Page:Korea (1904).djvu/79

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A CITY OF PEACE
27

aqueduct is mentioned; the police force has been reorganised; drains have come and evil odours have fled. The population of the capital for the year 1903 was 194,000 adults. This is a decrease of 2546 upon the year 1902.

The period which has passed since the country was opened to foreign trade has given the inhabitants time to become accustomed to the peculiar differences which distinguish foreigners. It has afforded Koreans countless opportunities to select for themselves such institutions as may be calculated to promote their own welfare, and to provide at the same time compensating advantages for their departure from tradition. Not only by the construction of an electric tramway, the provision of long-distance telephones and telegraphs, the installation of electric light, a general renovation of its thoroughfares and its buildings, and the improvement of its system of drainage, does the capital of Korea give tokens of the spirit which is at work amongst its inhabitants. Reforms in education have also taken place; schools and hospitals have been opened; banks, foreign shops and agencies have sprung up; a factory for the manufacture of porcelain ware is in operation; and the number and variety of the religions with which foreign missionaries are wooing the people are as amazing and complex as in China. There will be no absence in the future of those soothing conjectures from which the consolations of religion may be derived. The conduct of educational affairs is arranged upon a basis which now gives every facility for the study of foreign subjects. Special schools for foreign languages, conducted by the Government under the supervision of foreign teachers, have been instituted. Indeed, most striking changes have been made in the curriculum of the common schools of the city. Mathematics, geography, history,