Page:A modern pioneer in Korea-Henry G. Appenzeller-by William Elliot Griffis.djvu/39

 Rh Latin culture, followed Trans-Alpine, Greek and Hebrew patterns in literature and took even their new religion in its Latin form, so the early tribes in Korea, when rising from barbarism into civilisation, gained their first knowledge of writing from the Chinese. Possibly some of this learning filtered into the peninsula before or about the time of the Christian era, but all that the early or late Koreans, or the Japanese knew about their own history, previous to the introduction of letters, has been derived from written sources in China. When the peninsular tribes came to political consciousness and, borrowing from the Chinese annals, scholars, began to put down on paper what they supposed to be their history, in all probability they then, for the first time, heard of Kija and the story of his eastward journey. How dogma is manufactured, and often when and where made, is as clear as crystal, especially when, as in Japan, it is used as an engine of government.

It may be safely affirmed that the story of Kija's settling inside the boundaries of modern Korea and founding for the Koreans their civilisation did not take form or become elaborated, until long after the establishment of Chinese learning in the peninsula; that is, at some time later than the sixth century, a.d. The existence of a tomb at Ping Yang, which was badly damaged in the China- Japanese war of 1894 and has since been rebuilt, proves nothing as to reality. In this statistical Sahara there is always a " history '* of ** 4000 years" and a Korean family of ** 20,000,000 people."