Introduction

The ability to read and write “is not a straightforward matter, one reducible to simple national averages. It is a complex process, connected to broader social problems in complicated ways.” Given wide differences in literacy rates both geographically and among social classes in early modern Japan, one cannot simply say that Japanese literacy rates during the period were “high.” Rather, as literacy spreads it gives rise to new disparities. As Rubinger notes: “The real value of studying literacy resides not so much in measuring its quantifiable elements but in clarifying the contexts of its transmission, acquisition, and use.”

This chapter intends to do that by focusing on the records of a single school in a local Aizu domain temple town. In analyzing the school's documents, it investigates the social background of its pupils, the aspirations that motivated students to enter the school, the various skill levels that students may have attained and whether those skills were useful. Further, it looks at the teacher who maintained the school over many years and his intentions in taking the job. Finally, the chapter attempts to make clear, to the extent possible, the social implications of literacy acquisition in a specific and small geographical area.

The main sources of analysis are the two volumes of the Keiseikan Diary of Aizu-Takada Township and related materials in the Tanaka Archives. The first volume was begun in 1814 and the other in 1820. The diarist is assumed to be Tanaka Shigeyoshi (1788– 1860). The school under discussion, called Keiseikan, has been largely ignored in surveys of Aizu domain's educational history. One of the most important, Aizu-Takada-chō shi, treats Keiseikan in volumes 1 and 7, but offers only a fragmentary picture of the school, saying that it “was under domain administrative control” and performed the function of being a “place to provide basic reading, writing and arithmetic” to commoners from agricultural villages in order to more effectively administer the domain. The position taken in this chapter is that this local school had a larger function than just creating a place to create more easily administered subjects from farming communities. Rather, it directly undertook the education of merchant family children in the immediate area.