712 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONthe inheritance of land and slaves, but they did not perceive it to be an agency
for controlling local clerks, as King Sejong had. Eventually King Songjong was
persuaded in 1588 to restore the YUhyangso to rectify the immoral standards of
ChOlla Province that had recently been plagued by a rash of thievery and piracy. 13
In the early sixteenth century, a number of scholars in Cholla Province con-
sistently advocated a reform program that included the performance of the archery
and winc-drinking rites, the establishment of Ui-Family community compacts,
and greater stress on moral education. The majority of ChOlla students, how-
ever, refused to attend their schools and ridiculed them openly, and some con-
servative landlords and officials opposed the scholars and even supported the
toleration of animistic worship. Was this only a vestige of late Koryo cultural
barbarism that still infected the minds of the backward villagers of the south-
west, or was it a legitimate defense of native beliefs and traditions opposed to
the imposition of a new ideology by a narrow intellectual elite?'4
The Yuhyangso then conducted the archery and wine-drinking rites in a build-
ing called Local Archery Hall (Hyangsadang), many of which were built in
Kyongsang Province, but only two in Cholla. Those who attended the rites were
seated by age and pledged allegiance to the four principles contained in the Lii-
Family compact, and any member who violated rules of moral behavior, criti-
cized the central government, or demeaned the district magistrate was expelled
from the YUhyangso.
The Conflict between Confucian Moralists and RealistsAccording to Yi T'aejin's analysis, a rivalry developed between the established
bureaucrats, merit subjects, and consort relatives of queens (the so-called
hun 'gup a) and the sarimp a or rural, Neo-Confucian, idealistic scholars for con-
trol of the YUhyangso. By 1492 the criticism by the moralistic reformers of the
established bureaucrats reached new heights of vituperation, but what Yi T'ae-
jin has decribed as a confrontation between the sarimpa and the hung'upa
Edward Wagner has reinterpreted as a contest between the king and young offi-
cials in the Censorate over the limits of legitimate remonstrance and the locus
of political authority in the Korean political system.'s
Nevertheless, Yi T'aejin performed the valuable service of showing how the
idea of moral education through self-governing communities, village granaries,
and local archery and wine-drinking rites had been thoroughly incorporated into
the thought of Kim Chongjik and his disciples in the late fifteenth century, and
was not simply the discovery of Chu Hsi's emendation of the Lii-Family Com-
munity Compact at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Cho Kwangjo: The Reaction against Community CompactsDuring the reign of King Chungjong at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
several officials laid the ground for community compacts by their general con-