The latest returns compiled by the educational authorities show that education in Japan is in a satisfactory condition. For instance the percentage of the children newly admitted to primary schools throughout the country out of every 100 of those who had attained the school-going age last month [March, 1903] was 93.78 for boys, 81.08 for girls, and 88.05 for boys and girls together, which show respectively an increase of 3.23, 9.18, and 6.38 against the figures for last year. Again, the different schools throughout the country totalled 29,335, while the teachers totalled 110,104, the attendance 5,265,006, and the graduates 911,621, representing respectively an increase of 473; 11,977; 339,333; and 112,737 as compared with the figures for the preceding year. [In 1909-10, these totals were 34,659; 172,228; 7,170,470; and 899,288.]

NUMBER OF SCHOOLS, ETC. IN JAPAN IN 1900-1901.227

By the government establishments are meant all institutions under the control of the Department of Education.

Statistical items relating to the Higher Normal School for Females are included among those for the Higher Normal School, and those relating to the three institutes for the training of technical teachers among those for technical schools.

Japan’s University for Women228

The most remarkable occurrence in Japan in the opening year of the Twentieth Century was the establishment of a University for Women. What does this mean? It means that the Twentieth Century is to be the century for women in Japan and perhaps in other parts of the Orient, just as the Nineteenth Century was the century for women in the Occident. This new University will be the centre of woman’s activity, social, educational, economical (and perhaps political?), in the future in Japan.

About ten years ago Mr. Naruse began to think about establishing a university for girls and went to America to inspect female institutions of learning. There he spent three years going about from place to place, and thus made a thorough observation and study of colleges for women in the United States of America. In 1894 he was encouraged to start the enterprise, in which his special friends were such men as Marquis Itō, Marquis Saionji, Counts Ōkuma and Itagaki, and Baron Utsumi, then Mayor of Ōsaka, now Home Minister.

Among the first promoters of the enterprise were well-to-do persons of Ōsaka, such as Mr. Dogura and Mrs. Hiroöka (of the Mitsui family). The idea was, and still is, to secure 300,000 yen, of which half should be used for property and half for endowment. It was also decided not to begin to build unless at least 100,000 yen had been raised. The money was obtained quite rapidly; and in this Mr. Naruse’s skill and tact were remarkable. Many not in sympathy with the idea of higher female education (like Baron Katō, ex-President of the Imperial University), were won over by Mr. Naruse’s presentation of the cause.

The problem of location was thoroughly discussed in Ōsaka, and at last it was unanimously agreed that Tōkyō, being the capital, was the most convenient place, because the institution was not local, for either Ōsaka or Tōkyō alone, but was national, for all Japan.

The faculty number forty-six in all, among whom are several professors of the Imperial University. The President is, of course, Mr. Naruse; and the Dean is Professor S. Aso, a Dōshisha alumnus. There are also several ladies; and it is the purpose to have as many lady teachers as possible.

There are three departments in the University course:

1. Department of Domestic Science.

2. Department of Japanese Literature.

3. Department of English Literature.

In the first department the greater part of the time is devoted to various branches of Applied and Domestic Science; in the second and third departments the largest number of hours is given up to Japanese and English respectively. Ethics, Sociology, Psychology, Education (including Child-Study) and Calisthenics are required studies in all departments; and Drawing, Music, and Science of Teaching, are electives in all cases.

The boarding-department includes seven “Houses,” each with a matron and a head cook. The girls live just as at home, and take turns in cooking.

This school is not, of course, to be compared with foreign universities, or the Imperial University; nor is it a copy of other universities; but it is intended to make this university just suited to the needs of the time and the social conditions of Japanese women. The standard will be gradually elevated. In the system of female education, it is a university, at least in germ.

It is the purpose as soon as possible to increase the number of courses; to add, for instance, pedagogy (including sociology, psychology, etc.), music, science, art, and calisthenics. It is intended also to extend the preparatory course downward, so that it shall include, not a Kōtō Gakkō only as at present, but also a Shō Gakkō (Grammar School) and a kindergarten. Thus the system of female education will be complete in all its grades: from three to six in the kindergarten; six years in the grammar school; five years in the secondary school (Kōtō Jō Gakkō); three years in the university; with a post-graduate course of three years. Then surely the institution will be worthy to be called a university.