25 propaganda. Through this the people learned of the existence of the emperor, resulting in success for the movement. Shinto had been given a new organizational structure by the state and because of this it did not experience any problems. In the case of Buddhism, however, it was in the bizarre position of having rep-resentatives of its different schools forced into participating in Shinto ceremonies at the Great Learning Institutes (for the True School, this meant the participation of their chief abbot). What’s more, they were prohibited from engaging in any missionary activi-ties at temples. In the True School, there is a practice known as o-kō, “honorable lectures,” which is a fundamental religious activity of de-livering sermons to crowds of devotees once a month. However, be-cause of the new rules, they were prohibited from sharing True School teachings and were only allowed to propagandize for the em-peror and the government. This was an enormous problem for Bud-dhism. There was practically no reason for its existence anymore. Finally, a movement was begun to separate from the Great Learn-ing Institutes by the “Ten Schools of True School Buddhism,” led by the Higashi (east) and Nishi (west) Honganji temples. Ultimately they succeeded in withdrawing from the Institutes three years later. In 1875 Higashi Honganji began to move forward based on a teaching and missionary system suited to the new era. As a part of this, the temple established advanced, middle, and elementary schools throughout the country and began to provide education for monks. They decided to select outstanding youths from among the ten thou-sand temples and one million priests in the country and give them special education before making them instructors. A teachers college
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