EDUCATION. Under the old regime education was in Chinese chiefly. and conducted on Chinese lines. In 1594-93 a Department: of Educa tion was established, and a public school system inaugurated extending through the various grades, from primary to normal, with a univer sity in prospect. Besides there are schools for languages. taught by foreigners, including Jap anese, Chinese, Russian, French, English. and German. all under the Education Department. There are also many mission schools—one of them subsidized.
ETuxotoGy. The position of Korea between China and Japan makes its population of special interest to the ethnologist, and accounts in part for their mixed racial character. Native tra ditions speak of two primitive races, the Sienpi and the Sanhan. one Mongoloid, the other, per haps, more Aino-like, who, by the dawn of the Christian Era, had been subjected by and had merged with the so-called Kaori, or Kaoli. the ruling people, from whom the country has been named. Some anthropologists hold that the Koreans were of more positive Asiatic type than the Japanese, but had sprung from the same stock as the ancestors of the latter. Others group Japanese and Koreans together. believing that the Koreans are intermediate between the continental and insular Mongoloid peoples. Still others regard them as a mixed race from Tungus, Indonesian. and Japanese elements. They are somewhat taller and more robust, with much lighter complexion, and far more regular features than the average Mongol. In Korea three marked types may be recognized: Korean-Manchu (near er the European than is the real Mongolic) in the north and centre. Malayo-Mongolic in the south. and Aino (traces more or less) in the east toward .Japan. Some have sought a Cau
casian (white) element in the Koreans, but un less the Aino represent a sort of proto-Caucasian stock of great antiquity in Eastern Asia, this theory is very weak in evidence. Physically and otherwise the Koreans seem closely related to the people of the Loochoo Islands. The extent and character of Korean folk-lore and mythology may be seen front Gale's article on "Korean Be liefs." in Folk-lo•e (London. 1900) : Allen, Korean Tales, and Anions, Korea: Miirchen and Legenden (Leipzig, 1593). The extensive eth nological collections from Korea in the 'United States National Museum at Washington have been described by Dr. Hough in the Report for 1591. while the American Anthropologist (Wash ington) for the same year contains an article by Roekhill. "Notes On Some of the Laws. Customs, and Superstitions of Korea." The very interest ing games of the country have been made the sub ject of a valuable special monograph by Pro fessor Culin, Korean Games, with :Votes on the Corresponding Games of China and Japan(Phila delphia. 1593). Korean civilization undoubtedly owes much to China. Korea, besides indigenous eulture-elements. perceptible in myth oloy. social phenomena. medicine. folk-literature, art. etc.. has preserved a number of proto Sinitic characters in an older form than is dis coverable in either China or Japan. The Chi nese elements in Korean life, also, are more Chinese than in China. Both upon China and japan, in the matter of pottery especially, Korea has exercised considerable influence, and Chinese recognition of the ceramic art of the Koreans finds expression in poetry of the Sling dynasty.