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Many peasant families continued to own their own land, but many others became tenant farmers, or landlords whose lands were cultivated by tenant farmers. Unlike in China, where landlords typically lived in the major towns, in Japan, landlords were typically wealthy farmers or village heads within the villages. By the middle of the 19th century, roughly one-quarter of agricultural land in the archipelago was cultivated by tenant farmers.<ref name=craig79/>
Many peasant families continued to own their own land, but many others became tenant farmers, or landlords whose lands were cultivated by tenant farmers. Unlike in China, where landlords typically lived in the major towns, in Japan, landlords were typically wealthy farmers or village heads within the villages. By the middle of the 19th century, roughly one-quarter of agricultural land in the archipelago was cultivated by tenant farmers.<ref name=craig79/>
Education was widespread in Tokugawa Japan, with every domain maintaining samurai schools both in the domain, and at their [[daimyo yashiki|mansions in Edo]], by the end of the 18th century; temple schools for commoners, called ''[[terakoya]]'', were also quite numerous, and private academies began to sprout up in significant numbers in the early 19th century. Many of these schools employed the [[Thousand Character Classic]] as a model for learning and practicing characters (''[[kanji]]''), alongside a number of other texts for moral education. As a result, Tokugawa Japan enjoyed a higher level of literacy than most other parts of the world, with some estimates indicating that as many as 40-50% of men, and 15-20% of women, were literate.<ref>Albert Craig, 88.</ref>
==Notes==
==Notes==
