Abstract: During the 1880s，the controversy between Western and Chinese Learnings was still a key issue in Japan. It was necessary to abandon Kanji(Chinese scripts)in order to develop modern education. If  Kanji were abandoned，Japan worried about that Japanese academic thought based on Chinese learning would be dissevered. Before the public opinions reached certain consensuses，Japanese government in many ways tried to reform the writing system，but its attitudes towards Kanji and Chinese literature did not change. As far as the compilation of the textbooks of elementary school was concerned，Kanji was not used as possible in the early stages. Instead，Hiragan a or Katakan awas used. However, the number of the Kanji that elementary school students had to master did not decrease and they had to learn those Kanji in their senior stage of elementary school. This phenomenon verifies that the Japanese government was still cautious of Kan ji’s future during this time period.