Thejapanization of education

Upon his arrival in Japan in the early Meiji period, Basil Hall Cham- berlain, who later
became the dean of foreign Japanologists, lectured on "the life of Nelson" and similar topics
in his post as instructor in the then fledgling Imperial Japanese Navy. About the young
Japanese naval officers, successors of the Tokugawa samurai, whom he taught, he wrote that
they were "fairly fluent in English, and dressed in a serviceable suit of dittos, might almost
be a European, save for a certain obliqueness of the eyes and scantiness of beard." He noted
that the Meiji naval officers were quite fluent in English. This held true beyond the students
in Japan's naval academy, for the generation born around i860 produced an elite better able
to communicate in foreign languages than could its successors. Men like Okakura Ten- shin
(b. 1862), Uchimura Kanzo (b. 1861), and Nitobe Inazo (b. 1862) all wrote books in
English; and Mori Ogai (b. 1862) probably did more than anyone else to introduce Western
literature to Japan.
Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), who was born a few years later, gradu- ated from Tokyo
Imperial University in 1893, took over Lafcadio Hearn's chair as the first Japanese lecturer
in English Literature in 1903, and then in late Meiji left academic life to concentrate on his
writing. His remarks about the capabilities of Japanese students in English over time provide
a revealing insight into the "Japanization" of Meiji higher education. The students' command
of English was declining, he noted, because of the proper and predictable progress achieved
by Japanese education:
In my generation, all instruction at regular schools was done in English. In all courses -
geography, history, mathematics, botany and biology - we used foreign-language textbooks.
Most students who came a little before us even wrote their answers in English; and by my
generation, there were some Japanese instructors who taught in English.?6
In that era, he went on, English was only one aspect of an excessive subordination to
foreign culture: "Men would show off by dangling gold watches, wearing Western dress,
growing beards, and interjecting English phrases when speaking ordinary Japanese."
Not only was English fashionable, but modern knowledge was as yet inaccessible in
Japanese:
Because we had so much English training outside regular English classes, our ability to read,
write, and speak developed naturally. But we all are Japanese in mind, and considering our
independence as a nation, such an educational system is, in a sense, a disgrace. It invokes in
us the feeling that we are no different from India, that we are subjects of England. We all
agree on the importance of Japan's nationality; it is not something to be exchanged for a mere
knowledge of English. Hence, as the foundations for our state's survival are solidified, the
aforementioned educational system ought naturally to fall into disuse; and in fact, this is
precisely what is taking place.
Not enough had been translated yet, and the use of many foreign textbooks was still
unavoidable. But scholarship was universal, and once there were adequate materials
and competent Japanese teachers, Japanese students were increasingly taught in their
own language.
From the standpoint of widely diffusing scholarship in society, it would be best to teach in
Japanese, the language in which our students have been brought up and which they use
naturally. . . . The declining use of English is natural and to be expected.
But government policy also came into play and might even have proved more important than
these cultural aspects. As Soseki saw it:
The biggest cause for declining English abilities in Japan was man-made, in the form of a
policy adopted, I believe, when the late Inoue Kowashi was minister of education [1892-6].
The decision was to teach all subjects except English in Japanese as much as possible. While
emphasizing the importance of the Japanese language in teaching, Inoue sought to revive
Japanese literary and classical Chinese studies as well. . . . This man-made decision to sup-
press the use of foreign languages [in education] is an overwhelmingly impor- tant factor
behind the present decline in language abilities.
In early Meiji years, the "modernization" of institutions and ways was construed as
"Westernization." However, in that the desire to modernize was generated by an
external crisis that caused indepen- dence for the Japanese people and nation to be
established as a categori- cal imperative, it was inevitable that Japanese students
studying abroad would, upon their return home, appropriate the positions tem-
porarily held by foreign employees in and out of government.
Inoue Kowashi, too, advocated modernization with less West- ernization. Like many
other Meiji leaders, his objective was not "the importation of things Western" but,
rather, "Western-style produc- tion" in Japan. After the "political crisis of 1881," he
submitted a political program to the government in which he outlined the educa- tional
policies that he thought the state should adopt. Two clauses in his program read:
The Promotion of Chinese Studies:
Since the Restoration, English and French studies have had high priority, and this has caused
the sprouts of revolutionary thought to appear in our country for the first time. However, for
teaching the Way of loyalty to ruler, loveofcountry,andallegiance-
valuesindangerofdisappearingatpresent - nothing equals Chinese studies. We must revive
these values and thereby maintain a balance."
Encouraging the Study of German:
Under our present educational system, the only students who study the German language are
found in medicine. Students studying law and related subjects all learn English and French. It
is only natural that those who study English admire English ways, and that those who study
French envy French government. But of all nations in present-day Europe, only Prussia is
similar to us with regard to the circumstances of its unification. . . . If we want to make men
throughout the land more conservative minded, we should encour- age the study of German
and thereby allow it, several years hence, to over- come the dominance now enjoyed by
English and French.?8
It was Inoue who, with Motoda Eifu, drafted the Imperial Rescript on Education
which was promulgated in 1890. In the preceding passage we can see that as early as
1881 Inoue wanted to return to East Asian traditions and to uphold national unity by
means of a philosophy stressing virtues such as loyalty to ruler, love of nation, and
allegiance to superiors.
However, we must not forget that among the generation that stud- ied directly under
foreign teachers in Japan, there was a clarity of understanding regarding international
affairs that proved lacking in later days. Naval officers are a case in point. Officers in
the Russo- Japanese War for the most part fought on warships made in Britain. Unlike
the officers in World War II, who fought on ships and flew in planes manufactured in
Japan, they went to Britain or other foreign countries, observed how ships were built
there, and delivered the finished products to Japan themselves. At times they might
witness British laborers staging strikes, for example, and this broad range of
experience made navy men international minded. After that genera- tion retired in the
1920s, the naval officers, like the ships they com manded, were "made in Japan." This
was true also for the leaders in all other areas of government. In the 1930s the entire nation
was seized by a very narrow nationalism. That nationalism was partly due to conditions
external to Japan, but it was able to gain ground in part because of the parochialism of
Japanese education in that era.
From the Charter Oath to the Imperial Rescript on Education
The Charter Oath issued in 1868 and the Imperial Rescript on Educa- tion promulgated in
1890 may be considered official proclamations that mark the beginning and end of an era. In
regard to the West, the Charter Oath states:
Evil customs of the past shall be abandoned and everything shall be based upon the just laws
of Nature.
Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of
Imperial rule.
These two articles were declared by the victorious loyalists (sonno-ha) to be the cultural and
political policies to be undertaken by a unified new Japan. It is interesting to note that once
the antiforeign loyalists had toppled the bakufu and seized power themselves, they immedi-
ately proclaimed a policy of peace and opened the country to foreign trade and diplomatic
intercourse. This fact exposed the slogan "revere the emperor, expel the barbarians" for what
it had really been - a catchphrase devoid of meaningful content that was used to unite and
mobilize the energies of dissident samurai activists.
Yet the new Meiji government's declaration that "knowledge shall be sought throughout the
world" should not be interpreted as a simple by-product of its policy to establish peace and
open the country. Yoshida Shoin, who defied bakufu law, had also "sought knowledge
throughout the world," and his purpose too was "to strengthen the foundations of Imperial
rule." The commitment to abandon "evil cus- toms of the past" was clearly indicative of the
realization that Japan in 1868 was as yet unequipped to be a modern nation-state and showed
a singular desire to learn from the West.
As opposed to the Charter Oath, which sought models to adopt in foreign nations perceived
to possess cultural superiority, the Imperial Rescript on Education issued twenty-two years
later in 1890 sought these models in a transcendent Japanese historical character. The rescript
reads:

Befilialto your parents, affectionate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be
harmonious, as friends true; bear yourselves in modesty and moderation; extend your
benevolence to all; pursue learning and cultivate arts, and thereby develop intellectual
faculties and perfect moral powers; furthermore, advance public good and promote common
interests; always respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emergency arise, offer
yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and maintain the pros- perity of Our
Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth. . . .7»
These virtues appealed deeply to feelings traditionally held by the people. Moreover, the
rescript asserts that "ever united," the Japanese people "have from generation to generation
illustrated the beauty" of those virtues, thus pushing national unity and the source of national
morality far back to the historical origins of the Japanese people. Conversely, such
historicism posits the continued existence of national unity and morality throughout all
periods of Japanese history, thereby giving birth to the concept of a historically transcendent
"national essence" (kokutat).
Not that the rescript was anti-Western in thrust. The exhortations to "pursue learning
and cultivate arts, and thereby develop intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers;
furthermore, advance public good and promote common interests; . . ." are almost
identical to those put forth by Smiles in Self-Help. Thus, although it is often
characterized as a simple piece of Confucian reaction, elements meeting the de-
mands of a new age are to be found in this document. The rescript did not assert that
Japanese traditions were universal principles; rather, it proclaimed that values then
regarded as universal in nature really conformed to traditional Japanese ways.
Yet it is also evident that foreign nations disappeared from view in the rescript. One
distinguishing characteristic of post-bakumatsu his- tory is that unlike the period of
national isolation, an inescapable influence was exerted on Japan by foreign, mainly
Western, nations. In the Charter Oath, we find a declaration that for Japan, a latecomer
to international society, to preserve national independence, the Japa- nese people must
learn from foreign countries and progress along the road to civilization and
enlightenment.
Rescript on Education is "should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to
the State; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval
with heaven and earth . . . ," which posits a hypothetical state of war.
The Imperial Rescript on Education, which totally ignored the exis- tence of foreign
countries and extolled the virtues of Japan's "national essence," was by no means
indicative of recovered national self- confidence. The omission of foreign nations
actually suggests a Japan filled with doubt and anxiety, a Japan unable to reject
foreign influences completely and therefore driven to rely all the more on indigenous
values. Such doubt and anxiety are revealed in the fact that as opposed to the Charter
Oath, the rescript depicts foreign nations in a negative, almost menacing, light. The
rescript's aim is to create internal solidarity among the people by maintaining a
common national morality and a consciousness of that morality as stemming from
shared origins in Ja- pan's past. This aim is manifested from the beginning: "Our
Imperial Ancestors [stemming from the sun goddess, Amaterasu] have founded Our
Empire on a basis broad and everlasting, and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue;
Our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety, . . ." to the end: "It is Our wish to
lay it to heart in all reverence, in common with you, Our subjects, that we may all
attain to the same virtue."
Thus, the Imperial Rescript on Education clearly decreed the end of a fervent "turn to
the West," whose start was symbolized by the Charter Oath. Whereas the Charter Oath
posited "the just laws of Nature," a value assumed to be hitherto lacking in Japan, as a
goal to be attained, the Rescript asserted that a "national essence," whose values were
already manifested in Japan's feudal past, should be the foundation for future action.
The Charter Oath can be compared to a small child just beginning to understand what
is going on around him who seeks to absorb things from his environment; in short, it
shows the desire to identify with the world. Conversely, toward the end of the 1880s,
after deciding that its "turn to the West" had been too sudden and extreme, Japan
sought an identity of its own, and part of this straining to confirm an identity can be
seen in the Imperial Rescript on Education of 1890.
Japan, a non-Western nation, adopted from the West a tremendous amount of what
was fundamental and essential to modernization during these twenty-two years.
Without those ideas and institutions, the estab- lishment of a national identity would
have been impossible, and the existence of an independent Japan within a society of
nations dominated and ordered by the West could not have been maintained. But at the
same time, because of this wholesale borrowing from the West, the basic
establishment of a "self," which had to be attained and upheld by the Japanese
themselves, became a process filledwith anxiety and uncer- tainty. In short, the
assimilation of Western culture was dictated by reasons of state, yet such efforts were
fraught with an uneasiness that Japan's cultural self-identity might be violated.
Because this psychologi- cal problem - a sense of pride easily injured - lay constantly
at the bottom of Japan's modernization process, the Japanese displayed what might be
called a strange fanaticism in every subsequent foreign crisis involving the West. The
fact that the slogan "uphold the national es- sence" had such a powerful hold over
Japanese hearts is undoubtedly also closely related to this psychological problem.