The Strategies The Meiji Government Used to Achieve Economic Developmen

The Strategies The Meiji Government Used to Achieve Economic Development? The Meiji government during the 1880's created both an institutional and constitution structure that allowed Japan in the coming decades to be a stabile and industrializing country. Two major policies and strategies that reinforced stability and economic modernization in Japan were the creation of a national public education system and the ratification of the Meiji constitution. Both these aided in stability and thus economic growth. The creation of a national education system aided in creating stability because it indoctrinated youth in the ideas of loyalty, patriotism, and obedience. Japan's education system at first stressed free thought and the ideas of individual's exploration of knowledge but by 1890 the education system of Japan became a tool for indoctrination into what Peter Duus calls "a kind of civil religion" with the Imperial Rescript on Education. This Rescript stressed two things. First, it stressed loyalty to the emperor and to a lesser extant to the state. In every classroom a picture of the emperor was placed. Second, the education system stressed self sacrifice to the state and family. Filial piety was taught in schools and applied not only to the family but also to the national family which included father, teacher, official and employer. The Japanese education system also created a system of technical schools and universities both public and private that educated a grow...