The Royal English Academy: Korea's First Instance of American-Style Education and the Making of Modern Korean Officials, 1886-1894

Abstract

Amidst the turbulent circumstances following the forced "opening" of Korea in 1876, the Korean government launched a variety of reform programs, including the establishment of the Royal English Academy (Yugyong Kongwon) in 1886, the first modern government school, which lasted only eight years. This paper argues that the most significant factor for its closure was the incompatibility of American educational ideology and pedagogical objectives with the Korean socio-political context. The prospective students who would have been most receptive to a US-style education were the progressive reformers (the Enlightenment Party) since they advocated Western practical learning and technology. Unfortunately their staging of the 1884 Kapsin coup and its subsequent suppression resulted in their systematic elimination and destroyed any possibility of the Royal English Academy finding an enthusiastic student body among the aristocratic yangban who survived the fallout. Unable to attract students, it eventually lapsed under mismanagement, shutting down in 1894.