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We have very limited information on early 20th century Japanese schools before World war II. Nor do we have many early images and those we do have often are not dated. We hope to expand this section of the HBC Japanese school section so we can better understand what was happening in Japan before Wotld War II. A great deal hs been written about Germany before the War, but much less about Japan. It would be very interesting to better understand what Japanese children were being taught and how. And how this changed over time. Most Japanese children, especially boys, seem to have worn Western-styled clothes to school, but we seem some children in traditional clothes. The prevalence of traditionl clothes gradually declined over time, but only gradually.
Japan and the American Philippines Islands were the only two places in Asia which had a mass public school system. Traditional clothing worn in the 19th century seems to have still dominated schoolwear in the 1900s decade. For the most part there were no uniforms or clothing refulations. We begin to see a smattering of Western clothing, but itbwas the exception rather than the rule. The schools had begun to promote the idea of Western-styled uniforms. There appears to be some elite schools in Tokyo where the boys wore Prussian-styled cadet uniforms. And we begin to see some boys wearing Prussian cadet caps with their tradition clothing, but most Japanese school children just wore their traditional robe-like clothing. Some of the boys may have had cadet caos, especially in the major cities, but generally Western clothing of any kind was not seen to any extent. In fact, Western clothing was completely absent as most schools, ecsept for the teachers who commonly wore Western suits with Western headwear like bowler hats or boaters. School wear at the time basically reflected what the children normally wore. Here we see a school group at a reailway statrion meaning in a city assembled to cheer deoarting troops headed off the fighting the Russians in the Russo-Jaoanese War (1905-06). The boys all wear their traditional clothing and mtavly this was a city scene.
Gradually we see the Prussian cadet uniforms becoming more common. It is the boys we see wearing these uniforms. The unifirm chosen for the girls were English sailor outfirs, but we have nit yet found examples of this in the 1910s. Our archive, however is still very limited.
We see cadet uniforms becoming increasingly commin, especially in the city secondary schools. At some schools, however, we still see traditionalk clothing, in some cases wotn as a uniform. We are not sure when sailor dresses were introduced for the girls. One source repors that it was duing the 1920s.
We see childten wearing both traditional clothes and the military styled uniforms in the 1930s. We see more images of the boys than the girls in the 30s, but we do see images of girls at school as it was becoming increasingly common to send girls to school. We note schools at the beginning of the decade with boys wearing Prussian cadet caps with boy traditional and cadet uniforms. We believe that these are city schools. In the countryside we see schools with all the children wearing traditional clothes. We do begin to see the military uniforms becoming much more common during the 1930s. There was in the 1930s a very significant militarization of Japanese society. We believe that this was reflected in the schools. We do not yet have, however, the information or images needed to substantiate this, although we are beginning to build a basic archive. Military uniforms were by the end of the decade standard in city schools, but still relatively rate in the country side, except for the Prussian cadet caps. And we begin to see more girls wearing the sailor suit uniforms by the end of the decade. We do not see children wearing Western clothing to school, exceot the uniform styles.
Here we see a Japanese classroom scene (figure 1). Notice the low-level bench. Unfortunately it is not dated. We are guessing that it was taken in the 1940s, but we are not sure. Perhaps our Japanese readers will have some insights. Wouldn't it be interesting to know what the sign says, but the photograph is not clear enough. Most of the children look to be wearing Western-style clothes, but we see some traditional clothes as well. Most of the boys have cropped hair. I assume this was a school rule. The girls seem to also have a standard hair style. It included straight hair covering the ears at the side and bangs in the front. Some schools had uniforms, but this was less common in more rural schools. Boys in even the rural schools night wear uniform caps. Schoolwear was commonly short pants which might be worn with long stockings during the winter.
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