Japanese Ability as a Civilized Nation
It is often said in Japan that the literacy rate of villagers in mountains in Japan in the early 17th century was higher than that of citizens of London.
Around 1850 Japanese who could read and write accounted for about 80% of all the Japanese at the time, namely 32 million, but lower-class citizens of London who could read and write was just 10% while it was about 20% covering all the classes in London.
Italy and Spain come bottom of OECD's literacy and numeracy league tables
Japan and Finland fare best in survey testing basic skills of people living in 24 industrial democracies
theguardian.com, Tuesday 8 October 2013 11.08 BST
(Ranking of nations in terms of basic ability as civilized people is as follows)
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Literacy for people aged 16-24
1 Finlandhttp://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/08/italy-spain-oecd-literacy-numeracy-league-table
2 Japan
3 South Korea
4 Netherlands
5 Estonia
6 Australia
7 Sweden
8 Poland
9 Czech Republic
10 Germany
11 Austria
12 Slovak Republic
13 Denmark
14 France
15 Canada
16 Norway
17 Ireland
18 Spain
19 England/N Ireland
20 United States
21 Italy
22 Cyprus
Literacy for all adults
1 Japan
2 Finland
3 Netherlands
4 Sweden
5 Australia
6 Norway
7 Estonia
8 Slovak Republic
9 Flanders (Belgium)
10 Canada
11 Czech Republic
12 Denmark
13 South Korea
14 England/N Ireland
15 Germany
16 United States
17 Austria
18 Poland
19 Ireland
20 France
21 Spain
22 Italy
Numeracy for people aged 16-24
1 Netherlands
2 Finland
3 Japan
4 Flanders (Belgium)
5 South Korea
6 Austria
7 Estonia
8 Sweden
9 Czech Republic
10 Slovak Republic
11 Germany
12 Denmark
13 Norway
14 Australia
15 Poland
16 Canada
17 Cyprus
18 Northern Ireland
19 France
20 Ireland
21 England
22 Spain
23 Italy
24 United States
Numeracy for all adults
1 Japan
2 Finland
3 Sweden
4 Netherlands
5 Norway
6 Denmark
7 Slovak Republic
8 Flanders (Belgium)
9 Czech Republic
10 Austria
11 Germany
12 Estonia
13 Australia
14 Canada
15 South Korea
16 England/N Ireland
17 Poland
18 France
19 Ireland
20 United States
21 Italy
22 Spain
As other example of Japanese ability, in 1681 when Japan was governed by the Tokugawa samurai regime, a samurai scientist Seki Takakazu calculated the circular constant till the 16th digits using a 131,072-sided polygon without communications with European scientists, since Japan closed the nation to foreign countries, except China and the Netherlands, at the time. So, before the start of modernization and westernization of Japan in 1860s, samurai scientists and some intellectual townsmen developed a Japanese version of modern mathematics. It was a key to success of Japan in science and technology from the late 19th century on.
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