Beginnings (1885–1916) The Yonsei University Medical School dates to April 10, 1885, when the first modern hospital to practice
Western medicine in Korea,
Gwanghyewon, was established. The hospital was founded by
Horace Newton Allen, the
American Protestant missionary appointed to Korea by the
Presbyterian Church in the USA. The hospital was renamed
Chejungwon on April 26. As there appeared difficulties, the church appointed
Canadian Oliver R. Avison to run
Chejungwon on July 16, 1893.
Gwanghyewon was financed at first by the Korean government, while the medical staff was provided by the church. However, by 1894 when the
First Sino-Japanese War and
Gabo reforms took place, the government was not able to continue its financial support, thus management of
Chejungwon came fully under the church. In 1899, Avison returned to the US and attended a conference of missionaries in New York City where he elaborated on the medical project in Korea.
Louis Severance, a businessman and philanthropist from
Cleveland, Ohio, was present and was deeply moved. He later paid for the major portion of the construction costs of new buildings for the medical facility.
Chejungwon was renamed
Severance Hospital after him.
Chejungwon (later Severance Hospital) was primarily a hospital, but it also performed medical education as an attachment. The hospital admitted its first class of 16 medical students selected through examinations in 1886, one year after its establishment. By 1899, Chejungwon Medical School was independently recognized. Following the increase of diversity in missionary denominations in Korea, collaboration began to form.
Chejungwon began to receive medical staff, school faculty, and financial support from the Union Council of Korean Missionaries () in 1912. Accordingly, the medical school was renamed as Severance Union Medical College in 1913. The rest of Yonsei University traces its origins to Chosun Christian College, which was founded on March 5, 1915, by an American Protestant missionary,
Horace Grant Underwood sent by the church. Underwood became the first president, and Avison became the vice president. It was located at the
YMCA. Courses began in April with 81 students and 18 faculty members. Underwood died of illness on October 12, 1916, and Avison took over as president.
During World Wars I and II (1916–1946) On August 22, 1910,
Japan annexed Korea with the
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910. The first
Governor-General of Korea,
Terauchi Masatake, introduced the
Ordinance on Chosun Education () in 1911, and subsequently
Regulations on Professional Schools () and
Revised Regulations on Private Schools () in March, 1915. These were intended to stifle private education in Korea; any establishment of schools, any change in school regulations, location, purpose, coursework, or textbooks must all be reported to and authorized by the governor-general, and all courses must be in Japanese. Severance Union College struggled to meet these requirements; school regulations and coursework were altered, faculty evaluated and enlarged, its foundation and its board clarified. It received its recognition as a professional medical school on May 14, 1917. In 1922 the governor-general
Makoto Saito issued
Revised Ordinance on Chosun Education (). It called for stricter qualifications for the faculty, and Severance complied and further recruited more members with degrees from accredited institutions in North America and Europe. Japan did not completely ignore the competence of this institution; in 1923, Severance recovered its right to give medical licenses to its graduates without state examination, a right that had been lost since 1912. Moreover, in March 1934, the
Japanese Ministry of Education and Culture further recognized Severance in allowing its graduates the right to practice medicine anywhere in Japanese sovereignty. which carefully pointed out that Japan did not apply such rigorous absurdities to its private schools in mainland Japan. After the
March First Independence Movement swept the peninsula in 1919, Japan somewhat relaxed its grip on Korea, and this is reflected in the Ordinance of 1922. It ceased the arbitrary control of governor-general over the coursework and the qualification of faculty members, and altered its stance on strict separation of religion from all education. It also recognized Yonhi College as a professional school equal to its counterparts in Japan, and permitted the Christian programs and the Bible in its coursework. Nevertheless, Japanese literature became mandatory. Under Japanese intervention, Korean history was taught under the name Eastern History, and the Korean language was taught whenever possible. The Department of Agriculture was closed after 1922 when its first graduates left Yonhi College. Efforts were made to revive this department, without much success. However, Yonhi College installed a training center for agricultural leaders on campus and its programs saw large numbers of participants. Yonhi College was liberal in its admission of non-Christians. Its policy was to admit non-Christians relatively freely and allow the majority of Christian students to gradually influence and assimilate them. In the late 1930s, Japan again shifted its policy towards Korea to incorporate it into its scheme of expansionism. In August 1936, the new Japanese Governor-General
Jirō Minami began the assimilation of Koreans, to exploit them for military purposes; The governor-general enforced
Sōshi-kaimei and
Shinto on Koreans, and began to recruit Koreans for Japanese war efforts. In April 1938, the third
Ordinance on Chosun Education ordered the acceptance of Shinto, the voluntary removal of the Korean language in coursework, and further intensification of Japanese and Japanese history education. Yonhi Professional School did not follow suit and opened courses on the study of the Korean language in November 1938. This was not tolerated for long: In March 1940, Yonhi College was forced to open courses in Japanese studies for each department and each year. In 1938, English classes began to come under pressure following a deterioration of relations between Japan and the United States; coursework in English was forbidden and texts of English writers were censored. In 1938, President H.H. Underwood accepted the practice of Shinto to avoid the potential closure of Yonhi College. Governors-General pushed Yonhi College to refuse financial support from United States and financial difficulties mounted. American and British trustees and instructors were removed from the school in December 1941 upon the beginning of the
Pacific War, and the government took direct control of the school in August 1942. When Severance arrived in
Busan, its medical school joined the wartime college, a temporary body. Meanwhile, the Severance facility in Seoul received heavy damage, as it was in the center of the city near
Seoul Station. Severance Hospital again returned on April 1, 1952, and its medical college on June 12, 1952. The US military neglected the restitution of Yonhi College and held other plans to use it as a military hospital or judiciary training center. With time, nevertheless, Yonhi College came to be viewed as a missionary institution that was dispossessed by the governor-general. Yonhi College was able to open its doors again on January 21, 1946, and, on August 15, 1946, was recognized as a university. On May 10, 1950, Yonhi College graduated the first post-colonial class, however in June all progress came to a halt due to the Korean War. The university reopened following the recapture of Seoul, but it was once more on the run to Busan in December. In February 1951, Yonhi College joined the wartime college,
Postwar (1953–1959) In 1957, Severance Medical College and Hospital and Yonhi University merged to form Yonsei University.
Presidents ==Academics==