The Days of a Man 



CiQii 



Biological 

 cause of 

 Korea s 

 failure as 

 a nation 



viduals, they appear intelligent and energetic. Many 

 of those trained in mission schools are excellent 

 scholars, especially in languages and mathematics, 

 though backward in experimental and inductive sci- 

 ence. But while individually fairly able, collectively 

 they rarely accomplish much. In team work, a 

 strong feature of the Japanese, they have little genius. 

 For the failure of Korean leadership through the 

 ages there seems to be a valid and adequate reason; 

 the national history is one long record of elimination 

 of men with initiative.^ The Korean court, with its 

 motley array of king, Yang Ban, concubines, eunuchs, 

 and sorcerers, punished all insurgency with death. 

 Thousands on thousands were beheaded merely to 

 save annoyance to some ruler or courtesan. General 

 Kim, who drove back the Japanese soldiers of Hide- 

 yoshi in 1698, was beheaded; Admiral Yi, who 

 scattered and sank the Japanese fleet, met some 

 similar fate. By a law of biology the man who is left 

 determines the future of the race, for "like begets 

 like" and each generation repeats the qualities of its 

 actual ancestry. Long-continued extirpation of cour- 

 age leaves a spineless residue, which fact to my mind 

 illuminates Korean history. 



At Seoul we parted from Benians with regret, both 

 because we should miss him and because we looked 

 longingly toward the road over which he was bound 

 through Manchuria to Peking. But having turned 

 our faces eastward, we first stopped at Okayama, a 

 large city, interesting as being less influenced by 



' It is stated by Professor Ladd that the late queen caused 2867 persons 

 to be beheaded before she was herself assassinated in 1909 in the palace at Seoul. 



C 396 3 



