A Study on Child Rearing in the High Officials' Collection of Works During the Late Period of the Goryo Dynasty: Focusing on the Conception of Children and their Activities in Everyday Lives(I)

고려 말 신흥사대부의 개인문집에 나타난 아동양육 (I) - 아동기 개념화와 일상생활을 중심으로 -

The purpose of this study is to explore the conceptions of children and their activities in everyday lives during the late period of the Goryo Dynasty. The historical method was used and the materials for analysis were the literatures written from the late thirteenth century to the fourteenth century in the Goryo Dynasty, such as 'the Ikjaijip'(익재집), 'Mokeunjip'(목은집), 'Yangchonjip'(양촌집). According to the results, the perspective on the nature of a chad was that children were inherently good with the true character which was given from natural laws and that each child was born with different natural endowment. Also, the notions on child development were that the infancy was a pure and perfect period which us not contaminated by temperament and worldly desires, instead of the developmental model that childhood is as a stage and the child must develop from the state of incompetence to the state of maturity. In addition, there were the principles for development that were keeping the innate ideal state and fostering it from the earliest time as infants were born with innate ideal state or ability. The concepts of children's characteristics were considered that they were inclined to make much noise and movement, but to have the plain and straightforward expressions and consistency in their feelings and everyday activities. And intelligent abilities for learning were often considered as desirable traits. In everyday lives, children did the household chores such as caring for livestock and silkworms or embroidering. Among their games were exploring activities, free plays using natural materials, pretend-plays, bamboo-stilts riding, and Yutnori.