Kodokan: The Great Samurai School of Mito

Before Japan had universities, its samurai domains ran their own schools, and none was grander than the Kodokan in Mito. Founded in 1841 by the reform minded lord of the Mito Tokugawa, it taught the sons of the domain everything a turbulent age demanded: Confucian classics, swordsmanship, medicine, astronomy and the fiercely debated question of Japan’s place in the world. Ideas incubated here helped light the fuse of the Meiji Restoration.

Walking the school

What survives is a serene compound of gates, halls and tatami rooms where you can stand in the spaces where lectures and sword practice once ran side by side. The story has a poignant coda: Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the last shogun, was Mito born and schooled in this tradition, and after surrendering power he spent a period of quiet confinement within these walls. Interpretive displays walk you through it, and the compound’s plum trees make late winter a particularly good time to come.

Getting there

The Kodokan is a short walk north of JR Mito Station, which is around 80 minutes from Tokyo’s Ueno Station on the Hitachi and Tokiwa limited expresses along the Joban Line. That makes it one of the easiest genuinely historic sites to reach on a Tokyo day trip that most visitors never think of.

While you are in Mito

Pair the school with Kairakuen, across town, one of Japan’s three great landscape gardens and home to thousands of plum trees that draw crowds from mid February. The two sites were conceived by the same lord as a matched pair, one for study and one for rest, and seeing both completes the thought.

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