PRELIMINARY REMARKS

TECHNICAL EDUCATION, TECHNICAL teaching, no matter what this process is called, it is all about the transmission or transfer of knowledge, specifically technical knowledge, from the teacher to the pupil, from an expert to the learner. The multitude of possibilities of such a transfer, which immediately becomes clear to anyone who even takes a glimpse at this topic, also means the danger of simply stringing together different micrōexamples in order to arrive at an overall picture.

In this volume, too, even though these difficulties are clear, different examples concerning technical learning are strung together. However, the purpose is not just to add one example to the other. The aim is to make visible how, in a country that previously had no concept of ‘technology’ as an object of knowledge transfer but conveyed it only by means of physically tangible objects and their use, technical knowledge of various kinds from abroad was absorbed and diffused. The examples in this volume show how such processes were supported or hindered by various conditions, but ultimately succeeded in a relatively short period.

Generally, the transfer of foreign technical knowledge differs greatly from the transfer of technology within a country where people share the same language, the same (professional) conditions, the same possibilities for the production and reproduction of knowledge. Difficulties begin with the question of translating technical terms that describe objects and processes that exist in one country but not in the other. Translating terms, or often creating new ones, opens up a process of unimagined problems. This in itself raises questions about the mechanisms by which this can be done and, not least, it is the agents (scientists, teachers, entrepreneurs, etc.) involved in this process who need to be identified in order to make the context of such a transfer clear. The forms of transfer, such as lectures, practical training, internships and, of course, printed material must also be taken into account. Moreover, it is necessary to reconstruct the conditions under which new forms and new kinds of educational institutions evolved under differing circumstances.

The hardly manageable amount of knowledge, especially technical knowledge from abroad, flooding Japan in the nineteenth century, led to the emergence of new institutions and ultimately to a new formalized system of technical education. In this process, new disciplines required new forms of teaching.