Following the Meiji Revolution the new government embarked on the building of a ‘modern state’. In search of a model for their modern state the government sent many missions to Europe and America. Not just after the revolution, but even before it, both Bakufu and the governments of the larger fiefs had in secret dispatched missions to the advanced nations. Since they realised that the problem was not whether to maintain seclusion or whether to open the country, they were groping for what sort of modern, unified state to create, and how to create it. At that time all foreign travel was formally prohibited, and when these missions encountered each other in such places as London or Paris they smiled sardonically at each other.

These men brought back with them a wealth of new knowledge and information concerning the modern state. The Meiji government compared and examined all this information to judge which country was the most outstanding and the most advanced in each sphere, for example which country was best in terms of its education system, which country for the navy, and which for the army. In each country they investigated the conditions of such things as the police, industry and finance. On the basis of the information relating to these subjects obtained from the missions the government made its decision as to which sphere should be patterned on which country. For example, the education system promulgated in 1872 was patterned on the French system of school districts. The Imperial Japanese Navy was a copy of the Royal Navy, but the army was very greatly influenced by the French army.