A large number of schools of foreign languages were established all over the country as national, public and private schools from the end of the Tokugawa period to the period around the Meiji Restoration, but many of them were either abolished or converted to junior high schools (old education system), and only three schools in Tokyo and Osaka remained as national higher education institutes.
幕末期から明治維新期にかけ、全国に官公私立の外国語学校が多数設立されたが、多くは廃止されるか旧制中学校に転換され、高等教育機関としては東京・大阪の官立3校のみが残った。