Passive Resistance and Attendance Trends
One important, if not spectacular, aspect of peasant revolt against the Meiji educational system was passive. Numerous families refused to send their children to the new primary schools based on the economic burdens it imposed, with children needed at home to perform agricultural work.[i] When children reached the age at which they were “required” to enter school, families simply ignored the law and kept them at home.[ii] As a result, overall attendance rates remained low with only modest gains, from 23 percent in 1873 to 27 percent in 1879.[iii] From a purely numerical perspective, however, thousands of children were attending school. These attendance rates, though, were noticeably skewed along predictable conservative village lines, with 60 percent of school-age boys and only 20 percent of school-age girls attending primary school by 1880.[iv] These numbers would skyrocket over the next few decades as a result of additional reforms.
[i] Duus, Modern Japan, 93.
[ii] Duke, The History of Modern Japanese Education, 169.
[iii] Duus, Modern Japan, 93.
[iv] McClain, Japan, 261.
[i] Duus, Modern Japan, 93.
[ii] Duke, The History of Modern Japanese Education, 169.
[iii] Duus, Modern Japan, 93.
[iv] McClain, Japan, 261.