In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

41 cHAPTeR 3 Christian Education and Evangelism in Korea and Japan Returning Home While rhee was busy working on his doctorate in the United States, Korea was in the last stages of being swallowed up by its bigger island neighbor. Japan’s earlier success against russia had further emboldened the government ’s ambition to extend its power north through Korea and into a significantly weakened China. By the time rhee finally obtained his PhD and set his sights back on his homeland, he technically no longer had a homeland to return to. Korea in 1910 was officially a Japanese colony, so rhee’s earlier plan of working to protect Korea’s sovereignty was necessarily adjusted to working for the reinstatement of a sovereignty Japan had already violated. His options were limited. Prior to departing for the United States, rhee had had prominent connections among Korea’s political elite, but this was no longer the case. Once Japan took over the peninsula and all its governing institutions, the more liberal-minded Korean politicians who had fought so hard to reform the Korean government and stave off colonization were pushed out of office and stripped of any semblance of power. min Yŏng-hwan felt compelled to take his own life in November 1905, in an act of both anguish and defiance; Han Kyu-sŏl retired from politics after resisting Japanese pressure to sign the Protectorate treaty in the same month. moreover, the Japanese rulers of the newly created colony would not allow rhee to take office and make trouble where he wasn’t wanted. thus rhee’s hard-earned experience and education in international law and diplomacy were for the moment virtually useless, in that he could not use them for the purpose he had originally intended. Even so, rhee chose to return to Seoul and to the embrace of his father and wife once again. His decision was not motivated by family considerations ; rather, he wanted to provide spiritual guidance and promote the self-improvement of the Korean people through Christian education. to accomplish this, he would need other, nonpolitical connections to help put him in a position where he could reach the public without attracting the ire of the Japanese. rhee, of course, had these connections in abundance because his old North american missionary friends had been awaiting 42 ChaPter 3 his return and were more than happy to facilitate his employment in the service of God. the process of returning to Korea in this way had started while rhee was still at Harvard pursuing his master’s degree in the summer of 1908. rhee wrote to James S. Gale, who had become the first president of the Seoul YmCa in 1903, asking what he should do after his return to Korea. In his reply, Gale emphasized the extent of the work that was needed in Korea and gave suggestions on what role rhee should play in shaping a new and better Korea. Gale felt that rhee’s talents could best be employed by working at the Seoul YmCa.1 Horace G. Underwood (1859–1916; Fig. 3.1), for his part, wrote to rhee on February 16, 1910, while rhee was writing his PhD dissertation at Princeton. In this letter Underwood intimated that a Union Christian College (the eventual predecessor of Yonsei University) could soon be established and suggested that rhee accept a professorship there, as follows: my dear mr. rhee:– We have been thinking a great deal about you and the probable work that you would be most fitted for when you came [sic] back here. Especially have we been thinking much along this line, as we begin to realize that it will not be long before you are through with you [sic] course and coming out to undertake the great work that is before you. Of course I do not [know] what your plans are, but we have been thinking that you [would] be especially fitted for educational work. No doubt you yourself will realize the need of Christian education in the truest sense of the word in this land, more than anything else. In our own mission I have just undertaken the work of College and academy. Our academy, as you perhaps know, has now been running for some several years; and it is our plan to begin our College work this fall. In our college work it is plan [sic] to put in a good faculty consisting of men who have made a specialty...

Share