• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.35
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• pp.415-445
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• 2009

A well-known historian, Ahn Jeong-Bok(Sun-Am, 1712~1791) was an expert on the country village community. He was a scholar of the "Nam-In" group, who was excluded from the corridors of power in those days. He kept on the move in various parts of country villages from his childhood. After settling down in Deok-Gok, Kwang-Ju, he stayed in the place devoting himself to the self-culture and the literary works. By his surrounding of environment, he had an academic interest in a concrete science rather than metaphysics and country villages rather than the central city. He considered the country villages as the link holding between a family and a country and had the conception of a confucianist community based on country villages, emphasizing the practice of confucianist virtues in everyday life. First of all, his confucianist community was the community based on country villages. He thought that the enlightenment was a matter of great importance for solving problems in country villages. As a solution to those problems, he suggested Hyang-Yak, the self-governed regulations of country villages. In his own village he made the self-governed rules Dong-Yak. When he was a provincial governer of Mok-Cheon, he put Hyang-Yak, the self-governed regulations of country villages in operation. It aimed for a kind of gentry-centric country village community. But Hyang-Yak was the regulations based on the agreement with each other, stressed the regard on the popular mind and the setting the pace of the gentry, and aimed for the harmony and order in a community through the practice of moral virtues in daily life. On the other hand, he had a conception of a country village's academic community. He thought of the development of educational intuitions as a pressing need of the enlightenment of country village. With young people he read confucianist books with comments in a village school, Seo-Jae. In his seventies, he made and put the self-regulations for academic community, Hak-Yak, in operations. It is considered that Hak-Yak was an example of his idea of academic community and his point of view on learning, which emphasized on the coincidence with reading and practice.