For the past decade there has been a surge of international interest in Japanese education in the wake of its economic and technological successes. This paper discusses eight distinctive features of Japanese education, identifying their advantages and disadvantages and how they have been brought about. These eight features of Japanese schooling include: (1) childhood and adolescence often completely occupied with schooling; (2) privatized development of pre- and post-compulsory education; (3) preference for general education under the single-track system; (4) automatic promotion of classmates by seniority; (5) low enrollment of non-Japanese and adults in schools; (6) high educational achievement with little variation; (7) unique screening function of entrance examinations; and (8) autonomous school management. Japan is likely to experience certain difficulties in correcting the weaknesses and defects in its education system, or in adopting the virtues of foreign education systems. As a rule, foreign practices which are in harmony with Japanese culture, values, or ideas have been more successful in Japan than in their countries of origin. Those practices which are not in harmony have not been successful at all. (61 references) (LAP)