抄録
The age at which children begin school is six years in Japan. It is a part of the Japanese educational system which has 130 year history since the proclamation of the "School System" in 1872. There has been very little historical research on the controversy of those times regarding school age. The author took notice of Michiyoshi Mishima's article: "Investigation Report of the Educational Systems: The Issue of School Age (1902)", which had not been researched in earlier literature. Mishima settled the argument of children's age and school readiness in his article. He maintained that six years was the standard age for beginning school in those days and proposed his concrete idea of educational contents and methodology for the first grade. This argument in the middle of Meiji period suggests a viewpoint toward educational reform today.
