General Effects
While Japan’s transformation into an industrialized nation was remarkable for any country, much more a non-Western one, it cannot be considered an unqualified success. The original movement to create a citizenry that supported the country through an egalitarian Western-based education system was replaced with one that can be seen as aggressively nationalistic and conservative.[1] The Japanese search for a stable, centralized educational system tore a hole in the fabric of village communities through arbitrary subdivisions and aggressive taxation policies. It is surely not coincidental that the most destruction of traditions came at the urbanized level most likely to serve as a bulwark against ultra-nationalism, the focus of Japanese education from the 1880s onward.[2] Most importantly, though, it is crucial to understand the actions of the Meiji government in establishing a nationalistic school system because, due to the implication of such a system, Japan was able to indoctrinate its citizens with a militant pride toward their country that contributed to the country's actions in the Second World War. Indeed, education is one of the most important tools governments have in creating a subordinate populace, and had the Ministry of Education remained with the egalitarian system and not succumbed to outside pressure the population might have been less willing to support the government before and during the war. This is a lesson that can certainly be applied outside of Japan to nations that wish to build national loyalty for purposes both benevolent and malicious.
[1] Platt, Burning and Building, 233.
[2] Platt, 238.
[1] Platt, Burning and Building, 233.
[2] Platt, 238.