Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the 5th Tokugawa Shogun, strived to disseminate Confucianism to stabilize the management of the nation with the Tokugawa family at the top. He built “Yushima Seido” Confucian temple as the central educational institution of Confucianism in present-time Ochanomizu,Tokyo, in 1690, and assigned the Hayashi family, a leading Confucianist of the Tokugawa shogunate, as the principal. In 1797, the shogunate changed the name of the institution to Shoheizaka Gakumonjo and made it under the control of the shogunate. Many samurai throughout the country gathered here to study Neo-Confucianism, a kind of Confucianism focusing on the theory of the relationship between lord and vassal. After the Meiji Restoration, in the second half of the 19th century, the present-day University of Tokyo was founded from this school, and two schools for teacher training, the present-day University of Tsukuba and Ochanomizu University, were also established here. From this historical background, Yushima Seido (Shoheizaka Gakumonjo) is said to be the birthplace of modern higher education in Japan. The photo shows Taiseikan Hall, where Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, and other leading Confucianists are enshrined. This hall was rebuilt in 1935.
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