"Miss Hughes" and the Boom of Drawing on Blackboard : The first study about the genealogy of educational drawing

Abstract

"Drawing on blackboard" seemed to be booming from the Meiji mid-30's to early 40's in Japan. This was started by Elizabeth Phillips Hughes (1851-1925), a British female educator, who proposed this teaching method by visiting and offering lectures in various places in Japan in 1901. Her proposal made the teacher's lectures easier to understand, and this opened up a new area which attracted a lot of attention in the educational sector at the time. The phenomenon of the boom of "drawing on blackboard" was well illustrated by a lot of magazine articles, and a book called "drawing on blackboard" was published. This report is about Hughes's experiences and a brief summary of her activities in Japan , and also the discussion on attributing the boom of "drawing on blackboard" to her speeches and explanations which greatly influenced education in the latter stage of the Meiji period.