Page 6 - Japanese Growth and Education: 演講人：Motohisa Kaneko教授

106 ᐿ࿲ၾආӉj઺ԃٙɢඎ

development. While building up an education system primary through higher

education, Japan laid particular emphasis on diffusion of basic education. That
may sound trivial considering that primary education is the basis of modern
educational systems, but it was not historically the case in the West. On many

European countries higher and primary education developed independently,
th
each corresponding to a social strata. It was in the second half of the 19 century
that they were finally integrated to a national system of education (Flora, 1967).

In the U.K., for instance, compulsory primary education was not established
until 1870 (West, 1965). It was exactly in this period that Japan embarked on its
belated journey of modernization.
Soon after Meiji Restoration of 1868 Japan started building a modern

education system. In the fifth year of the new regime (1872), the Meiji
government proclaimed a plan of a new national education system, comprising

various schools at primary, secondary and higher education. However, an
attached document to the statute declared that the foremost priority should be
given to primary schools (MEXT, 1972, p.134).
This policy may not have been necessarily derived from deliberate strategy

for social development. Rather, it was based on the belief that education is
indispensable “for any individual to establish himself, govern a household and

1
prosper through occupationn” (Grand Council Promulgation, 1872). In other
words, the basis of a modern nation should be established individuals and they
should be formed through universalized education. One may note that this
thought based on individual values will be transformed into more collective

view on nation in the later period.
Japan at this period was an underdeveloped feudal nation predominantly

1 Quoted in MEXT 1972, p.124.