James Scarth Gale

James S. Gale (February 19, 1863 – January 31, 1937) was a Canadian Presbyterian missionary, educator and Bible translator in Korea.

In old Sino-Korean, he was known as Ki Il .

Early life Gale was born on February 19, 1863, in Alma, Ontario, Canada. His father John Gale was a Scottish immigrant who moved to Canada in 1832. His Pennsylvania Dutch mother Miami Bradt was from Hamilton, Ontario. Together they had six children, of which James was the fifth.

In 1882 Gale entered St. Catharine's Collegiate Institute, St. Catharines, Ontario. From 1884 to 1888 Gale studied arts at the University of Toronto,

In 1897 he returned to Canada and the US, and on May 13 was ordained as a Presbyterian minister at New Albany Presbytery, Indiana. In 1900 he became the first minister of Yondong Presbyterian Church (연동교회) in Seoul.

As an educationalist, he founded the Jesus Church Middle School, present Kongsin Middle and High School, as well as Yondong Girls' School, presently Chongsin Girls' School, in Seoul. In 1904 he organized the Association of Korean Education with the members of the Yondong Church. In 1917 he founded the Korean Music Society.

In May 1927 he resigned as pastor of Yondong Church, leaving Korea on June 22, a year before official retirement (he officially retired from mission work on August 31, 1928). Gale died on January 31, 1937, at the age of 74 in Bath, England. He is buried in Lansdown Cemetery, Bath.

Personal life He married twice. On April 7, 1892, he married Harriet E. Gibson Heron, the widow of John W. Heron, M.D., also of the American Presbyterian Mission, North, who had died in Korea on June 26, 1890. Harriet Gale died on March 29, 1908, aged 48. On April 7, 1910, he was remarried to Ada Louisa Sale (born in Cheshire, England, 1871). Her father, George Sale, was a businessman in Japan. Gale's work has considerable influence on all following Korean versions. In 1890 Gale worked with Horace G. Underwood on A Concise Dictionary of the Korean Language, a small booklet. His own A Korean-English Dictionary appeared in 1897. A Korean-English Dictionary followed in 1914. In 1893 he was also the translator of the first work of Western literature to be printed in the Korean hangul script, Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (in Korean 천로역정). Gale translated some pages of ancient Korean history from the Dongguk Tonggam publishing them in the monthly magazine Korean Repository between 1893 and 1896. He also translated (for the first time) a number of sijo poems, publishing them in the same magazine In 1897 Gale published the book Korean Sketches (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell), a collection of often amusing essays about daily life in Korea, some previously published in the Repository. In 1899 Gale became correspondent for "North China Daily News" of Shanghai, China. He was also editor "Kurisdo Sinmun" (Christian News)1905 and "Yesukyo Sinbo" (Christian Herald) 1907. In 1900 the first Mrs. Gale, who was suffering from tuberculosis, went to Switzerland with her daughters, where they remained for six years. In 1900 Gale founded Yeondong Church in Seoul, where he remained as pastor until he left Korea. In the same year, he was one of the founding members of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, of which he became Corresponding Secretary, and on October 24 he presented the first paper, on "The Influence of China upon Korea." Later, in 1915, he served as the Society's president. In 1903 Gale travelled via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Switzerland, where he spent six months. At this time he wrote and published his only work of fiction, the novel The Vanguard (New York: Fleming H. Revell). 1909, a year before Korea was annexed by Japan, Gale published Korea in Transition which focusses mainly on the changes in Korean society introduced by the work of the Protestant missions. In 1917 Gale established the monthly Korea Magazine (published in English). He was its editor and almost its only contributor. The magazine ceased publication in April 1919, amidst the Japanese crackdown after the March 1 Independence Movement.

1922 Gale published the first literary work of Korean to be translated into English The Cloud Dream of the Nine (구운몽,九雲夢) by Kim Manjung (김만중) 1637–1692. Disagreeing with some of the over-literal translations in the official version of the Bible, in 1925 he published his own private translation of New and Old Testaments. In 1924–1926 Gale wrote his History of the Korean People, publishing it in installments in The Korea Mission Field. This was a much more personal and poetic vision of Korean history than the scholarly History published by Homer Hulbert nearly two decades before. Among the many institutions Gale founded or was involved in founding, in 1903 Gale was one of the founding members of the Hansong Young Men's Christian Association, presently the Korean YMCA and was elected as its first president. In memory of Gale's achievements, the Centre for the Study of Korea (CSK) at the University of Toronto hosts the annual James Scarth Gale translation prize for non-fiction pieces of writing on Korea. The top prize-winner is awarded a sum of $2,500.

Korean mythological origins

James Scarth Gale said that Koreans claimed to be descended from the gods with slight admixture from Chinese.