2013 Volume 52 Issue 268 Pages 211-220
At the beginning of the Meiji era, Japan imitated the science teaching systems and curricula of Western countries. Individual subjects, such as physics and chemistry, were taught in elementary schools. After that, a new comprehensive science subject termed "Rika", was introduced in the middle Meiji era. So far, a relatively large number of papers on this change from the individual science subjects to "Rika" have been published. However, many of them have dealt mainly with the educational system or science textbooks; the actual state of science education in classrooms at that time has not been revealed. In this article, I have tried to clarify the actual science education that took place in the middle Meiji era Japan by investigating the two following historical records. The first record is examination problems that were actually used to test the students in Maebashi Higher Elementary School during 1888-1897. The second record is Jun'ichi Udagawa's reports on his lectures in Gunma Normal School. Jun'ichi Udagawa was one of the leaders in physics education in Meiji era Japan. The analysis of examination problems revealed that many of the problems were faithful to related laws and regulations and that Maebashi Higher Elementary School coped sequentially with the changes in the science curriculum by school year progress. A comparison between Udagawa's reports and textbooks edited or written by him during these times indicated that Udagawa actually used the teaching methods that were introduced in his textbooks, and that he wrote or edited some of his textbooks, based on his own experience of giving lectures in Gunma Normal School.
