Tokyo University

Japan’s oldest and largest university. It was founded in 1877, as Tokyo National (Imperial) University, from the merger of three academic institutions: Shoheiko (founded 1790, as a center for the study of Confucian classics), Kaiseigo (founded 1855, for the study of occidental culture), and Igakusho (founded 1863, for the study of occidental medicine).

The university has (1974) faculties of law, economics, letters, education, engineering, science, agriculture, medicine, and pharmaceutical sciences; there is also a college of general education. The university also has a cosmic ray laboratory, an earthquake research institute, institutes of historiography, nuclear study, solid-state physics, applied microbiology, industrial science, journalism, medical sciences (since 1892), oriental culture, social sciences, and space and aeronautical science, and an ocean research institute. The library (founded 1877) has about 4 million volumes. Enrollment in the 1974–75 academic year was about 18,000. The teaching staff numbers more than 3,600, including about 800 professors. [26–94–1 ]