著者

竹中 暉雄

出版者

桃山学院大学

雑誌

桃山学院大学人間科学 (ISSN:09170227)

巻号頁・発行日

no.40, pp.322-269, 2011-03-30

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This paper, motivated by the question of why the members of the drafting committee of Gakusei left almost no records of their work, focuses chiefly on the following four points. 1. Two poems by Hajime Uryu, a member of the drafting committee of Gakusei (one written at the time of his appointment, the other at the time of his resignation), are almost the only documents surviving that were written by members of the committee concerning their task. The poems reveal Uryu's strong dissatisfaction that the committee carried out its work with almost no sense of responsibility or team spirit, and that the original idea of "education for the national benefit" had been transformed into the idea of "education for individual benefit". If Uryu's complaint was valid, we can understand the reason why the members of the drafting committee did not talk about their work on Gakusei. 2. As the result of the situation Uryu described, Gakusei had many irregularities, not only in its main provisions but also in its Preamble, which includes the famous phrase "there may not be a village with an ignorant family, nor a family with an ignorant child". The text of the Preamble had many grammatical problems and included many historically untrue or exaggerated expressions. These problems have almost never been referred to in research on the Gakusei. 3. The problems in the Preamble to Gakusei become even clearer when we examine English versions of the text. Even the then Ministry of Education was evidently perplexed to prepare an English translation of the Preamble. 4. The new Meiji government emphasised the idea that education should be for the individual benefit in order to emphasise its position that people should not depend on the state for their educational costs. As a result, there were a number of important principles that the Preamble was unable to express. Firstly, the idea of "education for the public benefit" could not be expressed. The school charges referred to in the provisions of Gakusei began from the principle of a school district charge. Secondly, "the necessity of a uniform national educational system" could not be expressed. This system was designed in the provisions of Gakusei. Thirdly, the principle of educating people to be able to actively support the new state through their understanding of its decrees could not be expressed. The educational mission of the new Meiji state was to construct a nation governed by law.