Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  From the day the prince was born, he suffered from a rash that covered his body. The scabs dissolved by September 23, and he was given a hip-bath, but it had an adverse effect. On the following day, spasms, starting in his abdomen, gradually spread to his chest. A mucous cough aggravated the pain. The spasms at last diminished by three in the morning, but the infant had still not recovered entirely, and there were frequent, though milder, recurrences that caused the emperor and empress great anxiety. The palace doctors tried every remedy, including acupuncture, and the aged Tadayasu spent days and nights watching over his great-grandchild. Not until December did the prince’s illness subside, and even then the attacks recurred every nine days. The baby’s mother, Yanagihara Naruko, did not recover her health after the birth, and because the quarters in the Lying-in Chamber were crowded, she was sent back to her apartment in the palace.2

  The emperor did not get his first glimpse of Yoshihito until December 4. That afternoon, after exercising his horse on the riding ground, he went, still on horseback, to the Aoyama Lying-in Chamber. Nakayama Yoshiko (the emperor’s mother) carried the prince in her arms to the emperor, who expressed delight with his son. On the following day the empress paid a visit to her nominal son. It had been decided as far back as September 30 that the prince, who would be considered as the empress’s son, would be brought up initially (like his father) at the house of Nakayama Tadayasu; but he suffered a fresh outbreak of illness that day, and his departure was delayed. The move did not take place until December 7. On December 28 the prince, having reached his 120th day of life, had his “first chopsticks” ceremony at the Nakayama house, but the prince’s health continued to worry the emperor, and for fear of provoking spasms, he treated the prince with greater indulgence than he ever showed his other children.

  Other matters than his son’s health occupied the emperor’s attention at this time. By this time he was recognized as a “cousin” by the royal houses of Europe, and he accordingly received regular and prolonged visits from foreign royalty. Prince Heinrich of Germany brought Meiji a decoration from his government, the first time any Asian monarch had been so honored. This was also the first foreign decoration that Meiji wore. He received from the duke of Genoa, a somewhat later visitor, the Annunciade, Italy’s highest military decoration, and responded by bestowing the Grand Order of the Chrysanthemum on the duke and showing him how to wear it. The emperor also received a bust of himself and portraits of himself and the empress made by the Milanese artist Giuseppe Ugolini.3

  Apart from visits by foreign royalty, the emperor was regularly informed of events in the lives of other monarchs. He responded correctly to his “cousins,” sending messages of congratulation to Alfonso XII of Spain on his remarriage and to the czar of Russia on his narrow escape from assassins.4

  Matters closer to home also demanded the emperor’s attention. In October 1879 some members of the government made a concerted attempt to get rid of Soejima Taneomi by sending him abroad on an unspecified mission. Kuroda Kiyotaka, the leader of the anti-Soejima faction, claimed that foreign newspapers had accused Soejima of having expressed in lectures delivered before the emperor opinions contrary to government policy and of having, while he was foreign minister, colluded with a foreigner—the American general Charles LeGendre—when dealing with the Taiwan incident. Kuroda’s charges were supported by other high-ranking officials, including Councillor Saigō Tsugumichi, but Ōkuma Shigenobu declared that if Soejima were dismissed, he would resign. Itō Hirobumi praised Soejima’s scholarship but said that Soejima was not trusted by most people because of his extreme conservatism. He favored sending Soejima abroad to examine political conditions so that he might improve his already superior understanding of the West. Itō suggested that Soejima might be permitted at some future date to rejoin the cabinet.

  When asked to render a decision, the emperor conferred with his Confucian adviser Motoda Nagazane, who strongly defended Soejima. He said that he had heard the lectures Soejima had delivered in the presence of the emperor and considered that they embodied profound respect for the majesty of the imperial house and contributed to the exaltation of the imperial virtue. He believed that it was entirely beneficial for the emperor to use Soejima and that he, Motoda, had not detected anything harmful in his words. Kuroda had never heard any of Soejima’s lectures and therefore lacked firm evidence for his accusations. To believe unfounded reports, and on this basis to seek to get rid of Soejima, was to question the wisdom of His Majesty. If one were to believe everything that appeared in the newspapers, how many of the cabinet would escape being removed? If Kuroda’s self-serving proposal to get rid of Soejima were adopted, this action would surely be widely criticized; but if Kuroda, annoyed that his proposal was rejected, asked to be relieved of his post and permission were granted, would anyone question this decision by the emperor?5

  The emperor, not rushing into a decision, conferred several times with Motoda, whose opinions he highly valued. Motoda answered with increasing bluntness. He attributed to personal rancor Kuroda’s urging that Soejima be removed from his position. There was no fault to find with Soejima; even if 10 million people hated him, the emperor should continue to employ him. Soejima had been employed as the emperor’s tutor for only seven months and had not even completed his lectures on the Great Learning. How could anyone propose that he be sent abroad at this stage? Even if Kuroda resigned as councillor, there would still be nine other councillors, but if Soejima left, not only would it deprive the emperor of one of the rare people who could contribute to his learning, but it would encourage dissident elements to attack the government, resulting in incalculable harm. In the end Motoda’s eloquence carried the day: the emperor decided not to allow Soejima to be sent abroad. Kuroda, who had threatened to resign if his advice was not heeded, remained in office.6

  At this distance from the events, it seems clear that some personal (or domain-based) enmity was behind the insistence of Kuroda and other Satsuma men that Soejima be removed from his post. But the incident is noteworthy for another reason. One sometimes gets the impression that all the Meiji government’s decisions were made by consensus, but this is an instance when the emperor, relying on Motoda, a man above political factionalism, made a decision that differed from the opinions of the majority of his ministers.

  About the same time the emperor abolished the office of jiho, or adviser, which had been created a little more than two years earlier.7 Although the jiho included extremely distinguished men—Tokudaiji Sanetsune, Sasaki Takayuki, and Motoda Nagazane—from the first they were prevented from carrying out their assigned duty of counseling the emperor, by members of the government who accused them of craving power. Itō compared their would-be meddling in the government with the evils of the eunuchs in China and predicted that this would confuse the functions of the palace and the government. In the end the frustrated jiho, angered over being compared with the notoriously corrupt eunuchs and equally angered over Kuroda’s attempts to get rid of the jiho Soejima, requested that their office be abolished, providing that the ministers and councillors would carry out the functions of jiho in addition to their prescribed duties. The cabinet eventually decided to abolish the jiho and assigned ministers and councillors to palace duties similar to theirs.

  The emperor seems not to have welcomed this decision. On October 20, a week after the office of jiho was abolished, he summoned Tokudaiji, Sasaki, Motoda, and the others and informed them that even though the jiho had been abolished, if ever they had something to tell him, they should do so without reserve. He personally presented them with bolts of silk and invited them to lunch with the prime minister and the minister of the right. This was not the only instance of a decision by the politicians that displeased Meiji, although they always insisted that their actions were intended to carry out the imperial will.

  The principal subject of debate during the latter part of 1879 was education. Meiji’s Oath in Five Articles had promised that the Japanese would seek learning thro
ughout the world in order for their country to catch up to the advanced countries. The emperor’s abiding interest in education was evidenced by the frequency of his visits to schools wherever he traveled. He himself continued to receive instruction from Motoda Nagazane and others in the Confucian classics. He was particularly affected by Motoda’s insistence on chū (loyalty) and kō (filial piety) as the central Confucian virtues, even though these two virtues had not been stressed in the Confucian writings of China or in those of the Japanese Confucianists of the Tokugawa period. During the Meiji era the four Confucian virtues commonly cited in statements on education—jin (humaneness), gi (righteousness), chū, and kō—were seen as adjuncts to the policy of “civilization and enlightenment” favored by the bureaucrats.8 However, jin and gi tended to receive less attention than chū and kō, virtues that lent themselves easily to the new state’s policies.

  The emperor also listened to lectures delivered on works of Japanese tradition and (to a lesser extent) Western history. His preferences in education, regardless of the subject matter, were conservative, as we can infer from this poem:

  yorozuyo ni What never changes

  ugokanu mono wa Throughout ten thousand ages

  inishie no Are the teachings left

  hijiri no miyo no From the ancient past,

  okite narikeri The holy age of the sages.

  The emperor also revealed in his poetry his awareness that traditional learning was insufficient in a modern world:

  susumiyuku It will do no good

  yo ni okurenaba If we fall behind a world

  kai araji That is progressing

  fumi no hayashi wa Even if we penetrate

  waketsukusu tomo The depths of literature.9

  Despite the emperor’s belief in the importance of the learning of the past, the new education tended to be Western in orientation. For example, on July 14, 1876, when the emperor visited an elementary school in Aomori, ten pupils of English gave talks in English and wrote compositions. The following were the subjects:

  Speech: Hannibal’s speech encouraging his soldiers.

  Composition: In celebration of His Majesty’s visit to Aomori.

  Speech: Andrew Jackson’s speech in the U.S. Senate.

  Composition: A song in praise of enlightenment and progress.

  Speech: Cicero’s attack on Cataline.

  Composition: A song in praise of education.10

  The emperor had to leave the school before all the planned talks and compositions could be completed. As he departed, the pupils sang for him a song in English. The emperor gave each of them five yen with which to buy a copy of Webster’s Intermediate Dictionary. But on his return to Tōkyō, he told Motoda that he thought that the pupils’ ignorance of Japan was the fault of “American educational methods” in practice, since the school system was established in 1872.11

  After his return from his journey of 1878 to Hokuriku and Tōkai, the emperor sent for Iwakura Tomomi and informed him that it was essential to cultivate in the schools traditional Japanese morality. He obviously had not been pleased with Japanese children who, though ignorant of Japanese traditions, glibly delivered speeches in English on Hannibal and Cicero.

  The emperor was interested not only in academic institutions but also in technical training schools where “practical learning” was taught. On January 24, 1878, he visited the forerunner of the Faculty of Agriculture of Tōkyō University, and in the rescript pronounced on this occasion, he declared, “We believe that agriculture is the foundation of the nation.”12 This insistence on the importance of agriculture to the nation was, of course, nothing new: Confucian philosophers had been saying the same thing for more than a thousand years. What was distinctive was that the students were learning about modern agricultural methods in a school, whereas in the past they would have been expected to learn how to be successful farmers by laboring in the fields. Such a school was not intended to destroy traditional agriculture or crafts that had been passed down from generation to generation; rather, this formal education in scientific techniques would lead to increased agricultural production and to a more prosperous society.

  On July 15, 1878, the emperor pronounced a rescript at the ceremonies opening the engineering university. A school where technology would be systematically taught was new to Japan and an important part of the process of “enlightenment.” In order to raise Japanese techniques to the standards in the advanced countries, it was necessary to hire foreign experts as teachers. On his visits to schools throughout the country, Meiji always singled out the foreign teachers for special attention. When they were about to leave Japan after completing their contractual duties, he usually granted them audiences, an honor much less frequently bestowed on Japanese. President Grant, as we have seen, urged the Japanese to retain their foreign advisers. Although he expressed the hope that teaching positions of every kind would be one day filled entirely by Japanese, he noted that it would be unwise “to hurry unnecessarily the dismissal of foreign instructors…. I believe that you should keep for as long as they can be kept foreigners, like those of world reputation who have founded His Majesty’s Engineering University.” His advice was heeded.

  Meiji also encouraged Japanese (who could afford it) to study abroad, to observe conditions in other countries, acquire practical learning, and keep Japan from falling behind in progress.13 He stressed even in his poetry the importance of the absorption of Western civilization:

  wa ga sono ni Here in my garden

  shigeriaikeri They have grown in profusion—

  totsukuni no Because I planted

  kusaki no nae mo And cultivated seedlings

  ōshitatsureba Of plants and trees from abroad.

  In 1872 an edict on education had been promulgated providing for the standardization of education throughout the country, mainly along the lines of the French educational system.14 Although the plan proved to be too idealistic to be realized with Japan’s limited resources, it was indicative of the great importance attached to education from the start of the Meiji era.

  Soon after the new school system was promulgated, there were complaints that the authorities were so determined to carry through the ambitious plan, regardless of the costs, that they were spending huge sums of money. The administrators were also charged with excessive interference in the schools. As the result of these and other complaints, Education Minister Tanaka Fujimaro (1845–1909) was sent to America to observe education there. On his return he proposed basic departures from the system instituted in 1872: the educational system should be changed to accord better with the national strength, the conditions of people’s life, and the existing culture. The French system would be replaced by a decentralized educational system in which responsibility would be shifted to the localities.15 A draft bill was submitted in May 1878 for examination by Itō Hirobumi, who made some modifications such as giving greater autonomy to local authorities and minimizing interference from the central government. After passing the Genrō-in with further modifications, the bill was presented to the emperor for his approval.

  In the meantime Iwakura Tomomi, charged by the emperor with incorporating traditional virtues into the new education, had concluded that Japan’s educational policies had to be changed. Such men as Sasaki Takayuki and Motoda Nagazane were convinced that loyalty and filial piety must be the cornerstone. Moral training (shūshin) had always been a basic part of the elementary-school curriculum,16 using such Confucian works as the Great Learning for texts, but these men felt that shūshin tended to be overshadowed by foreign learning.

  On April 16, 1878, Iwakura and Sasaki had an audience with the emperor at which he stressed the importance of moral education, regardless of whether a person was a student of Chinese learning, a devotee of the emperor, or even (like Fukuzawa Yukichi and Katō Hiroyuki) advocates of Western learning. On May 5 during an audience with the emperor, Iwakura read aloud the proposal of someone who favored a republican government—presumably as a warning against too grea
t a tolerance of dissenting opinions. He urged the emperor to devote himself more than ever to his Heaven-appointed duties so as to ensure the fairness of the government’s policies. The most essential concern was education. Judging from recent conditions, Iwakura observed, the blind adherence of many people to Western ways deprives them of independent, self-respecting thought. If a Westerner says the Analects is a good book, they read it at once; if a Westerner says it is a bad book, they throw it away without hesitation. It reminds one of ignorant men or women rushing off to worship at whatever Inari shrine happens to be popular at the moment.17

  On June 26, the day after the revised bill was submitted to the emperor, he promised, in view of the importance of the matter and his own personal interest, to have a written record of his views prepared. This document, composed by Motoda, was in two parts. Although it purported to present the emperor’s views, they were in fact Motoda’s. The first part declared:

  The essence of the teachings for high and low alike of our ancestors and our national classics is that the essential function of education is to teach benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and filial piety. The Way of human beings should be cultivated by the exhaustive study of knowledge and the arts. However, in recent years only knowledge and the arts have been respected, and in their eagerness to run after the trivialities of “civilization and enlightenment,” quite a few men have broken rules of conduct and impaired customs. Moreover, taking the astute proclamation that old, unenlightened customs are to be rejected and learning is to be sought throughout the world as the commencement of the Restoration, such people have promised they will adopt the superior practices of the West and demonstrate they are capable of making improvements each day. But what happens is that they dismiss, as long-standing evils, benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and filiality and recklessly vie to adopt Western ways. This is to be dreaded for the future and may in the end make them unaware of the great principle of loyalty to one’s sovereign and filial behavior toward one’s parents. Their attitude does not accord with the basic principles of education in our country.