p. 13 | Our Korean Training-School at Soonan by Howard Lee

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 11, 1912

Our Korean Training-School at Soonan

By Howard Lee

HOWARD LEE

THE name of our school here at Soonan is Eui Myung Hakio, which means, as nearly as I can make out, “The brightness of the truth.” The Koreans gave it this name, and the school is known by it among the natives. Its object is the same as that of our schools in general, —to teach our own young people the Bible and other branches of learning, and also to be the means of bringing others into the truth and making workers of all.

Soonan is a county seat, and the magistrate’s offices are here. There are about three hundred houses in the village, with nearly one thousand inhabitants. It is on the railroad, fifteen miles north of Pieng-yang. We have three trains a day each way. Also the post-office, with telephone and telegraph, is here at our command. Each Sunday about two hundred natives attend services at the Presbyterian church. Most of these believers live out in the country villages. The Japanese have a public school here for the Korean boys, and before long will have compulsory education laws.

Our school property is located on a hillside overlooking the town. Our buildings are a schoolhouse, boys’ dormitory, barn, tool house, three Korean mud-wall houses, which we use at present for the girls. We hope this summer to build a dormitory for them.

The schoolhouse is twelve feet wide and sixty feet long. We have three rooms in it. Its framework is of heavy timbers. The walls are made of mud, plastered over corn stalks, which are tied to cross-pieces of timber with straw rope. The walls are papered white inside, and plastered with lime outside. The roof is made of Korean tile. The floor is heated by fires underneath. We also use stoves, as it is too cold, even though the floor is warm. We have no seats nor chairs. This building is the schoolhouse for the boys, and our church building. Our numbers fill it, and we must soon add more room.

The boys’ dormitory is half Korean style, with tin roof, the other half cement and stone. The floors are heated by the fires which cook the food. Each room does its own cooking in kettles provided for it. The students eat rice, millet, and beans, cooked together. This is the main dish. Aside from this, they must have something to make the “pap” go down. They will not eat if there is no chilki, or side dish. This is usually pickled turnips, bean juice (that to me is very unsavory, but to them has a fine flavor), perhaps broiled fish that has been sun-dried, seaweed, beans made up into a curd looking like nuttolene and tasting good to a foreigner, and other things. The general diet, however, is pap (rice, beans, and millet), with turnips and bean juice. In the summer they eat three times a day, the noon meal being the cold food left from breakfast. In winter they eat two meals, one in the morning, the other at evening. There is very little if any variety to their food; but still they look fat and plump, especially in the face.

The girls are divided into three groups, and each group does its own cooking and buying of food. We pay them for their work, or give them a certain amount of money, and they look out for themselves as far as buying and preparing their food is concerned. It is far cheaper for the school to let them do their own cooking and buying, and in a way is more satisfactory to them, as they can regulate their expense and save a little money for shoes, etc. Then, too, it is pretty hard for a foreigner to buy their food and suit them. They all sleep on the warm floor, rolled up in blankets full of cotton, which keep them quite warm.

Three men teachers live in the boys’ dormitory, and a woman teacher lives with the girls. The board of one student runs from $1.25 to $2 a month, depending on the amount of rice eaten. This past term it has cost them about $1.50 a month, rice and millet being now more expensive.

Our students come from the poor class of people. Many of them are believers in Christ, and so are their parents. About one third of our students have been baptized, and are members of our church here. Some of the students come from heathen homes. On their return home, the influence of the school is felt in the family, leading others to the truth. This spring I expect to see quite a number baptized.

The ages of the boys vary from fifteen to twenty-five years. The girls are somewhat younger, from ten to twenty years of age. The past term we had about thirty-five boys and fifteen girls living in the school buildings. Outside students amounted to twenty-five or thirty, making, in all, eighty students.

The school owns about forty acres of land, divided into small fields. We have wet-land rice-fields and dry-land rice-fields, and raise rice, millet, beans, Kafir corn, buckwheat, cotton, barley, wheat, turnips, and cabbages. The hoeing is nearly all done by hand, and in this work many of the students are useful.

The boys do whatever we can find for them to do. As yet there is not much for the girls to do, except what we foreigners give in the way of housework and sewing. We try to keep every one busy, and that keeps us busy, too.

The school work is carried on the same as at home. We begin at eight o’clock in the morning with chapel exercises for one-half hour, followed by recitations till one o’clock. After dinner they work from half past one until half past five o’clock.

The girls’ school does primary work, having six grades. They study Bell’s “Bible Lessons” (translated), arithmetic, Korean geography and history, Chinese characters, the Korean characters, hygiene, Japanese singing, and drawing.

The primary boys’ school is the same as the girls’. Most of our boys, and all who are in the dormitory, are in the middle school, corresponding to high school at home. We do four years’ work, the studies being Bible, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, Chinese, Japanese, English, geography, physical geography, zoology, botany, chemistry, physics, book-keeping, commercial law, general history, physiology, drawing, and singing.

There are four Korean teachers and one Japanese teacher who teach the boys. I teach Bible, bookkeeping, English, and singing. In the girls’ school Miss Scott teaches Bible and arithmetic. There are two women teachers to help. The boys’ Chinese teacher and the Japanese teacher also teach in the girls’ school.

The students are quite intelligent, and ask many questions. They want everything well explained, and are not very good at thinking a thing out for themselves. Most of them are quite good students, and do well in examinations. They are anxious to learn, and memorize almost everything.

We have a Friday evening prayer and social meeting, in which they take quite an active part. Sabbath-school and church are well attended. When school is in session, we have about one hundred forty members in the Sabbath-school.

We also have a missionary society, and the members do what missionary work they have time for on Sabbath. Most of our students, I think, will make good workers. They have done what they could in selling the special number of our Korean paper, and are willing to do anything asked of them. With the blessing of the Lord, we trust this school will accomplish all that is purposed for it.