The influence of the civilizations of China and India had a profound effect on both the spiritual life and the education of the Japanese. Toward the 6th century the assimilation of Chinese civilization became more and more rapid, particularly as a result of the spread of Confucianism. Buddhism was also an important intellectual and spiritual influence. Originating in India and then spreading to China, Buddhism was transmitted to Japan through the Korean peninsula in the mid-6th century.
A monarchic state system with an emperor as its head was established following a coup d’état in 645. The subsequent Taika (Great Reform) era saw the beginning of many new institutions, most of which were primarily imitations of institutions of the Tang dynasty of China. In the field of education, a daigakuryō, or college house, was established in the capital, and kokugaku, or provincial schools, were built in the provinces. Their chief aim was to train government officials. The early curriculum was almost identical to that of the Tang dynasty of China but by the 8th and 9th centuries had been modified considerably to meet internal conditions, particularly as regarded the educational needs of the nobility.
Through the Nara and the Heian eras (8th–12th century), the nobility (kuge) constituted the ruling class, and learning and culture were the concern primarily of the kuge and the Buddhist monks. The kuge lived an artistic life, so that the emphasis of education came to be placed on poetry, music, and calligraphy. Teaching in the daigakuryō gradually shifted in emphasis from Confucianism to literature, since the kuge set a higher value on artistic refinement than on more spiritual endeavours. Apart from the daigakuryō, other institutions were established in which families of influential clans lodged and developed their intellectual lives. The feudal period (1192–1867) Education of the warriors
Toward the mid-12th century, political power passed from the nobility to the buke, or warrior, class. The ensuing feudal period in Japan dates from the year 1192 (the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate) to 1867 (the decline of the Tokugawa shogunate).
The warrior’s way of life was quite unlike that of the nobility, and the aims and content of education in the warrior’s society inevitably differed. The warrior constantly had to practice military arts, hardening his body and training his will. Education was based on military training, and a culture characteristic of warriors began to flourish. Some emphasis, though, was placed on spiritual instruction. The warrior society, founded on firm master–servant relations and centring on the philosophy of Japanese family structure, set the highest value on family reputation and on genealogies. Furthermore, because the military arts proved insufficient to enable warriors to grasp political power and thereby maintain their ruling position, there arose a philosophy of bumbu-kembi, which asserted the desirability of being proficient in both literary and military arts. Thus, the children of warriors attended temples and rigorously trained their minds and wills. Reading and writing were the main subjects.
Temples were the centres of culture and learning and can be said to have been equivalent to universities, in that they provided a meeting place for scholars and students. Education in the temple, originally aimed at instructing novitiates, gradually changed its character, eventually providing education for children not destined to be monks. Thus, the temples functioned as institutions of primary education. Education in the Tokugawa era
In 1603 a shogunate was established by a warrior, Tokugawa Ieyasu, in the city of Edo (present Tokyo). The period thence to the year 1867—the Tokugawa, or Edo, era—constitutes the later feudal period in Japan. This era, though also dominated by warriors, differed from former ones in that internal disturbances finally ended and long-enduring peace ensued. There emerged a merchant class that developed a flourishing commoner’s culture. Schools for commoners thus were established.
Representative of such schools were the terakoya (temple schools), deriving from the earlier education in the temple. As time passed, some terakoya used parts of private homes as classrooms. Designed to be one of the private schools, or shijuku, the terakoya developed rapidly in the latter half of the Tokugawa era, flourishing in most towns and villages. Toward the end of the era they assumed the characteristics of the modern primary school, with emphasis on reading, writing, and arithmetic. Other shijuku—emphasizing Chinese, Dutch, and national studies, as well as practical arts—contributed to the diversification of learning and permitted students with different class and geographic backgrounds to pursue learning under the guidance of the same teacher. Their curricula were free from official control.
The shogunate established schools to promote Confucianism, which provided the moral training for upper-class samurai that was essential for maintaining the ideology of the feudal regime. Han, or feudal domains, following the same policy, built hankō, or domain schools, in their castle towns for the education of their own retainers.
The officially run schools for the samurai were at the apex of the educational system in the Tokugawa era. The Confucian Academy, which was known as the Shōheikō and was administered directly by the shogunate, became a model for hankō throughout Japan. The hankō gradually spread after about 1750, so that by the end of the era they numbered over 200.
The curriculum in the hankō consisted chiefly of kangaku (the study of books written in Chinese) and, above all, of Confucianism. Classics of Confucianism, historical works, and anthologies of Chinese poems were used as textbooks. Brush writing, kokugaku (study of thought originating in Japan), and medicine were also included. Later, in the last days of the shogunate, yōgaku, or Western learning, including Western medicine, was added in several institutions.
Both hankō for samurai and terakoya for commoners were the typical schools after the middle of the Tokugawa era. Also to be found, however, were gōgaku, or provincial schools, for samurai as well as commoners. They were founded at places of strategic importance by the feudal domain.
The various shijuku became centres of interaction among students from different domains when such close contact among residents of different areas was prohibited. They served as centres of learning and dialogue for many of those who later constituted the political leadership responsible for the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Effect of early Western contacts
The Europeans who first arrived in Japan were the Portuguese, in 1543. In 1549 the Jesuit Francis Xavier visited Japan and, for the first time, the propagation of Christianity began. Many missionaries began to arrive, Christian schools were built, and European civilization was actively introduced.
In 1633 the shogunate, in apprehension of further Christian infiltration of Japan, banned foreign travel and prohibited the return of overseas Japanese. Further, in 1639, the shogunate banned visits by Europeans. This was the so-called sakoku, or period of national isolation. From that time on, Christianity was strictly forbidden, and international trade was conducted with only the Chinese and the Dutch. Because contact with Europeans was restricted to the Dutch, Western studies developed as rangaku, or learning through the Dutch language.