Former Shizutani School

A Lecture Hall Raised in 1701, National Treasure since 1953

The Former Shizutani School (旧閑谷学校, Kyu Shizutani Gakko) is a mid-Edo school complex at Shizutani, Bizen City, Okayama Prefecture, designated an Important Cultural Property on 4 July 1938, with the lecture hall raised to National Treasure status in 1953, on 14 November. The National Treasure is the lecture hall alone; the small study, the ceremonial gate, the practice hall with its tea room, and the library are Important Cultural Properties.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs sets out the founding in stages. Shizutani School was begun in 1666 by Ikeda Mitsumasa, lord of the Okayama domain, for the education of the sons of commoners in his territory. Mitsumasa admired the quiet of the place on an inspection tour and ordered Tsuda Nagatada to establish a writing school here, which opened in 1668.

Nagatada added a refectory, dormitories, a lecture hall and a hall of the sages, and in 1675 abolished the writing schools opened at the same time in the districts and consolidated them at Shizutani. As these buildings were still rough, a new hall of the sages followed in 1684 and a memorial hall in 1686, and the lecture hall was rebuilt and raised in 1701. That is the present building. The stone wall around the grounds was built in the same year.

A Local School Larger Than a Domain School

The Agency's judgement runs: with the school buildings, the lecture hall, small study, practice hall and library grouped at the centre, the hall of the sages and the memorial shrine set side by side on higher ground to the east, and the dormitories placed beyond a low hill to the west, the composition, though that of a local school, has a scale surpassing the domain schools of its day, and it is the oldest and best ordered surviving example of Edo-period school architecture.

A local school served those outside the samurai class and ranked below the domain school, which served the samurai. That such a school was larger than a domain school is what marks this one.

The layout is also assessed. School buildings at the centre, the hall of the sages to the east, the dormitories to the west. Three zones set at differing heights are what lies behind the phrase best ordered surviving example.

The Lecture Hall: An Open Veranda and Cusped Windows

The lecture hall measures 19.4 metres along the front and 15.6 metres deep, single storey, hip-and-gable roof, tiled.

The Agency describes the interior: a core three bays by two is surrounded by a wide aisle, and beyond that a veranda about 1.7 metres wide, its outer edge carried on columns and normally left open, the shutters closed only at night. Core and aisle are floored alike in polished boards at one level, with a grooveless sill at the junction.

Left open means without fittings, standing exposed. The veranda is open to the air through the day and shuttered only at night. Setting core and aisle at the same floor level, with a sill that has no groove between them, lets the interior run without a step.

The outer face of the aisle carries a door at the centre of each side and large cusped windows elsewhere. The Agency finds in this a freshness proper to a school building and an atmosphere fitting to Confucian learning.

Bizen Tiles and a Two-Stage Roof

The roof is laid in two stages, its pitch changing partway. The Agency notes that as the whole is large in scale and the gable ends are plastered, the exterior stands imposing, like a residence within a castle.

One further sentence follows: the tiles are Bizen ware, and the thorough waterproofing of the roof boarding is without parallel and remarkable.

Bizen ware is unglazed stoneware fired at high temperature, ordinarily made into vessels. Using it for roof tiles has no other example. That, with the waterproofing beneath, is what the Agency calls without parallel.

The stone wall was built around the grounds in 1701, the same year as the lecture hall, marking out the bounds of the school.

Visiting

The Former Shizutani School is open to visitors and an admission charge applies. Hours and charges change from time to time, so check before travelling.

The lecture hall can be entered. Its polished board floor has been worked smooth, and the way core and aisle run on without a step can be seen directly. From inside, the row of cusped windows shows how the light enters.

The small study, ceremonial gate, practice hall with tea room, and library on the grounds are Important Cultural Properties, designations separate from the lecture hall. Walking these with the hall of the sages and the shrine on the higher ground east, and the site of the dormitories to the west, gives a sense of the layout the Agency assessed.

From Yoshinaga Station on the JR Sanyo Main Line it is about ten minutes by car, and about ten minutes from the Bizen interchange on the Sanyo Expressway.