Japan's history of selective borrowing from the education models of other countries has always enhanced, not subverted, its own traditional customs. Japan has always sought to educate the "whole child," but the Japanese concept of wholeness differs from that of the West. Japan's collective mobilization of society to care and support its children's educational efforts results in students who are fully engaged in a learning process that emphasizes good habits, self-confidence, and respect for others.
Prior to the Tokugawa period, the Japanese had little use for education. Japan was divided into several hundred fiefs, ruled by men whose preoccupations were fighting, hunting, feasting, and showmanship. The samurai, the members of the warring class in feudal Japan, were trained in Zen Buddhism and military techniques. The limited scholarship that existed during this period took place in Buddhist monasteries: "Priests taught acolytes and other children in their temples, but there were few schools" (Beauchamp and Rubinger, 1989, p. 3). The illiteracy of the people did not present a problem because medieval Japan was mostly a verbal society, and all but the most important documents were oral gentlemen's agreements: "Their codes and edicts were brusquely straightforward and unconcerned with legal subtleties" (Dore, 1965, p. 2). Given the disposition for armed conflict during this period, laymen were more troubled with the prospects of war than with the edification of themselves or their children. Not until Tokugawa Ieyasu unified warring Japan did its citizens enjoy the extended period of peace requisite for the establishment of educational institutions.
The Tokugawa period lasted between 1600 and 1868 during which the Tokugawa ruled as shoguns from the town of Edo (modern Tokyo). The Tokugawa controlled the major, economic centers and strategic military points: "In addition it possessed all the important mines, the major s...