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Culture1883

Founding of Wonsan Haksa

Residents of the treaty port of Wonsan raised funds to found Wonsan Haksa, Korea’s first modern private school.

When Japanese merchants flocked in after Wonsan opened (1880), the people of Deogwon and Wonsan resolved to learn new knowledge to compete with foreign traders and pooled their own money; with the help of the Deogwon magistrate Jeong Hyeon-seok they opened the school in 1883.

It had a literary and a military course, teaching the classics and military texts alongside modern subjects such as arithmetic, physics, machinery, agriculture, sericulture and foreign languages. As the first modern school founded by the people rather than the state, it is counted with the government’s Dongmunhak of the same year as the start of modern education.

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The map in 1883

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States and rulers at the time
Joseon — Gojong
Places
Wonsan

Before and after

Earlier
1883 Hanseong sunbo Founded
Later
1883 Mint Bureau (Jeonhwanguk) Founded

Themes that include this event

  • Educational Institutions Through the AgesAD 372 – 1943

    From the Taehak and Gukhak to the Gukjagam and Seonggyungwan, modern schools and the colonial education ordinances — state schools that trained officials and the private schools that filled the gaps