Judging from a collection of the toys of Corean children, and from their many terms of affection, and words relating to games and sports, festivals and recreation, and nursery stories, the life of the little ones must be pleasant. In the capital and among the higher classes, children’s toys are very handsome, ranking as real works of art. They have many games played by the little ones quite similar to those of our own babies, and they delight in pets, such as monkeys and puppies.
At school the pupils study out loud and noisily, according to the method all over Asia. Besides learning the Chinese characters and the vernacular alphabet, the children master arithmetic and writing. The normal Corean is fond of his children, especially of sons, who in his eyes are worth ten times as much as daughters. Such a thing as exposure of children is little known. The first thing inculcated in a child’s mind is respect for his father. All insubordination is immediately and sternly repressed. Far different is it with the mother. She yields to her boy’s caprices, and laughs at his faults and vices without rebuke, while the child soon learns that a mother’s authority is next to nothing.
Primogeniture is the rigid rule. Younger sons at the time of their marriage, or at other important periods of life receive paternal gifts, but the bulk of the property belongs to the oldest son, on whom the younger sons look as their father. He is the head of the family, and regards his father’s children as his own. In all eastern Asia the bonds of family are much closer than among Caucasian people of the present time. All the kindred, even to the fifteenth or twentieth degree, whatever their social position, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, officials or beggars, form a clan or more properly one single family, all of whose members have mutual interests to sustain. The house of one is the house of the other, and each will assist to his utmost, another of the clan to get money, office, or advantage. The law recognizes this system by levying on the clan the taxes and debts which individuals of it cannot pay, holding the clan responsible for the individual. To this they submit without complaint or protest. Instead of the family being a unit, as with us, it is only the fragment of a clan, a segment in the great circle of kindred. The Coreans are fully as clannish as the Chinese, and in this lies one great obstacle to Christianity or to any kind of individual reform.
China gave her culture to Corea and Corea passed it on to Japan. If we may believe Corean tales, then the Coreans have possessed letters and writing during three thousand years. It is certain that since the opening of the Christian era the light of China’s philosophy has shone steadily among Corean scholars. In spite of their national system of writing, the influence of the finished philosophy and culture of China has been so great that the hopelessness of producing a copy equal to the original became at once apparent to the Corean mind. The culture of their native tongue has been neglected by Corean scholars. The consequence is that after so many centuries of national life Corea possesses no literature worthy of the name.
At present Corean literary men possess a highly critical knowledge of Chinese. Most intelligent scholars read the classics with ease and fluency. Penmanship is an art as much prized and as widely practiced as in Japan, and reading and writing constitute education. Corea has most closely imitated her teacher, China, in the use of education. She fosters education by making scholastic ability as tested in the literary examination, the basis of appointment to office. This civil service reform was established by the now ruling dynasty early in the fifteenth century. The Corean child, neglecting his own language, literature, and history, studies those of China and the philosophy of Confucius, so that his education is practically that of the young man in China. The same classics are studied and the same attention is paid to memory cultivation. The competitive examinations too are very similar to those of China, and corresponding degrees are granted. The system of literary examinations, which for two or three centuries after its establishment was vigorously maintained with impartiality, is at present in a state of decay, bribery and official favor being the causes of its decline.
The special schools of languages, mathematics, medicine, art etc., are under the patronage of the government, but amount to very little. The school of astronomy and the choice of fortunate days for state occasions is for the special service of the king. There is also a school of interpreters, charts, law, and horology.
Although the Chinese language, writing and literature form the basis of education and culture in Chosen, yet the native language is distinct in structure from the Chinese, having little in common with it. The latter is monosyllabic, while the Corean is polysyllabic, as is the Japanese which the Corean closely resembles. No other language is so nearly affiliated to the Japanese as is the Corean. The Corean alphabet, one of the most simple and perfect in the world, consists of twenty-five letters, eleven vowels and fourteen consonants. They are made with easy strokes in which straight lines, circles, and dots only are used.
JAPANESE SOLDIERS DESCENDING FROM THE CASTLE AT FUNG-HWANG.
Japanese Drawing.
As in Japan, so in Corea three styles of languages prevail, and are used as follows: Pure Chinese without any admixture of Corean, in books and writings on science, history and government, and in the theses of the students and literary men; in the books composed in the Corean language the vernacular syntax serves as the framework, but the vocabulary is largely Chinese; the Corean book style of composition which is written in the pure Corean language. Every one in Corea speaks the vernacular and not Chinese.