Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan
Richard Rubinger
University of Hawaii Press
The focus of Richard Rubinger's study of Japanese literacy is the   least-studied (yet overwhelming majority) of the premodern population: the   rural farming class. In this book-length historical exploration of the   topic, the first in any language, Rubinger dispels the misconception that   there are few materials available for the study of popular literacy in   Japan. He analyzes a rich variety of untapped sources from the sixteenth   century onward, drawing for the first time on material that allows him to   measure literacy: signatures on apostasy oaths, diaries, agricultural   manuals, home encyclopedias, rural poetry contest entries, village election   ballots, literacy surveys, and family account books.<P>The book begins by   tracing the origins of popular literacy up to the Tokugawa period and goes   on to discuss the pivotal roles of village headmen during the early   sixteenth century, a group extraordinarily skilled in administrative   literacy using the Sino-Japanese hybrid language favored by their warrior   overlords. In time literacy began to spread beyond the leadership class to   household heads, particularly those in towns and farming communities   involved in commerce, and eventually to women, employees, and servants.   Rubinger identifies substantial and enduring differences in the ability to   read and write between commoners in the cities and those in the country   until the eighteenth century, when the vigorous popular culture of Kyoto,   Osaka, and Edo (Tokyo) attracted village leaders and caused them to extend   their capabilities. Later chapters focus on the nineteenth-century   expansion of literacy to wider constituencies of farmers and townspeople.   Using direct measures of literacy attainment such as village surveys,   election ballots, diaries, and letters, Rubinger demonstrates the spread of   basic reading and writing skills into virtually every corner of Japanese   society. The book ends by examining data on illiteracy generated from   conscription examinations given by the Japanese army during the Meiji   period, bringing the discussion into the twentieth century. Rubinger's   analysis of this information suggests that geographical factors and local   traditions of learning and culture may have been more important than school   attendance in explaining why illiteracy continued to persist in some   areas.<P> Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan  will find a ready   audience among modern and premodern Japan historians and social scientists.   It will also appeal to scholars of Japanese language and literature and   those with a general interest in literacy studies.