신여성 尹貞媛의 현실인식과 사회활동

Yun Jung-won’s Awareness of Realities and Social Activities

Yun Jung-won was one of the very beginning of the New Woman and Female Intellectual. She was the first female student studying Japan formally. After graduation, she travelled many countries in America and Europe like Belgium. She was the first Korean woman travelling Europe. Through education and living in Japan she understood modern civilization. During two years staying in Europe she experienced the culture and products of Western civilization. At the request of Korean government, she returned Korea and became professor at Hansung girls high school in 1909. The school was the first government institution for girls school. And she became one of the first female professor and public educational official. At that time Save-the-Nation Drive and Patriotic Enlightenment Movement was developed in Korea. Female education was important to strenuous efforts and modernization for national prosperity. Yun Jung-won was contributed to develop Korean women’s education through teaching subject, preaching importance of female education and being a role model. She resigned the professor and exiled to China after Japan’s annexation of Korea. In Beijing she participated in national unification party movement for Korean independence movement. But she never returned Korea after Korean Independence.