Comparative Research on elite education between Japanese higher schools and English public schools

本文的研究是一种比较性质的研究，首先关注公立学校的产生和发展，同时论证日本明治大学和维多利亚大学的公立学校之间存在着相似性，然后利用学校登记簿和其他可获得的数据分析两者之间的异同。我认为，高等教育不一定对较贫穷的社会阶层开放，反映了社会再生产的机制，相反，公立学校并不是上层阶级的专属领域，这表明社会流动机制正在发挥作用。我还认为，公立学校成功地培养了一支由具有家长式领导能力的政治家和行政人员组成的“通才精英”，但未能培养出一批“专业精英”，如科学家。高等学校既重视自然科学，又重视人文学科，培养出了两种类型的精英。公立学校通过强调传统和君子文化，培养出了一批稳定、扎实、但缺乏创新精神的精英。相比之下，高校对“修养”的重视实际上是吸收西方文化，割裂日本传统文化的问题。正因为如此，高等学校的精英们无法对军国主义崛起中占主导地位的‘传统发明’形成反对。在思考未来的日本精英教育时，反思今天幸存于战后社会的公立学校所经历的变化，以及推测如果这些大学在战后幸存下来，可能会对日本战后社会产生什么影响，都是有价值的。

My research is of a comparative nature focusing first on the emergence and development of the public schools while demonstrating that similarities exist between higher schools in Japan of the Meiji cra and public schools of the Victorian cra, and sccondly on analysis of similarities and differences between the two making use school registers and other avaitable data. I hold that the higher schools were not necessarily open to the poorer strata of society, reflecting the mechanism of social reproduction, and conversely that public schools were not the exclusive domain of the upper class indicating that the mechanism of social mobility was at work. I also hold that the public schools succeded in creating a 'generalist elite' in the form of politicians and administrators capable of paternalistic leadership, but failed to develop a corps of 'specialist elites' such as scientists. The higher schools emphasized natural sciences as well as the humanities, producing both types of elites. The public schools, by emphasizing tradition and the culture of the gentleman, produced an elite which was stable and well-grounded, but which lacked a spirit for innovation. By contrast the emphasis on 'cultivation' in the higher schools was in effect a matter of absorbing Western culture and of severing tics with traditional Japanese culture. Because of this' the higher school elite was unable to form an opposition to the 'invention of tradition' dominant in the rise of militarism. In considering Japanese elite education of the future, it would be valuable both to reflect on the changes undergone by the public schools surviving today in post-war society, as well as to speculate on the effect the higher schools might have had on post-war Japanese society had they survived the war.