Career
Hoshino was appointed professor at Tokyo Imperial University in 1888. Historical work had previously been carried out in a government department dedicated to writing the official history of Japan, but it was decided in 1888 to move this work to the university. Hoshino, Kume Kunitake, and Shigeno Yasutsugu were the first three history professors appointed.
Hoshino, Kume, and Shigeno nonetheless all shared a general belief in taking a more scholarly, scientific approach to history, and Hoshino joined the others in criticizing the emphasis on heroic myths in Japanese history.
The latter may have also been due in part to the government"s decreased interest in the project of writing a grand history of Japan, especially one written in kanbun. The government recreated a history institute at Tokyo Imperial University in 1895, and brought Hoshino back as its first head
This new department, which would become the Historiographical Institute, had a narrower mission devoted to compiling historical documents, and no longer included the project of writing an overall history of Japan. Hoshino disapproved of the reduction in scope, since he remained one of the few supporters of a grand history in kanbun.
He nonetheless served as the Institute"s first head, from 1895 to 1899.