Private School Philosophy

Government Curbing of Private Education

After completing his 10-year stay in the U.S., Neesima returned to Japan in 1874. In November 1875, he submitted an application to open a private school to the Kyoto Prefectural Government to establish Doshisha English School. According to the Law on National Education promulgated in 1872, eight universities were to be established throughout Japan, but none had yet been founded. Therefore, at that time, Doshisha English School was one of the few institutions in Japan where modern Western learning was available. When the University of Tokyo was established in 1877, several Doshisha graduates became professors.
　Soon after Neesima opened Doshisha English School, in conjunction with the liberal civil rights movement, private schools were established throughout the country to meet the educational needs of the people. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Education in 1878 (One Hundred Years of the School System, Ministry of Education, p. 264), there were 579 institutions of secondary education nationwide, of which 65 were government schools, and the remaining 514 were private schools, accounting for 88% of the total. In response to this trend, local officials expressed their opinions calling for enacting “The Private School Act” that would allow interference in private school education (Journal of the Ministry of Education, No. 7, June 13, 1898). In 1879, the Meiji government amended the draft ordinance to limit the conditions for conscription exemption to government-run schools, a so-called “government-run preferential policy.” Neesima objected to this policy, stating, “How many graduates of government-run schools would go into the private sector and strive to improve the status of the people?”
　In 1881, the “General Guidelines for Junior High School Education” was issued, and the secondary education system was reorganized. As a result, the number of private junior high schools was drastically reduced from 514 to 6, and the number of private technical schools from 61 to 29. Thus, the dominance of government schools over private schools was embodied in policy, and Neesima’s plan to establish a university was developed during the reorganization of Japan’s school system, which was centered on government schools.
　Neesima pointed out that the problem of education during the period of Japan’s civilization and opening to the outside world was that “if we study Western learning, our knowledge will be developed, and if we abolish the morality of the ancient saints and abandon the core morality of Western civilization, and take only its superficial learning, we will achieve the results of Japanese education today” (“On the Racial Reform,” CWJN, Vol. 1, p. 358). In other words, the essence of the problem of education lies in the fact that the core of Western civilization is morality, based on which there is scholarship and culture, while Japan’s modern education has abandoned the old morality and accepts only the results of civilization. Neesima insisted on the role and necessity of Doshisha education, which places the new Western knowledge and the moral education based on Christianity that responds to it as the basis of education.
　Doshisha education, as envisioned by Neesima, was not to train people who would rise to the top and prosper in the nation’s center but to train people who could serve as leaders among the people in their local communities. According to Neesima’s words, it is an urgent task for Japan to train “people who will not become teachers themselves, but who will rather sacrifice themselves for the progress of society” (“On the Local Education,” CWJN, Vol. 1, p. 408), and this was the mission assigned to the private school Doshisha.

A Free Person

While advocating “freedom education,” Neesima stated that when freedom is not accompanied by clear morality, a situation emerges in which “the people are selfish toward the government, children are selfish toward their parents, wives are selfish toward their husbands, and if there is a fear that the precious civil rights will be subverted and mixed with the selfishness of the lower classes, the happiness of the nation will be difficult to achieve, and selfishness will arise and become the basis of the nation’s destruction. If the people’s selfishness is mixed with the selfishness of the lower classes, the nation’s happiness will not be realized, and selfishness will become the basis for the nation’s destruction” (“On Love for One,” CWJN, Vol. 1, p. 431). Furthermore, he harshly criticized the political activism of the liberal-civil rights faction of the time, saying, “Forgetting the preciousness of civil rights, they regard civil rights as merely being in opposition to people, and by abusing and slandering people with this, they are driving people’s minds toward strife” (ibid.). Neesima defines freedom as “not being oppressed in matters and things concerning oneself,” that is, freedom of property and thought, and “to be free by realizing the truth of one’s heart and obtaining the truth for oneself.”

　According to him, a free man is a man who “believes in God and obeys his natural destiny.” Man becomes free in the most profound sense through the Christian faith. Neesima goes on to describe the freedman as follows.

　Neesima’s philosophy of private education is “Christianity is the basis of moral education. It is different from other educationalists in Japan,” as stated in “The Intentions for the Establishment of Doshisha University” (November 1891, CWJN, Vol. 1, p. 132). It was based on a philosophy of education that could not be found in government or other private schools. Neesima asserted that the cultivation of self-governing and self-reliant citizens with rich individuality and a Christian conscience was possible only at private Doshisha schools, not at government schools under the restrictions of the government or the state.
　The School Edict ordered in 1886 established a school system with the Imperial University at the top. During the ongoing state control of education, Neesima asserted his own patriotism while criticizing the patriotism of government-run schools. According to Neesima, “Love of one’s own country and doing everything only for the sake of one’s own country, and at any rate, a biased mind arises from this kind of patriotism, and the worry of loving Japan and seeing foreigners as enemies arise” (“On Love for One,” undated, CWJN, Vol. 1, p. 429), pointing out the defect of “patriotism.” The Christianist conception of “patriotism” is what overcomes these defects, Neesima argued. The mind of love for others is “a gift of nature to mankind,” and “the theory of love for each individual may be narrower than that of patriotism, but love for others is not limited to one nation, and if you love the people of the world as yourself, you will never be narrow-minded” (“On Love for One,” CWJN, Vol. 1, p. 434). Neesima argued that the vital task of education was to create a “patriotic education” based on such “principle on love for one.” This is the starting point of the internationalism of Doshisha that Neesima envisioned.
　Neesima died on January 23, 1890, at age 47, having reached the halfway point of his ambition. In his testament, he wrote, “Students should be treated with the utmost care.” and “Do not oppress the extraordinary students.” Reflecting on his depressing youth, Neesima founded Doshisha as a place of learning that would provide freedom with sincerity to young people and help them realize their dreams and ideals. From Neesima’s point of view that “Private schools are incomparable to government schools, both in terms of the amount of funds and the complete system. However, I believe that the unique strength of private universities is that they allow students to express their individuality and nurture citizens who are self-governing and self-reliant” (“The Intentions for the Establishment of Doshisha University,” November 1891, CWJN, Vol.1, p.137), the mission and reason for the existence of a private university are clearly stated in concrete terms.
　History has shown us what it was like for the people when the idea of “private education” became weak and the existence of private education was in jeopardy. Through Neesima’s idea of private education, we would like to rethink the significance and mission of private education, which was founded by the will of “the people” (nation people).

References

CWJN, Vol.10, Dohosha, 1997.
Katsuya Inoue, Jo Neesima: Man, and Thought, Koyo Shobo, 1990.
Yahiko Ito, Jo Neesima and Meiji no Shosei , Koyo Shobo, 1999.
Yasuhiro Motoi, Jo Neesima and Soho Tokutomi: Kumamoto Band, Yukichi Fukuzawa, and Chomin Nakae, Koyo Shobo, 2002.
Yuzo Ota, Jo Neesima, Minerva Shobo, 2005.
Yukuji Okita, Newly Revised Study of the History of Ideas of Modern Education in Japan, Academic Press, 2007 (first published in 1992).


(Yukuji Okita)