Tokugawa Confucian education : the Kangien Academy of Hirose Tansō (1782-1856)
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Tokugawa Confucian education : the Kangien Academy of Hirose Tansō (1782-1856)
（Studies of the East Asian Institute）
State University of New York Press, c1996
- : hbk
- : pbk
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Library of Education, National Institute for Educational Policy Research
: pbk372.105||10141102402
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-238) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book presents the world of Hirose Tansō, a late Tokugawa period (1603-1868) educator whose goal was to train men of talent in practical learning for the benefit of the country. Tansō founded a private academy called Kangien in Hita City of present-day Oita prefecture. Some 3,000 young men from 64 of the then total 68 provinces of Japan were educated at Kangien during Tansō's 50-year career as educator and administrator.
Firm in his conviction that the problems he and others faced in contemporary society would be solved by setting right the moral priorities of the people, Tansō established an educational program at Kangien based on the Neo-Confucian philosophical construct of reverence for Heaven. Tansō's educational program taught students reverence for Heaven by engaging in moral self-cultivation in the practice of actions of day-to-day behavior. Students were required to adhere to stringent school regulations governing every aspect of daily life at the school and to engage in a systematic study of a Confucian educational curriculum with concomitant, rigorous testing exercises. Tansō believed that an educational program supported by the twin pillars of regulations and curriculum would, by its very nature, accomplish social reform.
The microcosm of society Tansō created at Kangien provides a window through which the reader can glimpse the confluence of three important components of late Tokugawa society, institutional development; philosophical trends; and social structure. The values that Tansō stressed, study; hard work; frugality; and promotion based on merit, were, in many ways, responsible for the relative ease with which Japan emerged from hundreds of years of self-imposed isolation and became a powerful modern nation.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Explanatory Notes
1. Introduction: Tanso's Mission
Part I Tanso's Japan
2. Tokugawa Historical Setting
3. Tokugawa Educational Setting
Development of Kangien
4. Intellectual Setting
The Neo-Confucian Stage in China
The Neo-Confucian Stage in Tokugawa Japan
Hirose Tanso's Philosophical Formulation
Part II Nurturing Men of Talent at Kangien
5. Reverencing Heaven
6. Tanso as Educator
Educational Theory
Practical Education at Kangien
7. Conclusion: Tanso's Legacy
Part III Translations
8. Roundabout Words (Ugen) Section 5, Educational System
9. Essential Teachings (Yakugen)
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Studies of the East Asian Institute
by "Nielsen BookData"