Yamagata, over the course of his life, would proudly call himself 'a disciple of Dr. Shoin YOSHIDA,' but the existing information revealed that he studied at the Juku for an extremely short period of time; therefore, it is not clear how much training he had in fact received from Shoin.
山縣自身は生涯「自分は松陰先生門下である」と称し誇りにしていたが、現存する資料から山縣の在塾期間が極めて短かったことが判明しており、実際に松陰からどの程度の薫陶を受けたかは不明である。