<論説>地域における「官立学校」の成立 : 高等中学校医学部の岡山県下設置問題

Abstract

一八八六年「諸学校令」中の中学校令は、府県の財政難および府県学校の規格化を促す文部省の通則公布によって顕在化した問題、すなわち広域に益する地域高等教育機関の経費支弁主体はどこであるべきかという本質的難問の浮上を背景に成立した法令であった。発足した新制度・高等中学校は、包括的かつ不確定な枠組みであったため、各地では様々な反応が喚起され、制度の実質はそれを反映しつつ徐々に形成された。有力な県医学校を擁する岡山県では、当周が文部省の条件付内示に応じ、県会を強引に押し切って多額の初期設置経費の負担を決定、高等中学校医学部の設置に至り、県医学校を引き継がせる形となる。他府県の対応も多様であった。高等中学校はやがて経費支弁と管理の主体が国に一元化されたことをもって、初めて「官立」学校となったと定義できる。そしてその設立は、地域による「誘致」ではなく、文部省の主導の下、府県側の「受入」によって実現したと捉え直すことができる。

In 1886, the Imperial Ordinance regarding Middle Schools was promulgated by the first Minister of State for Education, Mori Arinori. Middle Schools were divided into two types, the higher of which was called koto chugakko, higher middle schools, which were responsible for both preparatory education for the Imperial University and for professional education. The ordinance was designed to solve the fundamental problem of how the costs of higher educational institutions, which were of benefit to broad areas, should be defrayed. Through the first half of 1880s, the problem was becoming increasingly evident due to the financial exhaustion of the prefectures and standardization of the prefectural schools by ministerial ordinances. The new system and the koto chugakko were comprehensive and uncertain enough to arouse various responses from the prefectures, out of which the substance of this system was to be gradually formed. Important matters such as how the costs of the koto chugakko should be defrayed, where they should be placed, or how districts that would be created across the nation should be determined remained unresolved for some time. One article of the ordinance explained that in some cases costs could be defrayed partly out of the national treasury and partly out of local taxes. Okayama prefecture had maintained an influential medical school but the prefectural assembly reduced its budget each year. A national subsidy for the school was required, while at the same time improvement of the prefectural middle-school education was also needed. The Ministry of Education approached Okayama prefecture unofficially with the offer that the medical branch of a koto chugakko could be established in Okayama on condition that the prefectural medical school would be maintained by local taxes for the time being and the initial cost to build the branch would be provided by the local side. The prefectural assembly was thrown into a state of confusion and resisted the offer, but the prefectural authorities forced them to accept it. The cost was paid out of local taxes and donations by the prefectural officials and local leaders. The facilities of the prefectural hospital were improved in order to provide practical training for the students, and this too was supported by local taxes. The branch medical school was begun through the process of taking over the equipment and the staff of the prefectural school. As for the neighboring prefectures in the same region, Hyogo put an end to its prefectural medical school and enrolled its students in the new medical branch of the koto chugakko in Okayama. Kyoto prefecture decided to accept the unofficial, conditional offer of the ministry, as had Okayama. The officials in Kyoto supposed that not only the main school but also the medical branch would be built in Kyoto. They hoped that the middle school and the medical education in Kyoto could be put into hands of the national government, but the medical branch was not in fact built in Kyoto but in Okayama instead. Osaka prefecture was not interested in this new koto chugakko system because its leading medical school had not been funded through local taxes but by income generated from medical fees and the like. In any case, Kyoto and Osaka managed to keep their own medical schools even after the koto chugakko was started in the region. The former was due to suspicions about the system, the latter due to the spirit of independence from it. The response of each prefecture varied in these ways, but whether their decisions would lead to success or to failure was uncertain at the time. Because of the resistance of prefectural assemblies everywhere and the legal confusion, the government was forced in 1888 to give instructions that defraying the cost of the koto chugakko out of local taxes would cease the following year. An article of the ordinance in 1886 stipulated that the koto chugakko were under the jurisdiction of the Minister of State for Education, but never referred to them as "national government schools." It can be said that it was not until the nation took responsibility for entire cost of running the schools and not simply administering them could that they could truly be defined as "national government schools". The establishment of the koto chugakko after 1890s came about not as result of local campaigns to "induce" the government to create them, but by administrative agreements in which prefectures "accepted" them as promoted by the Ministry of Education.