１－３. Inheritance of the Shiko Spirit: Philosophy and School Culture
（１） The Relationship between Hojo Tokiyuki and Nishida Kitaro and the birth of the Sansanjuku
The fifth headmaster of the Fourth Higher School, Hojo Tokiyuki, carried out school reforms and worked to establish a strong school culture, including the establishment of an official dormitories (juku) system, such as Sansanjuku. Hojo was from Kanazawa and had experience as an instructor at Ishikawa Prefectural College and the Fourth Higher Middle School. He also had a deep bond with Nishida Kitaro, and they worked together as headmaster and teacher at Yamaguchi Higher School and the Fourth Higher School, and Nishida learned a lot from Hojo. Sansanjuku, which had a major impact on the formation of the school ethos at the Fourth Higher School, was an idea conceived by Nishida and supported by Hojo.
Hojo was a great educator born in Kanazawa, and there is an anecdote that made the then Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi say, “There is a man named Hojo in Kanazawa, and he is to be feared.” He served as headmaster of Hiroshima Higher Normal School in 1902, president of Tohoku Imperial University in 1913, and president of Gakushuin in 1917.
Graduation commemorative photo of 1902. Headmaster Hojo is in the center of the front row, and Nishida is fourth from the right in the second row.
（２） The School Spirit of Shiko: “Transcendentalism”
Transcendentalism is said to have originated in 1906 when the kitchen, dining hall, and south dormitory of the Jishu Dorm were burned down in a fire, causing most of the 150 dormitory residents to leave. However, 38 students decided to barricade themselves inside the dormitory in order to rebuild it and revitalize the school’s culture, and proclaimed their determination to find their own path forward by advocating transcendentalism.
The word “transcendent” was a kind of buzzword, but it was sometimes used to mean an elitist who viewed the secular world as corrupt and based his own anti-secularism on distancing himself from it, while striving to take a high position and become a leader in society, and sometimes it was used with a reclusive nuance. The Transcendental Intentions explicitly rejects a secluded lifestyle and affirms an elite one, and outlines the specific ways in which students should behave in order to achieve this.
A plaque reading “transcendent”
（３）Pursuit of the Arts and Martial Arts through Freedom and Autonomy
The clothing and lifestyle of students at the Fourth Higher School was called “bankara,” and consisted of tattered school uniforms, tattered caps, capes, wooden clogs, long hair, and a hand towel around their waist. A distinctive lifestyle was the partying that included singing dormitory songs around a bonfire (firestorms) and going out into the streets.
The achievements of the sports clubs are symbolic of Shiko during the Taisho period. The sports clubs belonged to a student association called Hokushinkai, or the North Star Association, and included many sports such as judo, kendo, archery, and rowing. Their expedition, known as the Southern Army, was an event that symbolized the school’s identity. The cultural clubs were also very active, and the alumni association magazine, Hokushinkai Zasshi (later Hokushin), was edited by the magazine club (later the literary club), and produced many people who later became active in academic and literary circles.
The custom of firestorm and singing dormitory songs was at one point carried over to the current Affiliated Senior High School.
Students at Fourth Higher School in 1933
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.