A Study of the Concept of Social Education and Popular Education in Meiji Era

The methodology of the study on the history of social education has its limit. It has focused on a contradiction between the national policy and the desire of people to educate themselves. Many studies based on this methodology have not tended to give full importance to the realities of the history. Therefore, little is known about an integrated whole of the theory, although the early social education theory has been an object of study for a long time. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the concept of social education and popular education, while reconsidering the methodology. Yukichi Fnkuzawa used the terms \u22human society education\u22 \u22education in society\u22 in the early Meiji era. He discussed the necessity of self-education of the middle classes in their life through their social experiences after finishing school. One of the journal articles, which argued about social education in the early Meiji era, described social education as lifelong self-education. while developing the idea of Fnkuzawa. Tamotsu Ioji, who in 1885 became the first of many authors to write a book entitled \u22popular education\u22 in Japan, discussed popular education as the concept indicating popularization of education. At the same time, the term \u22popular education\u22 was adopted as a policy to promote the education of parents as a means of raising the percentage of elementary school attendance. Social education, on the other hand, was viewed as a supplement to school education in the middle Meiji era, differing from Fukuzawa. Later, the terms social education and \u22popular education\u22 were often used in a similar fashion as a concept related to aduk education and community education. Finally, this paper considers the real activities of popular education in local areas. As soon as popular education was adopted as a policy in 1885, many meetings of popular education for parents were organized, especially in Tokyo. The purpose of those meetings, at the beginning, was to raise the percentage of elementary school attendance. In the 1890s, popular education was organized primarily as education of adults and was extended to community education such as improving society, culture and economy through education in the community In this context, Jiro Yamana wrote a book entitled \u22social education\u22 in 1892. He discussed social education as the idea indieating the relationship between education and society, while furthering the idea of Fnkuzawa and the activities of popular education and social education