As president of the university Enryō also made efforts to solicit donations when he was traveling around the country giving lectures. For example, in the severe winter of January 1904 he toured the Kōshū region to report on the opening of the university and the es-tablishment of his “Morality Church.” The total amount of dona-tions received at that time was about 488 yen. In addition to donations an important source of funds for the uni-versity was revenue from fees for student examinations, admissions, and tuition. However, around the time of the opening of the Philos-ophy Academy University student numbers had decreased. Enryō cited three reasons for this. The first was the impact of social conditions: the Russo-Japanese War had an economic impact on all areas of people’s lives and the pressure on family budgets, in particular, temporarily reduced oppor-tunities for students to pursue higher education. The second was the development of the educational arms of Bud-dhist organizations. These schools had secured the privilege of con-scription deferment and were reinvigorated by being recognized un-der the Vocational School Decree. As a result those that had previ-ously attended the Academy began to think that a Buddhist university might provide them with better opportunities in the future. The third was revocation of accreditation for certifying middle school teachers without government examination due to the Philos-ophy Academy Incident. Along with conscription deferment, accred-itation was a distinctive feature of a private liberal arts university. As a result some of its students transferred to other schools, reducing the roll to about half. 145
元のページ ../index.html#151