Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (93 page)

In September, the emperor, still worried about the prince’s education, appointed a senior official, Hijikata Hisamoto, to take charge. He accepted, with the proviso that no one must be allowed to interfere with his decisions. The emperor agreed and sent the chief chamberlain to inform Nakayama Yoshiko that henceforth her guidance would not be needed. Yumoto was also instructed to consult with Hijikata on all educational matters. Yoshiko seems to have resisted being deprived of responsibility for her grandson’s education. In October, Hijikata, obeying an imperial command, agreed to divide responsibility with Yoshiko; she would be in charge of matters concerned with the prince’s upbringing in the palace, including his Japanese-style clothes and his meals. Finally, as had long been planned, Yoshihito entered the Gakush
ō
-in on September 19, 1887. He traveled to school every day and studied in the company of other boys, his desk alongside theirs.
¹⁵
This was the first time an heir to the throne had received a public education.

Toward the end of 1886, Nishimura Shigeki delivered three lectures on Japanese morality at Imperial University.
¹⁶
Nishimura, formerly a member of the Meirokusha, had frequently delivered lectures on the West before the emperor and would continue to do so in the future, but these lectures on morality, later published as
Nihon d
ō
toku ron
(Essays on Japanese Morality) were anything but a summons to learn from the West.

In later years, Nishimura recalled how government officials at that time imitated the legal system, customs, and etiquette of the West, and the mindless aping of such Western diversions as dance parties, costume balls, and tableaux vivants that took place in the hopes of winning the respect of foreigners. He contrasted this subservience with the age-old Japanese morality based on such conceptions as loyalty and filial piety, righteousness, bravery, a sense of shame, and so on and asked how these virtues could be abandoned. He declared that grief over this situation had impelled him to deliver the lectures.
¹⁷

The first lecture opened with a consideration of the differences between two systems of thought dealing with morality. The first he called “this-worldly teachings”; the second, “other-worldly teachings” (or religion). In the former category he placed Confucianism and Western philosophy; in the latter, Buddhism and Christianity. His sympathies were obviously with the former. In China, Confucianism was a native system of thought that had originated in remote antiquity. Buddhism, however, was no more than an imported religion and had never attained the influence of Confucianism. In Japan, however, both Confucianism and Buddhism had been imported. At first they were accepted by all classes of society; but in later times, although the lower classes continued to believe in Buddhism, extremely few of the middle and upper classes retained their faith. The Japanese therefore lacked a common morality shared by all classes; indeed, since the Restoration, all moral standards had disappeared.
¹⁸

Asia was now menaced by the European countries, each of which had staked out an area for colonization. The threatened Asian countries were desperately attempting to modernize. Nishimura commented, “Civilization and enlightenment are to be hoped for, but unless a country exists, there can be no civilization or enlightenment. Once a country has been lost, civilization and enlightenment are obviously impossible.” The crucial task for Japan was to preserve its independence and not permit any foreign country to trample on its dignity. But no matter how many warships or cannons a country possessed, if its people lacked morality, it would not be respected by other countries. History teaches us that the collapse of Rome was the result of the people’s corruption and loss of morality. Or consider the most lamentable instance in recent history, the case of Poland. The people were not as corrupt as the Romans, but they were so divided into factions that they did not attempt to preserve the unity of their country; as everyone knows, the country was partitioned into three.
¹⁹
He went on to relate these generalizations to Japan:

In Japan the three lower classes—the farmers, the artisans, and the merchants—have never been educated, and there is therefore no point in discussing either raising or lowering their morality; but the people of the samurai class and above have received from generations of their ancestors training in Confucianism. In addition, there is a special study in our country known as the Way of the Warrior (
bud
ō
). These teachings can forge a man’s character in such a way that he will devote his every energy to the task of defending his country. But Confucianism, which since the Restoration has acquired the status of a state religion, has greatly lost its influence, and today nobody still mentions the Way of the Warrior or anything similar.
²⁰

Nishimura expressed dismay over the loss of morality even among the samurai. They were eagerly turning to the West, forgetting that each of the countries of Europe and America followed a religion that preserved the morality of the people. He generalized:

By nature most Japanese are basically quick and clever, but their thought is superficial, and they lack an awareness of the grand. They tend to echo other people’s views and have only a feeble conception of what it means to stand on their own. In recent years, observing the exactness of Western science and the strength and prosperity of those countries, they have been indiscriminately fascinated and do not know how to stand firm…. However, there are differences in human nature and in the cultural climate, and the learning of the West cannot be adopted without change in the East.
²¹

Nishimura advocated a return to the morality of Confucianism. He did not specify the variety of Confucianism he preferred, but his insistence on putting into practice the morality one has learned suggests the teachings of Wang Yangming. Nishimura did not, however, gloss over the failings of both Confucianism and Western philosophy. He recognized also that both Buddhism and Christianity possessed merits that were worthy of adoption. The essential task was to create a morality for modern Japan, and once it had been established, elements could be borrowed from other systems of thought.
²²

The specific elements in Nishimura’s morality are hardly startling. He favored education and giving alms to the deserving poor. He favored investment in enterprises that would benefit the nation. On the negative side, he rebuked men for retiring at the early age of forty-five instead of continuing to contribute to society and contrasted the Japanese institution of the “retired master” (
inkyo
) with the long productive lives of people in the West. He disapproved of early marriage because children produced before their parents are fully mature are susceptible to illness, leading to physical weakness of the people as a whole and, because early marriages tend to result in numerous offspring, to family impoverishment. Finally, Nishimura disapproved of extravagance, particularly lavish expenditures of money for marriages and funerals.
²³

It is hard to imagine anyone disagreeing with most of his recommendations, but the reaction to Nishimura’s lectures was not merely favorable but overwhelming. Those who had been trained in Confucianism—mainly men of the samurai class over forty years old—responded to the call from the past. Mori Arinori, the minister of education, who had been Nishimura’s associate in the Meirokusha and was known as an advocate of progress, was so impressed by
Essays on Japanese Morality
that he expressed the intention of adopting it as a text for middle schools and above.
²⁴
But It
ō
Hirobumi was enraged by the book, considering it libelous to the regime and a block to political progress. He sent for Mori and rebuked him for praising the book. After learning of It
ō
’s displeasure, Nishimura promised to make revisions, and he later deleted some criticisms of the government’s pro-Western policy, but he had already challenged the government’s utilitarianism. Nishimura’s book was the first expression of opposition to It
ō
’s policies, a forerunner of the ultranationalism that soon became prominent.

One more event of 1886 requires mention, the sinking of the British freighter
Normanton
. The ship set sail from Yokohama for K
ō
be on October 23. The next day, off Wakayama Prefecture, it struck a reef and broke up. Although the members of the British crew were saved, they made no effort to rescue the twenty-five Japanese passengers or the twelve Indian crew members, all of whom drowned. As soon as word of this disaster became known, there was a great outcry over what seemed to be a conspicuous example of racial prejudice. On November 5 the captain of the
Normanton
, John William Drake, was questioned at the British consulate in K
ō
be but was acquitted of any misdemeanor.

At first the Japanese leaders, at the time eagerly attempting to win the approbation of foreigners, did not protest, but so great was the clamor all over the country that it could not be ignored. The newspapers solicited funds for the families of the men lost on the
Normanton
, and speeches were delivered to crowds already angry over the flagrant display of white supremacy. Finally, the government formally asked the British to try the captain. (Because of extraterritoriality, Japan was unable to intervene.) A trial took place on December 8 at the British consulate in Yokohama. Captain Drake was found guilty of criminal negligence and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. The other members of the British crew were acquitted.
²⁵
However, the
Normanton
incident continued to live in the memories in the Japanese, not least because of a song composed about the disaster.
²⁶

Although some Japanese who were versed in maritime law thought that the decision was just, the mild punishment meted out to Drake failed to satisfy most Japanese.
²⁷
The
Normanton
incident, along with Nishimura’s lectures on Japanese morality, represented a defection from Rokumeikan-style adulation of foreigners and set the stage for more serious attacks in the following year.

The New Year ceremonies at the beginning of 1887 followed tradition in all but one respect: the empress wore a formal Western gown when accepting congratulations from members of the court, and this became her normal costume for such occasions. The rumblings of discontent over the
Normanton
affair seem not to have reached the court, where the exchange of presents with foreign royalty continued unabated.
²⁸
The construction of a new palace, long delayed, was finally under way, but financial problems had arisen, threatening completion.

On January 25 the emperor and empress set out for Ky
ō
to in order to participate in observances on January 30 at the tomb of Emperor K
ō
mei, who had died twenty years earlier.
²⁹
The most noteworthy aspect of this journey was the empress’s presence. Otherwise, the trip to Ky
ō
to and the visits to schools and famous places closely resembled the emperor’s previous journeys. The royal couple remained in Ky
ō
to until February 21.

They returned to T
ō
ky
ō
on February 24 and resumed their usual activities. The empress visited schools, including an industrial college and the army officers school.
³⁰
In April she joined her husband in observing maneuvers of the Household Guards regiment. Her role in official functions—even military maneuvers—had become indispensable.

In March 1887 the empress presented the Peeresses’ School (Kazoku jogakk
ō
) with two poems of an inspirational nature. The first opened:

Even a diamond

If you polish it

Will shine all the brighter.

People too

Study so that later on

Their true qualities will appear.
³¹

The poems were later set to music and became the school song of the peeresses. The earnest moral tone suggests the Protestant hymns of the same period, but the pro-Western leaders of the government, unaffected by such calls for virtue, continued to frequent the Rokumeikan,
³²
hoping that their affability and mastery of Western etiquette would gain for Japan the friendship and respect of the advanced countries of the West. They were convinced that the best way to overcome Japan’s financial and military weakness and to preserve its independence was by proving that Japan was a modern nation that shared the same culture as the Europeans. To this end, they would dress and eat like Europeans and rid their society of its antiquated aspects. Some were willing to adopt not only the Western legal system but also Christianity and the use of English as the national language; others (in order to improve the Japanese physique) were ready to take European wives.
³³

The contrast between the outpouring of wealth for festivities at the Rokumeikan and the poverty in which the vast majority of the population lived aroused opposition. Motoda Nagazane, a staunch Confucianist, repeatedly attempted to see It
ō
in order to communicate his unhappiness over the extravagant construction of Western-style palaces and the lavish parties, but It
ō
was always too busy to see him. In May 1887 Katsu Kaish
ō
issued a statement in twenty-one articles condemning the destruction of native Japanese virtues in the frantic effort to promote the adoption of European culture. In the late Tokugawa era, Kaish
ō
had studied Dutch with the aim of acquiring a knowledge of navigation and naval gunnery, and he had served as the captain of the
Kanrin maru
, the first Japanese ship to cross the Pacific Ocean. He was certainly not a hidebound Confucianist, but he, no less than Motoda, was outraged by the effects of pro-Western policies on Japanese society, which were lowering moral standards by the conspicuous waste of wealth.