Free Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 by Donald Keene

The emperor’s abiding interest in education was evidenced by the frequency of his visits to schools wherever he traveled. He himself continued to receive instruction from Motoda Nagazane and others in the Confucian classics. He was particularly affected by Motoda’s insistence on ch ū (loyalty) and k ō (filial piety) as the central Confucian virtues, even though these two virtues had not been stressed in the Confucian writings of China or in those of the Japanese Confucianists of the Tokugawa period. During the Meiji era the four Confucian virtues commonly cited in statements on education— jin (humaneness), gi (righteousness), ch ū , and k ō —were seen as adjuncts to the policy of “civilization and enlightenment” favored by the bureaucrats. 8 However, jin and gi tended to receive less attention than ch ū and k ō , virtues that lent themselves easily to the new state’s policies.
    The emperor also listened to lectures delivered on works of Japanese tradition and (to a lesser extent) Western history. His preferences in education, regardless of the subject matter, were conservative, as we can infer from this poem:
yorozuyo ni
What never changes
ugokanu mono wa
Throughout ten thousand ages
inishie no
Are the teachings left
hijiri no miyo no
From the ancient past,
okite narikeri
The holy age of the sages.
    The emperor also revealed in his poetry his awareness that traditional learning was insufficient in a modern world:
susumiyuku
It will do no good
yo ni okurenaba
If we fall behind a world
kai araji
That is progressing
fumi no hayashi wa
Even if we penetrate
waketsukusu tomo
The depths of literature. 9
    Despite the emperor’s belief in the importance of the learning of the past, the new education tended to be Western in orientation. For example, on July 14, 1876, when the emperor visited an elementary school in Aomori, ten pupils of English gave talks in English and wrote compositions. The following were the subjects:
    Speech: Hannibal’s speech encouraging his soldiers.
    Composition: In celebration of His Majesty’s visit to Aomori.
    Speech: Andrew Jackson’s speech in the U.S. Senate.
    Composition: A song in praise of enlightenment and progress.
    Speech: Cicero’s attack on Cataline.
    Composition: A song in praise of education. 10
    The emperor had to leave the school before all the planned talks and compositions could be completed. As he departed, the pupils sang for him a song in English. The emperor gave each of them five yen with which to buy a copy of Webster’s Intermediate Dictionary . But on his return to T ō ky ō , he told Motoda that he thought that the pupils’ ignorance of Japan was the fault of “American educational methods” in practice, since the school system was established in 1872. 11
    After his return from his journey of 1878 to Hokuriku and T ō kai, the emperor sent for Iwakura Tomomi and informed him that it was essential to cultivate in the schools traditional Japanese morality. He obviously had not been pleased with Japanese children who, though ignorant of Japanese traditions, glibly delivered speeches in English on Hannibal and Cicero.
    The emperor was interested not only in academic institutions but also in technical training schools where “practical learning” was taught. On January 24, 1878, he visited the forerunner of the Faculty of Agriculture of T ō ky ō University, and in the rescript pronounced on this occasion, he declared, “We believe that agriculture is the foundation of the nation.” 12 This insistence on the importance of agriculture to the nation was, of course, nothing new: Confucian philosophers had been saying the same thing for more than a thousand years. What was distinctive was that the students were learning about modern agricultural methods in a school, whereas in the past they would have been expected to learn how to be successful farmers by laboring in the fields. Such a school was not intended to destroy traditional agriculture or crafts