b. The Drafting and Proclamation of the 1879 Education Order

In 1877, the then Deputy Secretary of Education, Tanaka Fujimaro, appointed a committee within the Department of Education to take up the initial drafting of a new educational order and Tanaka, on his inspection tours of education in the West, had been especially impressed by the United States, and on his second trip to that country he came to appreciate the virtue of decentralization in facilitating the adaptation of education to local conditions. This experience caused him to revise his opinions about the need for standardization and thus in the deliberations leading up to the draft of a new order special attention was paid to the decentralized American system of educational administration. At the same time, the draft acknowledged the many circumstances peculiar to Japan. Finally, on May 14, 1878, a proposal for a new system of national education was presented to His Majesty in a draft titled the Japanese Education Order (Nihon Kyoikurei).

This draft was reviewed and extensively amended by various organs of the government, including the Grand Council and the Council of Elder Statesmen (Genroin). Ito Hirobumi(1841-1909), Councillor, and at the same time Director General of the Legislation Bureau, in the Grand Council, was among those who strongly advocated the amendments of the draft. First of all the provisions for a system of school districts, which had been a fundamental principle in the Education System Order, and which had been retained in the draft of the new order, were deleted as were a number of items relating to the duties and powers of the Secretary of Education and several provisions dealing with the treatment of teachers and with educational assemblies at national, prefectural and other levels. These amendments representing a compromise between Tanaka's plan and the distinctively opposed views of certain other government leaders provide some insight into the complicated political situation of that time. Finally, on September 29, 1879, the 1879 Education Order (Kyoikurei) was proclaimed by the Grand Council.