[46] _Official Intercourse._ Ord. 45 amends some old practices regulating the intercourse and correspondence of officials. The etiquette of the official call by a newly-appointed Prefect on the Governor, on the whole, is retained, although it is in some respects simplified. The old fashion obliged the Magistrate to remain outside the _yamen_ gate, while a large folded sheet of white paper inscribed with his name, was sent in to the Governor. The latter thereupon gave orders to his personal attendants or ushers to admit the Magistrate. The _t’oin_, as they were commonly styled, called out “_Sa-ryeng_,” to which the servants chanted a reply. The Governor being seated, the Magistrate knelt outside the room and bowed to the ground. To this obeisance the Governor replied by raising his arms over his head. The Magistrate was asked his name and age, given some stereotyped advice, and dismissed. The Governor is for the future to return the bow of the Prefect, and conversation is to be conducted in terms of mutual respect, the Magistrate describing himself as _ha-koan_ (“your subordinate”), and addressing the Governor by his title. [47] The finances of Korea are now practically under British management, Mr. J. M’Leavy Brown, LL.D., of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, and Chief Commissioner of Customs for Korea, having undertaken in addition the post of Financial Adviser to the Treasury, and a Royal Edict having been issued that every order for a payment out of the national purse, down to the smallest, should be countersigned by him. CHAPTER XXXIII EDUCATION AND FOREIGN TRADE Korean education has hitherto failed to produce patriots, thinkers, or honest men. It has been conducted thus. In an ordinary Korean school the pupils, seated on the floor with their Chinese books in front of them, the upper parts of their bodies swaying violently from side to side or backwards and forwards, from daylight till sunset, vociferate at the highest and loudest pitch of their voices their assigned lessons from the Chinese classics, committing them to memory or reciting them aloud, writing the Chinese characters, filling their receptive memories with fragments of the learning of the Chinese sages and passages of mythical history, the begoggled teacher, erudite and supercilious, rod in hand and with a book before him, now and then throwing in a word of correction in stentorian tones which rise above the din.