This is part 17 of my series on Shinto as a civil religion, you can find the rest of the series here.
The introduction to The Imperial Rescript on Education is written in a highly formal style, with prominent use of personal pronouns to give the impression that the text was authored by the emperor himself. In reality, it was drafted by the government under Prime Minister Yamagata Aritomo, who served from 1889 to 1891.
The rescript begins by invoking the imperial ancestors and emphasizing the moral foundation they established for the nation. This foundation is described as loyalty and familial devotion:
“Our Imperial Ancestors founded our empire on a basis broad and everlasting and have deeply and firmly planted virtue; Our subjects united in loyalty and filial piety, have, from generation to generation, illustrated the beauty thereof.”
This language leans more toward kokutai (national essence) than kokugaku (national learning), as kokutai incorporated Confucian ideals. The influence of Confucian values is clear in the instructions given to the people about their behavior:
“Ye, Our subjects, be filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers and sisters, as husband and wives be harmonious, as friends true […].”
These principles reflect the five Confucian virtues, but as previously noted, they could also be interpreted as universal human values by those less inclined toward Confucianism.
The rescript goes on to encourage people to educate themselves, contribute to public welfare, obey the law, and respect the constitution. In this sense, it mirrors the emperor’s earlier letter to the people, which also asked for cooperation in modernizing the state. It then calls on the people to sacrifice themselves for the state in times of danger and protect the imperial throne, described as the link between heaven and earth:
“[…] should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the state; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of our imperial throne coeval with heaven and earth.”
This passage reflects the origins of the willingness to sacrifice for the emperor, as described by Kato Genchi in his discussion of Mikadoism. Educating young people and children to believe in the emperor’s divinity and to courageously submit to his protection can be seen as a form of indoctrination. This suggests that the education system played a central role in introducing the younger generation to Japan’s emerging civil religion.
By presenting the rescript in a solemn manner and using the royal “we,” the text seeks to draw on the emperor’s authority to ensure that the people respect and follow its message. It also refers to a shared past, highlighting a time when obedience to the moral guidance of the imperial ancestors led to progress for the nation. The implicit message is that the current population must now emulate this behavior.
While the ideology in the rescript itself is relatively moderate, the addition of another document titled The Extended Meaning of the Rescript, written by Inoue Tetsujiro—a former education ministry official with strongly imperialist views—gave the rescript a more extreme interpretation. This additional text amplified the rescript’s imperialist undertones, intensifying its ideological impact.
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Sources
Theodore De Bary, William(ed.). Sources of Japanese Tradition: Volume Two 1600-2000. Colombia University Press: New York, 2005. Print. Pp. 1123-1124.
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