Prewar Education and Dogs — The Role of Animal Teaching Materials and Their Cultural Background under the Imperial Rescript

1. Introduction: Why Were Dogs Chosen as Teaching Materials?

In prewar Japan, dogs were not only familiar to children; they also served as symbolic mirrors of social values. Traits such as loyalty, bravery, and diligence closely aligned with the virtues promoted by the Imperial Rescript on Education (filial piety, loyalty, trust, harmony) and therefore appeared frequently in readers and shūshin(moral education) texts.

Dogs were not depicted merely as “cute animals,” but functioned as embodiments of the behavioral norms the state expected of schoolchildren.

2. The Imperial Rescript and the Place of Dogs in Moral Texts

2.1 Principles of the Imperial Rescript

Issued in 1890, the Imperial Rescript on Education functioned as a nationwide program to instill virtues grounded in loyalty and filial piety. Its ideals were impressed upon pupils through the primary-school moral curriculum; compilers repeatedly asked how best to embody the spirit of the Rescript in classroom materials.

2.2 Why Dogs Fit the Program

• Loyalty: A dog’s devotion to its master was mapped onto loyalty to the Emperor and the nation.

• Diligence & perseverance: Dogs enduring cold and hunger while carrying out their tasks were aligned with expectations placed on soldiers and citizens.

• Self-sacrifice: Stories of dogs risking their lives to protect their masters served as parables of civic devotion.

3. Concrete Examples of Dogs in Prewar Textbooks

3.1 Hachikō’s Canonization in Textbooks

In the 1930s, the story of Hachikō moved from newspapers to film and then into school texts, promoting an ideal of “loyalty and endurance.” The erection of the Hachikō statue (1934) sat at the intersection of children’s education and urban culture; in classrooms the “faithful dog” became a model of the ideal citizen.

3.2 Adapting Foreign Dogs

Accounts of Saint Bernards rescuing travelers in snow and Aesop’s canine fables were adapted to teach universal values—service, honesty, and cooperation. Here we see an intent to appropriate Western dog culture and graft it onto Japanese moral instruction.

3.3 Japanese Dogs in Rural Readers

Readers used in rural areas featured Japanese dogs guarding homes and driving off animals that damaged fields. This fostered the image of the dog as a “protector rooted in everyday life,” cultivating children’s affinity while instilling lessons in loyalty and industry.

4. Points of Contact between Dogs and Militarist Education

4.1 Military Dogs and the Classroom

In the early Shōwa years, military dogs—chiefly German Shepherds—were trained and promoted alongside police-dog programs. Moral readers and boys’ magazines presented German Shepherds as “brave dogs who defend the nation alongside soldiers,” encouraging children to internalize martial virtues.

4.2 Dogs under Wartime Mobilization

From the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War onward, dogs were incorporated into the war economy—as sources of fur and meat and as logistical animals (messenger and sentry dogs). Children were taught that “dogs serve the nation.” During this period, teaching materials shifted from emphasizing pet-keeping to emphasizing service to the state.

5. The Japan Dog Preservation Movement and Its Educational Intersections

5.1 The Rise of Preservationism

In the 1930s, the Nihon Ken Hozonkai (Japan Dog Preservation Society) was founded, and breeds such as the Akita and Shiba were celebrated as “national dogs.” Inflected by nationalism, this framing entered classrooms, where Japan’s native dogs were cast as symbols of the Japanese spirit.

5.2 Japanese Dogs in Texts

While “foreign-dog” materials conveyed universal ethics, materials on Japanese dogs emphasized nativism and ethnic pride. Especially in wartime, Japanese dogs helped children become conscious of their own cultural identity.

6. Cultural-Historical Notes on Dogs

6.1 Dogs in Folk Belief

Across Japan, dogs have long been venerated as deities of birth or tutelary spirits. The classroom emphasis on “dog = loyalty” rested upon this cultural substratum; schooling institutionalized and redeployed it.

6.2 Dogs in Literature and Pedagogy

Works employing animals—such as Shimazaki Tōson’s The Broken Commandment and Nankichi Niimi’s Gongitsune—functioned as literary vehicles for “moral choice.” In children’s literature, the dog symbolized empathy for the weak and trust, tightly coupled with educational aims.

6.3 International Comparisons

• Germany: The German Shepherd linked national pride to schooling and the military.

• Britain: Saint Bernards and Collies taught loyalty and humanitarianism.

• United States: Family dogs epitomized by “Lassie” conveyed patriotism and family ethics.

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Japan borrowed from these currents while adding distinctive readings—“loyalty = allegiance to the Emperor” and “national dog = ethnicity.”

7. Legacies and Ruptures in Postwar Education

Postwar reforms abolished the Imperial Rescript, and dog-centered materials were criticized as “remnants of militarism.” Yet dogs persisted in children’s literature and picture books as vehicles for teaching friendship, affection, and responsibility. The “dog of loyalty” of the prewar era became, in the postwar era, the “dog as friend,” but the pedagogical centrality of dogs did not waver.

8. Synthesis — The Educational-Historical Significance of Dog-Centered Materials

Dog-centered materials in prewar education exhibited a layered structure:

1. Embodying state ideals — Mapping the Rescript’s virtues onto dogs made them accessible to children.

2. Linking to military utilization — Dog narratives helped disseminate militarist values.

3. Leveraging cultural foundations — Folkloric and literary canine images were institutionalized through schooling.

4. Incorporating international influences — Western dog cultures were adapted to Japanese moral education.

Precisely because dogs were “close at hand” for children, they became among the most potent educational resources.

9. Future Research Directions

To deepen the history of canine teaching materials, we need:

• Analyses of textbook-compilation files and screening records;

• Comparative studies of local materials used nationwide;

• Histories of interaction between the dog-preservation movement and schools;

• International comparisons that situate a broader “dog-education culture.”

The history of dog-centered pedagogy is not merely a chapter in animal welfare; it is a mirror of how state, society, and culture have formed children.