유용한 출생: 학습원(学習院)으로 본 근대 일본 능력주의 사회와 혈연적 엘리트의 특권

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, competitive written examinations for educational credentials and professions surfaced as a critical determinant of one’s social standing in Japan. But birth was still critical in credential competition in Japanese meritocracy. This article explores how the value of aristocratic birth was rearranged in modern meritocracy through the lens of Gakushūin, a Peer’s School created by leading Japanese aristocrats (kazoku), in 1877 to recreate hereditary aristocrats as merited leaders of modern Japan.<BR> This school had the elementary, middle, and high school programs. Once a student entered the elementary school program, he could advance to the high-school program without competitive entrance examination. This article argues that the testless admission to the high-school program at Gakushūin was a significant privilege. Outside Gakushūin, students had to go through a tough competition to enter high schools, and it was not too difficult for high-school graduates to enter universities not too popular like Tokyo Imperial University in modern Japan. In other words, students of aristocratic birth at Gakushūin could gain the university degree, though it may not be from the most privileged university in Japan, without tough competition, and professional privileges the degree entailed. And brilliant students at the high-school program at Gakushūin were welcome to apply to competitive universities if they wanted. In other words, their birth, I contend, worked as an insurance limiting their downward mobility in Japanese meritocracy.