中國 基督敎系 女子大學의 設立과 展開

Abstract

Around the dawn of the 20th century, movements for higher education for women appeared in East Asia. Japan was the first country in the establishment of women’s college in East Asia but it could not be said that the college education was linked to the women's movement, leading to the improvement of women's status. Although there were some efforts of individual governments, the beginning of Northeast Asian Women’s higher education could not be discussed excluding the presence of American Christianity which had been interested in and continued to support East Asian Women’s education since mid 19th century. Especially the influence of Methodist Episcopal Mission should be noted. The study of the influence of American Christianity on East Asian women's higher education has been conducted in the context of mission and religion, but it remained intact that the understanding from the perspective of network or the integrated view of embracing East Asia. The various denominations of the Protestant Church in the United States have supported missionary and founded education institution in East Asia, including China. However, from the Christian point of view, China was the lowest in return for investment due to the establishment of a socialist state. Even compared to the results of Korea, where the education and missionary activities were belatedly about to embark on crusade around Seoul, the achievements were much greater than those of China. From the educational reform in the late Qing dynasty, which was considered relatively successful, the Japanese school system was introduced. Moreover the modern university system was completed in the early Republic of China, but did not lead to rapid growth. It showed uneven features from 1920s to 1940s influenced by the undergoing political upheaval. After the First Missionary Conference in 1877, mission schools were active in teaching, and increased in size and number, creating demands for higher education. In addition to the institutional support of the Chinese government, women's education has actually been expanded to co-education and vocational education. As it was not possible to enter higher education institution after completing secondary education, women’s university emerged as an answer to the necessity of setting up women-only higher education institutes. In terms of the size of enrolled students in the 1920s, overwhelming students belonged to either Kinryo Women's college or Hwa Nan College. Hwa Nan College was based in Fuzhou where the beginning of modern education could be traced back to 1859. It was the result of gathered strength through networks of missionaries at the missionary conference in 1880. In particular, the founding process of the Hwa Nan College revealed the characteristic of women’s higher education in China which was the combination of American-style education under the influence of the Christian missionary in Japanese school system.