Women’s education at Meiji Jogakkō and martial arts

Abstract

The topic of bushidō in education has recently been explored by Gainty (2013), Benesch (2014), and several Japanese historians in Japan, such as Sōgawa (2017). However, martial arts and bushidō, as found in the education for women, remains a largely untreated issue, despite the great attention women and their physical education received in the discourses regarding the creation of a healthy modern nation that took place during and after the Meiji period (1868–1912).1 By looking at numerous primary sources, this paper, building upon Lukminaitė (2018), focuses on Meiji Jogakkō’s2 instruction of budō3 as a modern means of physical education (PE). It aims to provide new insights into how budō was perceived, treated in writing, and functionally put into practice.