During the Edo period, the name Daigaku no kami became the title that had been inherited for generations by the heads of the Hayashi family, a Confucian scholar family, thus being incorporated into the organizations of the Edo bakufu (Japanese federal government headed by a shogun) as the name of its supreme educational officer.
大学頭の名称は、江戸時代に儒学者の林家の当主が代々継承する称号として､また幕府の最高教育官の名称として幕府機構の中に取り込まれた。