By Chung Ah-young
Staff reporter
If a foreigner can be a patriot in the cause of another nation, American missionary, journalist and activist Homer B. Hulbert (1863-1949) was a true believer for Korea.
Hulbert, who shed tears over the sufferings of Koreans under Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945), devoted his youth to help modernize Korea and liberate it from the occupation. He was also a pioneer in establishing modern educational system in the belief that this would save Koreans from Japan's imperialistic rule.
His contribution to Korea's modernization and great affection for Koreans ― often overshadowed by Korean patriots ― comes into the spotlight in a new book "Crusader for Korea, Homer B. Hulbert" written by Kim Dong-jin and published by The True Friend.
The book sheds light on unknown facts about the American hero who was a special envoy of King Gojong and helped fight for Korean liberation behind the scenes.
Hulbert was born in New Haven, Vermont to a devout Christian family in 1863 and studied at Dartmouth College before attending the Union Theological Seminary.
He first stepped on Korean soil at the age of 23 in 1886 along with Delzell A. Bunker and George W. Gilmore to teach Korean students English at the Royal English College set up by King Gojong. Designed to nurture Korean youngsters with a Western education, the school opened in 1886 with 35 students mostly from the noble class.
Hulbert laid the foundation for Western education in Korea by setting up the rules, regulations and curriculum in the school's early days. He introduced academic fields such as English, history, natural science, geography and mathematics.
While teaching Korean students, he realized there was a severe lack of textbooks. So he published "Saminpilchi" (Knowledge Necessary for All) in 1889 in hangeul (Korean alphabet), the first of its kind. The 161-page textbook covered world geography, governments, industry, education and the military to enlighten Korean people about the outside world.
He had a good command of Korean and highly appreciated the excellence of hangeul. Hulbert often lamented the situation in which hangeul was not used as often as Chinese characters.
The American missionary contributed an article about the excellence of hangeul to the New York Tribune, describing it as "true alphabet." Hulbert was one of few foreigners who intensively studied and appraised the writing system. He posted articles on hangeul several times in the first English monthly magazine "The Korean Repository." Also he introduced his studies on hangeul in the annual report of the Smithsonian Institution in 1903, saying "Korean surpasses English as a medium for public speaking." It was the first thesis about the excellence of the Korean language internationally.
Starting with "Saminpilchi," he went on to publish 15 textbooks between 1906 and 1908. As a historian, he wrote the masterful history books, "The History of Korea" (1905) and "The Passing of Korea" (1906).
The "History of Korea" is the extraordinary result of his Korean studies in English consisting of two volumes of 409 and 398 pages, respectively, covering ancient and medieval times to modern Korea.