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
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
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
INTRODUCTION
JAPAN'S INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION began around 1886, but its universities had in fact been turning out graduates in mechanical engineering since 1879. A first intermediate-level engineering school, set up in 1881 under the name of Tōkyō Shokkō-gakkō (Tōkyō Vocational School), produced graduates from 1886 on. By 1920 more than 14,000 engineers and technicians had passed through colleges of this type and through Japan's universities. This figure equates broadly to that of America of 30 years before, of United Kingdom of 40 years earlier, and Germany ten years prior to that, though the rate of increase was somewhat higher than America's and had exceeded that of the other two countries. A particular feature was the advance of Japan's industrial revolution in parallel with the rapid training of engineers and technicians at its higher industrial education institutions. This study looks at the mechanical engineers who played a pivotal role as the industrial revolution unfolded, and examines the features of education in the early universities and the activities of their graduates before the First World War. The aim is to clarify the part played by engineers who graduated from universities during Japan's industrial revolution.
During the period of Japan's rapid economic growth after the Second World War much research was done on the technical education in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Miyoshi Nobuhiro and colleagues. More recently, Toda Kiyoko has produced detailed work which takes a new look at this subject, and Wada Masanori cites evidence to criticized previous research that focused on the success element of the Imperial College of Engineering, the first institution to produce graduates in mechanical engineering.
In relation to the careers of engineers who enjoyed an advanced industrial education, Morikawa Hidemasa has analysed 170 specialist managers in large enterprises of the Meiji period and shown that 36 of them came from science-based higher educational institutions. He then pointed out that among graduates of the Imperial University and its forerunners, those who had been in the engineering stream became specialist managers more quickly than those who had studied the humanities. In addition, he maintained that as seven of the specialist managers from the engineering side had been university lecturers before turning to the private sector, universities of the Meiji period were ‘open-minded’ and their research-based education ‘practical’.
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- Accessing Technical Education in Modern Japan , pp. 390 - 438Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022