Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/259

 these pastimes occupied an extraordinary share of popular attention. The few sober men of the time came to the conclusion that a "divine fox" had bewitched the nation. This delirious mood looks even stranger when contrasted with the zeal for religion and the obedience to superstition that prevailed. Sovereigns, nobles, and princes, who did not shrink from impoverishing themselves to endow temples, set up idols, or have masses said for their welfare, and who were ready at all times to shave their heads and enter a cloister, nevertheless had no hesitation about indulging in voluptuous excesses of every kind. Perhaps the explanation is that morality did not enter seriously into the programme of education. The "Scripture of Filial Piety" and the "Analects of Confucius" were studied in the schools, but neither of these volumes touched the question of a supreme being or of a life beyond the grave, and though the Buddhist priests preached a noble doctrine, their own lives did not conform to their precepts. Thus the displays of munificent piety that characterised the era seem to have been an hysterical aftermath of extreme self-indulgence rather than an outgrowth of earnest conviction.

The education here spoken of must not be interpreted in the ordinary sense of the term. There was no such thing as national education in the Nara and Heian epochs. A few schools existed in Kyōtō, but they were founded and supported by the great families and destined solely