372 COMPARATIVE LAW 



discussion which arose among them is known as the " Postponement 

 Campaign." The arguments pro and con put forward for the post- 

 ponement and revision of the Code were many and were of varying 

 importance. To outsiders the campaign may have seemed like a 

 sectarian conflict between the English and French groups of Japanese 

 lawyers. But this struggle is eminently interesting to scientific 

 observers of the general history of law, for it was, in reality, a contest 

 of the historical school with the school of natural law, resembling 

 in many respects the famous controversy between Savigny and 

 Thibaut in the beginning of the same century. This question con- 

 tained an important issue, as to which theory should have a pre- 

 dominant influence over the jurisprudence and legislation of the 

 country. 



In order to explain this interesting event in our legal history, 

 1 must for a moment stop to give an account of the state of legal 

 education in Japan at that time. English law had been taught in the 

 Imperial University of Tokio since 1874 by English, American, and 

 Japanese teachers, and also in other law schools, and a great num- 

 ber of the graduates had by that time already filled important 

 positions on the Bench and at the Bar, as well as in other places, both 

 in and out of the Government. They were all taught the doctrines 

 of Bentham, Austin, and Maine, and most of them belonged to the 

 school of positive law. On the other hand, there was a law school 

 attached to the Department of Justice, in which French law was 

 taught by Professor Boissonade and other French and native teachers. 

 There were also two or three private law schools in which French law 

 was taught. The graduates of these schools, who also filled important 

 positions, had been taught the doctrines of natural law. It was 

 quite natural that the doctrines which lawyers had imbibed in their 

 early days of studentship should have strongly influenced their views 

 as to legislation in their maturer days. And thus arose two opposite 

 schools among the lawyers of Japan. In 1887, just three years before 

 the publication of the Civil Code, the Imperial University made a re- 

 form in the programme of the College of Law. The French Law School 

 of the Department of Justice was transferred to the University, 

 and at the same time a German Law Section was newly established, 

 so that there came to be three sections in the College of Law, besides 

 a fourth which is devoted to political science. This tripartite division 

 in the University law education could not fail to produce an enduring 

 effect on the subsequent legislation of the country. The Civil Code 

 had become law before the constitution came into force in 1890, 

 and the question of the postponement of its operation had to be 

 decided in the Imperial Diet. Accordingly a bill was introduced 

 at the session of 1892 in the House of Representatives to postpone 

 the operation of the Code with a view to its revision. After several 



