But in 1888, it was one of a couple of schools suffered from student rebellions, as the students went on strike to complain about the teaching methods. One of the foreign teachers there, Rev Arthur Lloyd, wrote to a newspaper in England about the then current demonstration.
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| Rev Arthur Lloyd, from The Open Court, 1912 |
“The Tokyo students have lately taken to rebellion. A few weeks ago, the students at the Methodist School at Azabu rebelled and struck against their teachers. I believe this was owing partly to the unpopularity of their new principal and partly to alleged favouritism as between Christian and non-Christian students. However, unfortunately, after a strike the students were victorious. Several obnoxious teachers were dismissed to please the students and after several concessions had been made, the boys condescended to come back to their duties.”
Rev. Lloyd notes that this successful strike was followed by another in the same region of Tokyo: Azabu. This time, in the school where he was teaching: the afore-mentioned university, or Keio Public School as it was then known.
“Our new manager, Mr Koidzumi, is a terrible new broom; unfortunately, he has been appointed senior manager. The consequence was that he introduced all manner of new rules into the school, especially some rules about daily marking, which were most obnoxious to the students. With the exception of two classes, the whole school struck and now the conflict is raging. Forty of the ring-leaders have been expelled, more than 300 boys have already left the school, and I am not at all sure how the result is going to turn out.”
This letter, written on 21 February 1888, goes on to explain that the foreign teachers have no say in the matter: it is an issue purely between the Japanese. Whatever sympathies he had with his students, he thought the strike was worth facing down, if only to stop the rebellions spreading to other schools. He also wonders if the new younger generation, with their multi-cultural education were perhaps looking down upon their monolingual parents and their Confucian education.
Although the letter was written in the midst of the troubles, with no solution in sight, Rev Lloyd did write about this again. In his book “Every-day Japan” he explains how it ended. The book was written in 1909, and a couple of details don’t match the contemporary report, but this is what he wrote:
“The biggest affair of this kind that I remember was in 1885 or 1886, when the whole of the great Keiogijuku College, with the exception of one class, went out on strike over some grievance about class-marks, and refused for more than a month to receive the instructions of their professors. When the strike was finished, students and professors had a grand feast of reconciliation in the playground, where speeches were made and toasts drunk. A short time ago I still possessed a big photograph of this entente cordiale established between teachers and taught.”
What a shame he didn’t still have the photograph to include in the book. It would have been a beautiful reminder of a turbulent period of change in Japanese society. Rev Lloyd goes on to tell the readers of his book that this events all happened decades ago.
“School strikes on a very small scale do indeed still take place from time to time, but they are mild affairs when compared with the heroics of the past. The go-ahead student of twenty years ago is the go-ahead parent of to-day, and has succeeded in re-establishing over his children that parental authority which for the time slipped from the grasp of his old-world father ; and the crude teacher of the early days has made room for the better trained teacher of to-day, so that the whole atmosphere of the Japanese school has undergone a change for the better.”
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keio_University
“Rebellious Schoolboys In Japan,” Bury and Norwich Post, 1 May 1888, page 5
Lloyd, Rev. A, (1909) “Every-day Japan,” Cassel and Co. Ltd, p 272-273
Clement, E. W. (1912) "The Late Rev. Arthur Lloyd (With Portrait).," The Open Court: Vol. 1912: Iss. 4, Article 8
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