In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

5 Nationalism, Motherhood, and the Early Taishò Expansion of Day-Care During the first decade of the twentieth century Futaba Yòchien and the KSKH centers established fundamental standards for day-care in pre-World War II Japan. During the 1910s (the first half of the Taishò period) the rising number of child-care institutions, the appearance of networks of centers, and the continued support of the Home Ministry and the throne indicate that day-care centers were becoming firmly rooted in Japan. During this era, despite minor regional differences, a broad, informal, yet durable consensus concerning day-care purposes and programs emerged, one that lasted beyond formation of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (Kòseishò) in 1938. In previous chapters I contended that Futaba Yòchien and the KSKH centers , especially the latter, articulated a link between child care and national progress. Day-care proponents thereafter held that instilling the values of hard work, frugality, discipline, and self-reliance in urban lower-class parents and children would advance the development of Japanese industry, empire, and civilization . Accordingly, the more day-care centers multiplied, the more state and society would benefit. This logic appealed to progress-minded bureaucrats and public-minded citizens , who began to support day-care endeavors after the Russo-Japanese War. During the 1910s municipal officials, civic organizations, philanthropists, and community leaders began to take interest in day-care centers as a practical means of ameliorating urban poverty and assisting recovery from natural disasters. In support of these ends, key government organs such as the Home Ministry, the throne, and newly founded municipal relief departments continued to commend day-care facilities and provide financial assistance during that era and beyond. This chapter explores the consensus regarding the goals and features of child care that developed in Japan as day-care centers proliferated during the second decade of the twentieth century.1 In general, economic objectives were foremost during the early 1910s, when nearly all day-care facilities were located in the two great metropolitan zones surrounding Tokyo and Osaka, but the vast 90 Early Taishò Day-Care majority of centers also gave high priority to education as a means of cultural assimilation of the poor. During the Taishò era the appeal of programs centered on these two major aims was so great that alternative views, even those of a leading relief expert such as Ogawa Shigejirò, who advocated institutional child care of children under three as a means of reducing infant mortality, were virtually ignored . The ideas of social and national progress held by center founders, staff members, and day-care supporters, particularly the relationship between desires for national advancement and support for child-care facilities, are crucial in explaining the strong emphasis on the economic benefits of Taishò day-care. Yet despite the expansion and growing appeal of institutional child care, the diffusion of new attitudes toward motherhood threatened to diminish the appeal of day-care centers during this decade. Although much of the positive regard for day-care stemmed from its promise to improve society and nation, acceptance of day-care also depended on tolerance of multiple caregivers for young children, notions that derived from lingering early modern Japanese attitudes and practices tolerating infant and child care by persons besides the natural mother.2 Thus this chapter also examines the influence of mother-centered views of childrearing on Japanese day-care practices and their justifications during the second decade of the twentieth century. Development and Diffusion of Day-Care Centers Following the establishment of Japan’s first permanent day-care facility— Futaba Yòchien in Tokyo—additional child-care centers were slowly founded in poor and working-class districts in other metropolitan areas. The reopening of three of the Kobe wartime centers in 1906 brought the total to four nationwide, but thereafter the pace of establishment quickened. By 1912, three years after the Home Ministry began to hold symposia throughout the nation encouraging the founding of relief projects (kyûsai jigyò kòshûkai), fifteen day-care facilities were in operation. Two-thirds of these were located in Osaka, Kobe, and Tokyo, three of Japan’s “six great cities” (roku daitoshi).3 As the Taishò era progressed, the pace of expansion increased. During 1917, the year before nationwide riots over rice prices spurred development of a host of new social programs,4 the number of day-care centers climbed to sixty, with the yearly rates of increase ranging between five and ten centers per...

Share