列強의 東北亞에 대한 敎育經略

The Educational despoliation of the far east by the world powers

In the late 19 century, the colonialism of the World Powers expanded to the Far East. They applied the ‘rule of jungle’ to the international relations, and acctually advocated the philosophy, ‘Might is Right’. Three nations in the Far East, Japan, China and Korea, almost had the same problems at that time and faced ‘Anti-Colonialism’ as well as ‘Modernization’. But among three nations, only Japan succeeded in solving those urgent problems and finally became one of the members of the World Powers. Since Meizi Renovation, Japan had invaded China and Korea. Finally China was almost colonialized, and Korea fell under the pressure. This paper attempts to look into the underlying philosophy of Western colonialism and principle of Japanese imperialistic expansion. The former can be defined as social evolutionism and the latter its byproduct. Meanwhile, social evolutionism was introduced to the Orient by Yen-Fu(嚴復). He translated Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays into Chinese whose title is Ten Yin Lun(天演論). The strategic points of this book are said to be ‘The survival of the fittest, the struggle for existence(適者生存, 優勝劣敗).’ The colonialist adapted this principle for China and Korea. The intelligentsia of both countries advocated this slogan as a tool of educational patriotism. Chung Tchi-Shi Yung(中體西用)in China, and Dong Do-Suh Ki(東道西器) in Korea are the oriental translation. But this mental movement maintained a vague notion. The time of Korean Enlightenment period just began, but most of the Korean leaders confronted the problems emotionally rather than rationally. Todays international situation is similar to that of a hundred years ago. Japan became one of the Neo-World Powers in economy and technology. But Korean education is also affected by cultural colonialism. To improve Korean education we should carry on autonomous philosophy of its way. We, Korean should revive the new aspect of educational philosophy. This paper proposes ‘Neo-Confucian Humanism,’ the so called ‘Sunbi Education(선비 교육)’.