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Inspired by Jurgen Habermas¡¯s presentation of the European public sphere institutions, I explore Korean Confucian private academies, which featured aspects of public sphere during its function from the 16th to the 18th century. Especially, (1) by examining Korean academies, I reveal how Habermas’s definition of the European public sphere corresponds to the functions of those academies. (2) In order to show the transformation from naive public sphere to political public sphere, I examine the historical periods in which academies became politicized and began to actively participate in the national political discourse. (3) I present a variety of empirical evidence on the establishment and development of private academies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]