The spread and adoption of German educator Friedrich Froebel's kindergarten idea in Japan occurred early in the history of the international kindergarten movement. Kindergartens were introduced as one among the vast array of Western educational ideas that flowed into Japan from Europe and the United States between 1868 and 1880. The years after 1880, however, were marked by increased governmental efforts to centralize authority, a strong shift in attitude away from Western learning, and government efforts to strengthen its control of education in Japan's movement toward modernization. During the Meiji Era (1868–1912), a period of profound transformations in Japan, the conditions that paved the way for kindergartens to become a permanent part of the educational landscape also transformed the kindergarten from a Western into a Japanese institution.

The English-only effort was an integral part of the Americanization crusade that swept the nation during and after World War I. Underlying the crusade was the doctrine of Anglo-Saxon superiority—the conviction that American traits derived from the English, and that the future of American democracy depended upon the survival of the English language and the dominance of the Anglo-Saxon “race.”

When United States soldiers began fighting World War I in Europe, Americans suddenly waged war among themselves at home. Overly zealous patriots demanded public displays of loyalty from all citizens. Any American who did not purchase sufficient numbers of liberty bonds or verbally support the Allies' cause was automatically suspected of disloyalty. And in the hysteria brought on by war, disloyalty became tantamount to treason. Few suffered more under the scourge of the super-patriots than immigrants and radicals. Universities became a favorite target for zealots, who were anxious to believe that faculties harbored political liberals and radicals. Professors at several universities were dismissed on account of their perceived lack of support for America and the Allies in World War I.