The key to the establishment of a private academy was the selection of ancestral rites through public opinion. However, there was a limit to the seonhyun[先賢] that anyone could recognize by public opinion.
Therefore, person with merit in the villag...
The key to the establishment of a private academy was the selection of ancestral rites through public opinion. However, there was a limit to the seonhyun[先賢] that anyone could recognize by public opinion.
Therefore, person with merit in the village (specificity) were gradually used as the justification for the establishment of a seowon rather than those with merit in learning(university).
Cho-Mok[趙穆]’s “Dosan private academy” ancestral rites raised their social status by exalting their teachers. It was a present task and a plan for the future. Kim Taek-ryong[⾦澤⿓] and others who promoted the ancestral rites for Cho-Mok recognized Dosan private academy as Yean’s academy, not Gukhak[國學], so they thought that they enshrined Cho-Mok, the Hyanghyeon[鄕賢] of our village, in Dosan private academy, our village’s academy. On the other hand, most other than them recognized Dosan private academy as a place of national studies and scholars, so they thought that the ancestral rites should be selected through public debate and held with the permission of the government.
Following the ancestral rites of Dosan private academy, Kim Seong-il[⾦誠一] and Ryu Seong-ryong[柳成⿓] were enshrined at Yeogang private academy. The cases of Dosan private academy and Yeogang private academy became an inflection point for the establishment of a private academy and additional ancestral rites in the Yeongnam[嶺南] region.