The arguments on physical education administration of the Physical Education Bureau, Ministry of Education, Science and Culture: Focusing on the decision-making process of the discontinuation of Physical Education Bureau in 1949

This study aims to clarify 1） the enactment process of Ministry of Education, Science and Culture Establishment Act and the decision-making process of the discontinuation of the Physical Education Bureau, 2) the arguments on physical education administration of the Physical Education Bureau in the process. The results are as follows. <BR>1） The purpose of the reorganization of the ministry was to remove some administrative functions and to simplify the administration. CIE proposed the reorganization plans contemplated an organization on an object basis such as elementary and secondary education, higher education and social education, and the discontinuation of the Physical Education Bureau basis on the plans. On the other hand, CIE was not against the contents of the arguments. <BR>2） Physical Education Bureau stood against CIE’s plan, and they built comprehensive and systematic arguments in order to justify the existence of a central administrative body for physical education. They insisted that physical education programs were complex in nature and should have been conducted by all groups of the whole nation. Furthermore, they emphasized that the connections of each of the programs was that the living conditions of students were the root of school health and hygiene and physical education activities and then school health and hygiene were the fundamentals of physical education activities. Their arguments were also largely based on the old saying, “A healthy mind in a healthy body”. As mentioned above, this study has suggested a possibility that the arguments in the process has become the ideological and theoretical basis of the re-establishment of the Physical Education Bureau in 1958.