• Duration: February 7th - March 18th
• Location: Temporary exhibition room of the 2nd floor, The Kyoto University Museum
• Opening time, closed days, admission fee, and traffic

The Yoshida South Campus, where Faculty of Integrated Human Studies and Graduate School of Human and Environmental Sciences of Kyoto University stand, is a historic place providing the basis for higher education. It was home to the Third High School (Dai San Koto Gakko) in the pre-war period, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the post-war period. It is why Library of Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies/Faculty of Integrated Human Studies holds the former collection of the Third High School, which escaped war damage.

In a water rupture accident in the winter of 2004, the modern educational wall charts from the former Third High School collection suffered water damage among other books. In an attempt to turn the disaster into a blessing, the graduate school has been restoring, arranging and studying the said wall charts. As a result, We are now holding a joint exhibition with Kyoto University Museum: Learning by Seeing and Teaching by Showing, Exhibition of Modern Educational Wall charts Preserved in Kyoto University.

Modern educational wall chart collection of the Third High School totals 294, and it encompasses various areas of arts and sciences, including topographical and geological maps, operation maps, botanical, zoological and paleontological charts, periodic tables, ancient customs and legends, chronological tables, and anatomical charts. Historically, it ranges from the ones used for instruction at the predecessors of the Third High School, i.e. former Osaka School of Western Study (Osaka Yo Gakko, established in Osaka in 1869), and Osaka English School (Osaka Eigo Gakko, established in 1874), to the ones published during the World War II. Kyoto University Museum also possesses valuable wall charts, such as the sixty pieces of botanical wall charts based on Kohler's Medizinal-Pflanzen, which used to hang in the Pharmacologica1 laboratory in the former College of Medicine of Kyoto Imperial Universlty, forerunner of the Faculty of Medicine.

This exhibition has selected 65 out of the 356 wall charts in the university collection, by classifying them into six parts together with relevant reference material. It explores into the reality of the modern Japan’s elite education, the supporting national policy, and the historical background, while at the same time shedding light to history of modern printing technology.

Western Studies in Meiji Era: Osaka School of Western Study and Osaka English School
Seeking Resources: Path to an Industry-oriented Nation
Tradition and Ancient Customs and Legends
Learning by Seeing: Foreign Language Teaching Material of Ed. Holzel
Spectacle of Lithographic Wall charts
Rise and Fall of the ‘Empire’

Thanks to Kanazawa University Library, images of its fourteen educational Wall charts printed by Ed. Ho1zel from the former Fourth High School co11ection are displayed on a large screen in the exhibition hall.

I hope this exhibition serves to sharing of history among East Asian countries as well as between generations, and to international understanding of the light and shadow of the modernization of Japan.

My heartfelt appreciation is extended to those who have contributed to holding this exhibition.

February 7, 2007