New History Textbook (Chapter 4 & 5) 2005 version - Bakumatsu Films

In contrast, with a warrior culture that dated back to the Edo era, Japan was very sensitive to
military threats from the West. For instance, Satsuma and Choshu (Japan’s two most powerful
fiefs) had waged war with Western nations toward the end of Shogunate rule. That conflict had
taught them a painful lesson about the difference between Japanese and Western military strength.
It had also inspired the Japanese to make a policy shift towards assertive research into Western
ways.
Reforms Made at the Expense of the Reformers (Japan’s Warriors)
The reforms of the Meiji Restoration included the abolition of the class system, which heralded a
classless society. The Japanese were now free to choose their occupations, and to engage in free
economic activity. The warriors lost their privileges, and the warrior class itself ceased to exist.
The Meiji Restoration was unlike the revolutions that took places in Europe, the French Revolution
in particular. No violent, angry mobs attempted to purge the nobility. It was none other than the
Meiji government, all of whose members were warriors, that abolished the warrior class.
A French scholar named Maurice Pinguet wrote about this subject in his book entitled La Mort
Volontaire au Japon (Voluntary death in Japan). An excerpt follows.
Warriors, once Japan’s privileged class, were not overthrown by members of another class.
Rather, they were the very ones who promoted reforms in the face of foreign menaces, and by
eliminating their own class, they made the ultimate sacrifice. This was a revolution that cannot be
construed by the usual meaning of the word, which involves one class overthrowing another. The
hope of those warriors was to summon up the inherent strength of the nation that is Japan, which
had lain dormant for so long.
The Meiji Restoration was an age of reforms set in motion by warriors who viewed the pursuit of
the public good as their personal missions.
The Meiji Restoration and Education
Education was to be the basis of the nation-building reforms that were promoted during the Meiji
Restoration. The tradition of emphasizing education was carried over from the Edo era. Even the
fiefs that sided with the Shogunate felt the same way.
One of the pro-Shogunate fiefs defeated in the Boshin Civil War was Nagaoka (today Niigata
Prefecture). Adding to Nagaoka’s woes was a critical food shortage caused by floods. A
sympathetic neighboring fief sent 100 bales of rice to Nagaoka. But the fief’s chief official,
Kobayashi Torasaburo, distributed not one grain of that rice to his vassals. Instead, he sold the rice
and used the proceeds to open a fief school intended to nurture future leaders. Philosophies like
Kobayashi’s — giving priority to education when allocating resources —- were instrumental to
successful modernization.
In the Edo era, there were two types of educational institutions: fief schools attended by the
children of warriors, and temple schools attended by the common people’s offspring. As soon as it
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