Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, Episode 29, The Great Saigo, Part 2.

Last week, we talked about the life and experiences of Saigo Takamori, his rapid rise to prominence

during the overthrow of the Tokugawa, and his equally meteoric fall over the controversy

surrounding a potential invasion of Korea.

This week, we're going to talk about the final act of his life, his death, and his legacy in

modern Japan.

Saigo Takamori left Tokyo and the government in 1874, and returned to his native Kagoshima

as a private citizen.

Once there, he ostensibly retired from public life, and spent most of his days hunting in the area around the city.

In fact, the most iconic image of him and the one memorialized in his statue at Oeno Park in Tokyo,

is of him dressed in a light summer kimono with his hunting

dogs.

It's taken from this point in his life.

However, he was not entirely apolitical, if indeed a man in his position ever really could

be.

His passion for education led him to open a series of private schools, modeled on the old

Hancoe, the Domain Academies for Samurai, he had attended as a child.

His schools emphasized strict military discipline as well as scholarship.

The curriculum was designed in self-conscious contrast with the nascent public school system,

which was focused entirely on

Western models of education. Saigo schools did not ignore Western ideas, for example, Western

military science was a core component of the curriculum, but the spirit of the training

...