a. The Promulgation of the Normal School Order

The Normal School Order, which was promulgated on April 10, 1886, along with the various related regulations, including the 1886 Subjects and Their Standards for Ordinary Normal Schools issued in May of that year and Subjects and Their Standards for the Higher Normal School issued in October of that year, sought to establish a completely independent normal school system for teacher training, distinct from the elementary schools, middle schools, and the Imperial University.

Article 1 of the Normal School Order specified that "normal schools will be the place for training those who will become teachers, and attention ought to be paid to ensuring that the students are those possessing a good and obedient, faithful, and respectful character." Next, normal schools were divided into two levels, higher and ordinary normal schools. Provision was made for one higher normal school to be established in Tokyo, and this was to be directly administered by the Minister of Education and supported by the National Treasury. (Thus Tokyo Normal School was reorganized into the Higher Normal School in April, 1886.) Ordinary normal schools were to be established in each prefecture, and these were to be supported from local tax funds. The ordinary normal schools were for training the principals and teachers of local public elementary schools while the higher normal school was for training the principals and teachers of the ordinary normal schools.

Entrance into the ordinary normal schools was limited to those who completed the higher elementary school or their equivalent and who were between seventeen and twenty years of age. At the Higher Normal School, separate male and female courses were provided. The entrance requirement for the male course of the Higher Normal School was graduation from an ordinary normal school, and the length of the course was set at three years. Entrance into the female course of the Higher Normal School was limited to those who had completed the second year of an ordinary normal school, and the length of the course was four years. On March 25, 1890, the female course of the Higher Normal School was made separate, and the Women's Higher Normal School was founded.