is a co-educational public senior high school in Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan.
Overview
Founded as a Han school in 1784, Edo period, Shuyukan is one of the oldest high schools in Japan with a history of over 200 years. After the Meiji Restoration, it was transformed into an English vocational school where all subjects were taught in English. Today, it is considered to be among the elite schools in Japan with a number of graduates continuing their studies at prestigious universities in Japan. The name "Shuyu" was taken from a passage in "The Charge to Prince Weizi" from Shangshu, a history text from ancient China. The school logo Rokkosei (Six-Light-Star) is a reference to a poem by Shu Shunsui (1600–1682), and is shaped after the North Star. Just as the North Star remains in the same position, consistently pointing towards the North, the Rokkosei serves as a pilot star that will guide the students throughout their lives towards a certain direction with unwavering faith.
History
Timeline
1784 February 6: Opening of Shuyukan (Higashi Gakumon Keikojo) as a Han school of Fukuoka Han (administrative division) with the order from Kuroda Naritaka, the 9th lord of Fukuoka Domain 1885 May 30: By orders from Fukuoka Prefecture, school reopened as English vocational school Fukuoka Prefectural Shuyukan (The school celebrates this date as the school anniversary) 1894 December: Rokkosei chosen as the school emblem 1900 July 17: Campus relocated from Daimyo to Nishijin (current location) 1923 School anthem Kanka established 1945 June 19: Severely damaged by Fukuoka Air Raids 1949 April: Became Co-educational 1949 August: Renamed Fukuoka Prefectural Shuyukan Senior High School (current name) 2002 April: Designated as Super Science High School (until 2006)
Historical context
During the Edo period, Kuroda clan became the feudal lord of Chikuzen Province, what is now the Fukuoka Prefecture. The first lord Kuroda Nagamasa strongly believed in the power of both pen and the sword, and encouraged young samurais in his domain to diligently engage not only in military arts but also in literary arts. Nagamasa had a keen interest in a wide range of topics. At a time when Oriental disciplines like Confucian philosophy, Chinese literature and classical Japanese were the mainstream subjects for study, he extended his attention to Occidental philosophy as well, including the Christian bible. Because of the Kuroda family's continuous enthusiasm in adopting scholarly insights under their rule, Kuroda-han flourished in a variety of academic fields, producing scholars from Confucian philosophy and classical Japanese, to Chinese herbology, agriculture, and medicine. When Kuroda Naritaka (younger brother of Tokugawa Ienari, the eleventh shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate) became the 9th lord of Kuroda-han at a young age in 1783, the advisory board summoned two renowned scholars of the domain, Takeda Sadayoshi and Kamei Nanmei, to each build a school in order to pass on their forebears’ scholastic ambition to the future generation.
Han-school years
In 1784, Takeda and Kamei each founded their han-schools and named it Shuyukan and Kantokan respectively. Due to the two schools’ location, Shuyukan was also called the Eastern-academy (Higashi Gakumon Keikojo), and Kantokan the Western-academy (Nishi Gakumon Keikojo). Kantokan was burnt down during a fire in 1798, and Shuyukan subsequently became the only han-school remaining. The 11th lord Nagahiro Kuroda was especially concerned with the education of his people throughout his life, and was particularly attentive to new cultures arriving from the Occident. With such pedagogical emphasis and interest in the West, he sent off many gifted samurais from Shuyukan to study at cosmopolitan cities in Japan and abroad, among whom was Kentaro Kaneko, a young han-samurai at the time, who continued his studies at Harvard University and later became one of the drafters of Meiji Constitution. With the waves of social change during the Meiji Restoration period, however, educational reform was underway. Because han-schools were limited to elite students from privileged samurai families, they were to be abolished for a more democratic school system open for all. Shuyukan was closed down in 1871, and thus was the end of its years as a han-school.
