(3) Realities and Functions of WAGAKU KÔDANSHO

Abstract

The WAGAKU KODANSHO, a sort of school, was founfled in the year 1793 for the purpose of teaching Japanese classics. The first students were enrolled in November of that year. A noteworthy fact about this school is that one person who contributed a great deal toward bringing it into existence was a blind man by the name of Hokiichi HANAWA, a great scholar of his time. Although the Shogunate government gave material assistance to the founding of the WAGAKU KODANSHO, it managed to retain, to some extent, the character of a private institution. Two years after the school was actually started the Shogunate government began supporting the school financially and, at the same time, placed it under control of the Daigaku-no-kami (President of Shoheizaka Gakumonjo) HAYASHI. In other words, the school became an institution directly supervised by the government. A district called BANCHO in YEDO (now Tokyo) was the place where the school was located at first but, later, when the school had grown substantially both in the number of its students and its faculty, it was moved to new buildings erected on a nearby site three times as large in area. Academic activities of the WAGAKU KODANSHO were carried on in its School house, where instruction was given to the students, and in its Bibliographic Office, where books were examined and studied, the schoolhouse being composed of some lecture and seminar rooms. Teachers, though not with official qualifications, were few in number at the start and in its early stage, but about. 1863 the Shogunate government started appointing teachers in the school. It was about this time that the WAGAKU KODANSHO was put on a full-time basis, that is, it was open every day. Until then the school had been open on specified-days only. History and law of the land, bibliography, literature and other subjects were taught in the school, and from this it can easily be imagined that the subject matter of instruction must have been very extensive and substantial in scope. The bibliographic function was continued from the beginning of the WAGAKU KODANSHO but it was in 1808 that the Office was formally instituted as such with a staff of government-appointed bibliographers. Activities of the Bibliographic Office may be grouped under three heads with respect to function. The first included both compilation of chronicles and publishing. The second group related to studies on apparel, garments, annual or special social events, determination of nomenclatures and other matters. The third group included inspection and collection of books, and library management. This famous government-operated school came to its end with the collapse of the Shogunate government, but its functions of chronicle compilation and publishing were preserved by the new government and have been continued to the present day.