Editing Edo period (section)

=== Education ===
[[File:Bungaku-Bandai_no-Takara-Terakoya-School-by-Issunshi-Hanasato.png|thumb|[[Terakoya]], private educational school]]
The first shogun Ieyasu set up Confucian academies in his ''[[Shinpan (daimyo)|shinpan]]'' domains and other ''daimyos'' followed suit in their own domains, establishing what's known as [[Han school|''han'' schools]] (藩校, ''hankō'').<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2">Hane, Mikiso. ''Premodern Japan: A historical survey''. Routledge, 2018.</ref> Within a generation, almost all samurai were literate, as their careers often required knowledge of literary arts.<ref name=":0" /> These academies were staffed mostly with other samurai, along with some buddhist and shinto clergymen who were also learned in Neo-Confucianism and the works of [[Zhu Xi]].When the clergy of [[Shinto]] religion were alive, samurai, Buddhist monks were also there.<ref name=":0" /> Beyond [[kanji]] (Chinese characters), the Confucian classics, calligraphy, basic arithmetics, and etiquette,<ref name=":2" /> the samurai also learned various martial arts and military skills in schools.<ref name=":0" />

The ''[[chōnin]]'' (urban merchants and artisans) patronized neighborhood schools called ''[[terakoya]]'' (寺子屋, "temple schools").<ref name=":0" /> Despite being located in temples, the ''[[terakoya]]'' curriculum consisted of basic literacy and arithmetic, instead of literary arts or philosophy.<ref name=":0" /> High rates of urban literacy in Edo contributed to the prevalence of novels and other literary forms.<ref name=":2" /> In urban areas, children were often taught by masterless samurai, while in rural areas priests from Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines often did the teaching.<ref name=":2" /> Unlike in the cities, in rural Japan, only children of prominent farmers would receive education.<ref name=":2" />

In Edo, the shogunate set up several schools under its direct patronage, the most important being the neo-Confucian {{Nihongo|''[[Shōheikō]]''|昌平黌}} acting as a de facto elite school for its bureaucracy but also creating a network of alumni from the whole country. Besides Shoheikō, other important directly run schools at the end of the shogunate included the {{Nihongo|''[[Wagakukōdansho]]''|和学講談所|4="Institute of Lectures of Japanese classics"}}, specialized in Japanese domestic history and literature, influencing the rise of {{lang|ja-latn|[[kokugaku]]}}, and the {{Nihongo|''[[Igakukan]]''|医学間|4="Institute of medicine"}}, focusing on [[Traditional Chinese medicine|Chinese medicine]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kobayashi|first=Tetsuya|title=Society, Schools, and Progress in Japan|publisher=Pergamon|year=1976|isbn=9781483136226|pages=14–}}</ref>

One estimate of literacy in Edo suggest that up to a fifth of males could read, along with a sixth of women.<ref name=":0" /> Another estimate states that 40% of men and 10% of women by the end of the Edo period were literate.<ref>See Martha Tocco, "Norms and texts for women's education in south east china Tokugawa Japan." In Ko, Haboush, and Piggott, Women and Confucian Cultures, 193–218.</ref> According to another estimate, around 1800, almost 100% of the samurai class and about 50% to 60% of the ''[[chōnin]]'' (craftsmen and merchants) class and ''nōmin'' (peasants) class were literate.<ref name = "seikei"/> Some historians partially credited Japan's relatively high literacy rates for its fast development after the Meiji Restoration.<ref name=":2" />

As the literacy rate was so high that many ordinary people could read books, books in various genres such as cooking, gardening, travel guides, art books, scripts of ''[[bunraku]]'' (puppet theatre), ''[[kibyōshi]]'' (satirical novels), ''[[sharebon]]'' (books on urban culture), ''[[kokkeibon]]'' (comical books), ''[[ninjōbon]]'' (romance novel), ''[[yomihon]]'' and ''[[kusazōshi]]'' were published. There were 600 to 800 rental bookstores in Edo, and people borrowed or bought these [[Woodblock printing in Japan|woodblock print]] books. The best-selling books in this period were ''Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko'' (''Life of an Amorous Man'') by [[Ihara Saikaku]], ''[[Nansō Satomi Hakkenden]]'' by [[Takizawa Bakin]] and ''[[Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige]]'' by [[Jippensha Ikku]] and these books were reprinted many times.<ref name ="edobooks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20201019205019/https://www.kodomo.go.jp/gallery/edoehon/era/index_e.html Edo Picture Books and the Edo Period.] National Diet Library.</ref><ref name = "seikei">[https://web.archive.org/web/20210224122700/http://www.book-seishindo.jp/seikei_tanq/tanq_2013B-06.pdf ''第6回 和本の楽しみ方4 江戸の草紙'' p.3.]. Konosuke Hashiguchi. (2013) Seikei University.</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20191228234126/https://www.nihonbashi-tokyo.jp/en/history/culture.html Nihonbashi.] Mitsui Fudosan.</ref><ref>Keizaburo Seimaru. (2017) ''江戸のベストセラー''. Yosensha. {{ISBN|978-4800312556}}</ref>