ABSTRACT
Japanese historians of education speak of the reforms of the immediate postwar as "the second revolution." The task of reforming education was seen basically to involve attacks on three fronts simultaneously. In January 1946 Minister of Education Maeda was replaced by another intellectual with a background deemed advantageous for working with the Occupation—Abe Yoshishige. The main legal framework for a new Japanese educational system was put into place in February and March 1947. As drafted by Supreme Command Allied Powers and endorsed by the Japanese Diet, the new constitution included several clauses of critical importance for education policy. The US Education Mission, which arrived in 1946, gave ample advice on how to apply the constitutional principles in the school system. In the 1940s and 1950s, the poverty of local governments strengthened the hand of the Education Ministry despite the reformers' commitment to grassroots control.
