A modern pioneer in Korea : the life story of Henry GAppenzeller . given in these unin-viting booklets. Their grayish paper is of the coars-est, cheapest, and meanest appearance, whileholes, blotches, and bits of straw in the tissue furtherdisfigure them. Notwithstanding the three portlyvolumes of Mr. Edward Courants BibUographieCoreenne, which tell of the literary work of Koreanscholars, who employed the Chinese characters,and even after the toilsome researches of Mr. Aston,Professor Hulbert Dr. Gale and others, onesreport on the state of the Korean language andliterattu-e, as existing for th
A modern pioneer in Korea : the life story of Henry GAppenzeller . given in these unin-viting booklets. Their grayish paper is of the coars-est, cheapest, and meanest appearance, whileholes, blotches, and bits of straw in the tissue furtherdisfigure them. Notwithstanding the three portlyvolumes of Mr. Edward Courants BibUographieCoreenne, which tell of the literary work of Koreanscholars, who employed the Chinese characters,and even after the toilsome researches of Mr. Aston,Professor Hulbert Dr. Gale and others, onesreport on the state of the Korean language andliterattu-e, as existing for the people, is not muchmore encouraging. In America, the lower Hudson, the original river,has been drowned out by the incoming ocean. Inlike manner, the stream of Korean written speechhas been lost in the flood of Chinese. More thanonce I have talked with Korean literary men, urgingthem to cultivate their own mother tongue andhave even tried hard to shame them into followingthe example of writers of English. In vain! Itwas like the east wind in a donkeys ears. The. Mastering the Language 189 ear flaps of their mind bent to the storm. Theywere safely immime, inert and unashamed, forthey considered the subject of cultivating theirvernacular beneath their notice. As if, like delicateflowers that had been planted under thick treeswhich shut out life-giving sunlight, the shadow ofgreat China had been too long over the blossomsof the native imagination. If De Quinceys dic-ttim, that next to the flag of his native country,a scholar should be loyal to his own language, betrue, then it seems little wonder that Koreansovereignty was lost and that Japanese may yetbecome the ofiicial language of Cho-sen. Nevertheless, to the rapturous surprise of themissionaries, there lay, as in a cave, an invaluabletreasure awaiting them. No Ali Baba, with thefilched secret of Open Sesame, was more thrilledby the discovery of gold and jewels, than wereUnderwood and Appenzeller over the trover of theEnmun a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmission, bookyear1912
