Moral education, a primary component of Japanese education, has no precise equivalent in Canadian education. The focus of moral education is development of personal attitudes and social values. The content of this discipline is a kind of secular humanism which has engendered in the postwar Japanese the values, attitudes, behaviors, and virtues that have propelled them into the 21st century without the social and political disruptions that have plagued other modernizing nations. Moral education is allotted 34 to 35 hours per school year in grades one through nine. Teachers receive national guidelines for moral education. The many objectives for this discipline include respect for life, good manners, personal hygiene, individual freedom, respect for the advice of others, and rationality. Moral education is infused into such physical education activities as kendo and karate, into student-teacher interaction, and into social studies. The teaching of moral education in Japan offers many valuable lessons for the Canadian educational system. (LP)