Christianity in Korea
Hangul, a phonemic Korean alphabet invented around 1446 by scholars in the court of Sejong the Great, was little used for several centuries because of the perceived cultural superiority of Classical Chinese (a position similar to that of Latin in Europe). However, the Catholic Church became the first Korean religious organization to officially adopt Hangul as its primary script. Bishop Siméon-François Berneux mandated that all Catholic children be taught to read it. Christian literature printed for use in Korea, including that used by the network of schools established by Christian missionaries, mostly used the Korean language and the easily learned Hangul script. This combination of factors resulted in a rise in the overall literacy rate, and enabled Christian teachings to spread beyond the elite, who mostly used Chinese. As early as the 1780s, portions of the Gospels were published in Hangul; doctrinal books such as the "Jugyo Yoji" (주교요지) appeared in the 1790s and a Catholic hymnal was printed around 1800.
Sungkyunkwan
The primary written language of Sungkyunkwan was hanja. Although hangul was invented in 1443, it did not become the primary language of study because the literary elite believed that the difficult hanja was more sophisticated. Hangul was invented to solve the widespread illiteracy of the common people at the time, but it was considered a threat by many in the upper class to their status as literary scholars, leading them to resist its implementation. As a result, hanja remained the written language used at Sungkyunkwan requiring anyone who wished to rise to the top levels of the government to be capable of reading and writing the characters.