{"id":5832,"date":"2006-01-13T08:53:49","date_gmt":"2006-01-13T13:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.froginawell.net\/korea\/?p=33"},"modified":"2014-08-30T14:22:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T14:22:53","slug":"an-elementary-reader-for-citizens-%e5%9c%8b%e6%b0%91%e5%b0%8f%e5%ad%b8%e8%ae%80%e6%9c%ac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/2006\/01\/an-elementary-reader-for-citizens-%e5%9c%8b%e6%b0%91%e5%b0%8f%e5%ad%b8%e8%ae%80%e6%9c%ac\/","title":{"rendered":"‘An Elementary Reader for Citizens’ (\u570b\u6c11\u5c0f\u5b78\u8b80\u672c)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kungmin<\/a>
\nAt my own blog I\u2019ve been writing a series of posts about some interesting old Korean books I\u2019ve come across in the library<\/a> of the School of Oriental and African Studies. This is actually no. 5 in that series, but I thought that it would be worthwhile crossposting it here. A list of the previous entries in the series can be found at the bottom of this post.<\/p>\n

The book in question is probably the first modern textbook produced in Korea. Entitled An Elementary Reader for Citizens<\/em> (\u570b\u6c11\u5c0f\u5b78\u8b80\u672c<\/a>), it was first published by the education ministry of the country that was then known as Tae Chos\u014fn\u2019guk (\u2018Great Chos\u014fn Nation\u2019) in 1895, or year 504 of the dynasty, if you use the short-lived dating system that was current at the time.<\/p>\n

A facsimile edition was published in the 80s which still seems to be available<\/a> at secondhand bookshops. It is certainly a book that I’d like to get around to looking at in greater detail. The first attempt at creating some sort of general, state-led educational material in Korea must have echoes that can be seen and felt even today, 111 years later. It is also fascinating to see what these early educationalists thought was important for the citizens of Chos\u014fn to know about. And some of the language used, even in the chapter headings, is interesting too, like the use of the word Chinaguk (\u652f\u90a3\u570b) for China instead of Chungguk (\u4e2d\u570b).<\/p>\n

\"Kungmin<\/a>
\nThe title page and first page of contents.<\/p>\n

The book contains 41 lessons\/readings in all, covering everything from the American War of Independence to camels. Here are the titles of the first 12 lessons:<\/p>\n

Lesson 1: Great Chos\u014fn (\u5927\u671d\u9bae\u570b)
\nLesson 2: General Knowledge (\u5ee3\u667a\u8b58)
\nLesson 3: Hanyang [Seoul] (\u6f22\u967d)
\nLesson 4: Our Family (\u6211\u5bb6)
\nLesson 5: The Reign of King Sejong (\u4e16\u5b97\u5927\u738b\u7d00\u4e8b)
\nLesson 6: Commerce and Trade (\u5546\u4e8b\u53ca\u4ea4\u6613)
\nLesson 7: The Transformation [evolution?] of Plants (\u690d\u7269\u8b8a\u5316)
\nLesson 8: Books (\u66f8\u7c4d)
\nLesson 9: Getting Revenge through Kindness (\u4ee5\u5fb7\u5831\u6028)
\nLesson 10: Clocks (\u6642\u8a08)
\nLesson 11: The Camel (\uf91a\u99dd)
\nLesson 12: The Treaty Powers (\u689d\u7d04\u570b)<\/p>\n

I think some of my translations probably leave something to be desired, so any suggestions or corrections would be welcome. Or perhaps you might like to translate some of the rest of the lesson titles. Here are the rest of the contents:<\/p>\n

\"Kungmin<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Kungmin<\/a><\/p>\n

Korean books at SOAS, previous entries:
\nPart one<\/a>
\n Part two<\/a>
\nPart three<\/a>
\n Part four<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At my own blog I\u2019ve been writing a series of posts about some interesting old Korean books I\u2019ve come across in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies. This is actually no. 5 in that series, but I thought that it would be worthwhile crossposting it here. A list of the previous…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,170,134,211,228,237],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bibliography","category-books-and-articles","category-intellectual","category-korea","category-late-chsn","category-textbooks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9yoH3-1w4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6193,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5832\/revisions\/6193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}