The Times Follow

To the yangban (noblemen) of Seoul, the whole fantastic scheme seemed as sinister a foreign plot as had ever been brought to Korea. Never before had the country had a school for women, and now an American Methodist Episcopal missionary named Mary Scranton was opening one with the obvious purpose of corrupting Korean womanhood. There were even rumors, back in 1886, that a girl who dared to go there might have her eyes cut out by the missionaries for medical research.

The school called Ewha Haktang (Pear Flower Study House) did change the women of Korea, but the change consisted in raising them from their role as illiterate, housebound servants to a status they had never known before. This week, at 70, Ewha is not only the largest (4,800 students) women's university in Korea, it is also one of the most respected of all the nation's universities. Said President Syngman Rhee at the 70th anniversary celebration: "I express my thanks to God that our women's university has grown so large and will continue to grow. For the past 70 years, Ewha has steadfastly gone forward with a good, true goal."

Death of a Patron. Few campuses anywhere in the world have traveled more resolutely towards their goal over a more precarious road. Ewha was at first such a suspect place that its pupils went about in veils to conceal their identity. But the school did have one powerful patron--patriotic Queen Min, who in 1895 was to meet death in her own palace at the hands of Japanese infiltrators. By 1910, when Japan finally annexed Korea, the idea of education for women was so well established that Ewha began adding college courses.

The Japanese soon found Ewha to be a hotbed of resistance. In March 1919, after Korea abortively declared its independence, the girls of Ewha were out in the street shouting "Mansei!" ("Ten thousand years for Korea!") with the best of them. One even became something of a legend. She was 15-year-old Yoo Kwan Soon, who saw her parents murdered and was herself imprisoned for the crime of sewing small Korean flags.

Survival of a Campus. The Japanese tried to control Ewha by forbidding the teaching of English and Christianity and by deporting the school's foreign teachers. But, says Ewha's President Helen Kim, "they had a hard time. The Japanese hoped we would rather die out. But we didn't die." In 1950 the Communists ran into much the same situation. They took over the school's buildings, but by the time they did. President Kim and 900 students had fled to set up shop in 50 tents on a hillside above Pusan.

Today Ewha has colleges of liberal arts, music and fine arts, law and political science, medicine, pharmacy and education. It runs 70 laboratories, two hospitals, two kindergartens, two demonstration schools. Though a goodly proportion (68% this year) of its graduates go into teaching, many are married to top figures in Korea (among them: Lee Ki Poong, speaker of the National Assembly; Kim Tai Sun. mayor of Seoul; Admiral Sohn Won II, former Defense Minister; Choi Kyu Nam, Education Minister). Men with Ewha wives still call themselves Pan-kwan (the Henpecked), but the term is now used with pride. "Ewha's struggle," says President Kim, "is more than a mere educational movement. It is a women's movement for the emancipation of women and the cause of women as a whole . . . The times follow us, rather than our following the times."

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