Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/276

In the past twenty-five years the Imperial University of Tokyo has produced some 5,000 graduates, of whom 300 have died, and the Kyoto Imperial University less than 100; thus, it will be seen that the University graduates in Japan number at present less than 4,800. In all professions and the various branches of business University graduates are in great demand, but the Universities supply only about 500 graduates annually. That the supply of graduates is insufficient is shown by the following figures, taken from reliable statistics: Among 1,700 judicial officers (Judges and public procurators included) there are only 300. Graduates holding the position of high executive officials number something over 400, the whole number of these officials being 3,200. And out of the 4,300 teachers in middle schools, only about 300 are University graduates. Physicians and surgeons number over 40,000; only 600 of these have received a University education. I have enumerated the above four professions because the statistics are easily procurable, but that the need of the University graduate is felt in all professions cannot be doubted. This state of things existing, even graduates of ordinary ability find much less difficulty in obtaining lucrative situations in professional ranks than is the case in Europe and America. Thus, University education is coveted by all classes in Japan. More young men desire to enter the Universities than these are able to accommodate, and in consequence a very strict entrance examination has been instituted for admission into the higher schools, which are the preparatory schools for the Universities. Not more than one-third of the applicants pass and are admitted into the higher schools, the other two-thirds having to wait for the next examination, or else change the line of their education. The parents, guardians, and friends of the disappointed candidates are therefore clamorous for the establishment of more Universities. This question has become almost a national one, and the present Minister of Education announced in the last session of the Imperial Parliament that he would ask for Parliamentary support for a North-East University in the near future. There can be no manner of doubt that in a few years we shall have the pleasure of welcoming the newly-born sister University, say in Sendai.

In order to understand the conditions of University education in Japan, one must understand something of primary and secondary education. In the primary schools the ordinary course of study is a four-year course, during which elementary