Missionary Hulbert's love for Korea published into book

Kim Dong-jin, translator of the book and president of The Hulbert Memorial Society, speaks at a media meeting, Tuesday. / Yonhap

“The Selected Works of Homer B. Hulbert”

By Yun Suh-young

Many Koreans know about Appenzeller or Underwood, who were missionaries to Korea who focused on educating Koreans as well as evangelizing them. However, not many know about or have rarely heard of Homer B. Hulbert, who was also a missionary and a teacher who was a great advocate of Korea.

Commemorating the 130th anniversary of Hulbert's arrival in Korea on July 5, "The Selected Works of Homer B. Hulbert," was released on the day. The book is a compilation of 57 pieces of Hulbert's writings from 1886 through 1897.

Born in New Haven and a graduate of Dartmouth College, Hulbert came to Korea at the age of 23 in 1886, during the late Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910), as a teacher. He was sent to Korea to teach at Yookyoung Gongwon, Korea's first modern educational institutes run by the government.

What is astounding is that on July 29, three weeks after he arrived, Hulbert wrote a commentary in a foreign newspaper on how he felt about Korea.

"There has been no one who has systematically analyzed Korean culture, arts and customs as Hulbert has. He pointed out that the Korean literature genre was prevented from developing due to the Chinese characters. He noted it would have been great if Korean people could use Korean characters regularly since the creation of the Korean alphabet, Hangul, by King Sejong in 1446," said Kim Dong-jin, translator of the book and President of the Hulbert Memorial Society. Kim was a former chairman of the JP Morgan Chase Bank's Korea branch until he retired in 2009. Ever since, Kim has dedicated his time to spotlighting the great works of Hulbert, whom he has admired since reading his book, "The Passing of Korea," during his college years. He founded the Hulbert Memorial Society to honor the works of Hulbert.

"Hulbert also noted that pansori was much like a novel of music, voice and physical movements. He deeply appreciated Korean culture and tried to promote it overseas through various publications," he said.

Among the 57 pieces featured in the new book, 30 were published in The Korean Repository and The Korea Review, which were English journals published in Korea. The rest are articles extracted from foreign newspapers and magazines.

"It took us 20 years to collect his works. We went to old book stores in New York and London to collect any remnants of his works and went through hundreds of news articles to find his works," said Kim.

"Hulbert loved Korea in a way different from Appenzeller or Underwood. He was particularly fond of Korean culture and portrayed it in his writings."

Hulbert left 15 published books, and 200 pieces of writing, including 12 articles he sent to a U.S. newspaper. His works were the first on Korea to be published in foreign media. He also published a Korean textbook, "Saminpilji," in 1890, which is the first Hangul text book. It contains information on world geography, politics, economy, culture and religions.

"He was an advocate of Hangul, which is why he wrote the textbook in Hangul. He pitied the fact that the elites focused on studying Chinese characters and scorned Hangul when it was actually more useful and necessary for the public," said Kim.

"An old news article recounts how Hulbert suggested a plan to simplify the Chinese alphabet in a writing to the Chinese government, which was met positively by the Chinese government. He actually wanted to export the Korean language overseas." Hulbert is known to have studied Korean and English in depth and wrote a dissertation on “hunminjeongeum,” the book on Hangul manuscript.