Iwakura Mission's Educational Investigation In Western Countries And Educational Reform After Their Return

As an important mission in modern Japan,Iwakura mission plays an vital role in Japan's modernization.Fujimaro Tanaka,a member of executive council of educational investigation of the mission,reforms Japan's interventionist education system in School System and adopts American liberalism education idea,enacting liberal Education Decree after his return.In spite of unsatisfactory reform result,the policy to grant the local government the right of autonomy in education and the attempt to develop education on people's force are of great significance.Therefore,the enactment of Education Decree is a significant try in the history of Japanese education.However,the failure of the reform also makes Japanese education lose another possibility.The paper can be divided into five chapters.The introduction is about the research background,research reason and literature review.The literature review is categorized according to the mission's schedule and the process of educational reform after their return.The first chapter explains the revision of the educational investigation plan and the staff composition before the mission departs.After having been discussed many times,the task of investigating educational administration is finally determined;The mission takes America and the second Reich as their main visiting countries,taking the United Kingdom and France into consideration.Fujimaro Tanaka is appointed as one of the six members of executive council of educational investigation.He is in charge of the details.The second chapter has four parts.The first part shows the investigation group's schedule.The second part is about Fujimaro Tanaka and Mori Arinori(a famous statesman and educationist during Meiji Restoration of 1868 in Japan)'s divergence on whether to adopt American liberalism education system or not.The third part gives a description of Fujimaro Tanaka's investigation of the educational systems in European countries.The last part explains his investigation report after his return-Report by Executive Council and expounds his reform focus and direction.In Fujimaro Tanaka's view,the direction is to inspire people's initiative and grant local government the right of autonomy in education.According to the direction,the third chapter presents School System's liberalization and localization reform by Fujimaro Tanaka.However,he has to draft a new decreeEducation Decree because of the rigid School System so as to carry out liberalism education.The original Education Decree,having been modified a lot by Ito Hirobumi(a famous statesman during Meiji Restoration of 1868 in Japan),retains its basic principles and is finally enacted after the approval of Senate.However,the implementation of the decree isn't unsatisfactory.It doesn't promote the development on people's force but causes recession in education including the decay of public elementary schools and decline of education quality of private elementary schools.Therefore,the new decree is repealed.In the conclusion,the paper illustrates the two reasons for liberalism education system's failure in Japan.First,central government's role in supervision is ignored while granting the local government's right of autonomy in education.Second,people don't have mature awareness of spontaneously developing education and fail to fit in with government.These two reasons are responsible for Japan's education recession in a short time.Nevertheless,the repeal of Education Decree deprives Japan of the chance of developing another education system.