「国語科」の発見とその歴史的意義 : 坪井仙次郎『小学国語科之説』を中心に

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the historical significance that the frame of "Kokugo-ka (a subject of Japanese) " has, by paying attention to the time before "Kokugo-ka" was established in elementary school. The author dealt with the book "Syogaku-Kokugo-ka-no-setsu (The opinion about the establishment of "Kokugo ka" in the elementary school)" for the analysis This book was written by Senjiro Tuboi and published by Fukui-seiho-do in 1889(Meiji 22). It is the leading book that had a clear and systematical argument about the necessity of "Kokugo-ka" in elementary school more than ten years before "Kokugo-ka" was established in 1900(Meiji 33). However, as for this book, even its existence was hardly known until the present. The other purpose of this paper is to introduce its contents and the significance of this book. By analyzing it, the following became clear. The 1st point is the height of consciousness for the language education in the beginning of the Meiji 20's. Senjiro Tuboi was arguing about the necessity and the significance of "Kokugo-ka" in elementary school systematically more than 10 years before it was established. The reason why Tsuboi emphasized this point is because he believed that there was a need for the education of the spoken language. However, it was difficult to add a new subject in a situation where the children are already overloaded.. Therefore, he dismantled the frames that hold the traditional "Dokushyo (a subject of reading)", "Sakubun (a subject of composition)" and "Shuji (a subject of calligraphy)" in those days and he re-organized the whole language education. He suggested a systematical language education based on the education of the spoken language It was an epoch making proposal when "Dokusyo", "Sakubun" and "Shuji" were done independently. The existence of this proposal proves the height of his consciousness of language education. The 2nd point is about the influence, which the discovery of "Kokugo-ka" gave the contents of the language education. Tsuboi clearly distinguished "Kokugo-ka" from the subjects of which its main purpose is conveying knowledge. Because he assumed that "Kokugo-ka" is the subject in which they teach only about language. In those days such a view of language education was peculiar to him because other people thought of language education as the education only for literacy. As a result, in "Dokusyo" and "Sakubun", they usually taught the knowledge of geography, history, science and so on. In other words, significance that is peculiar to language education wasn't sufficiently found. On the other hand, Tsuboi insisted that they must teach only about language in "Kokugo ka" and pointed out the ability of "silent reading" and "dictation" as the linguistic ability to train. Such abilities were beyond so-called literacy. It is possible to say that a frame of "Kokugo-ka" deepened Tsuboi's view on language education and that it made him discover the original significance of "Kokugo-ka".