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Ienaga Saburo and the First Postwar Japanese History Textbook

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

John Caiger
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Extract

The Allied victory in 1945 ensured that a greater degree of freedom was guaranteed to individual Japanese by law. Since the end of the Occupation Japanese intellectuals, alert to any moves that they considered an infringement of the postwar constitution, have acted as watchdogs for the whole community. Ienaga Saburo, historian and political ideologist, is one such intellectual.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 1969 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

1 Bellah, Robert N., ‘Ienaga Saburo and the Search for Meaning in Modern Japan’ in Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward Modernization, ed. Marius, B. Jansen, Princeton, 1965, pp. 369–423 is invaluable for the rounded picture of lenaga's intellectual interests that is given. Bellah also refers to Ienaga's activities as a political ideologist.Google Scholar

2 See The Japan Times of 7 November 1967 under the heading ‘State Making Inroads into Education: Nambara’; for a lengthy exposition of his own views see Saburo, Ienaga, Kyōkasho Kentei (Textbook Approval), Nihon Hyoronsha, 1965, 284 pages.Google Scholar

3 Serious interest in the trial can be gauged by the promised appearance of three volumes entitled Ienaga—Kyōkasho Saiban (The Ienaga Textbook Trial). The first volume, containing a collection of all documents tendered by both the prosecution and defence up to the start of the questioning of witnesses, was published in late 1967. The publisher is Kyōkasho Kentei Soshō o Shien suru Zenkoku Renraku Kai (National Liaison Association to Aid the Textbook Authorization Case).Google Scholar

4 Kindai Nihon Kyoiku Seido Shiryo Hensan Kai (Editorial Committee for Materials on the Modern Japanese Educational System), Kindai Nihon Kyōiku Seido Shiryō (Materials on the Modern Japanese Educational System), Kodansha, 1957, XVIII, p. 488.Google Scholar

5 Kindai Nihon Kyōiku, XXV, p. 279.Google Scholar

6 Tamon, Maeda, ‘The Direction of Postwar Education in Japan’, in Japan Quarterly 3, October–December 1956, p. 415.Google Scholar

7 Education Division, Civil Information and Education Section, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General Headquarters, Education in the New Japan, Tokyo, 1948, II, p. 27.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 33.

9 Ibid., p. 36.

10 Herbert, John Wunderlich, The Japanese Textbook Problem and Solution, 1945–1946 (dissertation, Stanford, submitted July 1952), p. 236. My thanks are due to Dr. Wunderlich for permission to use his unpublished work.Google Scholar

11 Wunderlich, p. 247. For a more emotional account of these events by the man who was replaced by Wunderlich, see Robert, King Hall, Education for a New Japan, New Haven, 1949, pp. 475–6.Google Scholar

12 Wunderlich, p. 248.

13 Wunderlich, p. 257.

14 The following account is based on Toyoda Takeshi's statements during a symposium entitled ‘Rekishi Kyokasho to Sono Jidai’ (History Textbooks and Their Times) in Rekishi Kyoiku Kenkyujo (Institute for Research into History Teaching) ed. Kikan Rekishi Kyōiku Kenkyū (Quarterly for Research into History Teaching), April 1964, XIX, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

15 Report of the United States Education Mission to Japan, submitted to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Tokyo, 30 March 1946, Washington, 1946, p. 16.Google Scholar

16 Report of the United States Education Mission to Japan, pp. 15–16.

17 Translated from Ienaga Saburo's notes quoted in Tomitaro, Karasawa, Kyōkasho no Rekishi, (A History of Textbooks), Sōbunsha, 1960, p. 619. The account that follows can be found on pp. 618–28.Google Scholar

18 See Bellah's article referred to in Footnote I.

19 Saburo, Ienaga, ‘Sengo no Rekishi Kyoiku’ (Postwar History Teaching) in Iwanami Kōza Nihon Rekishi (Iwanami Series on Japanese History), Iwanami, 1963, Vol. XXII, Bekkan I, p. 319.Google Scholar

20 The full text of Kuni no Ayumi is reprinted in Nihon Kyōkasho Taikei—Kindai Hen (Outline of Japanese Textbooks—The Modern Period) ed. by Kaigo, Tokiomi and Naka, Arata, Kodansha, , 1962, XX, pp. 386–464. The full text of the ‘Guiding Principles’ can be found in Kindai Nihon Kyōiku, XXIII, pp. 10–16.Google Scholar

21 For a more detailed exposition in English of prewar aims, see my forthcoming article in Monumenta Nipponica, Special Commemorative Issue on the Meiji Restoration, ‘The Aims and Content of School Courses in Japanese History, 1872–1945’. For an illustration of prewar values see Appendix.

22 Mombusho (Ministry of Education), Meiji Ikō Kyōiku Seido Hattatsu Shi (A History of the Development of the Educational System since Meiji Times), Ryuginsha, 1938, II, pp. 254–55.Google Scholar

23 Kindai Nihon Kyōiku, XXIII, p. 10.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., p. 11.

25 Ibid., p. 11.

26 Ibid., p. 10.

27 Ibid., p. 12.

28 Kindai Nihon Kyōiku, XXIII, p. 11.Google Scholar

29 Nihon Kyōkasho Taikei, XX, p. 388. For a striking contrast see Appendix.Google Scholar

30 Nihon Kyōkasho Taikei, XX, p. 390.Google Scholar

31 Nihon Kyōkasho Taikei, XX, pp. 388–9.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., p. 391.

33 See Caiger, J., ‘A “Reverse Course” in the Teaching of History in Postwar Japan?’ in Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, 5, Nos. 1 and 2, 1967, pp. 4–16.Google Scholar