He was an hereditary rector of Edo’s Confucian Academy, the Shōhei-kō, also known at the Yushima Seidō, which was built on land provided by the shōgun.

The Yushima-Seidō, which stood at the apex of the Tokugawa shogunate's educational system; and Jussai was styled with the hereditary title "Head of the State University" (大学頭, Daigaku-no-kami).

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.

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.

He was appointed by Matsudaira Sadanobu to be heir to the previous Hayashi family head, Kimpō.