旧制高校学生の剣道観と剣道実践：対抗試合の資料分析から

抄録

The All Japan Kendo Federation (AJKF) was established in October 1952. After World War II kendo was revived as a means of physical education and a sporting activity, with its organization democratically managed, and rational match processes and judging methods being considered while spreading and developing as a competitive sport (a general term for sports that emphasize winning, losing, and ranking). On the other hand, in 1975 the AJKF established its own philosophy, stating that “kendo is to discipline the human character through the application of the principles of the katana (sword)”, which is slightly different in meaning from the philosophy of sports, which states that “sports are athletic competitions and physical activities that are undertaken for the sound development of body and mind”. (Sports Promotion Act, 1961) To clarify the intent and content of this concept, it is necessary to re-read the historical development of kendo as a competitive sport.

From the Meiji period onward, among the first to practice competitive sports were students who belonged to the athletic associations of Tokyo Imperial University and Tokyo Commercial High School, and the alumni association of Daiichi Higher Middle School. In such a climate, Western competitive sports were actively practiced in the old junior and senior high schools during the Meiji period. Kendo was developed on the model of a competitive sport rather than as a traditional budo.

In the history of student kendo, it was Kyoto Imperial University that pioneered the national tournament. Kumao Ono points out that it was the former Daisan High School (hereafter, “Sanko”) that played a part in this. I was interested in the description of the Sanko Kendo Club members during the Meiji period, who tried to understand kendo in terms of the new concept of “athletics”, which at that time was a collective noun for all Western competitive sports. However, I could not find any previous studies. Therefore, as part of my search for the roots of the transformation of kendo into a competitive sport, I decided to first focus on the Sanko Kendo Club, which seems to have been a forerunner of this movement, in order to understand the actual state of students’ attitudes toward kendo during the Meiji and Taisho periods.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the actual state that the old high school system played in the development of kendo as a competitive sport, and to examine in detail the magazines Gakusui-kai Zasshi and its predecessor, Jinshin-kai Zasshi, which were published independently by the Gakusui-kai (alumni association) of Sanko, as well as other Sanko-related materials such as the Jinryo Shoshi (Short History of Jinryo) and the Sanko Hachiju-nen Kaiko (Sanko 80th Year Review).

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