Before World War II, the Japanese Ministry of Education had been authorized as the agency to grant approval for founding new universities in Japan; but, after the war, as the new system of universities was being established, Dr. Lulu Holmes, an adviser, from 1946 to 1948, to the Education Division of the Civil Information and Education Section under General MacArthur, created the nation-wide Japanese University Accreditation Association. The Association would establish certain qualifying standards which, when successfully met by any university, would oblige the Ministry of Education to grant it accreditation. Holmes devised this system so that any university, including women's universities, would be equitably judged and fairly accredited by the Ministry of Education. As a result and with the permission of the Ministry of Education, the new system of national Japanese universities, offering equal higher education to men and women alike, commenced in April 1949.
In 1948 in Japan, immediately after World War II, the first new universities for women and their Departments of Home Economics were created as a result of the Education Reform. This paper is one of a series concerned with the achievements of Dr. Lulu Holmes; its purpose is to elucidate and expound upon her epoch-making and historically important accomplishments which resulted in extending higher education to women in Japan. This historical analysis is based mainly on governmental documents which were opened to the public in the U.S.A., on Holmes' oral history, on Joseph Trainor's memoirs, and on personal interviews with persons affiliated with Dr. Holmes' work.