차미리사 연구

Abstract

Milisa Cha was born in 1879 in Ko-yang County, north of Seoul, married when she was sixteen, and become a widow whenshe was nineteen with a daughter. With her aunt's encouragement,she attended a Methodist Church in Seoul and received Christianname Milisa. In 1901, she went to Shanghai with the letters ofrecommendation from American missionaries in Seoul. In 1905 shegraduated from the Virginia Girls School in Soju, China, but herhearing was much impaired because of recurring severe headaches. Milisa Cha arrived Pasadena, California in the fall of 1905 towork to save money to pursue her further education. After the SanFrancisco earthquake in 1906, she went to San Francisco to workwith the Women' Home Missionary Society of the MethodistEpiscopal Church at the Ellen Stark Ford Home for Japanese andKorean Women and Children. She worked as a social worker anddaycare center operator for the transmigrating Koreans from Hawaii,and a Bible woman for the Korean Mission in San Francisco. Shewas also involved with the Korean independence movement bybecoming a founding member of the Korean patriotic organizationssuch as Taedong Kyoyukhoe[Promote Education Society] andTaedong Bogukhoe[Protect Korea Society], She published her callingfor the armed uprising against Japanese in Taedong Kongbo, aKorean weekly newspaper in San Francisco in November in 1907,prior to the two Koreans shoot down the pro-Japan AmericanDurham White Stevens in March 1908 in San Francisco. Sheorganized the first Korean women's organization called the KoreanLadies Patriotic Society in May, 1909. With the recommendation from the Women's Home Society, shewas enrolled at the Scarritt Bible and Training School in KansasCity, Missouri in September, 1910. After graduating from the missionary training school, she became a strong believer of theSocial Gospel Movement that was to change the social system ratherthan saving individual soul, and returned to her homeland as amissionary assigned to Paewha Girls School in Seoul as thehead-master for dormitory and a Bible teacher in fall of 1912. Next eight years(1912-1920) at Paewha, Milisa Cha had a rareopportunity to learn and to think on the educational problems ofKorea that became a colony of Japan in 1910, with the patrioticeducators such as Christian leader Yun Chi-ho, Yi Man-kyu whowrote the first book on History of Education in Korea, therenowned lawyers Huh Hun and Yi In who were the school boardmembers. In 1920, Milisa Cha had to resign her position at Paewhabecause her involvement with the student demonstration on March1st to commemorating the first anniversary of the March Firstuprising. Then she organized the Joseon Women's EducationAssociation that offered a night school for illiterate women at theMethodist Church she had been attending and a monthly lectureseries the current issues and on the world affairs, and take over amonthly magazine "Yeoja Siron"[Women's Opinions] to inform and toenlighten the women who had been the captive in household forthe centuries. In 1921 she conducted three-month lecture tour in thesummer through out Korean peninsular calling on over 80 villagesand townships to conduct the series of lectures for women's rights,enlightenment, education, and bring up children. Over thousands ofrural area women attended this lectures offered by six womenspeakers with musical instrument players and singers. The dailynewspaper called this lecture series was the first largest women gatherings since beginning of the Korean history. With donations she collected in the lecture tour series, shelunched a Geunwha Hakwon [Hibiscus Academy] in 1923 bychanging its name from Jeosun Women's Education Association, andstarted a regular girls school in downtown of Seoul. Next step forher was to set up a patronage organization for her girls school tobe recognized by the Japanese Government-General in Korea. In1925, she got a permit as a hybrid girls' school, between the regularand the vocational schools, could offer the intensive courses as wellas some vocational courses. After establishing a foundation, shereceived a permit in 1934 as a vocational school that was a highschool level. That was the first girls vocational school in Korea. With Geunwha Yeoja Silup Hakkyo, she offered business and sewingcourses. With these courses, she wanted to educate modern andnationalistic Korean women who would be economically independent. Under the Japanese rule in Korea in the 1920s and the 1930s, herachievements were numerous and marvellous. In 1938, the Japanese Government-General in Korea forced togive up the name of "Geunwha" because it means the Koreannational flower. So that the school name changed to "Duksung". In1940, she was finally forced to resign since she was almost deafand did not speak Japanese as a principal. When Korea wasliberated in 1945，Russian and Americans divided up the Koreanpeninsular along the 38th parallel. Some landlords and the Koreanswho had been collaborated with Japanese in the south ancl thepro-Russians Korean communists in north wanted to set up theirown regimes in both sides. However, the one-hundrecl-eight Koreanssigned to support Kim Koo who opposed to setting up two regimes in the Korean peninsular and went to Pyongyang, North Korea toprevent to set up their own pro-Russian government in 1947. MilisaCha was the only woman who signed on the declaration thatdenounced of setting up two regimes. In Korean modern history,she became the first Korean who wrote an editorial for the armedstruggle against the Japanese in 1907 and the only woman signedagainst setting up the two regimes in Korea to prevent the eventualcivil war in 1950.