Discourses about reformatory education in the Meiji Era and the order of society ―an implication of defining the problem of “juvenile delinquents”―

Abstract

  The purpose of my argument in this paper is to articulate some features of discourses about education in reformatory schools (kanka-in) in the Meiji era, especially in terms of “the order of society” and “modernity”

  First, the virtue of “education” in reformatory schools was contrasted with the vice of the disciplinary punishment in reprimand institutions (choji-kan, choji-jo). These discourses imply that “education” was used as a more dependable concept for maintaining the order of society. Second, non-governmental actors played a great role in the development of reformatory education. The government was not the only agent of reformatory education.

  Furthermore, we can find several fundamental approaches to “juvenile delinquents” (furyo-shonen) in the discourses of the authors or lecturers in the later years of the Meiji era, who argued the case for education in reformatory schools in detail. The attention to juvenile delinquents' circumstances, the classification of delinquents, teachers' insights into individual delinquents, and teachers' love toward delinquents in the process of education. These features were the manifestation of attempts to define “juvenile delinquents” as perfectly controllable, understandable objects in terms of the order of society.

  The logic of “education”, which the discourses for and about reformatory schools included, not only functioned as the ideology of nationalism. From the viewpoint of “modernity”, we can point out that it was also recognized as the most dependable means of maintaining the order of society or socialization.