Japan experienced a period of great social change in the middle of the nineteenth century, ending a long period of national isolation. This was the period of the Meiji Restoration. During the modernization and westernization that followed, the government made great advances in modernizing the Japanese language. This process had two phases: (1) establishment of Modern Colloquial Japanese, especially in written form, and (2) establishment of a modern vocabulary with concepts introduced from the Western world. The development of a system of public elementary and secondary education during the first two decades of the Restoration period was an essential element in the success of this language adaptation process. (MSE)