The purpose of this study is to examine illustrations in Korean textbooks in the period of Modern Enlightenment. From the viewpoint of relations between a text and an illustration in Korean textbook, there are functions of illustrations, which visualize contents in the text, which supplement absent information in the text and which get into an ideology of gender role stereotyping. Illustrations show various reading situation that a student reads aloud a book in a room, a boy reads a book with a horse on a road, many students pay attention to reading books in a classroom and a herdboy listens lessons carefully outside of a classroom. They emphasize importance of reading attitude education and learning by reading a book on early Korean education in the period of Modern Enlightenment.