History of Education Vol. 39, No.

5, September 2010, 575588

The impact of Western progressive educational ideas in Japan: 18681940

Yoko Yamasaki*
Mukogawa Womens University, Hyogo, Japan (Received 21 November 2009; final version received 8 February 2010)
THED_A_469281.sgm Taylor and Francis yokoy@mukogawa-u.ac.jp Professor Education 0000002010 00 Taylor YokoYamasaki 2010 OriginalofFrancis 0046-760X (print)/1464-5130 History&Article 10.1080/00467601003687598 (online)

Little is known about the impact of Western educational ideals in Japan during the Meiji (18681912), Taisho (19121926) and Showa (post-1926) eras, although, in reality, there was considerable interest among Japanese educators in Western thought and practice and there were numerous attempts to disseminate these ideas widely. This article highlights some of the more significant of these developments and attempts to assess their impact and their interpretation in a Japanese context. Translations of foreign philosophical and educational works on the one hand and the publication of teachers magazines on the other were the two viaducts for what became little short of a Japanese educational movement that was one of the stepping stones to the modernisation of Japan and which has resonated down to the present. In this article this process is described through its chronological phases, during the period which saw Japans transition from an intellectually isolated, inward-looking society into one which developed as a democracy and saw the coming of industrialisation before moving into a period of Fascist supernationalism. Keywords: progressivism; Japan; modernisation; transnational influences; transmission of educational thought

Introduction It was on 9 November 1867 that the Tokugawa Shogunate came to an official end in Japan. The transfer of power from the fifteenth Tokugawa to the Emperor was completed by the beginning of 1868. This marked the transition from the Edo to the Meiji dynasty, and the Meiji era was to extend until 1912. It was at this time that the modernisation of Japan gathered pace and that disciples of Chinese studies among the warrior or Samurai class attempted to turn Confucianism into a discourse on practical learning. One of them was Yukichi Fukuzawa (18351901), who became a pioneer of the Enlightenment in Japan. This followed from his involvement in the Iwakura Mission (18711873) in which a total of 107 people were sent abroad to renegotiate the unequal treaties that Japan had signed with the USA, Great Britain and other European powers during the previous 20 years. In the process they were expected to familiarise themselves with Western practice in numerous fields, one of them education. Fukuzawas first essay on education, The Encouragement of Learning (Gakumon no susume) published in 1872, drew on this experience and contained the declaration that:
*Email: yokoy@mukogawa-u.ac.jp
ISSN 0046-760X print/ISSN 1464-5130 online 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/00467601003687598 http://www.informaworld.com

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Heaven does not create one man above or below another man. Any existing distinction between the wise and the stupid, between the rich and the poor, comes down to a matter of education.1

This signalled the start of a new way of thinking about education in Japan. A year previously, the Ministry of Education had been established and six months later, in response to the publication of The Encouragement of Learning, a Basic Code of Education, the first national educational system or Gaku-sei was enacted. Japanese education was to be modernised through its energetic first Minister of Education, Arinori Mori (18471889),2 who promulgated numerous school edicts (Gakko-rei for schools). In this way a basic model for educational developments was articulated. In Teruhisa Horios words: The systematic organization of compulsory education on a strictly enforced legal basis dates from Moris Primary school edict of 1888.3 Additionally, complementing this period of enlightenment during the Meiji era, the Japanese government supported various translations in order to disseminate knowledge of Western philosophies or Western civilisation. Japan was previously completely unfamiliar with translated works as well as the abstract thinking that came with them. Despite ongoing tensions concerning the form and nature of the developing education system, by the beginning of the twentieth century books written by Samuel Smiles,4 William and Robert Chambers,5 Rousseau,6 Herbart7 and Dewey8 had been translated. This was the key to introducing Western philosophy and educational thought to Japan. Meanwhile, the modernisation of the education system continued apace, with the promulgation of the Great Japan Empire Constitution in 1889 (Meiji Year 22) and, in 1890 (Meiji Year 23), the publication of the Imperial Prescript on Education (Kyoiku Chokugo), which clarified the relationship between education and the State (Kokutai) and specified school curricula till the end of the Second World War.9

1Yukichi Fukuzawa, Gakumon no susume [The Encouragement of Learning] (Tokyo, 1872), 1. The first of 17 private pamphlets published as a series in 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875; after the Second World War this was re-published as a paperback book, and continues to be reprinted at the beginning of the twenty-first century. 2See Ivan Parker Hall, Mori Arinori (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973). 3Teruhisa Horio, Educational Thought and Ideology in Modern Japan: State Authority and Intellectual Freedom, ed. and trans. Steven Platzer (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1988), 80. 4See translation by Masanao Nakamura, Saikoku rishiden [The Success Story of the Western World] (original English title: Self Help) (Tokyo: Department of Education, 1870). Ken Kayahara, Koshu gakko (Tokyo: Chuo koron sha, 2007), 1301. 5See two books, translated by Rinsho Mitsukuri, Kyodo setsu [Education from Chambers Information for the People] (Tokyo: Department of Education, 1873) and by Yukichi Fukuzawa, Domo oshiegusa [Lessons for Children] (original English title: The Moral ClassBook) (Tokyo: Shoko do, 1872). 6See translation by Chomin Nakae, Minyaku yakukai [Du Contrat Social] (Tokyo: Butsugaku jyuku, 1882). 7See translation by Teisuke Fujishiro, Doitsu Herbaruto kyoiku gaku [Umriss Pdagogischer Vorlesungen] (Tokyo: Seibi do, 1895). 8See translation by Yoichi Ueno, Gakko to shakai [School and Society] (Tokyo: Sansho do, 1901). 9Horio, Educational Thought and Ideology, 71.

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The first translations and the impact of new publications Entaro Noguchi (18601935) was appointed Principal of Himeji Teacher Training College in Hyogo prefecture in 1901 (Meiji Year 34) when he was 31. The college started work in that year and continues in existence to the present time. It is now the Department of Education of the University of Kobe. Noguchi was the first principal. This was an official government appointment, and it must be remembered that teaching within these colleges was very traditional at this time. Moris Teacher Training College Code of 1872 had insisted that the ethos of the colleges was military, with students learning strict discipline and ethical attitudes in much the same way as did the military at that time. The emphasis was on a code of conduct and styles of teaching which emphasised loyalty and patriotism. But Noguchi was one of the leading progressive thinkers of his day. His ideas were encapsulated in his well-known assertion that My method of teacher training is, in a word, self-government (autonomy) and self-learning.10 He insisted that teachers should not be examiners of the children but supporters, and he critiqued and abolished traditional teaching methods involving reliance on memorisation and rote learning from oral teaching methods, both popular in Japanese schools at that time. He was soon seen as a significant leader of the progressive education movement, and worked throughout his career to explore and disseminate Western philosophy and Western views on freedom and moral life. At the same time Noguchi remained essentially eclectic, and his interpretations of Western thought were mediated by the influence of Buddhism upon him. His beliefs were deeply influenced by translated works which, for the first time, made Western ideas on pedagogy widely available in Japan. These included the translation in 1901 of J.S. Mackenzies11 lengthy Manual of Ethics (Rinrigaku seigi), which had first been published in 1893.12 Mackenzies philosophy was seen as offering a new vision to tutors and students at Himeji Teacher Training College, and it was these ideas which were to be at the heart of Noguchis promulgation of new approaches to education in Japan. Similarly, What Is and What Might Be (1911) written by Edmond G. Holmes, was translated and published in 1913 (Taisho Year 2) from within the university by Gentaro Matsumoto at Gakusyuin University and Matajiro Kasai, who radically transformed the title, coming up with The Malady and Salvation of Modern Education (Gendai kyoiku shugi no hei oyobi sono kyusai hou). A foreword by the first translator, Matsumoto, emphasised that:
In Japan since the Meiji Revolution, systems and methods of education have mainly followed the example of those in Europe. So I believe that what the author thinks to be defects of education in Europe (especially in Britain) are almost all defects of education in Japan. Remedies in Europe cant be applied directly into Japan because the history,
10Entaro Noguchi, Shihan kyoiku no hensen (Changing Teacher Training), in Kokumin kyoiku Kyoiku gojunenshi [History of Fifty Years of Education], ed. Shorei Kai (Tokyo: Minyusha, 1922), 376. 11See Yoko Yamasaki, Igirisu sinkyoiku shiso niokeru jiyu no shukyoteki seikaku: J. S. Makenzie ha naze kyoiku no shinriso undo ni commit shitaka (The Religious Aspects of Freedom in New Education Thought in Britain: Why did J.S. Mackenzie as a Philosopher Commit to the Movement of New Ideals in Education?), Research Bulletin of Educational Sciences: Naruto University of Teacher Education 19 (2004): 12135. 12See translation by Entaro Noguchi, Rinrigaku seigi [Manual of Ethics] (Tokyo: Fuzanbo, 1901). At the same date a different translation of the same work appeared in three volumes by Buhei Yonezawa and Tatsu Tanaka, Rinrigaku teiyo (Tokyo: Uehara shoten, 190102).

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customs and circumstances of European countries are different from those of Japan. But I believe that they can be at least of value for indirect reference about educational problems and social problems at the present time and that they will benefit us to a great extent.13

This translators foreword was followed by an introduction written especially for the Japanese edition by Holmes. The impact of his thought in Japan is shown by the fact that a new translation was published, 10 years later, by Ichiji Ichiki, this time under a new title: From Constrained to Emancipated Education (Sokubaku no kyoiku yori kaiho no kyoiku e).14 In 1914 and 1915, two translations from English appeared, providing commentaries on the methods of Maria Montessori (18901952). In 1916 a translation of The Century of the Child by Ellen Key (18491926) also appeared in Japanese for the first time.15 It was the availability of publications such as these that enabled elementary schoolteachers to take essentially Western ideals of education beyond the university and into the classrooms. Their object was nothing less than a transformation of the existing educational orthodoxy. Beyond this, a growing number of Japanese publications began to reflect this new, challenging set of ideas. These included two new magazines and two progressive books: the magazines were Woman and Child (Fujin to kodomo) published by Japanese Froebel Kai in 190116 and The Childrens Newspaper (Kodomo shinbun) published by Yasaburo Shimonaka (18781961) in 1902.17 The books were The Practical Pedagogy (Jissaiteki kyoiku gaku)18 written by Masataro Sawayanagi (18651927) in 1909, and The Pedagogy of Practical Group Work (Bundan shiki doteki kyoiku kogi yoko), written in 191219 by Heiji Oikawa (18751939), headmaster of Akashi Teacher Training College in Hyogo prefecture, whose thinking was deeply influenced by Dewey. There were numerous other publications which dealt with practical aspects of the organisation of children in the classroom or with curricular issues. Works dealing specifically with emergent American and European theories of education were quickly translated into Japanese. Several terms used frequently by progressive educators entered Japanese educational discourse at this time as a result of translations. Integration (1899),20 New Education or New Education Methods (1906),21 Schools in the Garden City

13Foreword by translator Matsumoto, Gendai kyoiku shugi no hei oyobi sono kyusai hou [The Malady and Salvation of Modern Education] (Tokyo: Tokyo Jitsubunkan do, 1913), 23. 14See translation by Ichiji Ichiki, Sokubaku no kyoiku yori kaiho no kyoiku e [From Constrained to Emancipated Education] (Tokyo: Ikuei shoin, 1923). 15See translation by Minoru Harada, Jido no seiki [The Century of the Child] (Tokyo: privately printed, 1916). This translation was later issued by Tokyo publisher Dobun kan in 1920. 16See Japan Froebel Association, Fujin to kodomo [Woman and Child] (Tokyo: Konko do, 1901). 17Takashi Ota and Toshio Nakauchi, Minkan kyoikushi kenkyu jiten [Historical Dictionary of Education Organized by the People] (Tokyo: Hyoron sha, 1975), 501. 18See Masataro Sawayanagi, Jissaiteki kyoiku gaku [The Practical Pedagogy] (Tokyo: Doubun kan, 1909). 19See Heiji Oikawa, Bundan shiki doteki kyoiku kogi yoko [The Pedagogy of Practical Group Work] (Otsu: Sigaken gamogun Kyoiku kai, 1917). 20See Kanjiro Higuchi, Togo shugi sin kyoju ho [Integration by the New Pedagogy] (Tokyo: Waseda University, 1899). 21See Tomeri Tanimoto, revised, Shin kyoiku kogi [Lecture on the New Education] (Tokyo: Tamagawa University Publisher, 1965).

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(1907),22 Learning by Doing in Childrens Groups (1909),23 The Montessori Method (1914),24 Self-government and Education in Freedom (1919),25 The Reconstruction of Education (1920)26 and Freedom in Education (1920)27 were all the subject of translations that contributed to this process. Thus, by the end of the Meiji era in Japan, there was already a significant canon of new work available, both original and in translation, which was influenced to greater or lesser degree by the new education as it was emerging in Europe. And there is some evidence that all this began to impact, if only partially, on educational practice. In 1918, the publication of a childrens magazine, Red Birds, by Miekichi Suzuki (18821936), a well-known writer of childrens songs and poems, resulted in the appearance of an informal movement which took the Japanese name of the journal Akai tori, supported by a group of free-thinking authors who were interested in educational reform. These were known as the Sirakaba or the novel pedagogy group. Also, in 1919 Kanae Yamamoto (18821946), who was determined to establish a truly popular art movement involving the peasantry and their children, arranged the first-ever exhibition of free drawing by children in Nagano prefecture. He used the success of this exhibition to found the Society for Free Drawing by Children.28 In the same year, in the Nara Prefecture, Takeji Kinoshita devised a curriculum based on self-government at the elementary school which was run in connection with the Nara Womens Teacher Training College. The struggle to move beyond national trends: the career of Masataro Sawayanagi During the final years of the Meiji era the Japanese education system was under pressure to become more nationalistic and more uniform. The imposition by the government of national textbooks (Kokutei kyokasyo) to be used by all pupils in 1903 (Meiji Year 36) is one clear piece of evidence for this trend. This was, in reality, an attempt by the government to bring to an end a major controversy which had developed on the use of textbooks in school, known widely as the corrupt textbooks affair. Within the Ministry of Education the person responsible for elementary education policy was Masataro Sawayanagi (18651927), and the decision to standardise textbooks nationally was largely attributable to his influence. Sawayanagi was, from the outset, an enthusiast for Western progressive education and saw textbook reform as one way of bringing about effective change. But, although he wanted all students to follow the same route, he stressed at all times the need for individuality. In his book, The Practical Pedagogy (1909) (Meiji Year 42), he called for the abolition of
22See Shuko kenkyu [Magazine of Craft Studies] (Tokyo: Research Group for Craft in Tokyo Teacher Training College of Japan, 1907). 23See Heiji Oikawa, Bundan siki doteki kyoiku kogi yoko [Learning by Doing in Childrens Groups] (Otsu: Sigaken gamougun kyoiku kai, 1917). 24See Kiyomaru Kono, Montessori kyoiku hou to sono oyo [Montessori Method and its Application] (Tokyo: Dobun kan, 1914); Kiyomaru Kono, Montessori kyoiku shinzui [The Essence of Montessori Methods] (Tokyo: Hokubun kan, 1915). 25Ota and Nakauchi, Minkan kyoikushi, 503. 26Yasaburo Shimonaka published the magazine Kyoiku kaizo [The Reconstruction of Education] in 1920. 27Ota and Nakauchi Minkan kyoikushi, 503. 28Ibid.

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convention and respect for individuality in the classroom and these were to remain two key elements in his thinking throughout his career. This took him from administration into academe. He was appointed as the first Vice-chancellor of Tohoku University in 1911 (Meiji Year 44) and shortly afterwards, in 1913 (Taisho Year 2), Vice-chancellor of Kyoto University. His stay there was even briefer, since his progressive ideas were too much for traditionalists at Kyoto and he was forced out in a purge of seven leading staff members in 1914 when he was only 48. Following this, he quickly became chairman of the Japanese Imperial Education Association (JIEA) in May 1916 (Taisho Year 5). So great was Sawayanagis commitment to progressive ideals that, in 1917, he founded in Tokyo an Independent Progressive School as a laboratory school, the Seijyo Primary School. Within three years the school community began to produce a monthly magazine Researching Educational Problems (Kyoiku mondai kenkyu), which featured translations of extracts from Percy Nunns writing on progressivism and Helen Parkhursts introduction to the Dalton Plan. Sawayanagis appeal was to the younger generation of the new middle class, young parents who were open to Western culture and wanted to educate their children accordingly, following slogans such as the individual: free under democracy. In this journal they committed themselves to a constructive critique of the problems engendered by urbanisation, industrialisation and Westernisation, gaining a keen following among their largely middle-class parental body. In 1919 (Taisho Year 9) Sawayanagi also used his influence as a leading figure in the JIEA to persuade Noguchi to retire from Himeji Teacher Training College and move to Tokyo, to begin his second life, as a powerful leader of the Japanese teachers movement. These two men, deeply committed to progressive educational ideals, became and remained for several years the lynchpins of a growing teachers movement. Under their influence, the JIEA continued to emphasise and highlight the power of education in realising a true spirit of internationalism during the period of normalisation after the First World War. They were helped in this by the fact that many of their former students went on themselves to become head teachers. Noguchi kept in touch with them through the Japan Headmasters Association, which itself became an influential stamping ground for new ideas on education. Beyond the schoolroom: developments during the 1920s After the First World War the impact of progressive educators in Japan became far more widespread, since their views coincided with the widely held support for the international peace movement popular at that time. Inazo Nitobe (18621933), a Methodist who was converted to membership of the Friends Society whilst studying at Johns Hopkins University, became chancellor of Tokyo Womens University (an independent university) and was deeply involved in this peace movement. He professed an ambition to be a bridge between Japan and foreign countries. To this end he authored, in English, Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1900) (Meiji Year 33), a book which sought to forge international understanding through the dissemination of ideas. Nitobe was involved in the founding of the League of Nations (1920) (Taisho Year 9) and was appointed to the post of deputy secretary general of the Supreme Court in Geneva in Switzerland. Noguchi had high hopes for Nitobe, not least because the attempt to establish an organisation for international understanding and education was at the heart of his work, an aspiration which was formally approved by the

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Workers Educational Association in England.29 He made repeated efforts to establish an International Education Association, attempting unsuccessfully to organise an international conference in Japan. When, by the autumn of 1922, it became clear that this initiative was doomed to failure he turned to the establishment of a Japanese International Education Association, which was launched in Tokyo at an opening ceremony in October and, a month later, affiliated to the Japanese Peace Association. On his return from a research visit to Europe and America in 1923, Sawayanagi briefed Noguchi about international developments, which included the establishment of a World Federation of Education Associations. Sawayanagi had attended one of its first meetings in San Francisco and urged Noguchi to become closely involved in this organisation. During the 1920s, Noguchi did succeed in establishing numerous strong international links, making contact with leading thinkers overseas. One letter which he received from Beatrice Ensor (18841974), written in May 1923,30 encouraged him to found a branch of the New Education Fellowship in Japan, to establish his own journal and to press ahead with the translation of some of the more significant writings by Ensor and her colleagues. In this correspondence Ensor referred to the strong contacts that Noguchi had already established in Germany, clearly hoping for ongoing collaboration with him in future years. Noguchis efforts to establish an International Education Association in Japan (which he believed must be linked to the League of Nations) were ultimately unsuccessful. But it is significant that this aspiration was shared at that time by leading figures in the Japanese education movement. Nevertheless, their efforts did have a different, unanticipated outcome. Noguchi and his coterie founded the Progressive Education Society (Kyoiku no Seiki sha), in August 1923, and began to publish a new monthly magazine, Century of Education (Kyoiku no Seiki) in October 1923 in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. At the heart of this group were Yasaburo Simonkaka (18781961), Goro Tameto (18871941) and Hiroshi Shigaki (18891965). Other supporters included Tosaku Miura (1887?), Kuniyoshi Obara (18871977),31 Yonekichi Akai (18871974)32 and Minoru Harada (18901971). Working with this circle of sympathisers, Noguchi also established, on behalf of the Century of Education, a laboratory school, the Ikebukuro Childrens Village School (an elementary school) in April 1924. In the aftermath of the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, this school had to be set up and conducted at Noguchis home. Its objectives were largely derived from the progressive education movement, with a stated emphasis on self-government and community organisation (in effect self-tutoring and cooperative learning). It is reasonable to conclude from this that by this time Noguchi had moved beyond his earlier career in administration to become an effective innovator in his own right. During the 1920s the number of such independently founded progressive schools mushroomed in Japan.
29A letter from Inazo Nitobe, Yasaburo Shimonaka, The International Movement of Education, Kokusai Renmei 2, no. 7 (1922): 20. 30English letter from Mrs Beatrice Ensor, in Kyoiku no Seiki 1, no. 1 (October 1923): 689. 31Progressive educator who later founded a progressive school Tamagawa gakuen in Tokyo in 1929. 32Progressive educator who in 1923 translated Dalton an jido daigaku no jissai [Dalton Laboratory Plan] by Helen Parkhurst, and later founded a progressive school Myojo gakuen in Tokyo in 1924. In 1936 he gave a paper on freedom in education at the seventh international conference of the New Education Fellowship, Education and Free Society, Cheltenham, England; in the lecture he showed a picture, drawn by a 15-year-old girl at his school, and reproduced in New Era in Home and School (SeptemberOctober 1936): 232.

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Typical of these foundations was the School for Freedom (Jiyu gakuen) established in 1921 by Motoko Hani (18731957), the first female journalist in Japan. She later attended the sixth international conference of the New Education Fellowship at Nice in 1932.33 The Progressive Education Society and the Century of Education The basic philosophies of the Progressive Education Society and its journal Century of Education were very similar to, and derived from, those of the New Education Fellowship (1921) organised by Beatrice Ensor in Britain, and its journal Education for the New Era (1920) (subsequently New Era from 1921). This was hardly surprising given the contacts that had been established between Ensor and these Japanese reformers. The Progressive Education Society soon drafted a manifesto, which identified Noguchi as its leader. It was drawn up in September 1923 and was published in the Societys journal in October 1923. It stated the Societys main purpose as follows:
We the members believe that an education movement led by educators themselves is necessary as the most effective means of leading society into its proper condition, one in which human welfare is increased. We believe too that the effects of any such change should be long-lasting, even permanent. Our education movement must, on the one hand, lead the steps towards criticism and abolition of the present education system and on the other hand, the realisation of free, new and original educational methods. The reform of the education system as a whole depends on initiatives in particular areas, so first of all we begin with the reform of methods, which is the first and most serious challenge. 34

The Societys educational aims were formulated as follows: (1) The education which we believe in is to develop human civilisation by disclosing and extending freely the native faculties of each child and by socialising him or her. (2) The education which we believe in will accomplish its purpose most fully only if each childs personality is sufficiently respected and his or her freedom perfectly guaranteed. (3) The education which we believe in involves only the development and promotion of the inner interests of the child and is therefore dependent on the spontaneous initiatives of each child, which must be respected. (4) The school life which we believe in will make all interference from outside unnecessary because it is founded on the self-government of students and teachers. (5) The ultimate aims of the education which we believe in are to bring children to a self-respect through respect for others and a clear understanding of their duties to all human beings. In this way the Century of Education became a real conduit for the aspirations of teachers committed to progressivism. Simultaneously Ensors letter and the
33Conference notes: impressions of a Japanese delegate, New Era in Home and School 1, no. 2 (September 1932): 2645. 34Manifesto of the Progressive Education Society, Kyoiku no Seiki 1, no. 1 (October 1923): 1.

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principles and aims of New Education Fellowship were translated in the first edition, in October 1923.35 This led to one reader questioning whether the aims of the Japanese Society were simply copied from the principles and aims of the New Education Fellowship. In his response Noguchi pointed out that: The principles of the New Education Fellowship involve a double standard with its commitment to both freedom and control but our society seeks to eliminate external educational constraints.36 It is clear, however, that the new emerging philosophy of education in Japan did involve some internal contradictions. With phrases such as to train the child to desire supremacy of spirit over matter, to ensure freedom and to generate increasing spiritual power,37 embedded into the principles, there was bound to be some logical inconsistency. If, through its sloganising, the Japanese Society was establishing conflicting aims, or even double standards, it was doing no more and no less than did the New Education Fellowship in Britain. Its derivation from the principles of the New Education Fellowship made it inevitable that this would be the case. A further complication was that the Progressive Education Society at one and the same time reflected the interests and beliefs of a range of organisations, which included the teachers union, known popularly as the Hesperus, or Evening Star (Keimei kai), the peasants self-governing body, and the Society for Working Women (Shokugyo Fujin sha). Necessarily, these disparate supporting groups involved differing if overlapping objectives. Disseminating progressive discourse through the Century of Education A powerful and widespread network developed around the journal: it included teachers in both independent and state elementary schools as well as those in normal schools attaching to teacher training colleges; it numbered too a collection of writers, journalists, critics, Buddhists, Christians, Socialists, Liberals, Moralists and a few academics. At the time it became a kind of fashion for educational pioneers to contribute to the Century of Education,38 using the journal to trial and disseminate new ideas. Among them were Sumie Kobayashi (18861971), a professor at Keio University, Munetoshi Irisawa (18851945), an associate professor at Tokyo University and Seishi Shimoda (18901973), a teacher at Seijo School, who was one of the first to introduce Neills ideas into Japan.39 Others included Yoshibei Nomura (18961986), a teacher at the Ikebukuro village school, Tadayoshi Sasaoka (18971937), a teacher who insisted that education must be practical and founded in reality and Kyoson Tsuchida (18911935), a philosopher who emphasised the possibilities of organising the schools on a democratic basis. Also, Noguchi made efforts to see that many of the

35Principles translated by Entaro Noguchi, Kyoiku no Seiki 1, no. 1 (October 1923): 45. 36Entaro Noguchi, Reply to Motoyuki Yoshioka, Kyoiku no Seiki 2, no. 1 (January 1924):

1078. 37Principles, New Era 2, no. 4 (December 1921): back cover. 38See Toshio Nakauchi, Hajime Tajima, and Noriko Hashimoto, eds, Kyoiku no Seiki sha no sogoteki kenkyu [Research on Kyoiku no Seiki sha] (Tokyo: Ikko sha, 1984). 39See translation by Seishi Shimoda, Mondai no kodomo [A Problem Child] (Tokyo: Togo shoin, 1930); also Yoko Yamasaki, Niiru shin kyoiku shiso no kenkyu [A Study of Neills New Education : A New Horizon of Free School Based on his Social Criticism] (Tokyo: Ozora sha, 1996).

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more influential contributions to the New Era were translated and published in the Century of Education.40 The journal was printed on A5 sheets and usually carried about 150 pages. Each edition was subdivided into four or five sections, comprising theoretical articles or statements, a few articles from the New Era translated and selected by Noguchi, records and reports of the Societys monthly evening meetings, and individual essays as well as documents intended to give advice on the implementation of new methods in the classroom. Articles were of two kinds. First, there were those whose content was essentially theoretical or ethical. They focused on issues such as The character formation of the ideal child, The principles of educational aims, Educational ideals and The humanity of the teacher. More practical were those articles which reported discussions at the regular monthly meetings. Their focus was on issues such as Proposals for new learning methods, Tentative plans for new kinds of learning and The teachers practical tasks. It is important to recognise the eclectic nature of influences on the journal and its authors. First, there was an underlying commitment to Western progressivism, but leading members, such as Noguchi, Seishi Shimoda, Hiroshi Shigaki (18891965), Yonekichi Akai and Yoshibei Nomura, were determined to rework Western ideas and ideals in a form suited to the needs of a modernising Japan. One implication of this was that their pronouncements carried a strong strain of Idealism. But at the same time they were determined to remain pragmatic, and the full reporting of discussions taking place at the Ikebukuro Childrens Village meant that the day-by-day experiences of teachers loomed large and the journal became an early outlet in Japan for oral testimony. This constituted a new style of journalism whilst, at the same time, voicing the aspirations and demands of the Japanese intelligentsia and of the predominantly middle-class parental support for this movement. According to Sigaki the number of readers of the journal at that time was more than a thousand, although as few as a hundred practising teachers were thought to be regularly reading professional magazines. This was at a time when there were more than 230,000 elementary school teachers in Japan. So, significant as this movement may have been, it touched at the time only a small minority of the teaching profession and had a very limited impact on the 9,300,000 Japanese schoolchildren.41 It must be remembered that much of this advocacy of a major rethinking of pedagogy came from outside the teaching profession. The journal offered alternatives to current practice for teachers and may be seen as representing views within the university departments of education as much as those of the profession. It was under the influence of the second generation of progressives, people such as Kobayashi, Irisawa, Harada, and Bantaro Kido (18931985), that Noguchis ideas were to be taken up by members of the teaching profession. As this group became more influential, the focus of the journal shifted away from the universities and related far more directly to liberal politics and to the interests of the teachers unions, although young academics continued to support the work and views of the Century of Education.

40See Yoko Yamasaki, Creating Network on New Ideals in Education in England and Japan: 19101940, Research Bulletin of Education (Education Major of Graduate School of Letters, Mukogawa Womens University) 3 (2008): 1938. 41Ministry of Education of Japan, Gakusei hyakunenshishiryo hen [History of 100 Years of Gakusei] (Tokyo: Teikoku chiho gyosei gakkai, 1972), 491 and 497.

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The growing identity crisis within the Progressive Education Society In its quest for new ideals in education, the journal constantly stressed its commitment to character formation through a diversity of approaches. It was this eclecticism which was to carry the seeds of the movements undoing. It committed itself to considering and drawing from a quite staggering range of influences, ranging from everyday practice to the most abstract ethical and philosophical enquiries. Topics of interest included: free timetables, the methods of teaching school subjects (Japanese, history, geography), the application of educational aims and new methods in school, coeducation, the practical daily concerns of teachers, child studies, monism of mind and body (a particular interest of Noguchi), moral philosophy, phenomenology, socialism and Marxism, liberalism, New Idealism, pragmatism, ethics, psychology and the mysticism of Swedenborg and Emerson. It was this diversity which led to the Societys journal being seen by many as of limited practical value, as having little connection with the everyday reality of childrens lives. On the other hand the Progressive Education Society remained determined to work with those in the teacher training colleges and to build a professional network which really could instigate a reform of the countrys schools. But this was at a time when schoolteachers were insisting on their autonomy from the National government. The result was that there was a deep chasm between the ideals of the movement and the means to accomplish them.42 Noguchis public pronouncements continued to give an impression of detachment from the practical concerns of real life. His insistence on seeking after the true meaning of education with an emphasis on teacher autonomy and the pursuit of ethical issues did not always go down well with those preoccupied by routine chores of the classroom. Consequently 1926 (Taisho Year 15, Showa Year 1) was to prove a turning point for the Century of Education, particularly since Shozaburo Ueda and Hiroshi Shigaki, political radicals who were leading members of the Society, had all became involved in the 1917 Soviet revolution and the developments in Japan that were now flowing from it. It is possible to view all of these events as consequences in part at least of the enduring tensions at the heart of the movement. The chasm between new idealists and new realists was never truly bridged. But if anything it deepened as Japan continued to modernise and the world order became more fiercely contested. Most supporters of the new education had some consciousness of the problems of the poor. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that several key figures were drawn towards Marxism. But Noguchi, who remained a leading progressive, had no interest in the rise of international socialism, choosing rather to follow the 1925 Public Peace, proclaimed in the so-called Law of Maintenance (Chian iji ho) (Taisho Year 4). He was much more concerned to establish a Japanese branch of the New Education Fellowship, seeing the modernisation of pedagogy as a better route towards Japans international recognition than potentially violent political change. But even in respect of this more limited aspiration, Noguchis success can be seen as being partial at best. He continued to edit the Century of Education until October 1927. The following month Goro Tametou took it over and a year later it went out of existence. It therefore existed only for five years in total. After receiving a request from Beatrice Ensor, the New Education Association (Shin kyoiku renmei) was founded by Noguchi in July 1930 to develop new educational ideals and methods. The
42Entaro

Noguchi, Monism of body and mind, Kyoiku no Seiki 4, no. 6 (1927): 1428.

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participants in the first foundation meeting were 12, among them Noguchi, Simonaka, Shigaki, Tezuka, Irisawa, Yamazaki, Akai, Sasaki, Shimoda and Tameto. They used a building provided by the Ministry of Education and by the end of the year Noguchi was calling this venture the Japan Branch of the New Education Fellowship. Subsequently he placed great store on the need to support the Emperor and to maintain Japans position in the world (Kokutai iji). This goes some way to explain his failure to mediate between the two sides of the movement, the new idealists and the new realists, who had markedly differing political aspirations and affiliations. He became involved in super-nationalist groups, and after the Manchurian Incident (September 1931) (Showa Year 6) Noguchi supported the foundation of Manchukoku (Manchuria) and visited there to establish a new progressive school. In this way Noguchi led the Japanese progressive education movement in a direction which was bound, as world affairs developed, to lead to a rupturing of international contacts. The retreat to a new realism during the 1930s The title of the Japanese translation of Holmess book, The Malady and Salvation of Modern Education, had reflected a belief in the possibility of transforming classroom practice. Progressive education was to involve a release from social regimentation and oppression. During the 1920s Noguchi continued to translate articles from the New Era for the Century of Education and committed himself increasingly to the limited but still challenging hope that he might influence what went on in the daily life of the schools. One result of the great deflation resulting from the Wall Street crash of America in 1929, which led to increasing unemployment around the world, was that some realists within the Progressive Education Society came to insist on real life: the quest for what one observer called the childs life-centred education became a tendency of the new wave. A new magazine, School for Life (Seikatsu Gakko), known also as La Vivada Lernejo in Esperanto, began publication in 1935 (Showa Year 10) and it picked up where the original journal, Century of Education, had left off. Like its forerunner, School for Life was read by those teachers who had remained members of the Progressive Education Society after the discontinuance of the first journal. In the same year a book entitled The Psychological Life of Children was authored by Kanji Hatano (19052001), who was a member of the Japanese Branch of the New Education Fellowship. This too focused on the ways in which child psychology might have practical applications in the classroom. There were a number of influential thinkers within the movement at this time, among them Ren Totsuka, a well-known translator born in 1907, and his brother Tetsuro Totsuka, who argued that teachers were, in reality, part of the workers movement needing emancipation through their own political education. Shimonaka and Shigaki were the two most influential and outspoken Marxists in the movement, working for greater internationalisation of ideas on progressive education. Shimonakas socialism placed educational reform at the heart of social regeneration. He insisted on the need to clarify the concepts of learning rights and autonomy and offered a vision of a free education which brought it close to anarchism. Shigaki, on the other hand, construed educational problems as being no more and no less than social problems. He was determined to introduce and popularise Russian educational ideas, which he saw as one of the keys that had unlocked the route to social and political reform in that country. These two thinkers promoted educational journalism as an offshoot of proletarian literature, appealing to the working class and urging

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social reform through the reconstruction of education. Thus, one important element in the Japanese progressive education movement at this time was, hardly surprisingly, closely interlinked with those contemporary political movements which seemed to be offering major challenges to the world order. But the key figure during these years was Yoshibei Nomura, who spelt out his creed based on Buddhism, my motto of pure life, on the very first page of School for Life.43 He tried to steer a course between Marxism and Idealism. In a series of articles published during the spring of 1935 exploring what was meant by the school for life he spelt out his unfailingly optimistic view of humankind, which he saw as a basis for self-improvement through education. Nomura stressed the need to understand human character. He attempted to identify those influences which moulded it and, above all, he stressed that science and human development had to be seen as the realisation and reconstruction of our true nature. He saw Marxism as offering valuable insights, but falling short because of its complete rejection of religion and its failure to consider the whole of human experience. On this rather sketchy and individualistic view of the human condition Nomura based his proposals for the reform of education. What he called the life school curriculum, or a training for life, was to be based on a training in cooperative self-government and a training of cooperative work. The aim was to educate children to become members of a cooperative and autonomous body that would have the capacity to determine and structure its own education, using group discussion and constructive argument to identify its objectives.44 Nomuras emphasis was less on the moulding of character and more on the making of a good society. In this way his ideas went well beyond those of progressive educators in the Meiji and Taisho eras and were clearly influenced by contemporary political trends. Nomuras work may perhaps be typified as marking the final stage in the evolution of ideas on progressive education in Japan before the Second World War. Conclusion: what did all this mean for teachers professional development? During the early years of the progressive education movement in Japan, under the influence of Entaro Noguchi, teachers were encouraged to see professional development taking place under the aegis of the state. It was widely accepted, and Noguchi and his followers worked to underpin this view, that innovations in education and in classroom practice in particular could take place within a state system of education. It was only later in his career that Noguchi began to reconsider this position. He remained throughout his life an educational reformer and a political liberal. For Noguchi and his followers, the professional development of teachers was a key element in any effective state system of education.45 Second, it should be understood that Noguchi, although committed to greater international understanding and the introduction of foreign ideas and practices to Japan, was at all times deeply nationalistic. His appeal to the rising Japanese middle classes was not in sympathy with those supporting the rise of Fascism, but was rather
43Yoshibei Nomura, Education in 1935: Renaissance of Education, Seikatsu Gakko 1 (January 1935): 1. 44Ibid. 45See Yoko Yamasaki, Noguchi Entaro Shin kyoiku shiso niokeru riso [Ideals of Entaro Noguchi in New Educational Thought], Kyoiku shin sekai [Education in New World; Bulletin of Japan Branch of World Education Fellowship] (Tokyo: World Education Fellowship), 44 (1998): 56.

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that of a nationalist imbued with a desire to abolish Japanese militarism. Ironically, in view of this, he was widely known at a later point in his life as the Japanese Pestalozzi. Nomura, by contrast, was focused exclusively on childrens life within the classroom. During a period of modernisation and swift social change in the 1930s, he offered precepts on the ways in which children could develop self-discipline through transformed classroom regimes. Contrary to the mood of the times, Nomura believed that the reform of the classroom would result in a greater commitment to pacifism. His vision was of a self-correcting moral community based on rational and scientific principles, which would draw more from Buddhism than it did from Marxism.46 For him, the campaign for progressive education was a moral crusade whose main objective was to transform the ethical values of the children it influenced. Finally, it is worth emphasising that this group of Japanese educational pioneers, determined to open their country to influences from overseas, were bound, very quickly, to move beyond sermonising and to involve themselves in bringing about practical changes inside and beyond the classroom. The challenge for them was to maintain the cultural identity of Japan whilst opening Japanese minds to new influences from abroad. This raises the tantalising question of what this did for the self-image and the day-to-day conduct of those teachers who became involved in the movement or were influenced by it. To what extent were their lives beyond the schoolroom transformed? How did they apply the precepts they were bringing to their pupils to their own lives? If students were to become self-regulating, then what about the teachers? If this article begins to answer questions about precisely how Western progressive ideals were introduced to Japan during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it raises far more issues regarding the reception and impact of those ideas on the daily lives of both children and teachers. It is a subject worthy of far more research. Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Professor Roy Lowe and Dr Peter Cunningham whose comments and suggestions have been of inestimable value, and who have made a significant contribution to her research. She would also like to thank many members of the History of Education Society (UK) for their moral support and warm encouragement.

Notes on contributor
Yoko Yamasaki is Professor and Head of the Education Department, in the School of Letters at Mukogawa Womens University. Her research on pedagogy in international collaboration has been in comparative and historical studies of differentiation in teacher training and systematisation of pedagogy under the influence of the New Education movement in the early decades of the twentieth century. Her publications have focused on progressive thinkers and practitioners, and especially on the New Education movement in England.

46See Yoshibei Nomura, Seikatsu kunren to dotoku kyoiku [Discipline of Life and Moral Education], no. 3 in the series Nomura Yoshibei chosaku syu [Works of Yoshibei Nomura] (Nagoya: Reimei shobo, 1973) (originally published in 1932).

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