As the importance of leisure is stressed, Leisure education became one of five values in physical education curriculum, However, unlike other four values, research of leisure education as public education has not been conducted much in Korea. Thus, the purpose of the study is to investigate the need of leisure education and provide the direction of leisure education through leisure education theories, definitions, history, cases in U.S. etc. Until now, leisure education has been considered just as the perspective of ‘leisure as the subject of education’ because of the situations including sedentary lifestyle, lack of leisure experiences, societal changes, and education culture in Korea. However, through leisure education, educators should provide the values and advantage of leisure and should help students understand leisure as the overall concept. Also, educators should develop leisure education program for students in order to obtain leisure skills and utilize leisure resources.