : éléments d’histoire(XIXe-XXe siècles) » (Education in Japan: Historical Elements (19 th-20th Centuries)), 2006, p. 21-47.

ABSTRACTS
The Education System Order (Gakusei) was promulgated in 1872 and remained in effect until 1879.
This period is often referred to by specialists as the “translated textbooks period”. An analysis oflanguage textbooks from that period shows that they reflected the ideological and philosophicalviews dominating the world of education at the beginning of the Meiji era. The major influence atthat time was American and Pestalozzian. But the influence of Edo-period textbooks was still
palpable in these so-called new publications. The Gakusei period was a unique moment in thehistory of Japanese education, a situation that would continue for another few years but would
never again be repeated.
Le décret sur l’Éducation (Gakusei) fut promulgué en 1872 et resta en vigueur jusqu’en 1879. Cette
période est souvent appelée par les spécialistes « période des manuels traduits ». L’analyse desmanuels de langue de cette période montre qu’ils reflètent les conceptions idéologiques etphilosophiques dominantes dans le monde de l’éducation. L’influence majeure est alors
américaine et pestalozienne. Mais l’influence des manuels scolaires de l’époque d’Edo se faitencore sentir dans ces productions que l’on dit nouvelles. La période du décret sur l’Éducation fut
un moment unique dans l’histoire de l’éducation au Japon, une situation qui se prolongera encore
quelques années, mais qui ne se reproduira jamais plus.

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INDEX
Keywords: modern Japan, Meiji era, education system, Gakusei, school textbooks, national
language, kokugo, elementary school, kana learning, Pestalozzi Johann Heinrich (1746-1827),
Tanaka Yoshikado (1841-1879), Sakakibara Yoshino (1832-1881), linguistics
Subjects: linguistique
Chronological index: Meiji
Mots-clés: Japon moderne, système éducatif, Gakusei, manuels scolaires, langue nationale,
Kokugo, école primaire, enseignement des kana, Pestalozzi Johann Heinrich (1746-1827), Tanaka
Yoshikado (1841-1879), Sakakibara Yoshino (1832-1881)

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