Education: The Legacy

To the middle-aged Japanese couple, who clearly remember the days before Pearl Harbor, their young son's reaction to the historical film Emperor Meiji and the Great Russo-Japanese War was incredible. "Who were all those people?" asked the boy when he got home. "Who was General Nogi? I never heard of him." Fifteen years ago, every pupil would have known about the Japanese commander at Port Arthur. but to the present generation, such national heroes as Nogi might never have existed.

The boy's parents soon found the reason. "We concentrate," blandly explained their son's teacher,...

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