The Roots of Education in Japan

The result of education during the Tokugawa period was a 45% literacy rate among males and 15% among females by the mid nineteenth century; numbers that were comparable to advanced Western countries during the same time period (Reischauer,1977).

After the Meiji oligarchs ousted the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 and took control of Japan, one thing became clear: in order to meet the challenge of the West, a nationally unifying force had to be implemented. That force was the education of every Japanese child. Because of the educational traditions of the Tokugawa period, “the leaders of the new Meiji government had no difficulty in comprehending the key role of education in acquiring the technology of the West and the necessity of a modern school system if Japan were to catch up to the leading Western powers” (Reischauer,1977,p.168)

Education was to become the social equalizer in the abolishment of the feudal class system, and with that in mind, Confucian principles were also widely rejected. During the initial phase, “not only was there no attention paid to traditional morality, but on the contrary past principles were discarded in enthusiastic favor of individualism, egalitarianism and other assorted European concepts worthy of importation”(Lehmann,1982,p.261).

The 1870’s and most of the 1880’s were characterized by the rapid growth in the number of schools, especially in the private sector. The Meiji leaders’ original plan of a large, centralized and standardized system of elementary, middle and technical schools, as well as universities, had proved to be too big a burden on the new government in terms of cost and administration. Part of the plan had included closing all the old Tokugawa schools as the new system was planned, but it was soon discovered that the new system would be better served by building on the old system.

The private schools helped fill the gap, as Christian missionary schools and private Westernized schools were set up to supplement the state schools and the still remaining Confucianist schools. It was a time when “every qualified or semi-qualified person went about setting up a school”(Lehman,1982,p.261). By 1873, there were over thirteen thousand primary schools in operation in Japan.

Continued in Part 2

References

Boyle, John Hunter, (1993). Modern Japan: The American Nexus. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace.

Hall, John Whitney & Beardsley, Richard K. (1965). Twelve Doors to Japan. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lehman, Jean-Pierre. (1982). The Roots of Modern Japan. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Reischauer, Edwin O. (1977). The Japanese. Cambridge,

The copyright of the article The Roots of Education in Japan in Asian History is owned by Maria Christensen. Permission to republish The Roots of Education in Japan in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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