738 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION
(myon), which he referred to as hyang, not the natural villages. The people of a
hyang were to nominate men of virtuous reputation who had earned the trust of
the people to be general head of all community compact associations at the sub-
district levcl (Toyakchong) for the administrative district (lip) and his two assis-
tants. The people of every subdistrict would in turn nominate the head of the
subdistrict compact association (Yakchong) and its secretary (Chigwol), a post
that would rotate among the ordinary members of the association. Beneath the
subdistrict families would be organized not into natural villages but into admin-
istrative villages based on Chinese-style units of fifty-family groups (i), which
would also select "the oldest man in the village who is firm and diligent" to be
the head ofthe fifty-family group (I jon g) and his clerk (Saekchang). The Ijong
would be responsible for admonishing, instructing, and investigating the peo-
ple of the natural villages.
Yu introduced an interesting twist on the relationship between the commu-
nity compact and the Yuhyangso by requiring that the head of the subdistrict
Compact (Yakchong) concurrently take over the leadership of the current
YUhyangso. Such a move would have ensured that the Yuhyangso could no longer
function as the agent either of the district magistrate, or of any capital official
or nobleman that controlled the district's Kyongjaeso.
His regulations governing the positions of lesser compact functionaries were
standard. The monthly rotating secretaries (Chigwol) and clerks (Saekchang)
held their posts only for a year, but none of the regular functionaries of the sys-
tem were to be transferred from their posts unless their parents had died or were
sick, had been forced to leave the village, or had damaged their reputations by
some action. Then, the members of the compact association and the village elders
would personally ask the man to leave his post or pctition the magistrate for his
removal. Once the head of the compact was chosen, he was not responsible to
the compact members for his position, but the secretary and clerk had to rotate
automatically every month and could be removed for malfeasance upon peti-
tion, but the final authority in that case belonged with the magistrate.
Wada Sei once remarked that the Chinese institutions of local self-govern-
ment had been mistakenly advertised by some as demonstrations of Western
democracy when they were only extensions of centralized despotic and absolute
government. Yu's plan contained elements of popular participation, but the head
of the compact was not responsible to the members after he was chosen.^6
Education and Moral InstructionIn emulation of Yulgok's text of pledges, Yu also included a set of pledges by
members of local communities to the subdistrict compact association designed
to produce not only compliance with the tax and legal requirements of the state,
but to create a moral community for the improvement of individual behavior,
interpersonal relations, civic obligation, and social harmony. Yu remarked that
in classical times, government affairs (chongnyong) and moral transformation