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

我的研究是比较性质的，首先关注公立学校的产生和发展，同时证明明治时期日本的高等学校与维多利亚时期的公立学校之间存在相似之处，其次利用学校登记册和其他可用数据分析两者之间的异同。我认为，高等学校并不一定向社会较贫穷阶层开放，这反映了社会再生产的机制；相反，公立学校也不是上层阶级的专属领域，这表明社会流动的机制在起作用。我还认为，公立学校成功地培养了“通才精英”，即具有家长式领导能力的政治家和行政人员，但未能培养出一批“专才精英”，如科学家。高等学校强调自然科学和人文科学，培养出两种类型的精英。公立学校通过强调传统和绅士文化，培养了一批稳定而有基础的精英，但缺乏创新精神。相比之下，高等学校强调的“修养”实际上是吸收西方文化，与日本传统文化割裂的问题。正因为如此，高等学校的精英们无法对军国主义兴起中占主导地位的“传统的发明”形成反对。在考虑日本未来的精英教育时，既要反思战后幸存下来的公立学校所经历的变化，又要推测如果战后幸存下来的高等学校可能对战后日本社会产生的影响，这两点都是有价值的。

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.