I’ll be virtually visiting Columbia University to speak on ch. 3 from my new book manuscript, Difficult Subjects. The chapter covers the rollout of “morality time” courses in Japan’s public schools in 1958. The rollout was controversial because of a strong postwar taboo on ethical instruction and because of a legal prohibition on religious education that had been in place since 1947. But it happened. Why? My chapter traces several historical factors that allowed the Ministry of Education to introduce formal moral instruction, but it also shows how “morality time” effectively failed before it even began.