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The government implemented a system of [[Meiji education|nationwide public education]] which gradually came into fruition over the course of the period. A national curriculum was aimed at suppressing regional difference and creating a unified, national, "Japanese" culture. The [[Ministry of Education]] began efforts in [[1872]] to establish schools across the country; in addition to this, a significant portion of the education budget in the first decades of the Meiji period was devoted to bringing in foreign teachers, and to funding students to study overseas. Building schools, training and hiring (native Japanese) teachers, and so forth took some time, and as late as [[1902]], the country was still only partially on the way to the goals that had been set in 1872, in terms of the number of schools in operation. As for the content and character of the national curriculum, [[1890]] was a turning point in this as in many things. The [[Imperial Rescript on Education]] issued that year is a short document which declared a set of nationalist core principles, and which served from that point forward as the foundation of a curriculum of moral education emphasizing filial piety, nationalist zeal or patriotism, reverence for the Emperor, and personal sacrifice for the sake of the nation.<ref>Schirokauer, et al, 187-188.</ref>
The government implemented a system of [[Meiji education|nationwide public education]] which gradually came into fruition over the course of the period. A national curriculum was aimed at suppressing regional difference and creating a unified, national, "Japanese" culture. The [[Ministry of Education]] began efforts in [[1872]] to establish schools across the country; in addition to this, a significant portion of the education budget in the first decades of the Meiji period was devoted to bringing in foreign teachers, and to funding students to study overseas. Building schools, training and hiring (native Japanese) teachers, and so forth took some time, and as late as [[1902]], the country was still only partially on the way to the goals that had been set in 1872, in terms of the number of schools in operation. As for the content and character of the national curriculum, [[1890]] was a turning point in this as in many things. The [[Imperial Rescript on Education]] issued that year is a short document which declared a set of nationalist core principles, and which served from that point forward as the foundation of a curriculum of moral education emphasizing filial piety, nationalist zeal or patriotism, reverence for the Emperor, and personal sacrifice for the sake of the nation.<ref>Schirokauer, et al, 187-188.</ref>
The 1872 [[Prostitute Emancipation Act]] freed [[prostitution|prostitutes]] and [[geisha]] from their contracts of indentured servitude, though prostitution itself was not yet outlawed. This freed many women, and introduced the concept of "liberation," and debate over the issue, into public discourse, but ultimately did not effect a sea-change, as the government returned several years later to recognizing such contracts once again. Further, many women, despite being freed from their contracts, had no other home, no other job, and/or no other employable skills to fall back on, and so many became waitresses, inn hostesses, bathhouse staff, or the like, continuing to sell sex, albeit under the thin veil of nominally more above-board practices.<ref>Amy Stanley, ''Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan'', UC Press (2012), 194.</ref>
Japanese began to travel and settle overseas in the Meiji period as well. With the exception of vibrant but short-lived [[Nihonmachi|communities in Southeast Asia]] in the 1590s-1660s, this represents the first development of any significant overseas diasporic Japanese community. By the end of the period, in 1912, significant Japanese (and [[Okinawans in Hawaii|Okinawan]]) communities existed in a number of areas across Europe, North and South America, and [[Japanese immigration to Hawaii|Hawaii]], as well as in Japan's newly acquired colonies of Hokkaidô, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea.
Japanese began to travel and settle overseas in the Meiji period as well. With the exception of vibrant but short-lived [[Nihonmachi|communities in Southeast Asia]] in the 1590s-1660s, this represents the first development of any significant overseas diasporic Japanese community. By the end of the period, in 1912, significant Japanese (and [[Okinawans in Hawaii|Okinawan]]) communities existed in a number of areas across Europe, North and South America, and [[Japanese immigration to Hawaii|Hawaii]], as well as in Japan's newly acquired colonies of Hokkaidô, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea.