Sugi Private School

This is a building adjacent to Jippotei, an annex owned by the wealthy Bandai family. It is said Sugi Minji (1828–1910) ran a small private school here after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. He was the older brother of Yoshida Shoin, an intellectual and political activist who taught many of the men from Choshu Domain (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture) who led the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate and the establishment of a new government under the emperor. Minji served as an administrator for the domain and then the prefecture. He later revived Shoka Sonjuku, the school in Hagi where his brother had taught.