in cheap translated editions. Great Tokyo and Osaka newspapers grew to have circulations in the millions, and popular magazines of all varieties were published. Higher education was sought by more and more young men from all classes, and higher education for women finally achieved a slow start. There was much and often brilliant scholarly activity in many scientific fields and in the humanities. A growing taste for good Western music was seen in the organization of symphony orchestras and in huge audiences for visiting Western musicians. The city people of Japan were beginning to share in the rich intellectual and cultural life of the Western world.
The leaders of the early Meiji period had transformed Japan into a strong military and industrial power, but the democratic political concepts, the broad intellectual life, and the liberal social trends which flowered spontaneously from the state they created were something they themselves could never have imagined or understood. The carefully controlled revolution of the Meiji period was developing into a runaway liberal movement of the urban middle classes.
