ABSTRACT
WHAT WAS LIFE AND STUDY AT A JUKU ACTUALLY LIKE? Studying individual examples gives us some idea, but sources on individual juku tend to centre on the biography of the founder. To obtain a general picture, several juku have to be examined. Looking at details of juku life can tell us how they differed from modern schools. Moreover, we can compare the picture presented by contemporary sources and first hand accounts to that painted by later generations, who held up the juku as a shining example of what education ideally should be like (Chapter 6). For instance, circumstances may have necessitated characteristics of juku life that later appeared in the explicit educational concept of a latter-day educational “master”. The importance of certain rituals, for example, may have resulted from the absence of a purpose-built classroom, which made it necessary to demarcate the space for lessons by ritualized behaviour.
