Professor Terrien de Lacouperie sees in the Pak-wa a link between Babylonia and China, a very ancient system of phonetics or syllabary explaining the pronunciation of the old Babylonian characters and their Chinese derivatives. It is not likely that Morse derived the idea of his magneto-electric telegraphic alphabet from the Chinese diagrams. Possibly the Corean literati who suggested the design for a national flag intended to show, in the brightly colored and actively revolving germs of life set prominently in the centre, and contrasted with the inert and immovable straight lines in the background of the corners, the progressive Corea of the present and future as contrasted with Corea of the past and her hermit-like existence. Significantly, and with unconscious irony of the Virginia advertisers, the new Corean flag was first published to the Western world at large on the covers of cigarette packages. For centuries the energies of Coreans have been wasted in tobacco smoke, and the era of national decay is almost synchronous with the introduction of tobacco. CHAPTER XXXVIII. EDUCATION AND CULTURE. Corea received her culture from China, and gave it freely to Japan. If we may believe the doubtful story of Ki Tsze, then the Coreans have possessed letters and writing, or, what is the equivalent thereto, they have had “civilization,” during three thousand years. It is certain that since about the opening of the Christian era, the light of China’s philosophy has shone steadily among Corean scholars. Japanese early tradition—unworthy of credence in the matter of chronology—claims that literature was brought to Nippon as early as the period 157–30 B.C. The legend of Jingu bringing back books and manuscripts from Shinra is more probable; while the coming of Wani from Hiaksai, to teach the Chinese characters and expound the classics, is a historic fact, though the real date may be uncertain, or later than the accepted one, which is 285 A.D. While the Kokorai people may have brought letters with them, as they migrated southward, in Hiaksai the Confucian analects were not studied until the fourth century, when official recognition of education was made by the appointment of Hanken as master of Chinese literature. This is said to have been the first importation of learning into the peninsula. It was so in the sense of being formally introduced from China into the country south of the Ta-tong River. As in most of the Asiatic countries, into which Chinese culture penetrated, popular education was for centuries a thing unthought of. Learning was the privilege of a few courtiers, who jealously guarded it from the vulgar, as an accomplishment for those about the royal person, or in the noble families. The classics and ethical doctrines seem in every case to have penetrated the nations surrounding the Middle Kingdom, and formed the basis of courtly and aristocratic education.