A Study On Present Japanese Juvenile Moral Educational System

The present moral education in Japan theoretically relates much to itshistory and geographical location. Historically, the three religions,Confucianism, Buddhism, and the Japan Taoism, have exerted great influenceon the morality of Japanese people. In addition, the special geographicalenvironment, custom and climate of Japan also contribute a lot to theformation of current moral education system in this country. The ethnics of "clarified minds" was originated from the Japanese folklegends, which respects authority, reveres gods, admires human justice andignores individuality, even one's life. But what we should also recognize isthat it is this moral principal that also attributes to the overflow of thepost-militarism. Since the spread of Chinese Confucianism and Buddhism toJapan in around 5th century, the ethnics of Japanese people began to changegradually. With the influence of Chinese culture, "integrity" and "sincerity"played a more and more important role in Japanese ethnics, which, togetherwith "clarified minds" became the primitive Japanese ethnics. The moralprinciple of "diligence and thrift" originated in the "Jianghu Period" in 17thcentury when the moralist Shitian Meiyuan concerned himself with integrity.In his opinion, it is not an economical issue to be thrifty, but it should beregarded as a return of the human's born nature of "minds of integrity". Inthis way, Japanese people formed the ethnics with the core of clarification,integrity and thrift. These moral principles exerted great influence on thedevelopment of later Japanese ethnics. The moral education in feudalism of Japan was mainly the warriors'moral education and the multitude's moral education. "The spirit of warriors"requires warriors be loyal to their lord and Buda, show respect to courage andbravery, ignore life and death, and more importantly, willingly devotethemselves to their lord and their family interest. The multitude's moraleducation requires common people "abide by the law and behave oneself".They should act according to the moral standard of "diligence, thrift, andsimplicity." After modern times, with the influence of western ethnics, therudimentary moralists of Japan tried their best to impart modern ethnics toJapanese people. The representative figures and their theories included: FuzeYuji's idea on knowledge, advanced morality and self-dependence; Xizhou'sutilitarianism; Xicun Maoshu's kind citizen moral and education. In a word,these rudimentary moralists made a great contribution to Japan's 52modernization and the being of one of the strongest countries in the world. The moral education system in Japan can be divided into three stages.The first stage is from the late feudalism to the period before "MeijiRestoration." In this period, modern institutional system had not been set up,but every school in every level had already had the moral education whichfocused on feudal Taoism, Warrior Taoism and Confucianism. The secondstage is from the period of "Meiji Restoration" to the period before WorldWar II. This stage can be further divided into three periods. The first period isto imitate western countries. In this period, with the emphasis ofConfucianism, a lot of practical an utilized ideas were introduced from thecapitalist countries. The second period saw the conflict between the Japaneseand westernization of moral education while the third period is the formationof nationalist educational system. The third stage is from the postwar period to the present. This stage sawthree major ethnical reforms. The first reform took place after WWII. Thesecond reform was symbolized by adding the specific time period for moraleducation. The third reform started from 1980s. This reform emphasized themajor role of ethnics in education. The order of three educationalrequirements was changed from "intelligence, morality and health" to"mo...