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Abstract
This article sets out to elucidate the role of Japanese Protestants in the education of Koreans during the early twentieth century. Scholarship has often assigned only marginal roles to Japanese Protestants within the history of Japanese imperialism, despite the remarkable success of western missionaries in Korea at the time. As imperial expansion progressed, Japanese Protestants intensified their efforts to take up a leading role in the education of Koreans in colonial Korea and in the metropole wishing to spearhead the assimilation of Koreans. By drawing on the colonial discourses of East Asian unity under Japanese leadership, Protestant churches strove to mediate and facilitate colonial policies in Korea. Yet there were also voices of dissent from prominent Japanese Protestants critical of the assimilation policies implemented by colonial authorities in Korea. This ambivalent stance of Protestantism towards Korea is further complicated by the fact that the Korean Young Men’s Christian Association in Tokyo served as an important venue of the Korean Independence Movement. Examining Christian magazines and journals of the time, this paper delves into the contentious debates among Japanese Protestants concerning the Korea Mission and the Japanese government’s strategy of assimilation through education.
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Notes
1 Recent works on this topic include Emily Anderson, Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan: Empire for God (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), and Hwansoo Ilmee Kim, Empire of Dharma: Korean and Japanese Buddhism, 1877–1912 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Centre – distributed by Harvard University Press, 2012).
2 Kenneth M. Wells, New God, New Nation: Protestants and Self-Reconstruction Nationalism in Korea, 1896–1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1990), 28.
3 See eg Anderson, Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan.
4 Inaba Tsugio, Chosen Shokuminchi Kyoiku Seisakushi no Saikento [A re-examination of education policy in colonial Korea] (Fukuoka: Kyushu Daigaku Shuppankai, 2010); E. Patricia Tsurumi, “Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan,” in The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945, ed. Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 275–311; Jeong-Kyu Lee, “Japanese Higher Education Policy in Korea During the Colonial Period (1910–1945),” Education Policy Analysis Archive 10, no. 4 (2002), 1–17.
5 Numbers can be found in Michael Weiner, The Origins of the Korean Community in Japan, 1910–1923 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 125–30; Abe Hiroshi, “Kyukanmatsu no Ryugakusei (ichi),” [Exchange students at the end of the former Han-empire (1)] Kan 3, no. 5 (1974): 68.
6 Ono Yasuteru, Chosen Dokuritsu Undo to Higashi Ajia, 1910–1925 [The Korean Independence Movement and East Asia, 1910–1925] (Kyoto: Shibun Kakushuppan, 2013), 103.
7 See eg Trent E. Maxey, The “Greatest Problem”: Religion and State Formation in Meiji Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Centre – distributed by Harvard University Press, 2014); Sebastian C. H. Kim and Kirsteen Kim, A History of Korean Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
8 Andrew Porter, “‘Cultural Imperialism’ and Protestant Missionary Enterprise, 1780–1914,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 25, no. 3 (1997): 368; Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2009), 1263–4.
9 Kim, Empire of Dharma, 17.
10 Eckhart Fuchs and Christoph Lüth, “Transnationale Bildungsbemühungen und die Konstruktion des Raumes in historischer Perspektive. Einleitung zu diesem Heft,” [Transnational education efforts and the construction of space in historical perspective. Introduction to this issue] Bildung und Erziehung 61, no. 1 (2008): 4.
11 See Klaus Dittrich, “The Beginnings of Modern Education in Korea, 1883–1910,” Paedagogica Historica 50, no. 3 (2014): 268–9.
12 Tsurumi, “Colonial Education,” 295.
13 Alexis Dudden, Japan’s Colonisation of Korea: Discourse and Power (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 121.
14 Lee, “Japanese Higher Education Policy,” 4.
15 Tsurumi, “Colonial Education,” 294.
16 Lee Yeonsuk, Kokugo to iu Shiso. Kindai Nihon no Gengo Ninshiki [The ideology of Kokugo. Nationalizing language in modern Japan] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2012), 174.
17 Vipan Chandra, Imperialism, Resistance, and Reform in Late Nineteenth-Century Korea: Enlightenment and the Independence Club (Berkeley, CA: Institute of Asian Studies, University of California, 1988), 60–1.
18 Cited by Chandra, Imperialism, 61.
19 See Youjae Lee, “The Concept of Religion and the Reception of Christianity in Korea Around 1900,” Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 33 (2009): 63.
20 Korean and Japanese names are kept in the original order in which the given name follows the family name.
21 L. George Paik, The History of Protestant Mission in Korea, 1832–1910 (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1987), 78–9; Kim and Kim, A History of Korean Christianity, 57.
22 Kenneth M. Wells, New God, New Nation: Protestants and Self-Reconstruction Nationalism in Korea, 1896–1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1990), 26.
23 Dittrich,“The Beginnings of Modern Education in Korea,” 270.
24 Ibid., 269.
25 Deok-Joo Rhie, “Shoki Doshisha Daigaku Shingakubu no Kankokujin Ryugakusei ni kansuru Kenkyu (1908–1945),” [A study on the early Korean students in the School of Theology of Doshisha University (1908–1945)] Kirisutokyo Kenkyu 73, no. 2 (2011): 3.
26 Ibid., 6.
27 Ibid., 4.
28 Wells, New God, 74.
29 See Anderson, Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan, 127–8.
30 For more information, see Donghyun Huh and Vladimir Tikhonov, “The Korean Courtiers' Observation Mission's Views on Meiji Japan and Projects of Modern State Building,” Korean Studies 29 (2005): 30–54.
31 Letter cited by Abe Hiroshi, “Fukuzawa Yukichi to Chosen Ryugakusei,” [Fukuzawa Yukichi and Korean exchange students] Fukuzawa Yukichi Nenkan 2 (1975): 62.
32 Abe, "Kyukanmatsu," 67–8.
33 Soon-Yong Pak and Keumjoong Hwang, “Assimilation and Segregation of Imperial Subjects: ‘Educating’ the Colonised during the 1910–1945 Japanese Colonial Rule of Korea,” Paedagogica Historica 47, no. 3 (2011): 396.
34 Abe, “Kyukanmatsu,” 68.
35 Michael Weiner, Race and Migration in Imperial Japan (Sheffield: Centre for Japanese Studies/Routledge Series, 1994), 64.
36 Tsurumi, “Colonial Education,” 297.
37 Weiner, The Origins of the Korean Community, 130, Table 24; see also Weiner, Race and Migration, 65.
38 Ebina Danjo, “Chosenjin ha Nihon ni Doka shiuru ka?,” [Can Koreans be assimilated to Japan?] Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, 25 August 1910, 5; also cited by Mark E. Caprio, Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2009), 82.
39 Shuma Iwai, “Syncretism of Christian Samurai at the Kumamoto Band in Japan: Fulfilment of Confucianism in Christianity,” in Religion on the Move: New Dynamics of Religious Expansion in a Globalising World, ed. Afe Adogame and Shobana Shankar (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2013), 113.
40 Benjamin Duke, The History of Modern Japanese Education: Constructing the National School System, 1872–1890 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008), 345.
41 For a more detailed account, see Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 132–5.
42 Duke, History of Modern Japanese Education, 348–69.
43 Anderson, Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan, 7.
44 Jon Thares Davidann, A World of Crisis and Progress: The American YMCA in Japan, 1890–1930 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1998), 132.
45 See Okada Tetsuzo, “Chosen Kyoka no Mondai,” [The problem of civilising Korea] Kaitakusha, November 1910; Ebina, “Chosenjin ha Nihon ni Doka shiuru ka?,” 5.
46 Davidann, A World of Crisis and Progress, 132.
47 Ebina Danjo, “Seisho no Sensoshugi,” [The militarism of the Bible] Shinjin, April 1904.
48 Ebina, “Seisho no Sensoshugi.”
49 Jun Uchida, Brokers of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism in Korea, 1876–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Centre – distributed by Harvard University Press, 2011), 55–6.
50 Cited by Davidann, A World of Crisis and Progress, 136.
51 Takayoshi Matsuo, “The Japanese Protestants in Korea, Part One: The Missionary Activity of the Japanese Congregational Church in Korea,” Modern Asian Studies 13, no. 3 (1979): 405.
52 Takayoshi Matsuo, “The Japanese Protestants in Korea, Part Two: The 1st March Movement and the Japanese Protestants,” Modern Asian Studies 13, no. 4 (1979): 590.
53 Watase Tsuneyoshi, “Kankoku Dendo Ron,” [On missionary work in Korea] Kirisutokyo Sekai, 15 August 1907.
54 Matsuo, “The Japanese Protestants in Korea, Part One,” 406.
55 Anderson, Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan, 107.
56 Ibid., 108.
57 Cited by Matsuo, “The Japanese Protestants in Korea, Part One,” 406.
58 Okada Tetsuzo, “Chosen Kyoka no Mondai,” 15.
59 Ibid., 15–16.
60 Ebina Danjo, “Chosenjin ha Nihon ni Doka shiuru ka?,” 5.
61 Ebina Danjo, “Nitchojin no Konponteki Yugo,” [The fundamental amalgamation of Japanese and Koreans] Shinjin 15, no. 10 (October 1915): 15–16.
62 Wells, New God, 75.
63 Report of J. M. Clinton. “General Secretary for Chinese and Korean Students, Tokyo, Japan,” in Annual Reports of Foreign Secretaries of the International Committee of YMCA 1911, YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota, St Paul, 233–7.
64 Ebina Danjo, “Nitchojin no Konponteki Yugo,” 16.
65 Wells, New God, 74.
66 Japan Times, 3 July 1909, 6.
67 Ibid.
68 See Report of J. M. Clinton, General Secretary, “Work Among Chinese Students, Tokyo, Japan,” in Annual Reports of Foreign Secretaries of the International Committee of YMCA 1908, YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota, St Paul, 187–8.
69 Weiner, The Origins of the Korean Community in Japan, 125, Table 22.
70 Ono, Chosen Dokuritsu Undo, 103.
71 Uchimura Kanzo, Letter to D. C. Bell, 19 April 1917. The present author retranslated the letter from Japanese into English.
72 See Matsuo, “The Japanese Protestants in Korea, Part One,” 410.
73 See Anderson, Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan, 130–6.
74 See eg Kim Junyon, Na ui kil [My path] (Seoul: Tonga ch‟ulpansa kongmubu, 1966), 9.
75 Yoshino Sakuzo, “Rokoku no Manshu Senryo no Shinso” [Thoughts on the Russian occupation of Manjuria], Shinjin, May 1904.
76 Matsuo, “The Japanese Protestants in Korea, Part Two,” 595.
77 Yoshino Sakuzo, Shinjin, April 1920; translation by Takayoshi Matsuo, “Profile of an Asian Minded Man VII. Yoshino Sakuzo,” Developing Economies 5, no. 2(1967), 395.
78 Jung-Sun N. Han, An Imperial Path to Modernity: Yoshino Sakuzo and a New Liberal Order in East Asia, 1905–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Centre – distributed by Harvard University Press, 2012), 106.
79 Yoshino Sakuzo, Jomo Kyokai Geppo, 11 November 1919; cited by Matsuo, “The Japanese Protestants in Korea, Part Two,” 606.
80 For more information on Kashiwagi Gien and the critique of the Korean Mission see e.g. Anderson, Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan, 146–58.
81 Han, An Imperial Path to Modernity, 105.