[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 achievement for the first time in nearly a century. Koshien Stadium shook to the sound of "Wakaki-chi." KEIO's "Enjoy Baseball" leaped out of the sweltering Koshien Stadium, swept across Japan, and became a social phenomenon.

Now, once participation in Koshien is decided, a vast number of questionnaires arrive from newspapers, magazines, television, and other media. 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 high school under the new system, some say the founding year should be 1948, when Keio Gijuku First High School and Second High School were born. Certainly, since the name Keio Senior High School dates from the postwar period, the 1948 theory is reasonable. 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 postwar educational reforms. Including the eras of its predecessors, the old-system Keio Futsubu School and the School of Commerce and Industry, the Keio Senior High School baseball club is a traditional powerhouse boasting 10 appearances in the spring Koshien and 19 in the summer. Moreover, as the victory after 107 years became national news this time, the team was crowned champions in the 2nd tournament in 1916 (Taisho 5).

Through the postwar educational reforms, while public old-system middle schools were converted directly into high schools and many private schools reorganized their 5-year middle schools into 3-3 middle and high school systems, 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 high schools. This background was already 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 champion of the 2nd tournament would be lost.

Then, what if we assume the "founding" was in 1898, when the Keio Futsubu School became a school equivalent to an old-system middle school? Certainly, the Koshien issue would be resolved, but that 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)—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 also lie there. In other words, if the baseball club was founded in 1888 and the school was founded in 1898, it 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, which is considered the beginning of Keio University? Not only the Koshien issue, but everything would become clear, wouldn't it?

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

Former President Tadao Ishikawa, who served as the President of Keio University for the longest postwar period of four terms (1977–93), stated the following in the "Keio Senior High School Alumni Association Newsletter, 2nd General Meeting Special Issue" (1987): "In Keio University, within the 'Keio University Bylaws' which could be called the constitution of the institution, the university, the high school, the Keio Futsubu School, the Chutobu Junior High School, and the Yochisha 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 as seen in other universities, but indeed possesses its own identity." As you can see from the Keio University organizational chart, Keio Senior High School is not a university-affiliated high school. If I may venture to say, 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, in Keio University, not only the university but also the Keio Futsubu School, Keio 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 would there be in setting the founding of Keio Senior High School as 1858?

In fact, as we have seen, if we go back in time centered on the baseball club in search of the origins of the school's founding, we easily pass through 1948 (the birth of the new-system high school), 1916 (the time of the Koshien victory), 1898 (when the Keio Futsubu School became an old-system middle school), and 1892 (the founding of the Athletic Association), jumping all the way back to 1888, the birth of the Mita Baseball Club. By that point, the college had not even been born. Continuing further upstream to 1858, there is only the image of 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 an analogy, 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 accordance with the demands of the times and occasionally the demands 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 also the main stream itself, integrated with it.

In closing, I would like to quote the words of the first principal, Takuma Terao, once more to close the pages of this "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.