ABSTRACT
As stated at the beginning of the previous chapter, two important developments in the history of Rangaku occurred in the first half of the nineteenth century. The first was the rise of Western learning in the various han, and the second was the appearance of numerous private schools where the teaching of Dutch studies was the primary raison d’àtre. Such a school as Otsuki Gentaku’s Shirando was not an isolated example. However, like Shirando, these private schools, whether large or small, all had medical education as the original reason for their founding and as the principal stimulus to their continuing existence. But, given the interest aroused nationally by the importance of the foreign problem and its growing influence on the feudatories who sent their young samurai to such schools for study, the private schools which specialized in Rangaku experienced a growth which extended their role well beyond that of medical educators. For they became centres of the study of botany and chemistry and, more significantly in the light of events, of military science, artillery techniques, etc. Ultimately, too, many of the students were not reticent in admitting that they had no intention of becoming physicians. Moreover, these schools were by no means concentrated in Edo but appeared throughout Japan wherever there was a demand for the new learning from the West.
