[1] Hayashi Daigaku-no-kami Gakusai was a member of the Hayashi clan of Confucian scholars, each of whom were ad hoc personal advisers to the shōguns prominent figures in the educational training system for the bakufu bureaucrats.

The progenitor of this lineage of scholars was Hayashi Razan, who lived to witness his philosophical and pragmatic reasoning become a foundation for the dominant ideology of the bakufu until the end of the 19th century.

The Hayashi helped to legitimize the role of the militaristic bakufu at the beginning of its existence.

His philosophy is also important in that it encouraged the samurai class to cultivate themselves, a trend which would become increasingly widespread over the course of his lifetime and beyond.

[1] The privileges and honors he and his family and his clan had enjoyed up through 1867 were stripped from them during the turmoil which accompanied the Meiji Restoration in 1868.