During the Edo period, Tansou Hirose, a scholar, educator, and poet born in the Shogunate land of Hita, opened a private school called Kangien. In the vast grounds, the ruins of East Building is currently home to Shufuan and Enshirou, which has been designated as the first national historical site of Oita Prefecture in 1932.
　Tansou was born in 1782 as the eldest son of Hita’s great merchant Hirose family, but as he was a sickly child, the family business was taken over by his younger brother Kyube, and Tansou dedicated his life to academics and education. After studying Confucianism under the scholar Nanmei Kamei in Fukuoka, he returned to Hita and continued his study on his own while being on medical treatment, and opened a private school in 1805.
　The school was first called Seishousha, then Keirinsou, and finally after a little over a decade became Kangien. “Kangi” means “everything is fine” in the words taken from the Chinese classic poem “Shi Jing.” As the words show, everyone who study here are equal. Upon admission into the school, all you had to do was fill in the necessary information on the registration list, and the students were accepted regardless of class, age, or academic background.
　Nonetheless, as much as the egalitarianism, the performance was also reviewed strictly so students had to study hard. Students were ranked from no grade to 9th grade, according to their performance at the examination each month. Furthermore, everything from operating the school to management of books was conducted in a disciplined manner by students, including accounting, cooking, and cleaning in addition to the lectures. It was an educational system that fostered not only academic ability but also social and human skills.
　There is a famous poem by Tansou called “Kyudou no Uta.” “Stop complaining that studying away from home is difficult. You have new friends that you share the winter jacket with, with whom you will naturally develop good relationships…” It was about the studying and life in the academy meant to “instruct his students.”
　Students gathered from more than 60 provinces across the country, sometimes over 200 of them, and they had a dormitory system. It was one of Japan’s largest private schools, with approximately 4,800 students including women during the 80 years before it closed. The famous graduates include Chouei Takano, Masujirou Omura, Hikoma Ueno, Shigyoku Nakashima, and Sanshu Chou. Tansou passed away in 1856. His grave is in the nearby Chouseien.