Toriyama Hiraku, The Pioneer of modern Japanese childrenʼs reading materials

  Toriyama Hiraku (1873-1914) is known as a composer of Gunkan March, or as a mentor of Minamikata Kumagusu at Wakayama Junior High School. Toriyama has also made a major contribution to developing childrenʼs reading materials as a translator of the Enlightenment at the beginning of the Meiji Period. However, not much has been mentioned about his work in modern history of Japanese childrenʼs literature, history of textbooks, or history of the Japanese language.<br>  In this article, I first examined Toriyamaʼs representative translated textbook, Saazento Monogatari. The book was translated from part of a reader, Sargentʼs Standard Reader, published in the United States, and consisted of two volumes, both of which were published from “Kanabumishiya” in 1873 (the first volume) and in 1874 (the second volume). Writers of translated textbooks at that time wrote in the style mixing hiragana and Chinese characters, which made it hard for children to read on their own. Unlike other writers, Toriyamaʼs translation was simple so that children were able to enjoy the stories. In addition, while many other translators of the Enlightenment added moral lessons at the end of the stories, Toriyama tried to provide simple translation that was close to the original text as much as possible, which enabled him to introduce the literary expressions of the original stories.<br>  Toriyama should be regarded as a pioneer for publishing many books such as Saazento Monogatari written only in hiragana. He used only hiragana for writing books which cover all of the areas of elementary education under the “Gakusei (the Educational Law, 1872)” of modern times Japan. Toriyama is the only person of the time who published textbooks for each area of elementary education, with a strong will to promote the orthography reformation.<br>  Among the books written only in hiragana, Kiuriichiroku, which was published in January 1874, had a distinctive feature. Reading the interaction among an aunt and three girls, we can still enjoy the conversation of the children as well as the auntʼs tone in explaining scientific facts metaphorically. It was a typical writing style of the scholar of the Enlightenment, Toriyama Hiraku. The book should be highly respected as pioneering work of“childrenʼs scientific readings”as well as conversational prose.<br>  In sum, Toriyamaʼs work at the beginning of the Meiji Period was extremely initiative and had an educational significance. However, childrenʼs readings written only in hiragana were not widely accepted. The goal of education at the time was to introduce children to the writing styles of adults as soon as possible. As a consequence, Toriyamaʼs attempt did not meet the educational needs of the time. Nevertheless, Toriyamaʼs works deserve an attention and should be highly re-evaluated for developing and publishing childrenʼs readings which can be used as textbooks of school subjects.