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영어

Korean Catholicism was considered as heretical religion and persecuted several times until the time of Enlightenment after its introduction(1784) to Korea. However, after the Open-Port resistance to the West was gradually weakened and the West became the model of a new era. Modernization was the greatest challenge of our nation during Enlightenment, and education was one of the basic methods of modernization. The government was in a hurry in introducing modern education to nation, especially Protestants doing very active educational affairs. Catholicism facing the challenges of the nation promoted national movements, including educational activities. The main educational activity of Catholicism was the operation of Gong-so schools. Korean Catholic educational activities were weak in terms of the size and the number, compared to Protestants but Gong-so school movement was the center of Catholic education. Especially, Jeolla province had the largest number of Christians in the country during the Enlightenment so it had many missionaries sent from the Korean Catholic. From the beginning of Catholicism, faithful Catholic towns were formed in Jeolla province and Gong-so was established by Catholic believers who had escaped from Catholic persecution. During the period of Catholic persecution, from Seoul and Gyeong-gi province, through the Chung-cheong, Catholic believers came down to Go-san, Ik-san, Jin-an, Jeon-ju, Keum-gu, the mountainous region of Sun-chang, Tae-in, Jang-su in Jeolla province and settled there. Jeolla province had Catholic believers more than 20% in the nation during the time of Enlightenment and the number of Gong-so schools and the student in them was the largest in the nation. Baudounet, missionary, began to operate the four Gong-so schools in Jin-an, Go-san region and elsewhere in 1889. During the time of Enlightenment the number of Gong-so schools was steadily rising. The number of Catholic believers and Gong-so also increased. Gong-so schools were 10% in average compared to the number of Gong-so, students maintained in average by 8% compared to the devotees. The share of Gong-so schools in Jeolla province was 26.8% in the nation and the students in them accounted for 14.7%. During Patriotic Enlightenment period after the Eul-sa treaty signed in 1905, many schools were built across the nation on the purpose of cultivating student's capability and regaining sovereignty. The Residency-General published many educational laws such as Elementary School Act and Private School Act with the intention of controlling and oppressing national education and making the foundation of colonial education. Catholicism in Jeolla province received permissions, influenced by the policies of the Residency-General and ran Go-san Doe-jae Tai-geuk Gye-myeong School, Ik-san Na-ba-wi Gye-myeong School, Keum-gu Su-ryu In-myeong School, Jin-an Eo-eun-dong Yeong-sin School. Among of the schools, the Tai-geuk Gye-myeong School also installed the institute teaching measurement that was a very important skill at the time. But the Catholic Gong-so schools could not maintain the constant number of students. There were many cases in which Gong-so schools came into being temporarily and then disappeared. Student's number in the schools was very fluctuating. One reason why Catholic modern educational movement and activities didn't receive much attention from our history was that they were too weak. Another reason is that most of Catholic Gong-so schools didn't receive the permissions from the Residency-General in the time of Enlightenment and haven’t been continued today.