A comprehensive industrial survey of South Korea would not be warranted. The industrial elements and capabilities as well as weaknesses of that area are all too evident. Should Korea be reunited, and the United States bear a responsibility in the economic rehabilitation of the country, an industrial survey wholly or in part by qualified United States Government personnel is indicated. If, however, it be made by private consultants, they should clearly understand that the survey must be realistic and reflect the economic needs and capabilities of the country. Foreign consultants and construction firms do themselves and their own country as well as the country concerned, a disservice in recommending projects for which there is not complete economic justification.
Appendix G to Part III—Korea
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL
Because Japan had administered and developed Korea uniformly for Japanese and not Korean purposes, and in particular had persistently suppressed the people’s historic culture, once the region was freed of the Japanese, its people undertook a re-Koreanization program with feverish activity. Since VJ-Day, their own labors in behalf of education, for example, apart from the contributions of American authorities have been determined and surprisingly effective. In that short time it is estimated that total illiteracy has been cut from 75 to 44 per cent (to 25 per cent in a most favored area), a commendable record even when one notes warningly that the degree of literacy thus attained is necessarily a modest one permitting little more in some cases than ability to read a ballot. Although there are today more children in school in South Korea than were in school in all Korea during the Japanese rule, popular education is but begun, whether one considers primary or secondary schooling. Its advancement calls for buildings, texts and other equipment, teachers and advisors, and these requirements call for money.
The program of the educational group in our own Military Government is well designed but promoted within tight financial limits The same can be said for adult educational work of the United States Office of Civil Information. It operates through local libraries whose pictures, posters, periodicals, and other exhibits reach a great many urban visitors, and through a special train which moves periodically among the villages, presenting well-attended educational picture shows and distributing eagerly read farm weeklies and newspapers. Of many lacks the worst is of picture films.
Korean newspapers are numerous but for the most part are primarily political organs. Only by hastening education in the Korean language, long suppressed by Japan, can there be prompt development of adult education; there is present need for increased educational and cultural activities to occupy the attention of young people who presently have insufficient employment.
American health advisers report good progress in prevention of such serious diseases as smallpox and typhus, scant progress in the fight on chronic maladies. Institutional welfare work is insufficient but no more so than under Japan.
In general, one notes abundant energy among Korean leaders and a great desire for mass improvement socially and culturally as well as in other fields; it merits greater financial encouragement than thus far has been available.
Appendix H to Part III—Korea
THE MILITARY SITUATION IN KOREA AND PROPOSED MILITARY AID