Study On The Concept Of Japan’s National Education During The Early Meiji Period

Japan’s statismtheoretically supports that "spiritual entity" is above all else and emphasizes on fostering national concept and quality of allegiance to country but oppressing liberalism and individualism. The education of Japan’s statism is developed after Meiji Restoration when the country wanted to unify citizen’s moral thought and implement national education for country and for empire.Japan’s statism was gradually completed and formed by introduction of western modern theory and combination of traditional Confucianism. Modern western theory represented by Spencer’s British utilitarianism, with Fichte’s German national ideology and China’s Confucianism moral theory under Japan’s local influence, finally formed modern statism. At the same time, statism was confirmed under the development of liberal civil rights movements.In the earlier of Meiji time, with the educational policy published and developed, statism educational thought had become instructive thought explained variously by ideologists and politicians of that time.Although Fukuzawa Yukichi’s ‘independence of a nation’, Mori Arinori’s ‘superiority of national sovereignty’, Motoda Nagasane’s ‘loyalty tomonarch and nation’ and Inoue Kowashi’s ‘industrial rejuvenation’ are different in implemengting way, their core thought is national education belonging to national profits.Education has the special quality of severing national politics, economy and military. However, the education in the earlier of Meiji went to extreme, which caused education utilization Politics practicing for ‘loyalty to monarch and nation’, economy for ‘industrial rejuvenation’, military for ‘militarism’ but education emphasized much on statism’s utilization and practicability, which led Japan’s education to lose the function of encouraging people to pursue self independence quality and hided danger for future development of Japan’s education.