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348 18 The Imperial Rescript on Education Western Science and Eastern Morality for the Twentieth Century, 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education Know ye, Our subjects: Our Imperial Ancestors have founded Our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting , and had deeply and firmly implanted virtue. Our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire, and herein lies the source of Our education. Ye, Our subjects, be filial to 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 the 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 prosperity of our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth. So shall ye not only be Our good and faithful subjects, but render illustrious the best traditions of your forefathers. The Way here set forth is indeed the teaching bequeathed by our Imperial Ancestors, to be observed alike by Their Descendants and the subjects, infallible for all ages and true in all places. It is Our wish to lay it to heart in all reverence, in common with you, Our subjects, that we may all attain the same virtue. October 30, 18901 As the second decade of the Meiji Restoration ended, one final ingredient in the construction of modern Japanese public education for the twentieth century remained inadequately addressed. Ironically, it concerned the role of traditional values and customs of Japanese society. Within the Fourth National School System designed and implemented from 1886 to 1889 by Minister of Education Mori Arinori, the role of Confucian morality as well as the imperial tradition had not been appropriately defined. Powerful interest groups remained dissatisfied with the state of educational affairs. The final piece in the mosaic of modern education in Japan had yet to be put in place. The Imperial Rescript on Education 349 Once again two old antagonists emerged at the center of the controversy. Motoda Nagazane, the doctrinaire Confucianist of the Meiji era, represented the Imperial Household. The constitutionalist Inoue Kowashi, with German predilections , represented the modernists. A decade earlier the two were in direct confrontation over Motoda’s 1879 “Imperial Will on Education” that was refuted by Inoue’s “Educational Affair” circulated under Itō Hirobumi’s name, considered in previous chapters. This time, in sharp contrast, Motoda and Inoue forged an unprecedented compromise. The ultimate solution to the nagging dilemma between those who championed the centrality of Confucian morality imbedded in imperial ideology, versus the fundamental role of western science, evolved through “The Imperial Rescript on Education” of 1890. The convergence of ideas from the modernists and the traditionalists incorporated therein underlies the historical significance of the Rescript. The movement for an “Imperial Rescript on Education” had been inexorably building from the beginning of the Meiji era in 1868. The Charter Oath taken by the teenager Emperor Meiji of the same year laid the foundation. “Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world, so as to strengthen the foundation of imperial rule.” During the 1870s, under the director of the Ministry of Education Tanaka Fujimaro , the obsessive quest for western knowledge prevailed, fulfilling the intent of the first part of this lofty oath. In sharp contrast, the role of the imperial tradition in education received little consideration by Tanaka who disregarded the intent of the second part of the Charter Oath. After nearly a decade of frustration, Motoda Nagazane, as trusted advisor to the emperor, orchestrated a reaction in the form of “The Imperial Will on Education” in 1879, which, as we have seen, assimilated the imperial tradition with Confucian morality and inserted it into the center of modern education. Motoda’s document of 1879 was in essence the initial version of “The Imperial Rescript on Education” of 1890. Until Mori Arinori’s appointment as minister of education in 1885, Motoda’s “Imperial Will on Education” of 1879 laid the basis for a resurgent Confucianism as the moral foundation of education with the emperor at the center. However, from the beginning of the comprehensive school system designed by Mori, Confucian teachings espoused by Motoda were relegated once again to an insignificant position. The Elementary School Ordinance, the Middle School...

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