Primary Sources by Region:

East Asia

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This biography details the childhood of Empress Deng of the Later Han dynasty. Here she is noted for her precocious intelligence, beauty, and filial piety. She was named empress to Emperor He in 102 CE. The emperor died four years later and Empress… [more]

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This Qin-dynasty legal text (c. 217 BCE), written on bamboo strips, was excavated in China in 1975. According to Qin law, men guilty of killing children born to them were punished by becoming wall builders; the equivalent punishment for women was… [more]

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These two images from the Later Han dynasty (2nd century CE) depict the most famous child in early Chinese literature, Xiang Tuo (pronounced She-Ang Too-o). In both stone carvings, which decorated the outer walls of shrines or funerary monuments, the… [more]

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This illustration depicts a scene from the Traditions of Exemplary Women (Lienü zhuan) of Liu Xiang (ca. 77-6 BCE), one of China's first didactic texts on feminine morality. The text to this story is provided below the illustration. The story… [more]

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This document was written one year after the "Imperial Rescript on Education" by Education Minister Oki Takato. In it he affirms some of the basic principles in the Imperial Rescript–morality, reverence for emperor, patriotism–and articulates… [more]

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One of the major obstacles to consistent attendance at the new elementary schools was the fact that children played an important role in the household economy. One such role was that of caregiver for younger children. In this picture, we see an image… [more]

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During the first two decades of the Meiji era, the new government invested a great deal of effort into building the institutions of the modern Japanese state. By the 1880s, officials and other commentators had begun in earnest to articulate the moral… [more]

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This essay was printed in the periodical Meiroku Zasshi in May 1874. The magazine was produced by a small group of intellectuals committed to the study of Europe and America. This journal, and the individuals who contributed to it, were at the core… [more]

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During the 1870s, the Meiji government established many institutions based on the examples from Europe and the U.S., and many intellectuals advocated a thoroughgoing transformation of Japanese society and culture patterned after the model of… [more]

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While most pre-Meiji commoner schools were held either in temples or in the homes of the teachers, most teachers and officials associated with the Meiji education reforms emphasized the importance of having schools in new buildings created… [more]