The high school was founded as Matsuyama Middle School in 1878. Although the school was founded during the Meiji period, it has earlier roots in the Iyo-Matsuyama Domain's Han school, Kōtokukan, Shūraikan and Meikyōkan.
Among the first students at the new school was Masaoka Tsunenori, later known as Masaoka Shiki. As Seishi Shinoda and Sanford Goldstein explain,
In the 1870s and 1880s, the democratic movement was at its height, and one of its chief leaders was Taisuke Itagaki (1837-1919) from Kochi Prefecture... The prefectural governor of Ehime and the principal of Shiki's school. Though the principal had to resign in the summer of 1879 because of his radical views, his influence remained strong at Matsuyama Middle School. For some years after his departure, democratic thought reigned at the school; yet after the principal's departure many students left, and their numbers decreased from 213 in 1879 to 102 in 1881. Among those strongly influenced by the former principal was Shiki. He neglected most of his schoolwork, so caught up was he in the excitement of making political speeches night after night with ten or so of his classmates.[2]
Undoubtedly the most famous teacher at Matsuyama Middle School was Natsume Kinnosuke, better known as Natsume Sōseki, who arrived in 1895 and taught for only a year, but later memorialized the experience in one of Japan's most popular novels, Botchan (1906). Botchan describes the comically unfortunate experiences of a young teacher fresh from Tokyo (called, euphemistically, "Botchan" or "little master") as he attempts, with little enthusiasm or success, to adapt to the academic regime and the local culture. In the novel, Botchan's colleagues are given comical names such as Tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog), Akashatsu (Red-shirt), etc., prompting continued speculation as to which of Sōseki's fellow teachers might have been their real-life models.
The school name was changed to the present one in 1949.
^Matsuyama Higashikou Hyakunenshi Henshu Iinkai (1978) "Ehime Kenritsu Matsuyama Higashi Koutougakkou Hyakunenshi" Ehime Kenritsu Matsuyama Higashi High School
^Masaoka Shiki, Songs from a Bamboo Village: Selected Tanka from Take no Sato Uta, translated by Sanford Goldstein and Seishi Shinoda (Rutland, VA: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1998), 9.
