日本の近代小学校と中等学校進学 : 東京市公立進学有名小学校の変化の事例に即して

From the middle of the Taisho period to the prewar days of the Showa period (from the 1920's to the 1930's), there were some big-name municipal elementary schools in the City of Tokyo which carried out thoroughgoing preparatory education for the entrance examination to secondary school and which were very well-known for their good results in those examinations. Many children commuted from all over the City of Tokyo, that is, from outside of the official school zone of those schools, to attend their classes. Taking the case of Seishi Elementary School, we found the process of becoming such a big-name school was as follows. The first stage of the process was that the children who lived in one neighborhood which was located around the elementary school in its official school zone gradually raised the overall ratio of pupils who went on to secondary school. This happened at Seishi during the period from about 1887 to 1908 because of the children from families of intellectuals in nearby Komagome-Nishikata Machi, which was nicknamed Scholars' Town. In 1908,with the extension of compulsory education from 4 years to 6 years, the existing seventh and eighth grades in almost all municipal elementary schools were abolished by the City of Tokyo. That action induced Seishi Elementary School to start special programs of preparatory education for the entrance examinations to secondary schools because if pupils could not pass the entrance examinations in the sixth grade they would have to leave school under the new system. As Seishi Elementary Schools gradually became famous for its good results in the entrance examinations to secondary schools, parents concerned about education for their children who lived outside of the school zone had them enter Seishi Elementary School. That situation further changed the quality of education in Seishi Elementary School around 1915 : throughout the school, preparatory education for the entrance examination came to influence all levels of school activities, especially fifth and sixth grades. Thereafter the pupils came from all 35 wards of the City of Tokyo at this stage. The school became a name school and gained the reputation of 'the best elementary school in Japan'. The two authors contend that the appearance of such schools helped to combine the more or less self-contained system of elementary schools with the system of secondary and higher education