ABSTRACT

Insofar as the Korean Courtiers Observation Mission thought to put their Japanese experiences into practice in advancing reforms in Korea, its trip to Japan can be considered an epoch-making event in the history of Korean modernisation. The Mission - twelve middle-ranked officials, twentyseven attendants (students included), twelve translators (among them two Japanese), and thirteen servants, sixty-four persons in total - stayed in Japan for four months in 1881, making a detailed observation of its modem structures. That was the first serious attempt to introduce Western institutions, using Japan as a model, in Korean history.