The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1908-05-22
JAPAN IS STRONG
FOR EDUCATION
advertiser Correspondence, Copyright
by Frederic j. Haskin.)


education. The public school system
includes every grade from the kinder
garten 10 the technical college for post
graduate work for university students
The system is modelled upon that pre-
vailing in the United States, and the
expense is borne partly by the nation,
partly by the prefecture and partly by
the municipality or district. But the
entire Japanese school system costs only
$25,000,O00 a year, less than the an
nual public school appropriation for the
city of New York.
Nevertheless it is a fact that ninety
five per cent of all the children of
school age in Japan are actually re-
ceiving instruction in the schools, a
record which cannot be approached in
America and which will be equalled in
very few individual states or cities.
Japan has over seven million children
in school and not quite four hundred
thousand out of school. Even these
must give a good excuse, for the in
tensely paternal japanese government
requires its subjects to be educated
and the compulsory education law is en-
IOICtu Will SEedt TlSoI
1t is utterly unfair to judge the
japanese schools by the amount of
money spent on them, because, as in al
most everything else, the great differ
enee in cost of living comes in again.
A Japanese school teacher will work a
whole year for salary of $40 and feel
all right about it. This scale of wages
seems pitifully parsimonious when COM
pared with that in America, yet every
one knows that teachers in the United
States are underpaid. 1t is a common
tary, however, upon American standards
that the $40-a-year teacher is not aeft
to starve in old age or sickness, his
salary goes on under teachers PEN
sion arrangement when he becomes in
capacitated for work.
Again, it is possible for young man
to study two years in a preparatory
school and then take a full four years
course in a university for 1850, or 500
year. Not only is it possible, but
thousands of young men are doing it.
One great private university in Toxic
has 5000 students, and the whole body
does not spend as much in year for
board, tuition, books and incidental
expenses as an equal number of Ameri-
can university students will spend each
year on the Harvard football
game. The government has estimated
the expenses of education to nicely,
and it assures parents that they can
educate their children from the elemen-
tary courses to the highest degree for
a total cost of $500. This includes
tuition, board, medical attendance and
books for six years the elementary
stage, five years in the intermediate
stage and five years in the university.
In the higher institutions of learning
care is taken that the estimate of cost
is not exceeded. At the central univer-
sites each prefecture maintains its own
dormitory, in which are housed the
students from that prefecture. The
parents pay lump sum to the manager
which is to include every expense. If
the expense exceeds the estimate, the
deficit is paid by the prefectural treas
ury in the form of subsidy. At one
of these dormitories a hundred boys
viii live in quarters which would not
suffice ten Americans. and the expense
will rarely be greater than $3.50
month for each boarder. The food is
rice and fish, of course, except that the
cheaper millet and beans are sometimes
substituted for the rice.
The only weak point about the Jap
anese school system, so far as the Jap
anese are concerned, is that the higher
institutions can by no means aeeommo-
date the students who apply for adj
mission. The Higher Commercial
School of Toxic is school comparable
to the large business colleges of the
United States. The annual tuition is
$3.50. Last year there were 1900 APP
plications for admission, but the build
ings are so small and the appropriation
so limited that only $40 could be add
mitted. There is a three year course
and the total enrolment is 1900, al
though the plant was designed to ac-
commodate but 500. The same condi-
ton obtains in every higher school in
the country. although the greater num-
Der of applicants are turned down by
the technical schools. Five hundred
applicants desired TO enroll themselves
as students in the school Of Electricity,
but only 100 could be received. These
schools embrace every branch
of industrial and engineering study aud
every one Is full 10 OVERLOOKING The
agricultural and forestry colleges show
the same inability to take care Of those
who come TO study,
The Toxic Fine Arts school has
classes IN Japanese painting, European
painting, designing, sculpture, craving
on metals and lacquer work, and IN
this institution but few more than hair
OF the applicants were admitted Last
year Then there IL the Academy OF
Music, a school which seems strangely
out ~ place IN the government eduea-
tional system OF country which, 10
Occidental ears, knows nothing what
ever OF music or melody, but the
figures show that the Japanese boys
and girls are willing To learn, for there
we're a thousand new pupils knocking
NJ the door OF the Freshman class last
year. only $50 being admitted, 1t Is
partly from this school that the Japa-
nese bands are recruited. and judging
by the programs played by these
bands, the most popular kind of occi-
dental music Is what Americans call
rag time" That there Is an essen
.ial difference between this institution
md many American Conservatives"
s proved by the fact that of class
II 262, only fifteen passed the examina-
ion and were graduated.
The intanealv ma farpaI POvarnmant of