Revolution from Above

I. From Restoration to Revolution

A. restoration of what?

Emperor Meiji

Edo to Tokyo

Shogun to Genro [elder statesmen]

B. experimental stage, 1867-1880s

accidental freedom and grass roots movements

taking and asserting control

hopes for spontaneous change

lack of any consistent policy

lack of real knowledge about the world

the unequal treaties

C. the civilization checklist

egalitarian legal code and court system

constitutional government

public education

industrialization

public welfare and infrastructure

II. The Political Revolution

A. the legal revolution

early courts and remnants of Tokugawa law

lack of civil suits

arbitrary use of legal power

the continuing ban on Christianity

Townsend Harris' Sabbath

religious freedom and the treaties

Buddhism and political control

missionaries and teachers

public prayers and proselytizing

ban ended 1873

equality and the caste system

1869: end of the caste system and burakumin status

1870: family names for everyone

1871: from han to province

1873: conscription army

1876: sword ban and lump sum pensions

development of western legal codes

Ito Hirobumi and the constitution

Prussian law and political theory

Western property laws and women

surnames: easy come, easy go

divorce and child custody

legal codes v. customary law

the Meiji constitution and the court system

the Security Police Law, 1900

B. the Meiji constitution, Feb. 11, 1889

Ito and the Prussian constitution

the Popular Rights Movement, 1870s

a gift from the emperor

the emperor as transcendent

the small glitch in the Privy Council

C. political parties

the Sat-Cho clique

Itagaki Taisuke and the Jiyuto, 1881

Okuma Shigenobu and the Kaishinto, 1882

bushido and loyal opposition

III. The Economic Revolution

A. daimyo pensions and light industry, 1870s

textiles and ceramics

women as factory workers

later state involvement

suppression of workers' rights

B. heavy industry and the state

the Bank of Japan

government founded industries

government connections and privatization

Japan, Inc., vassal merchants and Meiji

IV. The Revolution in Education

A. public schools and compulsory education

education and productivity

child labor: agriculture and factory workers

education and the creation of nationalism

the limits of adult education

B. the family state

Confucianism and German organ theory

Shinto mythology and the school shrine

the Imperial Rescript on Education, 1890

C. women and the family state

the Education and Home Ministries

the home as a public space

women as civil servants

civil servants and civil liberties

ban on women in [other] public life

The Meiji Greater Learning for Women

cult of domesticity v. cult of filial piety

relative unimportance of motherhood

relative unimportance of husband-wife relationship

duties to extended family

the virtue of working outside the home

the virtue of education

conservators and transmitters of tradition

non-participants in direct political activity