c. The Issuance of the 1907 Normal School Regulations

Due to the general expansion of the school system, particularly that connected with the extension of the compulsory education period, it became increasingly important to expand the scale of the normal school system. The 1907 Normal School Regulations were issued in April, 1907, and put in force in April, 1908, which specified in detail the purpose of training students, preparatory and regular courses (subjects and their standards, teaching days and holidays, organization, textbooks, admission, expulsion and discipline, costs, and duties of graduates), short training courses, attached elementary schools and kindergartens, facilities and equipment, establishment and abolition of schools, etc. Thus in normal schools, a preparatory course and a regular course were established. The regular course was divided into two tracks. The preparatory course offered a one-year course to graduates of a two-year course of a higher elementary school; graduates of this preparatory course joined those of a three-year course of a higher elementary school in the four-year first track of the regular course of a normal school. On the other hand, graduates of a middle school and a girls' high school entered the second track of the regular course, which boys' graduates of a middle school and girls' graduates of a five-year course of a girls' high school could complete after one year study and girls' graduates of a four-year course of a girls' high school could complete after two years study, The second track was of extreme importance in terms of the system, for it linked the normal schools to middle schools and girls' high schools and provided an avenue for later advancement to specialized schools.