The Third Higher School (第三高等学校, Daisan Kōtō Gakkō) was a university preparatory boy's boarding school (higher school) in Kyoto, Japan. It is the direct predecessor of the Faculty of Integrated Human Studies of Kyoto University.
The Third Higher School traced its roots to the Chemistry School (舎密局, Seimi-kyoku), an institution for Chemistry and Physics founded in Osaka in 1869. Seimi is a Japanese transcription of the Dutch word chemie, meaning chemistry.[1] In 1894, this institution evolved into the Third Higher School, which was then a specialised boarding school,[2] roughly equivalent to an American college with departments of law, engineering, and medicine. Back then, the country had only one university, the University of Tokyo, and the call for the nation's second university in the Kansai region was gaining momentum. However, due to financial reasons, the government was reluctant to do so.[3]
The situation changed when the aristocratic politician Saionji Kinmochi, who was from a prominent kuge family in Kyoto, suggested the founding of the nation's second university using war reparations from the First Sino-Japanese War.[4] This plan was edicted accordingly in 1896, and Kyoto Imperial University (Kyoto University) was established on 18 June 1897,[5] as the second university in the country. Following the establishment of the university, the school became a university preparatory school just like its counterpart in Tokyo, the First Higher School.
In 1949, along with other higher schools in Japan, the school was merged into Kyoto University as part of the post-war educational reform.