COMMUNITY COMPACT SYSTEM 715
Yi's economic argument, however, suffered from a serious contradiction
because he admitted that the community compacts had never been designed to
act as agents of economic progress. His very argument that they had to be viewed
as a moral and stabilizing brake on the disruptive effects of economic progress
to save the peasantry from the exploitation of the capital bureaucrats and the
Yuhyangso was a clear admission that they favored Confucian moral standards
far more than they did the expansion of wealth and the growth of thc economy.
Revival of Moral Zeal after 1550
After King Myongjong came to the throne in T 545, concern about a general
decline in moral standards and moral education revived, but there was not much
support for a campaign to establish community compacts. In 1546 Chu Sebung
said that community compacts had not been established in rural villages during
Chungjong's reign, and Chief State Councilor Yun In'gyong opposed their restOf<I-
tion as a national policy because not enough men of high moral standards could
be found to lead them. He suggested, however, that local communities be left
to organize them spontaneously, and the Dowager Queen concurred.
After King Myongjong took over personal rule from the regency of the Grand
Dowager in 1553, more scholars and officials than before were sympathetic to
the moralistic reformism of Kim Chongjik and Cho Kwangjo. The scholar So
Om praised Cho and called for the adoption of both the Sohak and community
compacts. In response to complaints in 1554 about recent acts of cannibalism
and murder by family members during a recent famine, some officials called
for rebuilding schools and emphasizing moral education in Neo-Confucian prin-
ciples to counter popular fascination with such heterodox religious beliefs as
Buddhism, geomancy. yin and yang cosmology, and shamanism.
In 1558 Yun Kae criticized students for abandoning the study of moral prin-
ciples in favor of preparation for the civil service examinations, and he requested
that the curriculum be changed to introduce the Sohak before the study of The
Great Learning, or The Doctrine afthe Mean, but Myongjong refused. In 1559
the scholar Pac Ikkyom praised Cho K wangjo, cited his dedication to the Solzak
and the Lii-Farnily Community Compact, and urged that the Sohak and Karye
(Chu Hsi's Family Riles) be studied every day. In T560 King Myongjong con-
ceded that despite a few errors in office Cho was truly loyal to his king and coun-
try and not guilty of treason, and in 1564 Toegye mourned Cho's death and
regretted the neglect of the Sohak and the community compact system.
This upsurge of concern for moral education and community compacts reached
its zenith when MyiSngjong granted permission for use of the Sohak in an edu-
cation campaign, but Chief State Councilor Yun Wonhyong, who owed his supreme
political position to his blood relationship to his sister, the dowager queen,
opposed the request. Although he was forced out of office after the dowager died
in 1565, the king took no action to restore the text for the rest of his reign.^21