The Meiji Restoration and how Education Helped the Permanence of the New Regime

As said by Albert Craig, "It was not a revolution, not a change in the name of new values but rather, a change carried out in the name of old values ..."
The Meiji Restoration from 1868 created both an institutional and constitution structure that allowed Japan in the coming decades to be a stable and industrializing country.
A perfect example of the reforms that were a significant contributor in achieving the new regime's goals and ensuring its permanence is in education.
When the Emperor Meiji first came to the throne, his Government made it clear in the Charter Oath of April 1868 its intentions not to confront the foreign threat but to learn from it and incorporate its strengths. One of the main implementations of altering the nation's previous mindset from "Revere the Emperor, expel the Barbarians" to "Japanese spirit, western
learning" was through the stressed free thought and the encouragement to explore the ideas of western culture. …