The Management of Nagano Primary School by Principal Hayashi Watanabe : A Case Study on the Structure of School Management in Late Meiji Era

Abstract

This paper examines the management of Nagano primary school in late Meiji era. The management of primary schools developed in late 30s of Meiji as the attendance rate increased and the size of schools grew. Nagano primary school was very big in its size from early Meiji era and Hayashi Watanabe who was the principal of that school from 1886 to 1904 had an excellent idea about the organization and management of schools. He insisted that the size of a class should be small and school should be big enough to specialize the internal organization. He called his idea about school organization "school based" as opposed to "classroom based". He allocated the headteacher and the head of departments aside from classroom teachers and delegated many of his duties to them. He developed educational organizations such as a special class for less able children, a blind school and a girls' high school. He set these organization at first in Nagano primary school and separated some of them from it later. He also became the principal of these new schools and as a result was in the position to supervise the whole school system in Nagano city. We can find very important problems of school management in this case; specialization and integration of internal school organization development of educational organizations during the rapid growth of school attendance, and the relationship between the management of school and the administration of the whole school system in one city. Hayashi Watanabe facing these problems in late Meiji when the nationalistic educational system was established in Japan rationalized the internal organization of the school, developed educational organizations mentioned above, and connected "quasi-community" of school to the local government body.