學海指針社 - 帝國讀本 巻之一 Teisei Teikoku Tokuhon - 1893-1894

Corrected Imperial Reader, Volume I (Teisei Teikoku Tokuhon, Volume I)
Edited by 学海指針社 (Gakkai Shishinsha)

Published in Tokyo by Kobayashi Hachirō / Shūeidō (集英堂), circa Meiji 26-27 (1893-1894).

Corrected edition (訂正), approved by the Ministry of Education (文部省検定済).

Traditional Japanese format (wasō, fukuro-toji binding), yellow paper cover with a title label on the back.
Sizes: 22.5 × 15 cm.
62 pages (about 30 sheets).

It is an elementary reading book (読本) for children of primary schools in the Meiji era, one of the most widespread private school texts before the definitive introduction of state textbooks (1903-1904). Volume I introduces the Hiragana syllabary and a basic vocabulary through short sentences and richly woodblock-illustrated images, often hand-colored or stencil-colored.

Illustrated content (excerpt from visible pages):
• Typical landscapes (shrine torii, sailing boats on the river, fields).
• National flag (Hinomaru) with leaves and patriotic elements.
• Animals: rooster on a branch, fish, cat, dog, weasel.
• Parts of the human body (head, ear, mouth, eye) and portrait of a young person in traditional dress.
• Traditional weapons (bow, arrows, spear, katana).
• Scenes of daily life and military life (soldiers marching, domestic interiors).

The text alternates large characters for children with furigana, using simple, moralizing language typical of Meiji education.

This is a copy of the Teikoku Tokuhon series (“Imperial Reader”), one of the main reading lines for primary schools in the late Meiji period. Approved by the Ministry of Education, it represents a precious document of Japanese educational modernization: the meeting of Confucian/patriotic tradition and Western methods of teaching reading through images.

Complete or well-preserved copies are now rare on the market, because school books from that era were designed for heavy use and often destroyed. Volume I, being the first in the series, is particularly sought after by collectors of Japanese children’s books, the history of education, and Meiji illustration. The original fukuro-toji binding and vivid illustrations increase its antiquarian and documentary interest.

Condition: typical signs of use (stains, pencil markings by a student, slight paper darkening), but intact structure and solid binding.

A lovely piece of late 19th-century Japanese educational history.