Wartime Education and Dogs — The End of Modern Japan at the Intersection of Schooling, Animals, and Society

1. Prologue: Defeat and the Collapse of Values

Japan’s defeat on 15 August 1945 shattered the educational regime that had persisted since the prewar era. Testimonies recorded in Living in the Shadow of Death capture the stunned question—“Has the war… ended?”—and the psychological shock of a state-planted value system collapsing in an instant.Up to that moment, children had been taught to “live for the nation” and to “serve without fear of death.” This education was mediated through the figure of the dog, which functioned to instill loyalty, devotion, and service to the state.

2. Dogs and the Imperial Rescript on Education — Positioning the Dog as a Symbol of Loyalty

2.1 Mapping the Rescript’s Virtues onto Dogs

The Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) presented virtues such as filial piety, loyalty, trustworthiness, and friendship, which formed the core of school education. Because of their perceived loyalty and devotion, dogs were used to give children a concrete grasp of these virtues.

• “Hachikō, the faithful dog” = loyalty and steadfast love

• “Mary, the war dog” = devotion and bravery

• “Nachi and Kongō” = militarized fidelity and courage

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2.2 The Genealogy of “Textbook Dogs”

Stories of faithful dogs appeared in primary readers and shūshin (moral education) textbooks; teachers read them aloud and encouraged students to take them as an “ideal image of the citizen.” Dogs served as mirrors of civic morality and were fully integrated into children’s education.

3. War and Dogs — Militarist Mobilization in the Classroom

3.1 Dogs and the War Economy

From the 1930s, a military-dog system was established; messenger, sentry, and explosives-transport dogs were deployed in actual theaters of war. Newspapers and textbooks frequently reported the exploits of “brave war dogs,” through which children were encouraged to romanticize participation in war.

3.2 Dogs in Teaching Materials

• The National School Moral Reader featured anecdotes of dogs dying to protect their masters.

• Visual materials depicted dogs alongside uniformed soldiers, stimulating children’s imaginations with symbols of loyalty and national service.

3.3 “Militarized Dogs” in Daily Life

Children memorized “stories of canine loyalty” along with military songs, and dog episodes were woven into send-offs for departing soldiers. Positioned at the contact point between everyday life and wartime, dogs became devices for internalizing militarist education.

4. The Education System and the Institutionalization of Dog-Themed Materials

4.1 National Schools and Dogs

The 1941 National School Order established an educational system premised on universal conscription. Dogs appeared frequently in shūshin and Japanese-language materials, treated not as “animal education” but as a component of nation-forming education.

4.2 The Concrete Shape of Materials

• Language textbooks: short stories of dogs rescuing masters; accounts of war-dog exploits

• Drawing/handicrafts: images of dogs with soldiers; dogs holding the Hinomaru flag

• Songs: pieces praising faithful dogs; children’s songs about war dogs

Across the corpus, materials converged on using dogs as symbols of loyalty readily grasped by children.

5. The Dog World and State Policy — From Military Dogs to the Preservation of “National Dogs”

5.1 The Military-Dog System and the Imperial Military Dog Association

The Kwantung Army institutionalized war-dog training in Manchuria, and the Imperial Military Dog Association was established. The state promoted dog training nationwide as a wartime resource, with spillover effects in schools and youth organizations.

5.2 Activities of the Japan Dog Preservation Society

Meanwhile, the 1930s saw the founding of the Nihon Ken Hozonkai (Japan Dog Preservation Society), which celebrated breeds such as the Akita and Shiba as “national dogs” and “ethnic symbols.” This converged with the educational use of dogs as embodiments of the “Japanese spirit,” leaving clear traces in textbooks and moral instruction.

5.3 Foreign Dogs and Pet Culture

While Western breeds such as the German Shepherd were emphasized for military use, the Hachikō boom expanded urban pet culture. Dogs were thus incorporated into state and society along twin axes: war resources and pet-keeping.

6. Life under Wartime and Children’s Experiences

6.1 Shortages of Teaching Aids and Stationery

As the war deteriorated, teaching materials and daily necessities were rationed; even pencils, notebooks, and chalk were scarce. Despite paper shortages that forced simplification, “edifying tales of faithful dogs” continued to appear.

6.2 Student Mobilization and the Repurposing of Dog Narratives

Students in higher education were mobilized to factories and munitions industries; pupils in national schools engaged in labor service and materials collection. In these contexts, metaphors of canine “service” and “devotion” were invoked to reinforce a morality of self-sacrifice.

7. The Paradox of Dogs and Animal Protection — Fur Requisition and Cultural Conflict

By late 1944, authorities encouraged the requisition of dog and cat pelts, delivering a devastating blow to pet culture. State policies that praised faithful dogs while simultaneously demanding “the surrender of dog pelts” confronted children with the contradiction between canine images inculcated at school and wartime reality.Although animal-welfare groups and some educators protested that such measures would be “a shame to posterity,” the situation remained unchanged until defeat.

8. The War’s End and a Rupture in Education

In August 1945, the value system constructed on the Imperial Rescript and dog-centered materials collapsed at once. The “loyalty, devotion, and service to the nation” inculcated through dog narratives came to be treated negatively within postwar democratic education as remnants of militarism.Yet in children’s literature and picture books, the dog survived in transformed guise—as a symbol of friendship, affection, and family ethics. Postwar materials shifted from “the soldier’s faithful dog” to “the dog as friend.”

9. A Comparative Cultural Perspective

9.1 Germany

Under the Nazi regime, the German Shepherd was positioned as a “national dog” and militarized/schoolified, revealing mobilization structures similar to Japan’s.

9.2 The Soviet Union

Siberian Huskies and Laikas were mobilized for the military and exploration, and used in education and propaganda.

9.3 The United States and the United Kingdom

Lassie and Saint Bernards circulated in educational films and picture books as “dogs that protect the home,” in contrast to Japan’s militarized educational use.

10. Synthesis — The Educational-Historical Meaning of Dog Materials

The textbookization of dogs in wartime education bears the following layered significance:

1. Embodiment of state ideals — Loyalty and devotion were entrusted to dogs and internalized by children.

2. Mediation of militarist mobilization — War-dog tales naturalized participation in war.

3. Cultural contradiction — A double structure that praised faithful dogs while requisitioning pelts.

4. Value of international comparison — Compared with Europe and the U.S., Japan uniquely specialized dog materials in education for loyalty to the state.

11. Future Research Agenda

• Analysis of textbook-compilation records and dog-related materials

• Studies of contact points among pet organizations, the military-dog system, and schools

• Links between folk/religious conceptions of dogs and wartime education

• International comparisons clarifying the universal and the particular in “dog-education culture”

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Conclusion

The intertwined history of wartime education and dogs is neither merely educational history nor animal history; it is a composite microcosm of how state, culture, and society shaped children. Although the loyalty and devotion narrated through dogs were repudiated after the war, the underlying themes—human–animal coexistence and the dog’s symbolic power—remain relevant to contemporary education.