식민지 조선 여성들의 배움 열망과 근화여학교

Abstract

This paper is to investigate the impact of Cha Mirisa’s female education movementon the modern Korean history of education and the history of Korean women rightafter the Independence Movement of Korea on the 1st of March 1919. Cha Mirisa’sfemale education movement and establishment of Geunwha women’s schoolembarked on a new chapter in the light that most schools for women were sociallycriticized to be ‘Daughter-in-law school’ and ‘Gisaeng school’ in Joseon underJapanese rule. The characteristics of Geunwha women’s school may be assumedto continue those of Soonseong women’s school and it is because that a questionmay be raised why the educational activities for the women of Joseon which weredirectly related to the lives of Joseon women could be resumed after 20 years’absence. Modern Korean education for women was nearly abandoned by the colonialauthorities and in the intertwined layers of ethnic, gender, class distinctions of Joseonsociety. Compared with very few learned women in the name of ‘New Women’who had entered into society since the 1920s, most women who were not in schoolwere called ‘Old women’ who were left behind the times and looked down onas incompetents in the ‘barbaric’ state. ‘Old women’ were eager to be human through learning and Cha Mirisa startedthe education movement for them in September 1919. Many women with thedesperate passion for learning flooded into the evening schools, institutes, and lecturesheld by Korean Female Education Association (Korean Female EducationAssociation). Cha Mirisa established Geunwha women’s school and took office asprincipal in October 1925, providing ‘Old women’ with a education. Intensive courses were separately prepared but no limits were put on the school entry age and time. Cha Mirisa connected the education with the survival issue of women in theperiod in which the patriarchal perception that women studied for ‘vanity’ still wasrampant. She maintained that a woman should have a solid material foundationfor the independent personal integrity, for which a woman should have occupationthrough vocational education. Cha Mirisa’s belief came to fruition by establishingGeunwha girls’ vocational school in 1934. Cha Mirisa’s education movement hashistorical significance in that she responded to the dearest wishes of Joseon womenof her time who suffered from a lack of learning.