This paper attempts to clarify the process of change from
Gekiken and
Kenjutsu to
Kendo at the beginning of the 20th Century. The former two terms were widely used to mean swordsmanship with a bamboo sword. However, only the latter term is currently employed, despite the fact that it had been scarcely used at the time of the former two. At the end of the 19th Century,
Gekiken was disliked by intellectuals because it marked a change from a real martial art to competition with a bamboo sword, and
Kendo began to find favor instead of
Gekiken even though the principle of
Kendo had not been properly defined. In 1908, Shizuo Sakaguchi, a student, suggested that the concept of
Kendo should consist of not only
Kenjutsu training but also the mental discipline that is required for swordsmanship. However, his ideas did not gain immediate acceptance. In 1909, the Tokyo Higher Normal School changed the term
Gekiken to
Kendo, thus following the mainstream trend of adopting
Kendo without any set idea of its content. Although in 1911 the Ministry of Education permitted
Gekiken to be taught in secondary schools, the School intended to retain the term
Kendo as a descriptor, and therefore it became necessary to properly define its content. Accordingly, Michiaki Nagai, the only professor of gymnastics at the School, emphasized the mental aspects of
Kendo, as the suffix “-do” means “the way” for perfection of swordsmanship, as opposed to
Gekiken and
Kenjutsu, as the terms mean literally “hitting with” and “handling” a sword. The first special school for swordsmanship instructors was set up by the Ministry in 1911, and thereafter use of the term
Kendo spread to all schools. The final aspect of this change of thought was the adoption of the term
Budo instead of
Bujutsu, meaning “martial art”, by the Great Japan Martial Virtue Association in 1919.
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