| Abstract |
The Japanese government in the Meiji period promulgated school education policies known as gakusei in 1872, after the Meiji revolution. Those policies were an imitation of Western compulsory music edu...cation. The music subject was called shoka, but there were no teachers and no textbooks in Japan, so in October 1879 the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture established the music education research institution "Ogaku-Trishirabe-Gkari". The chief of Ongaku Torishirabe Gakari "Shuji Izawa, brought over Luther Whiting Mason, (who taught school music education to Izawa at Bridgewater Tteahers College in Boston) and published a the first music textbook in Japan–the "Shogaku-Shokashu."" It contains 91 Japanese school songs, but many of them are based on foreign originals, like German folk songs or English hymns and school songs. As a result of the educational policy of the Meiji government, 52 songs are didactic in nature or contain lyrics praising the spirit of patriotism and loyalty to the leader. This paper aims at identifying the abovementioned contents in the songs of the "Shogaku-Shokashu" by comparing the translations to the original English texts. The lyrics of the "Shogaku-Shokashu" are not exact translations and some papers insist that didactic content was added afterwards in Japan. Then how much of such content did the Ongaku Torishirabe Gakari add? In other words, how many liberties were taken when translating the lyrics? This paper seeks answers to these questions through a comparison of lyrics. It also examines contemporary music education in U.S. schools, because many pieces in the "Shogaku Shokashu" are based on American school songs.show more
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