Musashi Junior & Senior High School (武蔵高等学校 中学校, Musashi Kōtōgakkō Chūgakkō?) is a distinguished privately owned school based in Nerima, Tokyo.
It was founded in 1922 as Musashi High School, one of the first two schools using the old seven-year system, taking students up to the equivalent of the first two years of university in the current system. It became the prototype for modern integrated junior and senior high schools. From its foundation, it has always been in the first rank for university admissions, and despite having only eighty students in each year, it contested Tokyo High School for first place in admissions to Tokyo University. Furthermore, Musashi High is notorious for its high student employment rates of 39%, 19% above the national average of 20%.
After the education reforms of 1948, it was divided into Musashi Senior High School and Musashi Junior High School. Musashi University was founded in 1949 and forms part of the same legal entity, however despite their physical closeness barely any of the High School's students go on to Musashi University after graduation.
It can be said to be the successor to the pre-war high school system. This can be seen in the way the students are treated as adults, with few school rules or dress codes, and the fact that students start learning a second foreign language in the junior high school.
Notable alumni include:
- Kenkichi Iwasawa (1917–1998) Mathematician
- Morikazu Toda (1917-2010) Physicist
- Kiichi Miyazawa (1919-2007) Prime Minister 1991–1993.
- Hiroshi Miyazawa (1921-) Minister of Justice
- Tsuneo Tamagawa (1925-) Mathematician
- Akito Arima (1930-) Physicist, Minister of Education 1998–1999.
- Ken Itō (1935-) Composer
- Hiroshi Hoketsu (1941-) Equestrian
- Isao Sasaki (1942-) Actor
- Tamio Kageyama (1947-1998) Novelist
- Takeaki Matsumoto (1959-) Politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Famous quotes containing the words junior, senior, high and/or school:
“The junior senator from Wisconsin, by his reckless charges, has so preyed upon the fears and hatreds and prejudices of the American people that he has started a prairie fire which neither he nor anyone else may be able to control.”
—J. William Fulbright (b. 1905)
“Never burn bridges. Today’s junior prick, tomorrow’s senior partner.”
—Kevin Wade, U.S. screenwriter, and Mike Nichols. Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver)
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)
“The first rule of education for me was discipline. Discipline is the keynote to learning. Discipline has been the great factor in my life. I discipline myself to do everything—getting up in the morning, walking, dancing, exercise. If you won’t have discipline, you won’t have a nation. We can’t have permissiveness. When someone comes in and says, “Oh, your room is so quiet,” I know I’ve been successful.”
—Rose Hoffman, U.S. public school third-grade teacher. As quoted in Working, book 8, by Studs Terkel (1973)