100 YEARS AGO
Wednesday, Oct. 12, 1910
We welcome news (from the recently annexed Korea) that the gracious act of our Court in conferring the patent of peerage and other marks of honor on Koreans of noble lineage and distinguished careers has been received with general satisfaction in the peninsula. It was a wise and generous policy to win over the class whose discontent would have proved most troublesome to the new regime.
So far so good, then; but it must not be forgotten that there is a lesson to learn from the state of things of India. For, while the loyalty of the aristocracy of India to the British Crown is undoubted, that very fact seems to be a source of dissatisfaction to some class of Indians. Thus, we must turn our attention to the education of those Koreans who are not of the noble class. Nothing will be more miscalculated than to suppose that a stereotypical form of education, however effective in Japan, will produce exactly the same results in Korea. A system of education suited to the Koreans must be developed. The creation of Korean peerage, if followed by a blundering policy of education and administration, would prove an endless source of trouble to this country and of unhappiness to Koreans themselves.