Homer Hulbert

Homer Bezaleel Hulbert (January 26, 1863 – August 5, 1949) was an American missionary, journalist, linguist, and Korean independence activist.

Hulbert went by a variety of names in Korea, including Hŏ Halpo, Hŏ Hŭlpŏp , and Halpo.

Biography
Hulbert was born in New Haven, Vermont, in 1863 to Calvin and Mary Hulbert. His mother, Mary Elizabeth Woodward Hulbert, was a granddaughter of Mary Wheelock, daughter of Eleazar Wheelock, the founder of Dartmouth College. After graduating from St. Johnsbury Academy and Dartmouth College, Hulbert attended Union Theological Seminary in 1884.

Korea
He originally visited Korea in 1886 with two other instructors, Delzell A. Bunker and George W. Gilmore, to teach English at the Royal English School. There, he taught the children of Korean royalty and nobility. In 1901 he founded the magazine The Korea Review.

Emperor Gwangmu (formerly "King Gojong") then placed him in charge of creating a Western-style middle school. He wrote a history book on Korea that became a standard source used in the US for around half a century.

Before 1905, his attitude towards Japanese involvement in Korea was positive, as he saw the Japanese as agents of reform, in contrast to Russia, which he saw as reactionary. He changed his position in September 1905, when he criticized Japanese plans to turn the Korean Empire into a protectorate. Hulbert's 1906 book, The Passing of Korea, criticized Japanese rule. He was not so much theoretically opposed to colonialism as he was concerned that modernization under the secular Japanese was inferior to a Christian-inspired modernization.

He resigned his position as a teacher in a public middle school, and in October 1905, he went to the United States as an emissary of Emperor Gojong to protest Japan's actions. After returning to the Korean Empire in 1906, he was sent as part of a secret delegation from Gojong to the Second International Peace Conference in The Hague in June 1907. The Korean delegation failed to gain a hearing with other world powers, and the Japanese used Gonjong's actions as a pretext to force him to abdicate. He was expelled by the Japanese resident-general for Korea on May 8, 1907.



Death and legacy
In 1948, Syngman Rhee, one of his middle school students, became the first President of Korea and invited Hulbert back to Korea in 1948. While on that trip, Hulbert developed pneumonia. He died on August 5, 1949.

Hulbert's tombstone reads, "I would rather be buried in Korea than in Westminster Abbey." He is now interred at Yanghwajin Foreigners' Cemetery in Seoul.

The South Korean government posthumously awarded Hulbert the Order of Merit for National Foundation. He is referred to in the Republic of Korea as a 독립유공자 (contributor to independence). A statue of Hulbert was established in his honor, the only such statue dedicated to an American civilian in Seoul.

Hulbert contributed to the advancement of hangeul with his research and study into the orthography and the grammar of Hangul with Ju Si-gyeong. He also made the first hangeul (Korean) textbook Sămin p'ilji 사민필지 ("Essential Knowledge for Scholars and Commoners").

Anthropology
Homer Hulbert said that Korea and Japan have the same two racial types, but Japan is mostly Malay and Korea is mostly Manchu-Korean. Hulbert said that Korea is physically mostly of the northern type but also said that the nation, being physically mostly of the northern type, did not disprove Hulbert's claim that the Malay element developed Korea's first civilization although it was not necessarily originating Korea's first civilization, and the Malay element imposed its language in its main features in the entire peninsula. Hulbert said that in Korea there was a genetic admixture with Chinese blood that stopped more than 1000 years ago.

Personal life
He was reported to have been a close personal friend of Gojong.

Selected bibliography

 * 1892 The Korean Repository (He was the editor of this monthly magazine)
 * 1889 Knowledge Necessary for All
 * 1903 Sign of the Jumna
 * 1903 Search for a Siberian Klondike
 * 1905 The History of Korea
 * 1905 Comparative Grammar of Korean and Dravidian
 * 1906 The Passing of Korea
 * 1907 The Japanese in Korea: Extracts from the Korea Review
 * 1925 Omjee – The Wizard
 * 1926 The Face in the Mist