[44] Wood-day is the term adopted by the Japanese for Thursday, their week, which has now been imposed on the Koreans, being Sun-day, Moon-day, Fire-day, Water-day, Wood-day, Metal-day, and Earth-day.
[46] Official Intercourse. Ord. 45 amends some old practices regulating the intercourse and correspondence of officials. The etiquette of the official call by a newly-appointed Prefect on the Governor, on the whole, is retained, although it is in some respects simplified. The old fashion obliged the Magistrate to remain outside the yamen gate, while a large folded sheet of white paper inscribed with his name, was sent in to the Governor. The latter thereupon gave orders to his personal attendants or ushers to admit the Magistrate. The t’oin, as they were commonly styled, called out “Sa-ryeng,” to which the servants chanted a reply. The Governor being seated, the Magistrate knelt outside the room and bowed to the ground. To this obeisance the Governor replied by raising his arms over his head. The Magistrate was asked his name and age, given some stereotyped advice, and dismissed. The Governor is for the future to return the bow of the Prefect, and conversation is to be conducted in terms of mutual respect, the Magistrate describing himself as ha-koan (“your subordinate”), and addressing the Governor by his title.
[47] The finances of Korea are now practically under British management, Mr. J. M’Leavy Brown, LL.D., of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, and Chief Commissioner of Customs for Korea, having undertaken in addition the post of Financial Adviser to the Treasury, and a Royal Edict having been issued that every order for a payment out of the national purse, down to the smallest, should be countersigned by him.
CHAPTER XXXIII
EDUCATION AND FOREIGN TRADE
Korean education has hitherto failed to produce patriots, thinkers, or honest men. It has been conducted thus. In an ordinary Korean school the pupils, seated on the floor with their Chinese books in front of them, the upper parts of their bodies swaying violently from side to side or backwards and forwards, from daylight till sunset, vociferate at the highest and loudest pitch of their voices their assigned lessons from the Chinese classics, committing them to memory or reciting them aloud, writing the Chinese characters, filling their receptive memories with fragments of the learning of the Chinese sages and passages of mythical history, the begoggled teacher, erudite and supercilious, rod in hand and with a book before him, now and then throwing in a word of correction in stentorian tones which rise above the din.
This educational mill grinding for ten or more years enabled the average youth to aspire to the literary degrees which were conferred at the Kwa-ga or Royal Examinations held in Seoul up to 1894, and which were regarded as the stepping-stones to official position, the great object of Korean ambition. There is nothing in this education to develop the thinking powers or to enable the student to understand the world he lives in. The effort to acquire a difficult language, the knowledge of which gives him a mastery of his own, is in itself a desirable mental discipline, and the ethical teachings of Confucius and Mencius, however defective, contain much that is valuable and true, but beyond this little that is favorable can be said.
Narrowness, grooviness, conceit, superciliousness, a false pride which despises manual labor, a selfish individualism, destructive of generous public spirit and social trustfulness, a slavery in act and thought to customs and traditions 2,000 years old, a narrow intellectual view, a shallow moral sense, and an estimate of women essentially degrading, appear to be the products of the Korean educational system.
With the abolition of the Royal Examinations; a change as to the methods of Government appointments; the working of the Western leaven; the increased prominence given to En-mun, and the slow entrance of new ideas into the country, some of the desire for this purely Chinese education has passed away, and it has been found necessary to stimulate what threatened to become a flagging interest in all education by new educational methods and forces, the influence of which should radiate from the capital.
There are now (October, 1897) Government Vernacular Schools, a Government School for the study of English, Foreign Language Schools, and Mission Schools. Outside the Vernacular and Mission Schools there is the before-mentioned Royal English School, with 100 students in uniform, regularly drilled by a British Sergeant of Marines, and crazy about football! These young men, in appearance, manners, and rapid advance in knowledge of English, reflect great credit on their instructors. After this come Japanese, French, and Russian Schools, at present chiefly linguistic. Mr. Birukoff, in charge of the Russian School, was a captain of light artillery in the Russian army, and in both the Russian and French schools the students are drilled daily by Russian drill instructors.