b. Mori Arinori as the First Minister of Education

Mori Arinori was deeply concerned with the relation between education and national development. This may be understood from a section in an opinion paper concerning educational policy which he presented to the Cabinet. "If we aim at having our country stand equal to the great nations of the world, if we aim at carrying on forever the great endeavor called the Meiji Restoration, if we aim at becoming a strong nation, it is necessary to develop and create a base for the nourishment of an unexcelled spirit among the people." In other words Mori put great stress on education for the sake of national development and prosperity. Apart from his official work, Mori participated in the foundation of the Meiji Six Society (Mezrokusha) in 1873, established the Commercial Law Institute (Shoho Koshujo), a forerunner of Hitotsubashi University, in 1875, and encouraged arts and sciences.

Immediately after the Meiji Restoration, Mori was appointed School Magistrate (Gakko Hanji). Then he was dispatched to various countries as a diplomat.

When Mori was in the United States as a minister of the legation, he devoted much thought to the direction that Japanese education should take. Thus he sent letters to American political figures and educators soliciting their opinions on this matter. The gist of his letters was to ask what influence education had in the following five areas: relative to the material prosperity of the nation, relative to the commerce of the nation, relative to the profit of agriculture and manufacturing, relative to the physical, moral, and social condition of the people, and relative to law and governmental administration. In response to his letters, Mori received replies from thirteen men of intelligence in the United States. He edited their replies and published them in New York in 1873 under the title, Education in Japan. His educational policy set forth in this book emphasized education for the sake of the nation, and in this respect, was quite different from the thinking at that time as clarified by the Grand Council in the preamble to the Education System Order (Gakusei) which emphasized education as a resource for personal success in life, and it was also far removed from the view of education set forth in the first section of Fukuzawa Yukichi's Encouragement of Learning (Gakumon no Susume) published in 1872.

During Mori's tenure overseas, Ito Hirobumi went to the West in order to study constitutional law, and in Paris, he and Mori had the opportunity to meet. At that time they debated about the government of Japan, and in the course of debate, Mori related his ideas concerning educational policy saying that an improved educational system was crucial in achieving national development and prosperity. This opinion made a deep impression on Ito Hirobumi. After Mori's return to Japan in May, 1884, Ito put him in charge of educational policy formation as the Special Assistant (Goyogakari) within the Ministry of Education. Then on December 22, 1885, when Ito as the Prime Minister organized Japan's first Cabinet, Mori was appointed the Minister of Education.

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