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Japanese schoolwear: Historical trends -- late-19th century
Japanese Schoolwear: Meiji Restoration (Late-19th Century)
Figure 1.--This cabinet card shows a Japanese school class mostly in traditional dress, except fot the noys' Prussian cadet caps. Notice the teacher wears Western dress. It is also notable that the teacher is a man. There were very few women teachers at the time, even for primary education. Notice the woman in traditional garb. We are not sure just what her role was. Perhaps she was helper as the children are very young. A teacher in training ia another possibility. Or the man could be the school principal, but he looks very young for that role. The portrait is undated, but we would guess it was takem in the 1ate-19th century. The early-20th cebtury is possible. The studuo is {S?] Nagata. probably in Tokyo. A reader weites, "This is a great image. The clothing captures a changinh Japan. Notice that the class is coed. Also that the children are transitioning from traditional to Western garb. Uniforms were not required yet. Several boys wear Prussian caps and a couple wear western styled clothing. My guess is that the teacher or principal is dressed in Western garb because it was mandated. The woman is also there and she is wearing traditional Japanese clothing as are all the girl students" City schools with larger catchment areas were gender eparated. It was the villages schools that were coed. We are not sure the Western teacher garment was mandated, perhpas it was seen as modern amd a sign of education. We are not sure. Men and boys were thevfirst to adopt Western clothing.
In the years right after the fall of the Shoganate and the end of Japan's isolation in 1868, Japanese boys continued to wear traditional attire. Thisusually consisted of a brightly colored shoirt-like toop and a skirt-like bottom. Most children wore woden sandals. We see boys going to primary school in traditional clothing, often with a Prussian cadet cap. This was especuially true in rural areas, but was commn even it cities. But with the ascendancy of military values, the building of a public educational system continued on German lines. Boys in secondary schools were overwhelmingly outfitted in some version of the Prussian cadet uniform. Boys from the earliest grades right through university wore this uniform: cap, tunic with gold buttons (or in a few cases, darker stripe down the middle rather than external buttons). Older boys wore long trousers; younger boys wore knee pants, often over long, above-the-knee stockings (insert quote from Mishima's autobiographical novel, 'Confessions of a Mask'). Girls were less commonly sent to school, but those that did attend school were also outfitted in military uniforms, in this case English middy blouses and skirts. As the Japanese chose cadet uniforms from Europe's premier miliary power, the sailor suits were based on English styles as the developing Imperial Navy was largely based on the British Royal Navy.
