Chosen Christian College

Background

The leading figure behind the founding of Chosen Christian College was Horace G. Underwood, an American missionary of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Northern Presbyterian). In 1886 Underwood opened a school for orphans, which later grew into the Kyungshin School. From around 1906 he sought to establish an interdenominational Christian union college in which several denominations would participate, bringing together the Kyungshin School, the medical school of Jejungwon, the Methodist Pai Chai School, and other institutions. His plan, however, met opposition within the Korea Mission of the Northern Presbyterian Church and was not realized at that time. Meanwhile, interdenominational cooperation continued on the mission field: the Pai Chai School and the Kyungshin School were operated jointly, and the Methodist and Presbyterian missions jointly ran Union Christian College (Soongsil). In 1912 Underwood returned from the United States with founding funds, including a donation from his elder brother, John T. Underwood, and renewed his efforts to establish a college.

History

• 1915: In March the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Northern), the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Presbyterian Church in Canada agreed to establish a union college in Seoul. In April, Chosen Christian College opened in the building of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Jongno. It had 61 students at its opening, with Underwood as president and Oliver R. Avison as vice president. Within the school it was also called the "college department of the Kyungshin School."
• 1916: After Underwood died in October, Avison succeeded him as president. Avison also served concurrently as head of the Severance medical school.
• 1917: In April the school received authorization from the Government-General of Korea as the private Yonhi College (Yonhi Chonmun Hakkyo). It comprised six departments—Literature, Theology, Commerce, Mathematics and Physics, Applied Chemistry, and Agriculture—with an authorized enrollment of 400. That same year, with a donation from John T. Underwood, the school acquired a campus site in Yonhi-myeon, Goyang County, Gyeonggi Province (today the Sinchon area of Seoul).
• 1918: Classes began on the new campus in Sinchon.
• 1923–1924: In 1923 the departments were reorganized into Literature, Commerce, and Theology, and in 1924 the Department of Mathematics and Physics received authorization.
• 1934: Avison handed over the presidency to Horace H. Underwood (Won Han-gyeong).
• 1941: In February Yun Chi-ho took office as the first Korean president.
• 1942: In August, during the Pacific War, the Japanese colonial authorities designated the school "enemy property." They dissolved the foundation's board of trustees, appointed the director of the Bureau of Education of the Government-General as custodian, and installed a Japanese president. The statue of Underwood was removed at this time, and a "Monument to the Rise of Asia" was erected in its place.
• 1944: Yonhi College was closed, and the Keijō Industrial Management College was established in its place.

Outcome and Influence

After liberation, the school was reestablished in November 1945 and regained its original name. In August 1946 it was authorized as Yonhi University, a comprehensive university with four colleges and eleven departments, and L. George Paik (Paik Nak-chun) became its first president. In January 1957 Yonhi University merged with Severance Medical College to form Yonsei University. Severance Medical College had its roots in Jejungwon and Severance Hospital. The Christian tradition that Yonsei University claims today thus originates in this school jointly founded by missionaries.

Assessment

• As a school founded jointly by several Presbyterian and Methodist missions, it is regarded as a leading example of the fruit of interdenominational cooperation in Korean Protestantism.
• The establishment of multiple departments from the outset reflected an intention to attain university status. Because of Japanese restrictions on higher education and financial limitations, however, this goal was not achieved during the colonial period.
• Historians of education point to two distinctive features of the school: a curriculum that placed particular emphasis on English, and the teaching of the Bible and the Korean language as required subjects beginning in the period of the Second Korean Education Ordinance.
• Regarding the final years of Japanese rule, some scholars hold that the school's leadership sought to preserve the institution through a degree of compromise with the colonial authorities. Other studies argue that after Koreans took over its administration, the school readily embraced the policy of education for imperial subjecthood, and that Christian principles were not respected in the process.