Ehime Prefectural Matsuyama Higashi High School (愛媛県立松山東高等学校) is a Japanese high school in Matsuyama, Ehime founded in 1878 as Matsuyama Middle School.

History

The high school was founded as Matsuyama Middle School in 1878. Although the school was founded during the Meiji period, it has earlier roots in the Iyo-Matsuyama Domain's Han school, Kōtokukan, Shūraikan and Meikyōkan. Among the first students at the new school was Masaoka Tsunenori, later known as Masaoka Shiki. As Seishi Shinoda and Sanford Goldstein explain, Undoubtedly the most famous teacher at Matsuyama Middle School was Natsume Kinnosuke, better known as Natsume Sōseki, who arrived in 1895 and taught for only a year, but later memorialized the experience in one of Japan's most popular novels, Botchan (1906). Botchan describes the comically unfortunate experiences of a young teacher fresh from Tokyo (called, euphemistically, "Botchan" or "little master") as he attempts, with little enthusiasm or success, to adapt to the academic regime and the local culture. In the novel, Botchan's colleagues are given comical names such as Tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog), Akashatsu (Red-shirt), etc., prompting continued speculation as to which of Sōseki's fellow teachers might have been their real-life models. The school name was changed to the present one in 1949.

Notable students and teachers