> that was accessible by a large majority of its population Austria had major attendance and implementation issues (e.g., only a 50-60% attendance rate) which

> that was accessible by a large majority of its population Austria had major attendance and implementation issues (e.g., only a 50-60% attendance rate) which apparently weren't fixed until the Reich Public School Law of 1869. That said, I remember that there was a lot of discussion at one point about how individual behavior in countries that overlapped ex-Austrian/Habsburg territory could be mapped against historical (19th century) boundaries. Getting back to the original point, Japan was successful because it had high levels of urbanization, which made state directed education more accessible and easier to attain. Other countries/territories implemented compulsory education well before Japan (e.g., Massachusetts first required compulsory education in the 1640s), but efforts either had comparatively lower penetration or relied on non-state institutions (e.g., the church or private institutions) to enforce.