eaports, including particularly Osaka and Nagasaki, and the old Court city of Kyoto" (Dore, 1965, p. 4). Besides the holdings of the Tokugawa, about 250 autonomous domains also existed.
Society during the Tokugawa period was based on a legally established four-class system. At the apex were the samurai, who during the Tokugawa were transformed into literate military bureaucrats. Below the samurai were the peasants, artisans, and merchants. Although the Tokugawa period saw the flowering of urban culture, the Tokugawa eventually pursued a policy of almost total seclusion from the outside world: "It was a system designed to perpetuate itself unchanged" (Dore, 1965, p. 10).
The Tokugawa period was noteworthy in terms of education because it marked the beginning of popular literacy. This accomplishment was facilitated by the establishment of small-scale local schools called terokoya (the parish school). These schools were attended by commoners and the curriculum emphasis was on Confucian ethics: "The virtues taught were Japanese agrarian: common sense, cooperation with and respect for others, thrift and the avoidance of waste" (White, 1987, p. 53). The growth of these schools was spontaneous and based on the private initiative of townspeople and peasants alike. So widespread was this educational movement that by the end of the Tokugawa period about 40 percent of males and 15 percent of females had achieved literacy (Beauchamp and Rubinger, 1989, p. 23).
In addition to the schools established by private initiative, during the 1860s official schools were also opened. These schools had graded curricula, were mostly co-educational and unrestricted by social class. In addidtion, the subject matter taught was not limited to Confucian precepts.
The most innovative of the Tokugawa schools, however, were the private academies. These schools introduced specialized training in occupational areas. Unfettered by official ...