As we have seen, the development of strong emotional bonds in early stages of learning is the foundation for the changing tasks of learning in the child's life. The emotional bond is a powerful motivator, and it accustoms the child to being led through the steps of a task without questioning the process as a whole. Teachers move the children from emotional engagement to reliance on the teacher as their guide along the path of learning. Whatever anxiety the child feels is attended to very early in the process. Teachers are free to work on building up a distinct set of traits or characteristics; they are involved in guidance.

Guidance is expressed by the word shidō in Japanese culture and covers a wide range of notions. Modern conceptions of guidance appear to have their most recent roots in early Meiji ideas about teaching and learning. Dore argued that in the late Tokugawa there was a widespread belief that all human beings were “responsive to moral appeals” (Dore, 1973:401–2). Hall notes that around 1881, teachers were adjured to embody good moral behavior and to exemplify Confucian values (Hall, 1973, 352–3). At the very outset, the nascent Japanese school system was filled with the strong ideal that learning was a moral activity and teachers were moral exemplars.

One of the foremost proponents of strong guidance in education was Mori Arinori, the first Minister of Education (1885–9). Mori was convinced that teachers in his day were undisciplined and weak, unfit to inculcate the virtues needed for leadership.