The Kyoshin-sha Sericulture School was a sericulture school built in 1894 in Honjo, Saitama Prefecture, by Takayama Chogoro’s (1830–1886) younger brother Kimura Kuzo (1845–1898). Kuzo was adopted into the Kimura family after marrying their daughter. Like his brother, he wanted to improve his sericulture techniques, and the two maintained a good relationship with a healthy rivalry. The brothers shared their research information with each other, and Kuzo developed a technique he called ippa ondan-iku that was similar to Chogoro’s but allowed greater control of the temperature around the silkworms.
Kyoshin-sha began as a sericulture academy that hosted silkworm-rearing competitions and cocoon exhibitions, but in 1897 it became a research facility. Kyoshin-sha went on to create thirty branch schools in prefectures across Japan. In total, 30,000 students were educated at Kyoshin-sha, greatly assisting the silkworm industry. Although Kyoshin-sha was relocated and renovated in 1979, the building still has its original tiles and remains true to its original form. The first floor has a small museum with old silk-weaving and reeling tools, as well as displays about the founders. There are also silkworm raising rooms that show the heating and ventilation systems.
Kyoshin-sha’s education legacy can be traced to the modern day, as the local high school carries an academic lineage that reaches all the way back to the first Kyoshin-sha school. The biology curriculum at the current high school contains lessons about sericulture in recognition of the area’s heritage of silk production.
