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305 Appendix A An english Summary of Syngman Rhee’s The Spirit of Independence this book was written in 1904, when the author was in prison in Seoul, Korea, as a political prisoner. the early life of the author was busily spent in a Confucian school, preparing himself for the government civil examination . after the Japan-China war of 1894, the Korean government was thoroughly awakened to the necessity of adopting Western ideas and new learning. Government schools and colleges were established and young Koreans were encouraged to learn foreign languages and to study Western civilization. the young Confucian, our author, bent his mind, after a long struggle and much perplexity, to the study of the English language and entered a missionary school, the Pai Chai College, then a semigovernment institution. It was in this school that he learned about the Occidental peoples, the great modern inventions, and the idea of individual liberty. Prompted by the desire of making these things known to his fellow countrymen , he started a newspaper, which was one of the two earliest newspapers published in Korea. through the columns of “the Imperial Daily,” he preached the doctrine of liberty. this was, of course, contrary to the absolute [sic] government then in power, and therefore, was done at the risk of his life. the liberal movement of the Independence Club soon led to a sharp conflict with the government, which was at that time under the influence of the pro-russian party. In that club, he was soon marked by the royalists as one of the radical leaders. When the government party overcame the popular movement, he was thrown into a dark dungeon, where he spent nearly seven years. For about two years of his imprisonment, he kept up a secret correspondence with the Imperial Daily [sic], warning the government against the russian influence and urging the adoption of western civilization. He wrote and translated several books, including “the Japan-China War of 1894” and “mahn Kwok Kong Bup,” (International law). But no one would care, or dare, to publish them as long as the conservative party remained supreme. So the unhappy prisoner had to content himself with his labor in writing a trilingual dictionary, English-Chinese-Korean, which, had it been published, would have been the first work of its kind. But when the large volume was scarcely two-thirds done, the relation between Japan and russia became threatening. Foreseeing the inevitable war and its probable consequences, dangerous to the independence of 306 Appendix A Korea, as many other thinking men in the Orient also foresaw, he at once gave up his dictionary and started to write “the Spirit of Independence,” which was completed on June 29th, 1904. His chief object in this work was to teach his fellow countrymen the principle of nationalism, which was so strong in the western world, and to quicken in the minds of his readers a spirit of independence, like that which characterized the american War of Independence. He clearly observed the fact that absolutism [sic] would be fatal to national independence. tyrannical oppression such as then existed would naturally lead to popular uprisings, as he declares, and such uprisings would naturally compel the government to call for foreign interference . So he saw the necessity of substituting a constitutional government, which would grant to the people a certain amount of political freedom, for the old absolute monarchy in order to prevent the downfall of the nation. Such freedom of political discussion was absolutely intolerable in the world of Confucian civilization. Fearing that the manuscript of this book might be discovered and confiscated by the government officials, he was constantly obliged to conceal it during the period of its composition. He had hoped that the outbreak of the war would bring about political changes in the government such as would afford a favorable opportunity for the publication of his works. But to his disappointment, he soon found out that he was mistaken. When the war in the Korean waters was practically over and the russians withdrew from the peninsular kingdom, no change took place in favor of progressive movements. a friend of his brought the manuscript over secretly to the United States, the land of the free press. the few Koreans in California have been laboring hard toward securing its publication. Some worked on farms picking grapes and oranges, and some worked as railroad laborers, in order to save their scanty wages for the publication of this book. through their...

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