１－２. The Colors of Kanazawa, the Academic City: A Center of Higher Education in Modern Japan

Japanese

（１）The Brilliance of the Number School: from Fourth Higher Middle School to Fourth Higher School

The start of Kanazawa as an academic city began with the establishment of the Fourth Higher Middle School in Kanazawa.　Indeed, Kanazawa was chosen as a center of higher education in modern Japan.　Japan’s modern higher education system was established with the enactment of the Orders promulgated for Imperial Universities and the Secondary Schools in 1886.　The higher middle schools, which were established in five districts across the country, were elite educational institutions for students aspiring to enter the Imperial University, which was only in Tokyo at the time.

The Fourth Higher Middle School represents the fourth district (Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui) out of the five districts in the country, and was established in Kanazawa after a fierce competition to attract schools by the various areas.　In 1894, under the Order Promulgated for Higher Schools, it was renamed the Fourth Higher School (Shiko).　The group of higher schools from Ichiko to Hachiko were called “number schools” and these old-system higher schools with distinctive school atmospheres were shining beacons.

（２）Normal schools that supported the educational capacity of the region

National education, which began with the establishment of the education system in 1872, was supported by teacher training, known as normal education, and this function was carried out by the various normal schools established in each prefecture.

Teacher education in Ishikawa Prefecture began with Ishikawa Shusei School , which opened in August 1874 within the Ishikawa Prefectural English School in Seisonkaku, Kenrokuen Garden. Its predecessor was Betsudenshujo School , which was established in 1873. It was renamed Ishikawa Normal School in November 1874.　In 1875, Ishikawa Women’s Normal School was established, which was Japan’s first local institution for training women teachers. With the change in prefectural boundaries in 1876, Ishikawa Normal School underwent a complex development.

（３） The Dawn of Engineering Education: Kanazawa Higher Technical College

Traditionally, home-based crafts and arts-related handicrafts were the norm in Kanazawa, but due to the need for higher education institutions to train engineers in the mechanical engineering industry and other fields, efforts began to be made to attract higher technical colleges in the 1910s.

After many years of demand, Kanazawa Higher Technical College (Koko) was registered as a school directly controlled by the Ministry of Education in 1920, and Professor Aoto Nobukata was appointed as its first headmaster.　In April of the following year, under the direction of headmaster Aoto, the school opened in Kodatsuno as a vocational college with three departments: Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Applied Chemistry, and recruited a group of up-and-coming young professors all under the age of 40. The first entrance ceremony was held.　In March 1924, 91 students graduated and the alumni association, the Kanazawa Kogyo Kai, was founded, which is still active today.

 

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The content of this page is the same as the panel exhibited in the “Shiko no Mori” at Kanazawa University Central Library.

Created in April 2025 by the Working Group on Collections, Kanazawa University Library.