After returning from his second world trip Enryō announced his “Morality Church Movement” modelled on the Sunday schools. (This is discussed here out of chronological order to avoid confu-sion). Gen’ichi, Enryō’s eldest son, explains why his father looked to England as a model. lish over two months while traveling around the country he came to admire their respect for individuality and freedom. Un-usually, my father did not display the slightest nervousness that and understated way of following through on his own convic-tions made his personality similar to that of the English. Alt-hough he was not there for long, he appears to have enjoyed his time in England. He was particularly envious of their freedom of speech, their respect for human character, and their devel-oped sense of social morality. In order to create this sort of ideal society he positioned the Morality Church as a new educational project that could be an alternative for university correspondence learning. From September 1903 he took on the mighty challenge of distributing his Purpose of Establishing the Morality Church to cabinet ministers, heads of towns and villages, and primary school principals throughout Japan. In Purpose of Establishing the Morality Church, Enryō addressed the problem of the gap in development between Japan and the countries of Europe and the United States, especially in terms of “the strength of a country and its people.” He felt that the difference in the On his second visit abroad, after carefully observing the Eng-was characteristic of the Japanese, and his strong-willed nature 158
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