戦前期日本における試験研究機関・学協会の制度化とその特徴

抄録

This paper analyzes the institutionalization of testing and research institutes, learned societies, and engineers' associations in prewar Japan. Although some historians examine this subject, they tend to focus on famous or large organizations and their studies are not based on comprehensive statistical data. This paper analyzes the data that public organizations published in the prewar period, although they are partly revised and supplemented because of erroneous and inadequate information, particularly regarding the establishment year of private institutes. The data analyzed are of 773 institutes and 233 societies and associations.
As these data comprise establishment year, research field and topic, address, administrator (the central government, local governments, or private organizations), and so on, this analysis possibly elucidates long-term trends of the establishment of various classifications of organization.
Consequently, this paper provides some facts about these historical trends. First, although the First World War is considered an epoch for the institutionalization of testing and research institutes, 40% of them were actually established before the War, because there was much activity in the fields of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, and light, traditional industry before the War and these fields are frequently overlooked. Second, the greatest proportion of these institutes were in chemistry, so this discipline is the main driving force of institutionalization in Japan, similar to the U. S. A. Third, these institutes were established at an equal pace among various areas. Fourth, the high number learned societies and engineers' associations established annually occurred in a different era from that of testing and research institutes. The former is the second half of the 1920s; the latter, the WWI era. This fact demonstrates that different factors contributed to the establishment of all the above bodies.