（1）The Problem of Reforming the Educational System

As stated earlier, the specialized courses of the higher schools could not show substantial development. Thus Education Minister Inoue Kowashi's plan failed to be realized, but the issue of education system reform subsisted.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the pace of the movement for reform of the educational system accelerated and the issue was debated in the Education System Research Society (Gakusei Kenkyukai) organized in 1894 by leading figures in the political and educational worlds as well as in the Imperial Diet. Among the famous arguments concerning education system reform presented at that time were the Theory of Education System Reform (Kyoiku Seido Kaikakuron) by Kubota Yuzuru(1847-1936), which was revealed in a speech at the lecture meeting of the Imperial Education Society (Teikoku Kyoikukai) held in November, 1899, and the Outline of Education System Reform (Gakusei Kaikaku Yoko) prepared by the Education System Reformist Society (Gakusei Kaikaku Doshikai) at its inaugural meeting in November, 1899, The latter took as its starting point the function of the Imperial Universities and argued that these institutions should be devoted exclusively to the fundamental research in arts and sciences and on the other hand, in order to provide specialized education for the purpose of training persons necessary for the state, the existing higher schools should be transformed into a new institution called "grand school" (daigakko), but needless to say, those concerned with the Imperial Universities were strongly opposed to such a change. In that it proved to be difficult to generate much momentum for reforming the Imperial Universities themselves, the debate shifted in the direction of shortening the period required until university graduation and at the same time of developing more practical higher educational institutions.