[Special Article] Do You Really Know Keio Senior High School? An Adventure Surrounding the Mystery of the School's Founding Year and the Baseball Club's Founding Year

2023/11/15

This summer, the Keio Gijuku Shachu celebrated the Keio Senior High School baseball club's first major achievement in nearly a century. Koshien Stadium shook to the sounds of "Wakaki-chi." Keio's "Enjoy Baseball" spirit leapt beyond the sweltering Koshien Stadium, swept across Japan, and became a social phenomenon.

Now, once a school's participation in Koshien is decided, a massive volume of questionnaires arrives from newspapers, magazines, and television stations. Among them, there are always questions regarding the school's founding year and the baseball club's founding year.

In the case of Keio Senior High School, since it is a school under the new system, some argue that the founding year should be 1948, when Keio Gijuku First Senior High School and Second Senior High School were born. Certainly, since the name "Keio Senior High School" dates from the post-war era, the 1948 theory is plausible. In fact, in 2002, when I was appointed as the baseball club manager, every school introduction listed both the school's founding and the club's founding as 1948.

However, if we change our perspective and look back at history with the baseball club as the axis, the Keio Senior High School baseball club existed before the 6-3-3-4 system was established by the post-war educational reforms. Including its predecessors, the old-system Keio Futsubu School and the School of Commerce and Industry, Keio Senior High School is a traditional powerhouse boasting 10 spring and 19 summer Koshien appearances. Moreover, as the news of their first championship in 107 years became a national headline this time, they were crowned champions in the 2nd tournament in 1916 (Taisho 5).

Following the post-war educational reforms, while public old-system middle schools were converted directly into high schools and many private schools reorganized their five-year middle schools into 3-3 junior and senior high school complexes, at Keio, the Keio Futsubu School became a new-system boys' junior high school, and Keio First and Second High Schools were "born" as new-system senior high schools. This background was detailed in the May issue of this magazine. However, if we take this to mean the "founding" of Keio Senior High School was 1948, the number of Koshien appearances would be cut by more than half, and the honor of being the 2nd tournament champions would be lost.

Then, what if we set the "founding" to 1898, when the Keio Futsubu School became a school equivalent to an old-system middle school? While this would resolve the Koshien issue, it would not solve the problem of the club's founding year.

This is because, during the "Keio Baseball and Modern Japan" exhibition held at the Keio History Museum in Mita in the summer of 2022 (Reiwa 4), I discovered and announced that the central figures of the "Mita Baseball Club"—founded in 1888 (Meiji 21) and previously considered the origin of the university's Athletic Association baseball club—were actually in their mid-teens, the age of current high school students, and that the roots of the Keio Senior High School baseball club lie there as well. In other words, if the baseball club was founded in 1888 and the school was founded in 1898, the timeline does not add up.

So, while keeping the baseball club's founding year as 1888, what if we change our thinking and set the school's founding year to 1858, the year Keio University began? Not only the Koshien issue, but everything becomes clear, doesn't it?

If you think about it, by having only the university claim 1858 as its founding year, Keio University's affiliated schools often face historical "contradictions" like this one (or so I believe; what do you think?).

Former President Tadao Ishikawa, who served the longest post-war tenure of four terms (1977–93), stated the following in the "Keio Senior High School Alumni Association Newsletter, 2nd General Meeting Special Issue" (1987): "Within Keio University, in the 'Keio University Bylaws'—which could be called the institution's constitution—the university, the senior high school, the Keio Futsubu School, the Chutobu Junior High School, and the Yochisha Elementary School are all placed on equal footing as schools established by Keio University." He continued, "(Keio Senior High School) is not a university-affiliated high school in the sense seen at other universities, but possesses its own distinct identity." As you can see from the Keio University organizational chart, Keio Senior High School is not a mere subsidiary high school. If anything, like the university, it is a part of Keio University, and is Keio University itself.

To begin with, the affiliated schools of Keio University are a "community with consistency based on the philosophy clarified in 'The Mission of Keio University,' looking up to Yukichi Fukuzawa as their common founder," while each school maintains its own identity. In other words, within Keio University, not only the university but also the Keio Futsubu School, the Senior High School, and other affiliated schools are parts of "Keio University" with their own uniqueness and individual missions. If that is the case, what problem could there be in setting the founding of Keio Senior High School to 1858?

In fact, as we have seen, if we trace back through time centered on the baseball club in search of the school's origins, we easily pass through the birth of the new-system high school in 1948, the Koshien victory in 1916, the year the Keio Futsubu School became an old-system middle school in 1898, and the founding of the Athletic Association in 1892, jumping all the way back to the birth of the Mita Baseball Club in 1888. By that point, the college department had not even been born. Continuing further upstream to 1858, we find only the Fukuzawa Juku, where the ages of the Keio students were varied.

Keio University existed before the state created a school system categorized by age (age-grading). To use a metaphor, Keio University is a wide and deep river that has developed greatly across eras to the present day, creating new schools (tributaries), reorganizing (merging), and changing its form (flow) in response to the needs of the times and, occasionally, the needs of the state. Keio Senior High School is one of those rivers, but as we have seen, its flow is part of the main stream of Keio University, and is the main stream itself, integrated with it.

In closing, I would like to quote the words of the first principal, Takuma Terao, to end this page of "adventure": "New yet old, old yet new. This can be said to be the form of Keio Senior High School."

Indeed, exquisitely put. There could be no words that more accurately express the nature of Keio Senior High School.