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the population was made up of Hoklo speaking peoples who had originally migrated from the Quan and Fukien provinces in China as early as the seventeenth century. These peoples traditionally resided in the agricultural areas of the island, while the Hakka speaking population who had migrated to the island later came to settle in the hills of north-western, central and south-western regions of Taiwan. For the arrival of these new comers the Austronesian speaking peoples lived on the island for millennium. The Japanese had conducted an anthropological study on these peoples and had placed them into nine different groups. Besides the indigenous peoples and the Hakka, Taiwanese or Southern Min was the dominant language on the island at the time. Japanese speakers were in fact the minority, they comprised of 2.1 percent of the population.
Izawa Shūji was the Japanese government’s appointed educator responsible for education in Taiwan during the early colonial period. Shūji educated in the United States became a strong supporter and advocate of Kokka Kyōiku or national education which had emphasized the cultivation of loyal imperial subjects through the use of Japanese language education. The concept of national education had its roots in Meiji Japan and was used in nation building in Japan. When Izawa came to Taiwan he brought with him his new ideals for educational reform based upon the model that he introduced in Japan after his arrival back from America. (Fewings: 2004:29)
2.4 The beginnings of Japanese language teaching in Taiwan
The new leaders of Japan had travelled to Europe and North America at the beginning of the Meiji period and came to realize that widespread education was an important factor that made these societies strong. (Tsurumi: 1984:275) The new leaders concluded that education in Japan needed to be modernized if Japan was to take its place as a great power. Japan needed to train elites in
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technical and managerial skills that would be needed to direct policy and the economy. At the end of the Tokugawa period many commoners and the samurai saw learning and schooling as a force for material as well as spiritual betterment. The samurai were among the first of the elites that were to be trained, but unlike the situation they found in the west lower orders were trained as well.
Japan at the end of the nineteen century saw the introduction of a number of changes in its society, new laws were being introduced, new institutions appeared, and the Japanese leaders were making great strides in creating what they hoped would be a modern nation-state. The Japanese leaders wanted to create a state where the unequal treaties that Japan had entered would be a thing of the past, and they had even greater goals in mind. They wanted to match or even exceed the western nation’s military, industrial and colonial achievements. Foreign Minister Kaoru (1835-1915) wanted to create a western style empire on the edge of Asia. The Japanese soon realized this goal of outward expansion when they acquired Taiwan at the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895.
Taiwan was on the very edges of Chinese civilization but was still considered part of the Chinese empire. Taiwan did possess a small but influential number of literati who supported education, teachers and those who were to sit for the Imperial Examinations.
In Meiji Japan education and more importantly higher education was one of the means of acquiring Western technologies and managerial skills that any would be nation-state would need to acquire.
Elementary schools were a means of achieving their new goals and introducing new lifestyles and occupations into Japanese society.
The Meiji educational system consisted of two main types of schools. Firstly, there were the upper level schools consisting of a small number of secondary schools, and an even smaller number of
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higher educational schools. These lower level schools which the Japanese used to indoctrinate, enlighten and discipline their population were the model that was eventually introduced into Taiwan when the Japanese took over control of the island in 1895. The Japanese government felt that there was a need for basic elementary schools in Taiwan when they arrived. The Taiwanese were to receive a basic education which main function was to train and educate the Taiwanese for life and work in a new world; and above all the educational system was to make the local population loyal to the empire. The overall goals of the educational policy in Taiwan under the Japanese government were to transform a segment of traditional Chinese society into an important part of modern Japan.
The new Japanese colonial government in Taiwan was not all that supportive of the traditional local gentry’ schools and or their teachers for that matter. The new government may have thought that these gentry schools reminded them of their own simple or temple schools that existed in Japan’s past. The new Japanese government wanted to introduce modern educational techniques in Taiwan. The government wanted to replace what they saw as a backward Chinese educational system with a new and modern system that was being introduced in Japan at the time. The Chinese and Japanese educational systems did have shared values, like the written word, teachings of the sages, and several Confucius values: including benevolent rule, loyalty and hierarchical status relations and family morality. The new rulers thought with the correct amount of manipulation this shared cultural heritage might help them win over the support of the Taiwanese.
Izawa was faced with a new challenge upon his arrival in Taiwan and that was how to educate the children of the gentry’ class in Taiwan. The Japanese Ministry of Education had sent him to America in 1875 and he came back to Japan with new ideas about education and he introduced
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these changes into the Japanese educational system upon his return. Izawa introduced western style educational reforms like gymnastics and Western music to Japanese students. Izawa thought that education should serve the needs of the nation and unlike others in the Japanese government he supported the public financing of education in Japan, others in the government did not agree with his new stance. Izawa’s attempts at getting public funding for education were not successful at all, the government was faced with more pressing issues like the new nation building plans that it had recently undertaken. Izawa saw an opportunity to implement his education plans when Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 and he believed that his goals may be achieved in Taiwan.
Izawa’s reforms in Taiwan were successful and by the time that Lieutenant General Gentarō arrived in 1898 his reforms were realized in a series of schools, curricula, pupils, teachers and administrators. When the new Governor-General and Goto Shimpei arrived, there were sixteen Japanese Language Institutions and 36 branch institutions up and functioning on the island. Eight years later there was a well-developed educational system operating in Taiwan. The new educational system had several goals including winning support for the new government, developing an educated class capable of serving the administrative and clerical needs of the new colonial government. As well, educating Japanese citizens who lived on the island was one of educational systems goals, and making educating girls more popular, to train medical professionals and teachers and to make the educational system in Taiwan as financially viable as possible. To achieve these goals, the Japanese government established common, medical and normal schools.
All private schools whether they were Chinese, Christian or Japanese were encouraged to stop teaching students and instead join the main stream public school system that the government encouraged. Girls were to be educated and a revenue stream was created to support the new
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educational system. Kodama opened what he hoped would be a more permanent style of elementary school: that is the common school. Kodama’s approach was like that of Izawa’s Japanese Language Institutes, and Kodama had two main goals in mind for these common schools.
The first goal was to give the Taiwanese students a good command of the Japanese language and secondly to educate them in ethics and practical knowledge to generate in these students the qualities necessary for Japanese citizens.
Kodama and his administration did see the value and prestige that Chinese learning held, and he did end up respecting it. Kodama and Gotō both came to recognize Taiwanese men of letters.
Kodama started to hold banquets once again that honored the elderly and even went so far as to sponsor Chinese poetry readings-where both Japanese and Taiwanese men who had trained in Classical Chinese education came together. There were some Taiwanese who did not fully support Kodama, and his policies and they felt that they were being asked to participate in cultural change rather than seeing their old places of cultural dominance exist. Some Taiwanese saw the banquets for the elderly as positive and these events were popular with many. The Governor-General’s presence at these banquets was often well received. Taiwanese men of letters were employed in the common schools and gentry parents would often send their children to these schools because they offered a Classical Chinese education. Although these common schools offered Chinese training that does not mean that Japanese language was completely ignored. A great deal of attention was given over to both written and spoken Japanese in the common school’s curriculum.
Officials from the Government-General’s office complied textbooks and other teaching materials for the common schools and were interested in finding new ways and methods that would help improve Japanese language instruction in the common schools. Gotō was especially interested in
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recruiting students from the gentry and merchant class. Bright and serious students were sought out for the common schools. Children from homes that encouraged learning and who provided the necessary leisure time were encouraged to enroll in the common schools. Older children and even young adults were also encouraged to enroll in the common schools.
These older students could be trained as clerks and translators, but some in the government felt that these older students may prove to be not as malleable as the younger students. The main goal of the Japanese educational system especially in the early years of colonial rule was not to train the unschooled, but rather its main function was to get Taiwanese students out the private Chinese schools and get them into the common schools instead. The common schools hoped they could enroll all the younger boys into their schools before they had the chance to enroll in the Chinese schools. But their more immediate goal was to lure the older students away from the Chinese schools and get them into the common schools instead. In 1896 the colonial government in Taiwan offered 15 sen a day as an allowance to draw older pupils into the common schools and away from the Sobō (Shu-fang) or Chinese schools. During that same year all private Chinese schools came under the direct control of the colony’s regional administration, and all sobō teachers had to attend summer schools that were set up for them and the hours of instruction in these schools were set.
Only government-general textbooks were allowed in these schools. Japanese language instructions as well as lessons in arithmetic were to be offered as well. Despite repeated attempts to close these schools and Japanizing them and influencing their curriculum and the stealing of their students many of these private Chinese stayed opened and thrived. These private Chinese schools offered supplementary classes in Chinese learning, and many students who were enrolled in the common schools would attend classes at these Chinese schools once school was out at the common schools.
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Sobō, missionary schools and the schools that catered to the Japanese nationals all came under increasing pressure during the first ten years of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan. This policy was like the one found in Meiji Japan where private schools were second best to the public government schools and should be replaced as soon as possible. Private schools were never fully recognized as an alternative to government funded public schooling. These schools were a temporary measure and often did not receive any kind of public funding. By the 1880s to 1890s the government took over more and more control of these private schools and with that tighter control and more regulations came into effect for the private schools.
In 1890 the Imperial Prescript on Education came into effect, and with that edict the Ministry of Education officials came up against more and more pressure and opposition from the Christian schools who rejected the idea that private schools were mere substitutes for public education. In effect, all religious education in private schools was banned, but the edict also affected other non-religious schools as well. Because of this new edict all private schools were in effect to be sub-contractors to the public schools. All their textbooks needed government approval and their teachers came under closer and more direct supervision by the government. Any teaching that criticized Shintoism, Buddhism, the Japanese government or any of its allied governments or the Japanese people themselves was not tolerated. Contemporary political events could not be discussed in the private schools as well. What was to emerge from these new policies and reforms was one of funding; only public schools were to receive any kind of government funding.
By the final years of Gentarō’s regime in 1906 there existed a distinct two-tiered system of education in Taiwan. On the lower level were the common schools for Taiwanese students that existed island wide. And on the upper level were the schools intended for children of Japanese
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nationals only. The common schools enrolled 5.31 percent of all Taiwanese school aged children, while on the other hand the Japanese schools enrolled 68.61 percent of the colonies Japanese school aged children.
The Taiwanese track was the vision and dream of Izawa but both Kodama and Gotō did manage to place their own unique stamp on educational policy in Taiwan during their tenure. In the common school’s Chinese language instruction and the tolerance of sobōs were attempts to accommodate the traditions and customs of the Taiwanese population. Gotō believed that if Japanese assimilation polices were to be effective in Taiwan some accommodation must be given to the Taiwanese. He did this by investigating local laws and customs which the colonial court was quick to implement in the case of disputes when they arose among the local population. The Japanese also resurrected the Ching Dynasties pan chia system of collective security. This practice became known as hokō which acted as a supplement to the Japanese police system and was a means of social control throughout the period of Japanese colonial rule on the island.
Izawa was after all a strong supporter of Japanese assimilation policies on the island, and he believed that the local population should be assimilated. Izawa believed that the Japanese would be successful in assimilating the Taiwanese despite the failure of other colonial governments to assimilate their populations. Izawa held onto the belief that that Japanese and Taiwanese shared a common race and script and believed in similar Confusion teachings. He believed that because of all these reasons that the Taiwanese could be assimilated into Japanese society. Izawa did not follow a gradualist approach to assimilation policies, nor did he believe that education should be available to all that could afford it or limited to such a degree as not to over-educate the local population.
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Education and assimilation were two key components of Japanese colonial policy in Taiwan.
Assimilation of the native population (that is the native Chinese population) was an important goal, and education was the means of accomplishing that goal. (Tsurumi: 1979: 617) Japanese colonialism lasted for 50 years in Taiwan and when the colonial government altered or changed its assimilation polices educational policy changed as well to reflect these new changes in assimilation policy. Education then was a major factor in the assimilation policies of the Japanese, these assimilations polices were consistent if not static in nature.
Izawa Shūji was the driving force behind and the visionary for education reform in Taiwan. He came to Taiwan with an already impressive resume as an educational reformer in Meiji Japan. One of his first goals when arriving on the island was to use the existing school network to educate the entire population of the island. For those students who were about to graduate from the elementary schools Izawa planned to send them to post-primary schools after their graduation. However, his educational goals and visions were soon met with a number of different obstacles including budgetary and policy ones. Izawa’s goals for educational reform came into conflict with the new Government-General Gentaro who believed that Izawa’s educational goals were long-ranged and that elementary schools should only be established sparingly and only in areas where wealthy parents would be able to cover the costs of educating their children. Many Taiwanese elementary students were not encouraged to pursue further education; rather the government only provided secondary teaching for those students who were going to pursue teaching or medical professions.
The colonial government believed that training such professionals as doctors or teachers locally could be a faster and better alternative than getting these professionals from Japan.
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The common schools offered lessons in Japanese language instruction as well as arithmetic, the basic sciences and Classical Chinese training that was meant to be attract gentry parents to the school, singing and physical education was offered as a way of attracting the children to these schools. Shimpei did agree with Izawa in that both thought that local teachers should be trained to teach in the common schools. In 1897 a medical hospital was opened in Taihoka and Shimpei went to great lengths to see that the hospital would be turned into a medical school to train the Taiwanese to become doctors. Gotō on the other hand did not approve of any other kind of post-elementary schooling for local Taiwanese children, and the policy that he advocated stayed in effect on the island until 1915.
The common schools offered lessons in Japanese language instruction as well as arithmetic, the basic sciences and Classical Chinese training that was meant to be attract gentry parents to the school, singing and physical education was offered as a way of attracting the children to these schools. Shimpei did agree with Izawa in that both thought that local teachers should be trained to teach in the common schools. In 1897 a medical hospital was opened in Taihoka and Shimpei went to great lengths to see that the hospital would be turned into a medical school to train the Taiwanese to become doctors. Gotō on the other hand did not approve of any other kind of post-elementary schooling for local Taiwanese children, and the policy that he advocated stayed in effect on the island until 1915.