This is the seventh in a series of articles about the history of English education in Korea ― ED.
By Kim Eun-gyong
Contributing Writer
The Korean-American Treaty of 1882 served as an important instrument for American Protestant arrivals in Korea, in spite of the government’s refusal to accept the provision of freedom of religion argued for by the United States.
The initial accidental, but significant contact with American Protestants took place on the Korean special delegation’s trip to the United States in 1883. The delegation was traveling from Chicago to Washington on a train when they met and engaged in conversation with J. F. Goucher, a Methodist minister and Dean of Goucher Woman’s College in Baltimore.
He invited the group to his home and donated $2,000 to the Methodist Foreign Mission Headquarters in New York, urging them to begin missionary work in Korea. The General Missionary Society decided to establish a mission in Korea and ordered Robert S. Maclay, a Methodist missionary in Japan, to go to Korea for pre-investigation.
Maclay arrived in Korea in June 1884 and contacted Kim Ok-gyun, a high-ranking official of the Office of Foreign Affairs, with whom Maclay had established early contact in Japan, and asked for his assistance. Kim delivered his messages to the king, and the king approved of the mission’s rendering of medical and educational services, rather than direct missionary work, in June 1884.
When news of the Korean-American Treaty was received in the United States, the U.S. Northern Presbyterians showed immediate interest in mission work in Korea as well. A medical missionary who had been serving in China, Dr. Horace Newton Allen, arrived in Korea in lieu of the United States legation’s physician in September 1884.
He served as a community doctor to the legations in Seoul and did not claim to be a missionary at first because of the Korean government’s prohibition of proselytism and Joseon society’s intolerance of Christianity. However, after his successful treatment of Min Yeong-ik, Queen Min’s nephew who had been seriously wounded during the Gapsin coup, he earned the confidence of the court, and his name became known to the general public in Seoul. Soon he came to concurrently serve as a doctor for the royal court. This made a considerable contribution to the gradual reduction in the government’s apprehension about missionaries and in its prohibition of missionary work.
On April 5, 1885, Horace G. Underwood, a missionary of the U.S. Northern Presbyterians, and Henry G. Appenzeller and his wife, of the U.S. Northern Methodists, arrived in Korea as educators. Soon they were joined by representatives of other denominations from the United States, Great Britain, Canada and Australia in various types of mission work, most notably in the medical and educational fields.
The first mission schools established in Korea by the Methodists were the Baejae Hakdang (1885) and the Ewha Hakdang (1886), and by the Presbyterians the Gyeongsin School (1886) and the Jeongsin School (1890). In the early days, education at all the mission schools was at the elementary level and consisted of an unstructured curriculum of English language education, mainly teaching English, Korean and the Bible.
On August 3, 1885, Appenzeller of the U.S. Northern Methodists began teaching English to two male students. The school’s initial curriculum consisted of English language instruction only. Within a year of its opening, the school received the government’s approval and support. Gojong was aware of the school’s focus on English language instruction and granted the name ``Baejae Hakdang,’’ which means ``the hall for the rearing of useful men’’ or ``the institute for making useful men,’’ in 1886.
The majority of students in the early period of the school were male adults, some of whom were married, and attended the Baejae for career opportunities in the government. Since the government was in urgent need of individuals with English skills, the school did not experience much difficulty in recruiting students, compared to other mission schools, especially girls’ schools.
Although Appenzeller chose English instruction to facilitate the growth of the school, he was not pleased that the school education was used solely for career advancement, and he aimed to provide college education. From the 1890s, in addition to English, the following subjects were added to the curriculum: Chinese classics, astronomy, geography, biology, mathematics, manual work, and Bible studies.
In general, missionaries had enormous difficulty in recruiting students. Korean society was still under the influence of the Daewongun’s isolationist policy, and anti-foreign sentiment was high among the public. Baseless rumors against missionaries circulated. Extra care was taken in student recruitment lest the missionaries be accused of kidnapping children. The opening of women’s schools was particularly arduous. While a number of ambitious males flocked to the Baejae Hakdang, a Methodist missionary, Mary Finch Scranton’s efforts to recruit female students went unanswered.
Women of middle or high class remained homebound and rarely had contact with outsiders. Recruitment of girls of poor families did not go easily either. In May 1886, after a long wait and many disappointments, Scranton finally received her first prospective student, a concubine of a high-ranking official who wanted to learn English to become an interpreter for Queen Min.
The second student was brought by her poor mother who could not support her. The school was named the Ewha Hakdang (Pearl Blossom Institute) and became Korea’s first modern women’s school. Initially there was no specific curriculum, and all the subjects were taught in English through play or singing.
Without the assistance of interpreters, the students lived with the missionaries in a dormitory and learned English in a natural setting. By 1890, they were already able to serve as interpreters for American doctors with Korean patients at Bogu Yeogwan, Korea’s first hospital for women.
The school Underwood established had characteristics of an orphanage and of daycare. The ``Underwood Hakdang’’ or the Gyeongsin School recruited poor students. Unlike the Baejae, instruction of Korean and Chinese classics was given priority, and English language education was provided gradually. The founder of the Jeongsin School, Annie J. Ellers, arrived in Korea in July 1886, officially invited by the Korean government as a female doctor for the royal court and high-ranking officials.
In the following year, Ellers began teaching orphaned girls. Thus, the school was called an orphanage or Jeongdong Hakdang at the time. Until the end of 1887, only two subjects, Bible studies and arithmetic, were taught. Because of the missionary’s lack of Koreans skills, instruction was provided with the use of gestures and pictures, and more than two thirds of the instruction was given in English.
In this expansion of English language education by mission schools, the Korean government played an indirect, but important role: the king’s decision to allow missionary work in the field of education made possible the opening of mission schools, where immersion-style English language education was provided.
Further, the king’s interest in English language education extended to Appenzeller’s Baejae Hakdang, which focused on English language instruction and catered its curriculum to the governmental need for individuals with English skills. The king’s special interest in the school prompted him to grant the school its name, and within a short period of time, the Baejae became a recognized institution through which many ambitious Korean men passed through, while other mission schools were having enormous difficulties in recruiting students against the highly-biased, anti-foreign public.
One of the important differences in English language instruction offered at mission schools from the government-sponsored English language education was that the instruction was offered to students regardless of their heritage and, what's more, alienated, underprivileged members of the society, such as women, children of the poor, and orphans, were targeted.
Despite their difficult, discouraging beginning, the majority of the mission schools continued to grow and became premier secondary or higher educational institutions in contemporary Korea, while government-sponsored English schools with their auspicious starts met their early demise, leaving little impact on Korean society.
Kim Eun-gyong is an associate professor of applied linguistics and Associate Dean of the Center for International Affairs, Information and Communications University (ICU) in Daejeon She can be reached at egkimrivera@icu.ac.kr