Beyond assimilation and national resistance: ‘education fever’ during the colonial period in Korea, 1910 – 1945

ABSTRACT

By examining the widespread enthusiasm for education during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910–1945), this article sets out to contribute to historiography on so-called ‘education fever’ (kyoyungyŏl), which so far has largely concentrated on researching the period after 1945. In the 1920s and 1930s the term was used to describe a multifaceted phenomenon that was driven by a striving for upward social mobility and the idea of national self-strengthening. Based on a wide range of sources including newspapers and journals, official documents as well as missionary reports, the article argues that ‘education fever’ was, on the one hand, closely linked to Korean nationalism, whose proponents made frequent recourse to the ubiquitous phenomenon in order to strengthen Korean political power through education. On the other hand, despite efforts to restrict school access, colonial authorities to a certain degree were forced to respond to these demands for education, highlighting Korean agency in the process.

KEYWORDS:

• Education fever
• colonial education
• colonial Korea
• Japanese imperialism
• Korean nationalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ See, e.g. Alice Amsden, Asia’s Newest Giant (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Michael J. Seth, ‘South Korea’s Educational Exceptionalism’, in No Alternative? Experiments in South Korean Education, ed. Nancy Abelmann, Jung-Ah Choi and So Jin Park (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 17–27.

² See among others O Ukhwan, Han’guk sahoeŭi kyoyungnyŏl: Kiwŏn’gwa simhwa [Educational zeal in Korean Society: origin and evolution] (Seoul: Kyoyukwahaksa, 2000). For works in English see Noel McGinn et al., Education and Development in Korea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980); Michael J. Seth, Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2002); Clark W. Sorensen, ‘Success and Education in South Korea’, Comparative Education Review 38, no. 1 (February 1994): 10–35.

³ Michael Seth, ‘Education Zeal, State Control and Citizenship in South Korea’, Citizenship Studies 16, no. 1 (2012): 14.

⁴ Michael Edson Robinson, Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea, 1920–1925 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 83.

⁵ See, e.g. Komagome Takeshi, Shokuminchi teikoku Nihon no bunka tōgō [Cultural integration of the Japanese empire] (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1996); Mitsui Takashi, Chōsen shokuminchi shihai to gengo [Colonial rule in Korea and language] (Tōkyō: Akashi Shoten, 2010); Mark E. Caprio, Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009).

⁶ Fanny Colonna, ‘Educating Conformity in French Colonial Algeria’, trans. Barbara Harshav, in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, ed. Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 352.

⁷ Seong-chol Oh [O Sǒngch’ǒl] and Ki-seok Kim [Kim Kisŏk], ‘Expansion of Elementary Schooling under Colonialism: Top Down or Bottom Up?’, in Colonial Rule and Social Change in Korea, 1910–1945, ed. Yong-chool Ha, Hong Yung Lee and Clark W. Sorensen (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013), 114–139.

⁸ Eugenia Roldán Vera and Eckhardt Fuchs, ‘Introduction: The Transnational in the History of Education’, in The Transnational in the History of Education: Concepts and Perspectives, ed. Eckhardt Fuchs and Eugenia Roldán Vera (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 1–47; Jana Tschurenev, Empire, Civil Society, and the Beginnings of Colonial Education in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); for research on the Korean case in English see Klaus Dittrich and Yoonmi Lee, ‘Transnationalising the History of Education in Modern Korea’, Paedagogica Historica 52, no. 6 (2016): 577–9; for the importance of local agency see, e.g. Ian Tyrrell, ‘Vectors of Practicality: Social Gospel, the North American YMCA in Asia and the Global Context’, in Spreading Protestant Modernity: Global Perspectives on the Social Work of the YMCA and YWCA, 1889–1970, ed. Harald Fischer-Tine, Stefan Huebner and Ian Tyrrell, Perspectives on the Global Past (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2020), 39.

⁹ See Komagome, Shokuminchi teikoku Nihon no bunka tōgō, 92–4; Komagome Takeshi, Seikaishi no naka no Taiwan shokuminchi shihai. Tainan Chōrōkyō chūgakkō kara no shiza [Colonial rule in Taiwan in the context of world history: a viewpoint from the Presbyterian middle schools in Tainan] (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 2015); Mark E. Caprio, Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), 61–80; Tsurumi, ‘Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan’, 294.

¹⁰ Yamabe Kentarō, Nihon tōchika no Chōsen [Korea under Japanese rule] (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1971), 13–22.

¹¹ The latter policy was carried out in Korea as well as in Taiwan. See Wan-yao Chou, ‘The Kōminka Movement in Taiwan and Korea: Comparisons and Interpretations’, in The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931–1945, ed. Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 40–68.

¹² This article follows the East Asian convention, in which family names precede personal names.

¹³ An official English version can be found at Government-General of Chosen (Korea), Annual Report On Reforms And Progress In Chosen (Korea) 1911–1912 (Seoul, 1912), 226, appendix B.

¹⁴ For a more detailed analysis of mindo as a discursive mechanism in colonial Korea see Michael Kim, ‘The Colonial Public Sphere and the Discursive Mechanism of Mindo’, in Mass Dictatorship and Modernity, ed. Michael Kim, Michael Schoenhals and Yong Woo Kim (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 178–202.

¹⁵ Cited by Abe Hiroshi, ‘Higher Learning in Korea under Japanese Rule: Keijō Imperial University and the “People’s University” Campaign’, Developing Economies 9, no. 2 (June 1971): 175.

¹⁶ Tsurumi, ‘Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan’, 294; Soon-Yong Pak and Keumjoong Hwang, ‘Assimilation and Segregation of Imperial Subjects: “Educating” the Colonised during the 1910–1945 Japanese Colonial Rule of Korea’, Paedagogica Historica 47, no. 3 (2011): 382.

¹⁷ Ki-Baek Lee, A New History of Korea, trans. Edward W. Wagner with Edward J. Shultz (Seoul: Ilchogak, 1984), 334.

¹⁸ Inaba Tsugio, Chōsen Shokuminchi Kyōiku Seisakushi no Saikentō [A re-examination of education policy in colonial Korea] (Fukuoka: Kyūshū Daigaku Shuppankai, 2010), 14–24.

¹⁹ Oh and Kim, ‘Expansion of Elementary Schooling’, 117–19.

²⁰ The Government General of Chosen, Manual of Education in Chosen (Seoul: Government General of Chosen. Bureau of Education, 1920), 99; the Manual explained: ‘As the subjects for study provided for common schools do not include geography and history, the general outlines of the history and geography of Japan are made to form the subject matter of the national language (Japanese) readers, and the outlines of the geography of Chosen (Korea) the subject matter of the reader in the Korean language and in the Chinese classics.’

²¹ The Government General of Chosen, Manual of Education in Chosen, 99.

²² Mitsui, Chōsen shokuminchi shihai to gengo, 54–5.

²³ The Government General of Chosen, Manual of Education in Chosen, 99.

²⁴ E. Patricia Tsurumi, ‘Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan’, in The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945, ed. Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 294.

²⁵ Yoonmi Lee, ‘Religion, Modernity and Politics: Colonial Education and the Australian Missionaries in Korea, 1910–1941’, Paedagogica Historica 52, no. 6 (2016): 598.

²⁶ Andrew Hall, ‘First Steps Towards Assimilation: Japanese-Run Education in Korea, 1905–1910’, Acta Koreana 18, no. 2 (December 2015): 357–91; sometimes this included Japanese-run private schools. See Hahn Yong Jin, ‘Kaehwagi Ilbon mingandanche sŏllip hakkyo koch’al. Kyŏngsŏng haktang ŭl chungsimŭro’ [A study on schools established by private Japanese initiatives in the enlightenment period: focusing on Seoul Academy], Tongyanghak 38 (2005): 193–6.

²⁷ Tsurumi, ‘Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan’, 295.

²⁸ See, e.g. Hyaeweol Choi, ‘Christian Modernity in Missionary Discourse from Korea, 1905–10’, East Asian History 29 (2005): 39–68; in fact, many of today’s leading universities were initially founded by missionaries.

²⁹ Lee, ‘Religion, Modernity and Politics’, 597.

³⁰ Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus, ‘“Awakening Asia”: Korean Student Activists in Japan, The Asia Kunglun, and Asian Solidarity, 1910–1923‘, Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 6, no. 2 (December 2017): 608–38.

³¹ Cited by Chong-Sik Lee, The Politics of Korean Nationalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 120.

³² Tsurumi, ‘Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan’, 302.

³³ See, e.g. Frederick Arthur McKenzie, Korea’s Fight for Freedom (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1920), 188–90.

³⁴ Cited from Mark E. Caprio, ‘Janus-Faced Colonial Policy: Making Sense of the Contradictions in Japanese Administrative Rhetoric and Practice in Korea’, Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 17, no. 2 (October 2017): 138.

³⁵ Caprio, Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 175.

³⁶ See, e.g. Tsurumi, ‘Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan’, 303.

³⁷ For a thorough discussion of this problem see Caprio, ‘Janus-Faced Colonial Policy’, 125–47.

³⁸ Yoshino Sakuzō, ‘Man-Kan o shisatsu shite’, 81–2, 84–8.

³⁹ Ibid., 84–8.

⁴⁰ Jeffrey P. Bayliss, ‘Minority Success, Assimilation, and Identity in Prewar Japan: Pak Chungǔm and the Korean Middle Class’, Journal of Japanese Studies 34, no. 1 (2008): 67.

⁴¹ First published in Jiji Shinpō, reprinted in Yi Tal’s Kakushin Jihō in 1918. See Ono Yasuteru, ‘Wasurerareta dokuritsu undōka, Ri Tatsu: 1910nendai no Higashi Ajia shisō kūkan no danmen’ [A forgotten independence activist, Yi Tal – a cross section of Eastasianism’s ideological space during the 1910s], in Shokuminchi teikoku Nihon ni okeru chi to kenryoku, [Knowledge and power in the Japanese colonial empire], ed. Matsuda Toshihiko (Kyōto: Shibunkaku Shuppan, 2019), 663–93.

⁴² Caprio, Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 112–14, 124–8.

⁴³ Tsurumi, ‘Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan’, 304.

⁴⁴ Mitsui, Chōsen shokuminchi shihai to gengo, 53–67; Lee Yeonsuk, Kokugo to iu shisō. Kindai Nihon no gengo ninshiki [The ideology of Kokugo: nationalising language in modern Japan] (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 2012): 302–3; see also Ko Yŏngjin, Kim Pyŏngmun and Cho T’aerin, eds., Singminji sigi chŏnhu ŭi ŏnŏ munje [Language problems in Korea and Japan of the early twentieth century] (Sŏul: Somyŏng Ch’ulp’an, 2012).

⁴⁵ Ronald Toby, ‘Education in Korea Under the Japanese: Attitudes and Manifestations’, Occasional Papers on Korea 1 (April 1974): 58–9.

⁴⁶ Government General of Korea, Annual Report on Reforms and Progress in Chōsen, 1921–22 (Keijō, Seoul: Government General of Korea, 90); see also Lee, Kokugo to iu shisō, 174; Mitsui, Chōsen shokuminchi shihai to gengo, 53–5.

⁴⁷ Ōno Ken’ichi, Chōsen kyōiku mondai kanken [Personal opinions on educational questions in Korea] (Keijō, Seoul: Chōsen Kyōikukai, 1936), 397–8.

⁴⁸ Cited in Kenneth M. Wells, New God, New Nation: Protestants and Self-Reconstruction Nationalism in Korea, 1896–1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1990), 110.

⁴⁹ See Han Uhŭi, ‘Ilche singmin t’ongch’iha Chosŏnin ŭi kyoyungyŏl e kwanhan yŏn’gu’, 122–3.

⁵⁰ For a discussion of the debate see Daniel Pieper, ‘The Making of a Foreign National Language: Language Politics and the Impasse between Assimilationists and Language Nationalists in Colonial Korea’, Journal of Korean Studies 24, no. 1 (2019): 77.

⁵¹ Published in Tong’a ilbo May 27, 1920; cited from O Sŏngch’ŏl, Singminji ch’odŭng kyoyuk ŭi hyŏngsŏng [The Formation of Elementary Education in the Colonial Era]. (Seoul: Kyoyuk Kwahaksa, 2000), 37.

⁵² Cited from Suk Yeon Kim, ‘Korean Students in Imperial Japan: What Happened After 1919?’, Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 20, no. 1 (April 2020): 4; the author’s name translates to ‘little spring’ and was likely a pseudonym.

⁵³ Han Uhŭi, ‘Pot’ong hakkyo e taehan chŏhang kwa kyoyungyŏl’ [Resistance to colonial primary schools and education fever], Kyoyuk iron 6 (1991): 65.

⁵⁴ See in detail Robinson, Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea, 78–106.

⁵⁵ For an in-depth discussion of culturalism, Yi Kwangsu and neo-Kantianism, see Michael D. Shin, Korean National Identity under Japanese Colonial Rule: Yi Gwangsu and the March First Movement of 1919 (London and New York: Routledge, 2018): 154–67.

⁵⁶ Robinson, Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea, 86 and 137–8.

⁵⁷ See Kim Kwŏnchŏn, Wŏllam I Sangjae p’yŏngjŏn: Chŏnhwan sidae ŭi chidoja [A critical biography of Wŏllam Yi Sangjae: leader in a transitional era] (Sŏul: Tosŏ Ch’ulp’an Ijo, 2021), 232.

⁵⁸ Chŏn T’aekpu, Han’guk kidokkyo ch’ŏngnyŏnhoe undongsa: Han’guk YMCA pansegi ŭi palchach’wi [The history of the YMCA movement in Korea: traces of half a century], Chŏn T’aekpu sŏnjip 4 [Collected works of Chun Taikpoo 4] (Sŏul: Hongsŏngsa, 2017): 183–7.

⁵⁹ Robinson, Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea, 84–5.

⁶⁰ Carter J. Eckert, Ki-Baik Lee, Young lck Lew, Michael E. Robinson and Edward W. Wagner, Korea Old and New: A History (Seoul: Ilchokak, 1990), 290–1.

⁶¹ Lee, The Politics of Nationalism, 241.

⁶² ‘Chosŏn millip taehak p’algi e ch’wihayŏ 2’ [On the establishment of the Korean Public University 2], Chosŏn ilbo, December 2, 1922, 1.

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ ‘Mindae palgi ch’wijisŏ’ [Prospectus for the establishment of a People’s University], Tong’a ilbo, 30 March 1923, 7; for English translation see Abe, ‘Higher Learning in Korea under Japanese Rule’, 186.

⁶⁵ Tong’a ilbo, ‘Mindae palgi ch’wijisŏ’, 7.

⁶⁶ Ibid.

⁶⁷ Chōsen Sōtokufu, ed., Shisei nijūgonenshi [A twenty-five-year history of the administration of Korea] (Keijō, Seoul: Chōsen Sōtokufu), 337.

⁶⁸ Lee, The Politics of Nationalism, 241.

⁶⁹ Ōno, Chōsen kyōiku mondai kanken, 180–1.

⁷⁰ Cited from Kim, Wŏllam I Sangjae p’yŏngjŏn, 235.

⁷¹ Abe, ‘Higher Learning in Korea under Japanese Rule’, 175–6.

⁷² Abe Hiroshi, ‘Nihon tōchika Chōsen no kōtō kyōiku’ [Higher education in Korea under Japanese rule], Shisō 1971 (July): 72 (936).

⁷³ Ibid., 73 (937).

⁷⁴ Ibid.

⁷⁵ ‘Hangmu kukpangch’im kwa kŭ byŏnmyŏng’, Tong’a ilbo, January 19, 1927, 1.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 1.

⁷⁷ Gi-Wook Shin, Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 51.

⁷⁸ Abe, ‘Higher Learning in Korea under Japanese Rule’, 183.

⁷⁹ Chōsen Sōtokufu Keimukyoku, Chōsen ni okeru dōmeitaikō no kōsatsu [Inquiry into schools in the alliance in Korea] (Keijō, Seoul: Chōsen sōtokufu, 1929), 52; in fact, the petition names four Japanese teachers to be removed; the police report nevertheless states that the removal of three teachers was demanded.

⁸⁰ Chōsen Sōtokufu Keimukyoku, Chōsen ni okeru dōmeitaikō no kōsatsu, 52.

⁸¹ Kim Sŏngsik, Kō-Nichi Kankoku gakusei undōshi [The history of the Anti-Japanese Movement of Korean students], trans. Kim Hakhyŏn (Tōkyō: Kōrei Shorin, 1974), 172.

⁸² Neuhaus, ‘“Awakening Asia”’, 618–22.

⁸³ Kim Hoil, Han’guk kŭndae haksaeng undongsa, 1905–1945 (Sŏul: Sŏn’in, 2005), 221–2.

⁸⁴ See, inter alia, Yi Kyunyŏng, Sin’ganhoe yŏn’gu [Research on Sin’ganhoe] (Seoul: Yŏksa Pip’yŏngsa, 1993); and Han Chŏngil, llcheha Kwangju haksaeng minjok undongsa [The history of Kwangju National Student Movement under Japanese Imperialism] (Sŏul: Chŏngyewŏn, 1987).

⁸⁵ Chong-sik Lee and Robert A. Scalapino, Communism in Korea, Vol. I: The Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972): 113–44.

⁸⁶ Kim, Han’guk kŭndae haksaeng undongsa, 159.

⁸⁷ Ibid.

⁸⁸ Kim, Kō-Nichi Kankoku gakusei undōshi, 201–2.

⁸⁹ The first nationwide women’s organisation Kŭnuhoe (Friends of the Roses of Sharon) was established simultaneously with the Sin’ganhoe. For its activities see, inter alia, Chang Wŏna, ‘Kŭnuhoe wa Chosŏn yŏsŏng haebang t’ongil chŏnsŏn’ [Kŭnuhoe and the United Front for the Liberation of Korean Women]. Yŏksamunje yŏn’gu 42 (2019): 391–431; Kenneth M. Wells, ‘The Price of Legitimacy: Women and the Kŭnuhoe Movement, 1927–1931’, in Colonial Modernity in Korea, ed. Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 191–220.

⁹⁰ Deborah B. Solomon, ‘“The Empire Is the Enemy of the East”: Student Activism in 1940s Colonial Korea’, Journal of Korean Studies 20, no. 1 (2015): 152.

⁹¹ Cited from Albert L. Park, ‘A Sacred Economy of Value and Production: Capitalism and Protestantism in Early Modern Korea (1885–1919)’, in Encountering Modernity: Christianity in East Asia and Asian America, ed. Albert L. Park, David K. Yoo and Russell Leong (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2014), 31.

⁹² Oh and Kim, ‘Expansion of Elementary Schooling’, 128.

⁹³ For numbers see Lee, The Politics of Korean Nationalism, 242.

⁹⁴ Ōno, Chōsen kyōiku mondai kanken, 317.

⁹⁵ Tsurumi, ‘Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan’, 296–9.

⁹⁶ Oh and Kim, ‘Expansion of Elementary Schooling’, 117–19.

⁹⁷ O, Singminji ch’odŭng kyoyuk ŭi hyŏngsŏng, 113.

⁹⁸ Furukawa Noriko, ‘Shokuminchiki Chōsen ni okeru shōtō kyōiku. Shūgaku jōkyō no bunseki o chūshin toshite’ [Elementary education in colonial Korea: focusing on an analysis of the situation of school enrolment], Nihonshi kenkyū 370 (June 1993): 41.

⁹⁹ O, Singminji ch’odŭng kyoyuk ŭi hyŏngsŏng, 113; Oh and Kim, ‘Expansion of Elementary Schooling’, 117–18, table 3.1.

¹⁰⁰ In detail see O, Singminji ch’odŭng kyoyuk ŭi hyŏngsŏng, 139–50.

¹⁰¹ Lee, ‘Religion, Modernity and Politics’, 604–5.

¹⁰² Tsurumi, ‘Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan’, 298.

¹⁰³ Chōsen sōtokufu, ed., Shisei sanjūnenshi [A thirty-year history of the administration of Korea] (Seoul: Chōsen sōtokufu, Shōwa 15 [1940]), 796.

¹⁰⁴ See Oh and Kim, ‘Expansion of Elementary Schooling’, 128.

¹⁰⁵ The nationalist press frequently reported on regional ‘education fever’, e.g. ‘Tŏksan-myŏn kyoyungyŏl’ [Education fever at Tŏksan township], Tong’a ilbo, March 31, 1924, 3.

¹⁰⁶ See Oh and Kim, ‘Expansion of Elementary Schooling’, 128–9; O, Singminji ch’odŭng kyoyuk ŭi hyŏngsŏng, 101–10.

¹⁰⁷ Tong’a ilbo, January 27, 1930; cited from Oh and Kim, ‘Expansion of Elementary Schooling’, 128–9.

¹⁰⁸ Gi-Wook Shin, Peasant Protest and Social Change in Colonial Korea (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996), 94.

¹⁰⁹ Cited from Oh and Kim, ‘Expansion of Elementary Schooling’, 128.

¹¹⁰ See, e.g. Chōsen Sōtokufu Keimukyoku, Chōsen ni okeru dōmeitaikō no kōsatsu, 52.

¹¹¹ ‘Masan hagwŏn kaehak’ [Opening of an Academy at Masan], Tong’a ilbo, May 11, 1921, 4.

¹¹² ‘Paewŏya sanda! Chaebong tongp’o ŭi kyoyungyŏl’, Tong’a ilbo, April 1, 1936, 2.

¹¹³ Ibid.

¹¹⁴ Michael Kim, ‘The Lost Memories of Empire and Korean Return from Manchuria, 1945–1950: Conceptualising Manchuria in Modern Korean History’, Seoul Journal of Korean Studies 23, no. 2 (2010): 214.

¹¹⁵ Ch’ŏn Sŏngho, Hanguk yahak undongsa. Chayurŭl hyanghan yŏjŏng 110-nyŏn (Sŏul: Hagisisŭp, 2009), 100.

¹¹⁶ Cho Chŏngpong, ‘Ilche kangjŏmgi chosŏninŭi kando ijuwa yahagundong’ [Korean migration to Manchuria suring the Japanese Occupation and the Night School Movement], Hanguk kyoyuk [Journal of Korean Education] 34, no. 1 (2007): 165.

¹¹⁷ Ch’ŏn, Hanguk yahak undongsa, 159.

¹¹⁸ ‘Chosŏn kyoyuk ŭi kŭnbon munje (il)’ [The basic problem with Korean education (1)], Tong’a ilbo, September 23, 1923.

¹¹⁹ Ibid.

¹²⁰ Ibid.

¹²¹ ‘Chosŏn kyoyuk ŭi kŭnbon munje (i)’ [The basic problem with Korean education (2)], Tong’a ilbo, September 24, 1923.

¹²² For a more detailed account refer to Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 163–9.

¹²³ Ibid., 170.

¹²⁴ Kim Ch’angche, ‘Hakkyo sŏnt’aek e kwan haya. Hakbuhyŏng ege soham’, Tonggwang (February 1931): 49.

¹²⁵ O Ch’ŏnsŏk ‘Chisik hoekdŭk tae kyoyuk. Uri nŭn kyoyuk esŏ muŏsŭl kuhal kŏsinga?’ [Knowledge acquisition versus education: what do we look for in education?]. Haktŭng 6, May 1934: 2–3.

¹²⁶ Kim Eunyoung, ‘1920–30 nyŏndae “haksaeng chapji” ŭi kyoyuk tamnon’ [Discourse on education through the student magazines in 1920–30s], Yŏksa yŏn’gu [Journal of History] no. 40 (2021): 30.

¹²⁷ Ibid., 28–9.

¹²⁸ Ibid., 35.

¹²⁹ Charles R. Kim, Youth for Nation: Culture and Protest in Cold War South Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press), 76–7.

¹³⁰ Kim, ‘1920–30 nyŏndae “haksaeng chapji”’, 35.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus

Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus is a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute for Japanese Studies at Free University Berlin. His PhD (2022) from Free University Berlin deals with regional networks among Korean students and Japanese Protestants during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He has in the past been a visiting research scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia and the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo and at the Institute of Korean Studies, Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.