本文通过美国与日本在对女子教育方面的对比，强调了在家庭方面对女子的教育应予以重视。“即使在如今女孩去上大学，在美国和日本女孩接收的课程几乎与男孩不同，这让我感到惊讶；如果我们回顾历史，我们可以发现，女子教育在这两个国家，从18世纪到20世纪，英语论文，经历了一个相当困难的过程”。
Women's Education: Emphasis on Domestic Arts for Women vs. Emphasis on Education Parity with Men
Even though in nowadays it’s nothing unusual for a girl to go to the college, receiving the courses almost the same as boys both in America and Japan, it is surprised that if we review the history, we can find that the women’s education in the two countries, from the eighteenth century to twentieth century, had been gone through a pretty hard time. In this , the development of women’s education in Meiji period in Japan will be analyzed and discussed thoroughly, with comparing to the American women’s education. The goals of this are to show the progress of the Japanese westernization in education and the history of the Japanese women’s education, which was filled with frustration and lots of people’s contribution. Therefore, the value of the education can be fully understood and appreciated.
Above all, the beginning of Japanese westernization should be mentioned as this was the starting point of all the changes in Japan including the field of education. Since it’s no doubt that the reform in Japanese education, happening in Meiji period was influenced mostly by the United States, it’s unavoidable here to talk about the development of American female education. Then, it moves to the progress in Japanese education reform under the American influence and finally shifts the focus to the Japanese women's education and whether it was equal to the male education or not can be clarified. All in all, this is organized into four sections: the Meiji restoration, women’s education in America, women’s education in Japan and the conclusion.
The Meiji Restoration
Beginning from 1633, Japanese seclusion policy had been enacted for nearly two centuries until Commodore Perry with his four warships arrived and broke its “locked door” in 1853. At that time, Japan also faced some inner pressures. The impoverishment prevailed and income inequality shown up which triggered the resentment, tensions the conflicts between the regional daimyo and the central Shogunate government (Japanvisitor). All of these pushed Japan to desire the modernization and industrialization and this became the opening of the Meiji restoration. As for United States, who was longing to build up commercial relationship with Asia through Japan, it was a mutual benefit to give a hand to Japan so that the Japanese embassy was welcome in this young country. Through the Meiji restoration, Japan experienced a great change, especially in the field of education. In 1871, the Mombusho was created and in 1872, the Fundamental Code of Education was published, founding the system of elementary and middle schools and universities controlled by the government. Meanwhile, there were even four Japanese young ladies who were brought by an American woman to study western style (Armstrong.edu). From 1886 to 1889, Mori Arinori, a former Satsuma samurai who had been studied in America, introduced the public education with the spirit of liberality and pragmatism when he came back Japan and served as minister of education.
Women’s education in America
Even though it was the America that originally spread the idea of female education to Japan, for the American women themselves, to achieve their own right to get education was almost as arduous and tortuous, full of sacrifices and suffering as it was in Japan. Since Americans were moving from the Europe, lots of things were at first still based on the European traditions, including the education. According to the European traditional idea, it allowed no girls but those wealthy ones to have the opportunity to learn. In order to find an excellent husband, Women were expected to be good at household duties in those days and those who had highly education were thought to be weird (Nwhm.org). Though boys and girls might have the chance to be taught some basic curriculum by a local woman, they received different curriculum as well. The boys were well prepared for the further education by learning reading and writing while the girls learned those domestic arts like sewing and knitting. Girls were forbidden to attend town schools until the end of the 18th century. So thought the chance of obtaining an education was provide to the women, at first the education parity did not exist proved by the different curriculum they got. That’s not the worst, in the under-development South, schools could not even set up. Therefore, boys’ educations were relied on the private tutors hired by the parents and there were some cases that the girls can have the luck to have their own private governess. Once the girls can get some lessons, what they learnt were mainly music, cooking, needlework, nursing and social etiquette etc, for equipping them to be a suitable and decent pious wives and mothers in the future. In addition, the reading, writing and arithmetic were also included in the lessons and it seemed that the differences of education were cut down by these facts. However, the purposes for the girls to learn such things were only aiming at studying the bible and recording household expenses. In order words, they were mothers and wives things again.
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