"Whangsan," or "Wasted Hill," was the local name for the inhospitable three and one-half hectare plot outside Seoul that KIM YONG-KI and his family chose as their challenge 11 years ago. There, with "one hand on the bible and a hoe in the other," KIM provided for his family and built a productive farm and school for farmers. Today the transformed hill is respectfully ca!led "Canaan."

For the war-scarred ancient land of Korea and some three-fourths of its citizens who are farmers, he has shown that the most basic and enlightened of skills applied with work and love for the soil bring consequential material returns. Reaching far beyond agriculture, he has demonstrated the value of erecting simple houses of improved design, adopting a cheaper and more healthful diet, wearing more practical clothes and shunning wasteful, customary social demands. Within this context he has tested his ideas, established a nondenominational Christian Church and written his book, The Way To a True Living.

KIM and his family are the core faculty of the Canaan Farmer's School, working from four in the morning until 10 in the evening. Specialists from outside are invited as visiting lecturers. In this unique work-study institution 1,893 men and women have been trained over the past four years. They have learned to raise field crops, vegetables, fruit trees, strawberries, bees, rabbits, goats, cattle and much else. More notable have been the feeling of pride in working the soil and producing food, and the sense of nearness to God and nature that this allows; these they have carried with them to other villages.

The dream of rejuvenating Korean rural life that led KIM to Canaan began in his youth. He was born in 1912 in Yangjoo County, Kyunggi Province, into a family of farmers. Formative influences were his study of the Confucian classics and a deep commitment to Christianity. In his twenties he built a model village in Bongan and became perhaps the best sweet potato farmer in Korea. This effort he left to a friend to manage and, in 1945, founded a new community on waste land in Koyang County, complete with a school and church. In 1950 KIM moved to Yongin County where he led in creation of the Farmer's Evangelical Folk High School. After five years he could leave this institution to the management of associates and move on to found the Canaan farm and school.

Guided by an idea and faith, KIM has shown that rural material circumstances in Asia, even when meager, can, with sustained work, be shaped for the better. In his scheme, the spiritual awakening of farmers, so that song becomes an intimate and natural expression of their zest, is crucial.