see: Nanban trade period Japan was very unified by the Tokugawa regime (1600–1867); and the Neo-Confucian academy, the Yushima Seidō in Edo was the chief educational institution of the state.
Tokugawa education left a valuable legacy: an increasingly literate populace, a meritocratic ideology, and an emphasis on discipline and competent performance.
Under subsequent Meiji leadership, this foundation would facilitate Japan's rapid transition from feudal society country to a modernizing nation.
[3] During the Tokugawa period, the role of many of the bushi, or samurai, changed from warrior to government bureaucrat, and as a consequence, their formal education and their literacy increased proportionally.
Education of commoners was generally practically oriented, providing basic training in reading, writing, and arithmetic, emphasizing calligraphy and use of the abacus.
Teaching techniques included reading from various textbooks, memorizing, abacus, and repeatedly copying Chinese characters and Japanese script.
Public education was provided for the Samurai, ordinary people taught the rudiments to their own children or joined to hire a young teacher.
[citation needed] In 1858 Fukuzawa Yukichi founded a private school of Western studies which then became Keio University, known as a leading institute in Japanese higher education.
These ideas rapidly disseminated through all social classes [5][6] After 1870 school textbooks based on Confucian ethics were replaced by westernized texts.
Traditional Confucian and Shinto precepts were again stressed, especially those concerning the hierarchical nature of human relations, service to the new state, the pursuit of learning, and morality.
He argued that to create a stronger Japan, women should represent the religious as well as moral foundations in the households, acting as educators of their children and better halves of their husbands.
Furthermore, he argued that men could deliver desired results only if women could fulfill their role as good wives who follow a well-defined code of behavior.
[9][10] Starting 1872 the Gakusei law was passed on education and it was possible for women to have official teaching positions and many taught in schools exclusively for girls (女学校, jogakkō).
During this period, a number of universities were founded by Christian missionaries, who also took an active role in expanding educational opportunities for women, particularly at the secondary level.
Curricula and textbooks were revised, the nationalistic morals course was abolished and replaced with social studies, locally elected school boards were introduced, and teachers unions established.
Some of these difficulties as perceived by domestic and foreign observers included rigidity, excessive uniformity, lack of choices, undesirable influences of the university examinations (入学試験, nyūgaku shiken), and overriding emphasis on formal educational credentials.
There was great concern too that Japanese education be responsive to the new requirements caused by international challenges of the changing world in the twenty-first century.
Flexibility, creativity, internationalization (国際化, kokusaika), individuality, and diversity thus became the watchwords of Japan's momentous education reform movement of the 1980s, although they echoed themes heard earlier, particularly in the 1970s.
But the Sengoku period finally made it clear that women had to be educated to defend the country when their husbands died[citation needed].
The Tale of Genji was written by a well-educated female from the Heian period and writings by women blossomed throughout Japanese history[citation needed].