The Meiji period, often called the Meiji Restoration, ran from 1868 to 1912, when emperor Meiji died. It was a time of restoration for Japan, a time to catch up with the rest of the world in technology. The Tokugawa Shogunate, which was the shogunate before Meiji, did not let any foreign ideas into his country. This caused Japan to be more of an ancient civilization compared to the rest of the world. Once Emperor Meiji took over, Japan immediatly started to bring in foreign thoughts, machines, factories, etc. By the middle of the Meiji period, Japan had surpassed many European and Asian countries in technology.

During the Tokugawa Shogunate, no large schools were formed, most of the schools were small, taught by monks for local children. When Meiji took over, he made new schools. During this transition between schools, the schools were not very good. There were no classes that you or I would take, such as history and social studies. The main thing taught was reading, writing, and learning all of the kanji characters. Later in the Meiji rule, the schools curriculum was changed and classes such as history were added. The schools during the Meiji period ran for six days of the week. In America they only go for five.

In school, if a student did something wrong, he would either not be punished, or brutally beaten with a big stick. Either way, the teachers saw it as their fault for not being good role models. If a child cheated, killed himself, insulted an elder, the teachers thought it was their fault and changed their lifestyle to try to be better role models. I think that that is very odd. Teachers nowadays would punish the student, not by beating the crap out of them with a blunt object, but they would still be punished, and the teachers would view it as the child's fault.

During the first half of the Meiji period, only boys were allowed to go to school. The students slept at school, with a teacher on night duty to take care of them. Between 1880 and 1900, the emperor allowed girls to go to school. This was a new thing for Japan, as none of the other emperors or shoguns had allowed girls to go. In the Japanese society, women couldn't be samurais or do much of anything other than do work around the house. That is probably why girls weren't allowed to go to school.