CHAPTER 4
Remolding the Ruling Class
through Education and Schools
"Whatever the ancients practiced is the best, and whatever the people of later
ages [huse] did is the worst."]
"If human nature [injong, lit., the feelings of the people] in the later age is
frivolous and not serious, it is because the laws [fa] make it that way."2THE ANCIENT MODEL
The Institutional Approach to Moral RectificationYu Hyongwon wa~ a child of the Sung in the sense that he believed not only that
the laws and institutions created by the sages of Chinese antiquity were the best
that could be devised by man for the governance of society, but also that these
institutions could be adapted to contemporary Korean circumstance.^3 It is clear
even from his own writing, however, that his optimistic belief in the efficacy of
institutional reform and the adaptibility of ancient institutions was not shared
by his contemporaries. The first step in the expression of this argument was to
convince his readers that human nature and human behavior in contemporary
times had not changed since classical times, and that the institutions of antiq-
uity had some relevance for the present.
"People in the world commonly say that the circumstances in ancient times
and the present are different. Even though they know that this opinion is wrong,
still they cannot avoid being misled. If they were to look into the situation, they
would understand that this opinion is in error and without foundation."4
Yu asserted that the root of this popular misconception about the intractabil-
ity of contemporary circumstance and the irrelevance of ancient institutions could
be explained by the origin and perpetuation of evil laws and systems.
"Generally speaking, the laws of the ancient people were all basically sim-
ple, and for this reason there were no evils. Laxity, carelessness, and the exis-
tence of many evils were all characteristic of the laws of the later age."5
Bad laws began when fawning officials catered to the whims of ambitious and
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