Page:The Awakening of Japan, by Okakura Kakuzō; 1905.djvu/73



critics see in the encouragement given to learning that flaw in the Tokugawa system of government which caused its ultimate downfall. Under the régime inaugurated by Iyeyasu every child in the empire was obliged to learn to read and write, under the instruction of the local priests, thus giving a certain amount of education to even the meanest peasant, while innumerable academies were established throughout the length and breadth of the land. It is doubtless true that the result of these measures was to prepare the national mind for