Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Editors’ Notes on Translation
- Introduction: Books, Craftsmen, and Engineers: The Emergence of a Formalized Technical Education in a Modern Science-based Education System
- 1 The Translation of Technical Manuals from Western Languages in Nineteenth-century Japan: A Visual Tour
- 2 The Translation of Western Books on Natural Science and Technology in China and Japan: Early Conceptions of Electricity 19
- 3 Creating Intellectual Space for West-East and East-East Knowledge Transfer: Global Mining Literacy and the Evolution of Textbooks on Mining in Late Qing China, 1860–1911
- 4 François Léonce Verny and the Beginning of the ‘Modern’ Technical Education in Japan
- 5 The Role of the Ministry of Public Works in Designing Engineering Education in Meiji Japan: Reconsidering the Foundation of the Imperial College of Engineering(Kōbu-dai-gakkō)
- 6 From Student of Confucianism to Hands-on Engineer: The Case of Ōhara Junnosuke, Mining Engineer 114
- 7 The Fall of the Imperial College of Engineering: From the Imperial College of Engineering (Kōbu-dai-gakkō) to the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial University, 1886 161
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- 8 Kikuchi Kyōzō and the Implementation of Cottonspinning Technology: The Career of a Graduate of the Imperial College of Engineering
- 9 The Training School for Railway Engineers: An Early Example of an Intra-firm Vocational School in Japan
- 10 The Training and Education of Female Silk-reeling Instructors in Meiji Japan
- 11 The Establishment and Curriculum of the Tōkyō Shokkō-gakkō (Tōkyō Vocational School) in Meiji Japan
- 12 The Development of Mining Schools in Japan
- 13 Science Education in Japanese Schools in the Late 1880s as Reflected in Students’ Notes
- 14 Education in Mechanical Engineering in Early Universities and the Role of Their Graduates in Japan’s Industrial Revolution: The University of Tōkyō, the Imperial College of Engineering and the Imperial University
- List of Contributors
- Index
12 - The Development of Mining Schools in Japan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Editors’ Notes on Translation
- Introduction: Books, Craftsmen, and Engineers: The Emergence of a Formalized Technical Education in a Modern Science-based Education System
- 1 The Translation of Technical Manuals from Western Languages in Nineteenth-century Japan: A Visual Tour
- 2 The Translation of Western Books on Natural Science and Technology in China and Japan: Early Conceptions of Electricity 19
- 3 Creating Intellectual Space for West-East and East-East Knowledge Transfer: Global Mining Literacy and the Evolution of Textbooks on Mining in Late Qing China, 1860–1911
- 4 François Léonce Verny and the Beginning of the ‘Modern’ Technical Education in Japan
- 5 The Role of the Ministry of Public Works in Designing Engineering Education in Meiji Japan: Reconsidering the Foundation of the Imperial College of Engineering(Kōbu-dai-gakkō)
- 6 From Student of Confucianism to Hands-on Engineer: The Case of Ōhara Junnosuke, Mining Engineer 114
- 7 The Fall of the Imperial College of Engineering: From the Imperial College of Engineering (Kōbu-dai-gakkō) to the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial University, 1886 161
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- 8 Kikuchi Kyōzō and the Implementation of Cottonspinning Technology: The Career of a Graduate of the Imperial College of Engineering
- 9 The Training School for Railway Engineers: An Early Example of an Intra-firm Vocational School in Japan
- 10 The Training and Education of Female Silk-reeling Instructors in Meiji Japan
- 11 The Establishment and Curriculum of the Tōkyō Shokkō-gakkō (Tōkyō Vocational School) in Meiji Japan
- 12 The Development of Mining Schools in Japan
- 13 Science Education in Japanese Schools in the Late 1880s as Reflected in Students’ Notes
- 14 Education in Mechanical Engineering in Early Universities and the Role of Their Graduates in Japan’s Industrial Revolution: The University of Tōkyō, the Imperial College of Engineering and the Imperial University
- List of Contributors
- Index
Summary
Mining is the most important among a hundred trades that make a country rich, and that surely is why there are not a few countries that are wealthy in Europe and America. […]. The (Japanese) Empire not only has products of the mountains such as coal and iron, but is also rich in the five metal ores that match those in countries in Europe and the USA. However, the mining and smelting methods in the Empire are still the old ones used for 300 years, and people do not know the methods to save human power with the use of machines. Although the empire has countless mines, they cannot make the country rich.
Ōshima Takatō (1870)INTRODUCTION
MINING WAS A particularly important industry for the Meiji government that urgently needed to be promoted. This is demonstrated by the efforts of Japanese politicians to advance this field, and the relatively large number of foreign mining engineers whowere invited to Japan after the 1860s to modernize the industry, transfer their scientific knowledge and train miners. Given its great importance, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to the establishment of a modern education system for mining engineers and miners in Japan, and its impact on the country's overall development. The topic of ‘mining schools’ (kōzan gakkō), meaning institutions whose curriculum was entirely or to a large part geared to the requirements of mining, is much less prominent in both Japanese and Western publications than other areas of technical education. Even in the book by Fathi Habashi, Schools of Mines, only 16 of the 588 pages deal with Asia. Ten of these pages cover Japan, and contain a few short paragraphs on some prominent foreign mining engineers who were called to the country. While various articles in Japanese deal with individual mines and individuals working in this field, there are as yet few overarching accounts of mining education in Japan. One exception is a relatively short chapter in the volume on mining and metallurgy in the series Nihon kagaku gijutsu-shi taikei, which will be discussed later.
In Europe the intensification of mining and metallurgy associated with the flourishing of the natural sciences in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had spurred the foundation of mining schools and mining academies. These played an important role in the development of scientific and technical knowledge far beyond the field of mining.
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- Accessing Technical Education in Modern Japan , pp. 303 - 346Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022