Earticle

The first modern textbook published by the Chosŏn government, the People’s Elementary Reader (PER), marked a significant departure from traditional learning both in terms of content and form and played a pivotal role in introducing western-style learning. However, an absence of a thorough consideration of the PER’s obvious moral em-phasis provides only a partial picture of the complexity of late nineteenth-century educational reform in Korea. A close examination of the historical context of edu-cational reform and the PER’s publication in comparison with its American and Japanese counterparts demonstrates moral education was a necessary component of modern education and the modernization drive. As the Koreans saw useful parallels with their own Confucian traditions, educational officials replaced western ethics with Confucian moral education. Thus, the preservation of moral cultivation in the textbook along with the introduction of western-style learning was the embodiment of the slogan “Eastern Way, Western Technology” (tongdo sŏgi). This type of accommodationist form of education conformed to modern (at that time) educational trends and facilitated the introduction of western-style learning by appealing to Confucian yangban sensibilities.

In 1894 at the end of the Choson dynasty, the Korean government initiated a sweeping program of reforms known as the Kabo Reforms. This was an attempt to make unprecedented political, economic, and social changes that would modernize the country and establish an independent and sovereign state. However, there are conflicting depictions of the Kabo Reforms in contemporary scholarship, some describing the effort as a result of Japanese pressure and others portraying the incipient rise of a modern nation-state. This paper examines the reform efforts through American eyes of the time with the hope that a third-party perspective will provide insight on the issue. Did Americans feel that the reform program was led by Japanese “advisers” or did they believe this was a substantive development in Korea’s modernization and self-strengthening movement? Did it even matter who initiated the process, or was the outcome the most important issue? Missionaries, diplomats, political advisers, and journalists in Korea wrote about the reforms and their aftermath, and newspaper coverage in the U.S. informed the American public about events in the Far East, contributing to the formation of an image of a turbulent Korea in dire need of reform. Understanding the nature of the Kabo Reform movement from eyewitness accounts will demonstrate that the most important aspect of the reforms was their permanence and certitude. Regardless of the Japanese role in the reforms, there was overall agreement that Korea required a modernizing reform program that would actuate substantive and lasting change.

This study examines the intellectuals' perception and meaning of ‘the nation’ shown in the school textbooks during the Kabo Reforms period(甲午改革, 1894～1895). And I addresses how and in what historical context the concept of ‘the nation’ was formulated by scrutinizing the textbooks functioned as crucial printed media and direct means to make people feel a sense of unity and their identity as ‘the nation’. The concept of the nation in Europe had already been known to the intellectuals in Chosŏn and they considered that it was necessary to formulate and unite existing ‘min(民, subject or people)’ in the past as ‘kungmin(國民, nation)’. This project was institutionally realized through the Kabo Reforms. First, the Kabo reformist paved the way for the integration of the nation by abolishing the existing status system. They also sought to form and integrate the nation by adopting modern education system. Various education-related decrees during the Kabo Reforms period including “Royal Edict for Education" clarified that the primary objective of modern education was ‘nation- building' and used the terms like ‘sinmin(臣民, subject)', ‘inmin(人民, people)’ and ‘kungmin'. However, ‘sinmin', ‘inmin' and ‘kungmin' used in the text of those decrees were not clearly defined. In the effort to encourage modern education during the period, Hakbu(學部, the Ministry of Education) published such new textbooks as Kungmin-sohak-dokbon(國民小學讀本, Citizen's Elementary Reader) and Shinjeong-shimsang-sohak(新訂尋常小學, New Elementary Learning). These textbooks used ‘kungmin' as well, but less frequently than ‘sinmin' and ‘inmin'. And the concept and meaning of those terms cannot be found in the textbooks either. The emergence of ‘kungmin' in that both decrees and textbooks seemed to have been influenced by Japan. In fact, any other textbooks all but Kungmin-sohak-dokbon and Shinjeong-shimsang-sohak did not use ‘kungmin' and only used such conventional terms as ‘inmin' and ‘sinmin'. ‘kungmin', ‘inmin' and ‘sinmin' described in the textbooks during the Kabo Reforms were depicted as the existence who was equal in social standing and should build up their identity as the member of nation-state through modern education. And they also had the obligation to be loyal to the king and give their allegiance to the state. In short, they were ‘kungmin' as ‘sinmin' who had only obligation to be loyal to the monarch and the state without political right.