エリオットの「日本教育意見書」をめぐる女子高等教育論争

大正期女子高等教育政策形成の政治的契機

抄録

　 Dr. C. W. Eliot, former president of Harvard University, visited Japan in 1912 and made several statements about women’s higher education at the Nara Academy for the Higher Education of Girls (Nara Joshi Kotoshihan Gakko) , Japan Women’s University (Nihon Joshi Daigakko) , and the Friends of America Society (Beiyu Kyokai). Eliot’s remarks on women’s education, based upon the author’s research on these statements, were very much in favor of expanding higher education for women.

　 Several months after Dr. Eliot left Japan, a Japanese newspaper published an article in his name titled “A Criticism of the Japanese Institution of Education.” A closer scrutiny of the events shows that the content of a speech Eliot gave while in Japan was misrepresented to support the views held by Japanese conservatives.

　 The main initiator of this affair was Kentaro Kaneko, who was a Privy Councilor (Sumitsu komonkan) and a former student at Harvard University. His skillful manipulation of Dr. Eliot’s statement served to strengthen the public support for more conservative educational policies in Japan.

　 With Dr. Eliot’s “A Criticism of the Japanese Institution of Education” as a trigger, heated debates on women’s higher education developed, with arguments from Masataro Sawayanagi, Shigenobu Ookuma , Ayako Tanahashi , Eiichi Shibusawa, Kumaji Yoshida, and others.

　 At that time, the Privy Council had a great influence on the educational world because of an imperial ordinance, the chokurei shugi. Under the guise of Dr. Eliot’s vision, the conservative vision for women’s higher education was disseminated to the Privy Council and the House of Peers (Kizokuin) . Kaneko’s views on women’s education influenced the policy of the Taisho Era, and as a result of this, women were removed from Japan’s higher education expansion policies.　 This paper makes it clear that the debate on women’s education instigated by Dr. Eliot’s statement became the turning point of a new policy formation. The new policy promoted thoroughly the principle of “education for good wives and wise mothers”which was in an opposite direction to the democratic vision of the Taisho Era.