In the mid-Meiji period, the leading scholar Kato Hiroyuki proposed relying on religion in moral education as he was dissatisfied with the Ministry of Education's inclination towards Western ethics in their reform. Triggered by Kato's proposal, there arose an intense debate over the 'standard' for moral education in the educational circles. The Ministry of Education failed to present a debate-ending 'standard', while the promulgation of the Imperial Rescript on Education enforced the 'royal standard' for moral education and therefore cast aside all other propositions advanced in the debate. However, the main participants of the debate presented a dynamic discursive space revolving around ethics education and religion. By examining this discursive space, we can enable our investigation of the history of moral education in the Meiji period to go beyond the simplistic narrative framework centred on The Imperial Rescript on Education.