This article traces the development of the wartime Japanese curriculum, which was deliberately designed to implement 'Japanese' approaches to science, and its relation to the previously dominant educational approach, learning by doing. It examines the work of Shiono Naomichi (1898-1969), who served as the curriculum and textbook revision director…

The author has lived in Japan over twenty-five years, teaching in higher education for more than twenty. He observes that it has been alarming to see the inroads of ideological activism in the academic community in Japan, which is having unfortunate effects on the curricula of many schools, including his own, Hokusei Gakuen University. In this…

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended six centuries of feudal military rule by establishing a divine Emperor and clam oligarchy. Compulsory schooling and military service soon followed. Until WWII both institutions engaged in moral training that was both Confucian and nationalistic in its emphasis on absolute loyalty to the state and Emperor. The…