exercised control over the curriculum and in the selection of textbooks, as well as in teachers’ training. What was called ‘moral culture‘ had to be taught, and texts urged children to revere their parents, be loyal to the nation, and become good citizens. The Japanese had borrowed their written script from the Chinese in the sixth century. However, since their language is very different from Chinese they developed two phonetic alphabets – hiragana and katakana .
Hiragana is considered feminine because it was used by many women writers in the Heian period (such as Murasaki). It is written using a mixture of Chinese characters and phonetics so that the main part of the word is written with a character – for instance, in ‘going’, ‘go’ would be written with a character and the ‘ing’ in phonetics. The existence of a phonetic syllabary meant that knowledge spread from the elites to the wider society relatively quickly. In the 1880s it was suggested that Japanese develop a completely phonetic script, or adopt a European language.
Neither was done. To integrate the nation, the Meiji government imposed a new administrative structure by altering old village and domain boundaries. The administrative unit had to have revenue adequate to maintain the local schools and health facilities, as well as serve as a recruitment centre for the military. All young men over twenty had to do a period of military service.
A modern military force was developed. A legal system was set up to regulate the formation of political groups, control the holding of meetings and impose strict censorship. In all these measures the government had to face opposition. The military and the bureaucracy were put under the direct command of the emperor.
This meant that even after a constitution was enacted these two groups remained outside the control of the government. In all these measures the government faced opposition. The tension between these different ideals represented by a democratic constitution and a modern army was to have far-reaching consequences. The army pressed for a vigorous foreign policy to acquire more territory.
This led to wars