On the first day of mny walk along the Chugoku Pikgrimage I had visited temple number 3, but rather than take the most direct route to the next temple I chose to take a detour so I could visit a couple of sites unrelated to the pilgrimage, the first being the Shizutani School.
Fronted by an unusual Chinese style wall, the school was founded at the end of the 17th Century by the lord of the domain Ikeda Matsumasa as one of his schools of Confucian studies.
The main lecture hall/auditorium is registered as a National Treasure, and other buildings include a shrine to Confucius and a shrine to Ikeda Matsumasa.
The school enrolled students from the samurai class as well as sons of village headmen and is therefore known as one of the first public schools for commoners. More detsails and history can be found in a longer article I wrote over at Japanvisitor.
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