¹ Sansom, George B., The Western World and Japan (New York, 1968), p. 467.Google Scholar

² See ibid.; Fairbank, John K., Reischauer, Edwin O. and Craig, Albert M., East Asia: The Modern Transformation (Boston, 1965);Google ScholarShively, Donald H., ‘Motoda Eifu: Confucian Lecturer to the Meiji Emperor’, in Nivison, David and Wright, Arthur (eds), Confucianism in Action (Stanford, Calif., 1959);Google ScholarTomitarō, Karasawa, Kyōkasho no rekishi (A History of Textbooks) (Tokyo, 1956).Google Scholar

³ Fairbank, Reischauer and Craig, op. cit., p. 276.

⁴ Even as late as 1906, a decade and a half after ethics had been made ‘the center’ of the primary school curriculum, the hours of instruction were as follows in the ordinary primary school course of four years: first-graders had a total of twenty-one school hours a week, consisting of two of ethics, ten of Japanese language, five of arithmetic and four of gymnastics; second-graders had twenty-four hours of lessons a week, consisting of two of ethics, twelve of Japanese language, six of arithmetic and four of gymnastics; third- and fourth-graders both spent twenty-seven hours in school each week, consisting of two of ethics, fifteen of language, six of arithmetic and four of gymnastics. Graduation from this course could have meant the end of a child's schooling or it could have led to entrance in a higher primary school course of two years, three years, or four years. The two grades in the two-year course were each allotted twenty-eight school hours for boys and thirty for girls. Of these, two were devoted to ethics, ten to Japanese, four to arithmetic, three to Japanese history and geography combined, two to science, two to singing, three to gymnastics, for boys two to drawing, for girls one to drawing and three to sewing. The three-year course was almost identical, except that manual training, agriculture and commerce were taught in the final year. The four-year course was also very similar. This apportionment of school time was modified slightly in 1907 but the priorities remained the same. See Dairoku, Kikuchi, Japanese Education (London, 1909), pp. 117–29.Google Scholar History and geography were obviously not taught to all primary school pupils during the Meiji period. Only those who went on to higher primary school studied these subjects. See Caiger, John, ‘The Aims and Content of School Courses in Japanese History, 1872–1945’, in Edmund, Skrzypczak (ed.), Japan's Modern Century (Tokyo, 1968), pp. 51–81.Google Scholar

⁵ For what this shift meant for Tokyo University (renamed the Imperial University in 1886, it became Tokyo Imperial University when Kyoto Imperial University was founded in 1897) see Gishidō, Sumera, Daigaku seido no kenkyū (A Study of the University System) (Tokyo, 1955), pp. 350–1;Google Scholar and Daigaku, Tokyo Teikoku, Tokyo teikoku daigaku gōju nen shi (Fifty Years of Tokyo Imperial University) (Tokyo, 1932), I.Google Scholar

⁶ It took until 1910 to get the elementary school-aged population in school. In 1875, 35.19 per cent of this population was attending school; in 1880, 41.06 per cent was in school; in 1885, this percentage rose to 49.62 per cent but twice as many boys as girls were school-goers; in 1890, 48.93 per cent of the primary school-aged population attended school; in 1900 the percentage was 81.48, and this consisted of 90.55 per cent of the boys and 71.73 per cent of the girls in the school-aged population; in 1905, the total percentage of school-aged children in primary school was 95.62; five years later it exceeded 98 per cent. See Tokiomi, Kaigo, Japanese Education: Its Past and Present (Tokyo, 1968), p. 65.Google Scholar

⁷ Karasawa, op. cit., pp. 55–8.

⁸ Ibid., p. 57. The Elements of Moral Science was first published in 1835. For details of its genesis see the introductory essay by Blau, Joseph L. in Francis Wayland, The Elements of Moral Science (Cambridge, Mass., 1963).Google Scholar

⁹ Karasawa, op. cit., 57–8.

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 62–3. This popular handbook for the poor but ambitious was first published in London, England, in 1867. The title of the Japanese translation was Determination to be successful in Western Countries (Seikoku risshi).

¹¹ Karasawa, op. cit., pp. 68–73. This first reader series was published in 1873.

¹² See Tokiomi, Kaigo and Arata, Naka (eds), Nihon kyōkasho taikei: kindai hen (A Collection of Japanese Textbooks: The Modern Period) (hereafter called NKT), IV, 100–63.Google Scholar

¹³ Karasawa, op. cit., p. 55.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 61.

¹⁵ NKT, IV, 712.

¹⁶ Ibid., pp. 221–40.

¹⁷ Lessons seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, Ibid., pp. 223–6.

¹⁸ Lessons twenty-three, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, Ibid., pp. 231, 233–7.

¹⁹ Lessons fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, Ibid., pp. 227–33.

²⁰ During the 1870s, textbook selection and other aspects of educational authority were to a great extent still in the hands of the local administrations. Prefectural governors had the power to enact all regulations for public schools, subject to approval of the Minister of Education. See Kinmochi, Saionji, ‘National Education in the Meiji Era’, in Okuma, Shigenobu (ed.), Fifty Years of New Japan (London, 1910), II, 161–74.Google Scholar

²¹ Teachers were permitted to substitute Japanese police regulations for morals textbooks about Western law. Some teachers gave their pupils tales of the forty-seven loyal rōnin and the warrior leader, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–98), instead of lessons from translated works. See Karasawa, op. cit., pp. 64–7.

²² Ibid., pp. 77–8. Smiles's Self Help was a best-seller in Meiji Japan.

²³ Karasawa, op. cit., pp. 78–9. The rescript which required all private schools to become carbon copies of government schools did not come until 1899. For interesting accounts of the government's take-over of the private schools see Tokiomi, Kaigo (ed.), Inoue Kowashi no kyōiku seisaku (Inoue Kowashi's Education Policy) (Tokyo, 1968), pp. 969–87;Google Scholar and Tarō, Nakashima, Kindai nihon kyōiku seido shi (A History of Modern Japan's Education System) (Tokyo, 1966), pp. 557–64.Google Scholar

²⁴ Passin, Herbert, Society and Education in Japan (New York, 1965), p. 82.Google Scholar

²⁵ Shively, op. cit., p. 327. Inoue Kowashi wrote an objection to this for Itō Hirobumi which stated that ethical principles were not the concern of political officers. See Kaigo, Inoue Kowashi no kyōiku seisaku, p. 934.

²⁶ See NKT, II, 6–37.

²⁷ Karasawa, op. cit., p. 107.

²⁸ Quoted in Shively, op. cit., p. 328.

²⁹ See Osamu, Kuno and Shunsuke, Tsurumi, Gendai nihon no shisō (Tokyo, 1956).Google Scholar Kuno and Tsurumi have suggested that in Meiji Japan the masses were educated to believe that the emperor's authority was unlimited, while those who received a higher education and as a result joined the ruling elites accepted a kind of constitutional monarchy theory. ‘The Meiji rulers made the people as a whole worship the emperor as an absolute monarch and, after mobilizing the energy of the people for governing, they adopted a constitutional monarchism theory as a secret technique for governing.’ (ibid., p. 132). For an account of Inoue Kowashi's ideology and attitude towards Confucianism see Kaigo, Inoue Kowashi no kyōiku seisaku, pp. 934–45.

³⁰ NKT, II, 685–6. For the textbook itself see ibid., pp. 128–63.

³¹ Karasawa, op. cit., p. 115.

³² Shively, op. cit., p. 328.

³³ Kaigo, Inoue Kowashi no kyōiku seisaku, pp. 909–16.

³⁴ NKT, V, 787–8.

³⁵ Ibid., pp. 22–166.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ Cited in Shunsuke, Tsurumi et al. , Nihon no hyakunen (Tokyo, 1963), VIII, 61.Google Scholar

³⁸ Cited in Karasawa, op. cit., p. 150.

³⁹ Kaigo, Inoue Kowashi no kyōiku seisaku, pp. 934–45. For Motoda's role see Shively, op. cit., esp. pp. 330–1.

⁴⁰ This is from the official translation of the rescript.

⁴¹ NKT, II, 338–97.

⁴² Ibid., pp. 634–81.

⁴³ Ibid., pp. 602–14.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 392.

⁴⁵ Ibid., p. 630. The lesson read as follows: ‘Since the thirty-second year of Meiji [1899], foreigners have been able to live within Japan freely. Therefore contact between them and our nationals will become more frequent. Thus we point out the proper attitude to take towards them. 1. Follow the correct way, by no means bring shame to the country. 2. Do not despise or humiliate foreigners without reason. 3. If a foreigner acts insolently, find out why and calmly make approaches to him. 4. If something must be disputed with a foreigner seek a proper public judgment.’

⁴⁶ NKT, V, 434–514.

⁴⁷ Karasawa's monumental Kyōkasho no rekishi traces textbooks from Meiji up until 1945. Although I agree with much of his characterization of modern Japanese language and ethics textbooks, I feel he has exaggerated the extent of the militaristic and ultranationalist content of primary school language textbooks published after 1933. For my criticism of his otherwise excellent analysis, see E. Patricia Tsurumi, ‘Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan: 1895–1945’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1971, pp. 148–55.

⁴⁸ See, for example, Kuno and Tsurumi, op. cit., and the essays in Masao, Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics (London, 1969)Google Scholar. In one of these essays (pp. 4–5) Maruyama illustrates the limitations of the absorption of some Western values with a quotation from a Liberal Party leader, Kōno Hironaka (1849–1923), who went to prison for his opposition to the government in 1883: ‘I was riding on horseback when I first read this work [‘On Liberty’]. In a flash my entire way of thinking was revolutionized. Until then I had been under the influence of the Chinese Confucianists and of the Japanese classical scholars, and I had even been inclined to advocate an “expel the barbarian” policy. Now all these earlier thoughts of mine, excepting those concerned with loyalty and filial piety, were smashed to smithereens. At the same moment I knew that it was human freedom and human rights that I must henceforth cherish above all else’ (the italics are Maruyama's).