Hi, ladies!!
This morning, azalea, peach and I gathered at a family restaurant at Yagoto to discuss our essay subjects as our first session. Both azalea and peach made so steady progress, and we could run a good brainstorming meeting on the issues about Ichiko Kamichika and Mumeo Oku. I’m afraid that I’m not so getting well now, but today’s fantastic moment will act as a stimulus to me. We junior members enjoyed three hours’ analysis over lunch, and planed the next meeting on January 12 in the coming year at azalea’s house. Then we said good bye about two o’clock or so.
There are only several days left till the new year starts. Have beautiful days!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
Hello, everyone!
Plum, is your eye OK? I suppose your sleep was very deep or you were tired to the point you could not roll over in bed. Overworking is the agent of illness. Please take care of yourself.
Alice, thank you for your compliment. Even a pig is flattered into climbing a tree.
By the way, my friend talked on TV program of NHK known as delinquency. See a boa, then you see a pig. See a wolf, then you see a dog. the progenitor of a pig once had tusks, fur and wild temper. The progeny has been domesticated. If so, the human beings must be changing like a domesticated animal.
Today, Cherry Peach and I met at Yagoto as Cherry mentioned. The two except me advised me and persuaded me that my subtitle be reexamined. I am convinced the present title is not appropriate.
Thank you, Peach and Cherry.
Hi, ladies!!!
It’s Friday, December 26, 2008, and it’s been freezing all day, hasn’t it? I thought to myself that I was going to be frozen to death. Oh, my goodness!!! Winter is raging and bossing around, isn’t it?
Fortunately the pain and swelling in my left eye are totally gone now, and I am completely delighted that I could sleep last night with my both eyes shut. It is so strange and funny to say this, but it is my true feeling.
Here is part 6.
(6)
The tuition and other expense fees for primary school education were a burden to many of the parents in those days, and thus despite the official primary school attendance rate in 1873 was 39.90 percent for boys and 15.14 percent for girls, quite a number of pupils, according to some experts on education, shortly after their entry into school, were forced to leave school by their parents. It is logically conceived that not many children of school age went to school. Rather, many of the children of destitute families, as they did before, stayed at home, doing various house chores and babysitting, or helped their parents keep their shops or work in the fields.
It is in these socio-educational circumstances that Youngman opened Keimo Primary Schools.
1878: at 36, Daiichi-keimo-shoggako, Daiichi-keimo-shoggako night school (Tsukiji)
1879: at 37, Daini-keimo-shoggako (Atago-cho)
At Daiichi-keimo-shoggako, she employed Japanese teachers and had them give reading, writing and handicraft lessons to children whose parents were too poor to pay any money for the primary education of their offspring. Daiichi-keimo-shoggako night school was opened for young laborers working at match making factories, who possibly did not receive any sufficient elementary learning before coming into the labor market. In 1879, Daini-keimo-shoggako was opened, most probably in the same concept as Daiichi-keimo-shoggako.
Many of you would like to know what eventually happened to these educational institutions, I believe.
Before letting you know it, I would like to tell you, next time, something about the dramatic reforms in the primary school educational system that took place from 1879 onwards.
I hope all of you are well and happy, my lovely friends. Keep yourself warm and have a wonderful Friday evening. Goodnight to you all…
Hi, ladies!!!
It’s Saturday, December 27, 2008, today, and it’s been another freezing day, hasn’t it?
It’s so delightful to hear that Azalea, Cherry and Peach got together at a family restaurant to discuss their essay writing projects. Actually nobody has done this kind of research discussion for her second essay writing. I have been a bit concerned about this group, simply because none of them has an experience of writing more than one essay. But definitely you are doing wonderfully, Azalea, Cherry and Peach, and I am very, very happy about it.
Here is part 7.
(7)
In September, 1879 (Meiji 12), Gakusei was abolished and Kyoiku-rei was introduced, and as for the eight year schooling, which was officially decided in 1875, each locality came to be able to reduce to four, depending on its socio-economic and educational circumstances.
In 1886, the primary school was divided into two sections; jinjo-ka (ordinary section) for 4 years and koto-ka (high section) for 4 years, and the first 4 year learning was appointed as obligatory education.
In 1900, 4 year jinjo-ka school education became free of cost, and in 1902 the primary school attendance rate turned over 90 percent, although the attending school rate was 68.4 percent.
Especially, the koto-ka attending school rate was not so high as that for jinjo-ka, and importantly that of girls was lower than that of boys both in jinjo-ka and koto-ka. For example, the following is the 1906 attending school rates for boys and girls in jinjo-ka and koto-ka of Sugiyama Primary School in Atsumi-gun, Aichi, which is located in central Japan. Notice the large percentage discrepancy between the attending school rates of girls and boys in koto-ka.
Jinjo-ka Boys: 82.92 % Girls: 74.94%
Koto-ka Boys: 76.65 % Girls: 27.08 %
In 1907, the jinjo-ka education, which was compulsory, was extended from 4 years to 6, and the koto-ka was shortened from 4 to 2.
As examined above, the Japanese primary school system went through a variety of reforms intended to get the general pubic to send their children to school and it is rationally considered that more and more children attended school especially after the compulsory 4 year education became free of expense in 1900.
Another important factor is that in 1903, the government made a law that prescribed that primary school teachers should use textbooks authorized and copyrighted by the Ministry of Education.
Have a lovely Saturday evening, my precious friends. Night, night...
Hello, friends,
I posted my comment on the privious day page. Today an automatic cleaner was arrived which My HD bought. He wished his mother uses it at her house. The cleaner moves automatically and cleans the floor. I wonder it works well. It must have bump. He has no eyes to something new. Space is so limited that I don't want to have useless thing. How can I tell him. Anyway I'll do what I want to do.
High school teachers are required to speak English in class in the new educationan course. It is quite welcomed by the students.
For the teachers it is challenging.
It seems the Japanese Englsih education has much influenced by the Chinese and Korean English education putting more weight in practical English, which is very funny.
It is Satureday 7:15 p.m. My son and I finished supper, but the rest, DH and daughter aren't home. I should prepare for them again.
Dear Cherry and friends,
Hello.
I am sorry to hear that your mother-in-law has cancer in the lung, Peach. I wish it isn’t progressive. Perhaps, your husband wants to do anything good for her.
While reading about the Japanese primary school system in Plum’s writing, I noticed that Sugiyama primary school formerly belonged to Atsumi-gun. The name of the school is familiar to me. Its school district is currently in Toyohashi.
Reading John Stuart Mill 2
Before examining about women’s status in institutions like marriage, Mill argues that their situation is analogous to that of slavery and absolute monarchy. According to him, human beings were ruled by the law of force rather than the law of morality. Both the bourgeoisie and peasantry were oppressed by the nobles. “Such is the power of an established system, even when far from universal; when not only in almost every period of history there have been great and well-known examples of the contrary system, but these have almost invariably been afforded by the most illustrious and most prosperous communities. (p. 135)“ He called this the yoke which “is naturally and necessarily humiliating to all persons. (p. 135)”
“How different are these cases from that of the power of men over women! (p. 136)”
He defends his argument against a predictable objection that might say, “It is accepted voluntarily” by women (p. 139). He rebuts it. An increasing number of women “have recorded protests against their present social condition. (p. 139)“ A significant example is a suffrage movement. Moreover, in the United States, women calls “periodical Conventions” and organized a party “to agitate for the Rights of Women. (pp. 139-140) Harriet Taylor Mill was inspired by the movement.
Hi, ladies!!!
It’s Sunday, December 28, 2008, today, and I’m sure that all of you have been having hectic days recently since we are coming toward the end of the year 2008. I really hope that you are well and doing whatever you have to do as scheduled.
Azalea and Alice, thank you for your deep concern about my left eye. I have completely recovered from my eye trouble. My eye doctor did a very good job for me, and I’m very happy about it.
Peach, I read you message saying that it was revealed that your mother-in-law had a cancer in the lungs. You and your husband must have been greatly shocked when you heard the news. It’s hard and sad to receive such a depressing piece of news. I sincerely hope the contemporary medical technology could perfectly cure her cancer and your mother-in-law will have as many happy days as possible despite her disease. (I am definitely certain that cancer is a curable disease nowadays.)
Here is part 8.
(8)
With this socio-economic and educational background, the schools established by Youngman in the 1870s would have gradually lost their reasons for existence toward the end of the 1880s.
Daiichi-keimo-shoggako night school (1878) was closed in about 1886, and in 1888, Daiichi-keimo-shoggako (1878) became under the authorization and administration of the Ministry of Education and Daini-keimo-shoggako (1879) was in the hands of Mrs. Jane McCauley, the wife of James Mitchell McCauley (1847-97), who came to Japan with his wife in 1880 for recuperation after the deterioration of his physical health from his Thailand mission and, after regaining his health, was appointed as a missionary in Japan. They lived in the Tsukiji foreign residence area.
As the Japanese school system eased up for poor children, Youngman, losing her interest in primary school education, moved away from it to more professional education for Japanese women.
At the age of 41, in 1883, Youngman established Joshi-seisho-gakko, which was a theological school for women, at Shin-minato-machi, Tsukiji. In 1887, Union College (presently Meiji Gakuin University, perhaps) in the Tsukiji foreign residence place moved to Shirogane, and the Presbyterian Women’s Foreign Missionary Office of the USA bought for Youngman B6 and B7 land that was used by the college. There were a house in B6 and a kitchen and a dining room in B7, and Youngman moved Joshi-seisho-gakko to B6 and B7 and herself also shifted to live in there. In this year, the students, who were admitted in 1883, graduated from the school.
However, in the following year, in 1889 she resigned from the school. The Japanese, who were related to the school in some way or other, became rebellious to Youngman, and other Presbyterian missionaries pointed out her extreme severity and attempted to have her understand what the problem was, but, Youngman, possibly being angry with them, submitted a notice of resignation. She was also highly exasperated by the remark of John Craig Ballagh (1842-1920), a brother of James Hamilton Ballagh (1832-1920) that Bible and prayer lessons should be excluded from the school curriculum. He conceivably believed that it was not appropriate that a female missionary, such as Kate Youngman, who had not received any formal theological education, gave those lessons.
It's getting very late, almost midnight, my lovely friends. Goodnight to you all...
Hi, ladies!!!
It’s Monday, December 29, 2008, today, and it’s going to be a sunny winter day, isn’t it? The sunlight is so weak and fragile, but it is much better than the strong sunlight in Nagoya Summer, I suppose. How about you, my lovely friends?
Early tomorrow morning my husband and I are going to fly to Ohita, where my son and his family live. We will stay there for a few days and celebrate the New Year with them and his wife’s family at her parents’ tremendously huge house and be back in Nagoya on January 2nd. (We will stay at a hotel not with them.)
Therefore, I won’t be able to write in this blog for 4 days but be back on 3rd.
I wish all of you a happy new year and hope we will be close and friendly to one another throughout the year 2009 also.
I am deeply thankful to you all for your kind and sincere consideration and cooperation to our group study activities in the year 2008.
Here is part 9.
(9)
Probably all of you would like to know what happened to Joshi-seisho-gakko after Youngman, the founder of the school, left the academic institution in 1889. Fortunately, Caroline T. Alexander (?-1927), who was sent to Japan in 1880 and married Theodore Monroe MacNair (1858-1915), and Annie Blythe West (1860-1941), a graduate of Vassar College, who was dispatched to Japan in 1883, living together at the Mission House near Meiji Gakuin in Shirogane, succeeded Youngman and managed the school until 1924 when both of them returned to the USA possibly for retirement.
According to the Fukuin Shinpo of March 10, 1900, the course took four years to complete. Normally there were about ten students studying at the school, and as of 1900 the graduates exceeded 70, many of whom became wives of pastors or missionaries.
Kate Youngman established various types of schools totaling to 5, but by 1889 she had lost all of them, and started to do a mission activity among the general public, and when the Ueno Industrial Exhibition was held at the Ueno area in 1890 she worked in Ueno Park.
The first domestic exhibition was held at Nishi-honganji in Kyoto by Kyoto Exhibition Group to show the country’s efforts and achievements in modern civilization and a variety of cultural aspects around the world to the Japanese nationals.
In Tokyo, the first domestic industrial exhibition was held by the government at Ueno in 1877. Four other expositions of this kind were held in Ueno in 1881 and 1890, Kyoto in 1895, and Osaka in 1903. (Wikipedia)
Interestingly enough, after losing all the schools, Youngman came across an unexpected incident.
Maybe you would like to know what it was. I will let you know it next year.
Well, I am going to have an extremely hectic day today preparing to travel to Kyushu, my precious friends. I will talk to you in the year 2009. Until then, bye-bye…
Hi, everyone.
Plum, you are expected to enjoy reuniting your son and his family. Have a nice day!! If you don't mind, I would like you to explain why the Japanese primary school eased up for poor children, why didn't she ouycried about the policy and how could she establish other specialized school.
Today I dreamed about my mother for the first time since she passed away. She said in the dream 'Clean the house', since I have lain about? or there is something she indicates? I have not yet cleaned a chest on which my father's photogragh has been displayed. I am very busy to clean my house at the end of the year. Every year, I compromise with complacence. No one is killed by dusts.
Dear Cherry and friends,
Hello.
Please have a safe journey to Oita and enjoy staying there, Plum.
I’m looking forward reading what happened to Youngman next.
I think I can stay home until January 5th because I asked my parents not to make any plan involving me except for visiting a shrine on New Year’s Day.
Although we’ve been cleaning the house these days, my room still looks as messy as before. Books and materials recently increased suddenly. For example, I printed out some 60 issues of newsletters published by Poole Gakuin. The average page of each issue is about 14. While tidying them up, I need to check the content to gather necessary information for the essay.
Reading John Stuart Mill 3
According to Mill, one of the reasons why women are expected to be obedient to men like slaves is that they are brought up in the belief that such a character is considered idealistic. From the moralistic point of view, it was women’s duty to obey men. Among the populace, it was implicitly believed that women lived for others and in affections.
He thought back about history. In the ancient times, human beings were born in a fixed social class. It was prohibited to change their social positions by law. However, by the time when Mill lived, such a practice had been valid no more. Victorians like him had already witnessed the rapid expansion of the middle class and laws which restricted one’s choice and freedom had been challenged.
Even “in the more improved countries” of his age, Mill maintains that women were not allowed to be competent in the public sphere (p. 145).
Dear Cherry and friends,
Hello. How are you?
Yesterday morning, we went to a fish market. It’s the annual year end event of my family. I don’t know what to buy or how to buy but mother needs my help to carry what we get.
Do you cook osechi? Me? No way. It seems not because I’m single, but because of my generation.
While studying how to interview people, I read a book about Japanese families’ diet. Housewives of my generation were asked to take pictures of every meal during this time of the year and interviewed about the picture. The survey was conducted several years ago. The interviewees were in their late 30s and 40s, that is, they’re slightly older than I. The writer of the book found that the housewives didn’t cook dinner for Christmas nor osechi by themselves. In other words, they didn’t know how to cook them. (Neither do I.) Asked what they did during the New Year’s, many of them visited their parents’ house where either mother or mother-in-law cooked osechi and other New Year’s dish. One of them told that she and her family didn’t visit her mother-in-law who could not cook because of injury. In this survey, it might have been assumed that the yome who married into a house should have helped her mother-in-law in the kitchen. Nowadays, few expect such an implicit rule.
Reading John Stuart Mill 4
At the end of the first Chapter, Mill implies that the next topic is about marriage. For women, marriage had almost become Hobson’s choice: marriage or no occupation. They could choose only either of them.
Mill ironically argues that educating women was not a careful policy “if men are determined that the law of marriage shall be a law of despotism (p. 156).”
In the second chapter, Mill examines both historical and his contemporary marriage.
Anterior to Christianity, marriage for women was not a mutual consent but the contract between her father and her husband. Therefore, a father disposed of his daughter like his property.
Mill often refers to Roman or other ancient slavery systems to compare slaves with women. Mill imagines that slaves were in better conditions than wives because slaves were allowed to own private property.
If a woman is destined to be a mere “body-servant of a despot” and she has to depend on him, “it is a very cruel aggravation of her fate that she should be allowed to try this chance only once (p. 161).”
Even voluntary gratitude is caused through the relationship between the master and the slave.
“It is part of the irony of life, that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude of which human nature seems to be susceptible, are called forth in human beings towards those who, having the power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using that power (pp. 162-163).”
Hello, ladies,
I wish a happy new year to all of you! Thank you very my for encouraging me about my mother-in- low. This might me one of the most serious incident for my HD. I'd like to make her feel as relaxed and comforatable as I can. My HD also need to have a detail physical checkup on Jan 5. I hope nothing is wrong. Tomorrow we are going to Hamanako area and stayed overnight. Unfortunately my mother- in- law is prohibited to eat eel, which is her favorite. I don't know what to say to her. Brown rice and vegetables are the finest food for her at present.
Good afternoon, everybody!
This morning, we visited Toyokawa Inari Shrine. My last year diary says we went there on Jan. 2 because it snowed on New Year's day. I've forgotten how the weather was.
On our way home, we dropped in a cozy Japanese style cafe.
Have a fantastic afternoon and New Year!
Post a Comment