After accepting Marquis Ito’s formal invitation to attempt a special kind of service in Korea, the first problem to be solved concerned the choice of ways for approaching that service. Its solution was by no means obvious. In Japan there were more of urgent requests for public addresses and lectures of various kinds than could possibly be accepted. And everywhere that the speaker went, influential and large organizations of an educational and public character, to whose support the governors, of the Kens and the mayors of the cities were officially committed, could be relied upon to make all necessary arrangements and to carry the arrangements through effectively. More important still, there was the most eager interest in the subjects upon which the prospective audiences wished to be addressed, and the attitude of an open mind and even of warm personal attachment toward “the friend of Japan.” In Korea, however, all the influences would be of precisely the opposite character—indifference, deficiencies, hindrances, if not active opposition, so far as the native attitude was concerned. In Korea there were no educational associations; and, outside of a very small circle in a few cities, there was little or no interest in education. The local magistrates were, almost without exception, devoted to “squeezes” rather than to the increase of intelligence and the moral improvement of their districts. The teachers of the few existing schools were, in general, without any modern culture; they were even without the most rudimentary ideas on the subjects of pedagogy, ethics, and religion. Only in a small number of places were there any halls that could accommodate an audience, should one be gathered by an appeal to curiosity and to the Korean thirst for “look-see”; while to be known as a “friend of Japan” and a guest of Marquis Ito was to erect an almost insuperable obstacle in the way of reaching the ears of the Korean upper and middle classes, to say nothing of convincing their minds or touching their hearts. Addressing the lower classes on any scholastic topic was impossible. Through what organ, then, could a stranger help the Resident-General in his benevolent plans for the welfare of the people of Korea?