Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/24

16 the mountain from which the wind constantly blows. 4. A building in the southern part of Korea which has one room having the dimensions of one thousand squares; one square has the dimension of seven feet each way; the floor equals an acre in extent. 5. A beach composed of water-worn stones assuming the shapes of wild beasts, cattle, mountains, and other forms. (Objects of this kind are often seen mounted on little teakwood stands in Japan and China.) 6. A river called by a Korean name which means "against sand"—in other words, it is believed that the water flows in one direction while the sand runs in an opposite direction. 7. A flute one thousand years old, and only one man has been known who could play on it. 8. A stone Buddha.

An examination of Korean objects of manufacture, as exhibited in the United States National Museum, and in the Museum of the Peabody Academy of Science in Salem, will convince one of the degraded condition of the people. The rude musical instruments, rude pottery, rough work generally, and the almost complete absence of all industrial art handwork, testify to the alarming decay of the nation. Flanked as Korea is by China on the one hand and Japan on the other, with their advanced industries and skillful art handwork, and possessing, as Korea does, the records of a great past, the degradation and decay that have come upon the nation must have come about through their own fault. Repeated demands for an explanation of these conditions only brought out the answer that a noble could ruthlessly claim from the artisan any work he might do, and this without recompense. As a result, all ambition is crushed, and the workman dares not attract the attention of these official sharks by fabricating anything of special excellence. From hand to mouth they live; the masses are in abject poverty, and the only comforts they appear to command are heat and tobacco. The corruption of the official class makes Tammany officials seem like white-robed angels.

—If my various questions have been correctly answered, one may glance at the preceding statements and realize in how many ways the habits and customs of the people prevent work, discourage industry, and in a surprising number of instances encourage the survival of the unfittest. The appalling waste of time, the degrading habits of life, and the avarice and oppression of the official class illustrate in a forcible manner the result of unnatural selection. When one learns, for example, that custom, following Confucian doctrines, commands an industrious brother to waste his energies in supporting a number of idle, dissolute brothers, thus permitting them to survive to transmit their lazy and vagabond tendencies, one can easily understand the present degradation of the people.