In spite of the somewhat spasmodic and altogether unscientific methods of the Education Department, it has succeeded in getting the revived Normal College under way, as well as a fair number of primary schools, where over 1,000 boys are learning the elements of arithmetic, geography, and Korean history, with brief outlines of the systems of government in other civilized countries. Seventy-seven youths are studying in Japan at Government expense, and have made fair progress in languages, but are said to show a lack of mathematical aptitude and logical power. Altogether the Korean educational outlook is not without elements of hopefulness. Though the Foreign Trade of Korea only averages something less than £1,500,000 annually, the potential commerce of a country with not less than 12,000,000 of people, all cotton-clad, ought not to be overlooked. The amount of foreign trade which exists is the growth of thirteen years only, but when we remember that Korea is a purely agricultural country of a very primitive and backward type, that many of her finest valleys are practically isolated by mountain ranges, traversed by nearly impassable roads, that the tyranny of custom is strong, that the Korean farmer is only just learning that a profitable and almost unlimited demand exists for his rice and beans across the sea, that the serious cost of his cotton clothing can be kept down by importing foreign yarn or piece goods, and that his comfort can be increased by the introduction of articles of foreign manufacture, and that such facts are only slowly entering the secluded valleys of the Hermit Kingdom, the actual bulk of the trade is rather surprising, and its possibilities are worth considering. The net imports of foreign goods have increased from the value of $2,474,189 in 1886 to $6,531,324 in 1896.[48] Measured in dollars, the trade of 1896 exceeds that of any previous year except 1895, when the occupation of Korea by Japanese troops, with their large following of transport coolies, created an artificial expansion. Among Korean exports, which chiefly consist of beans, fish (dried manure), cow-hides, ginseng, paper, rice, and seaweed, there are none which are likely to find a market elsewhere than in China and Japan, but Korea, so far as rice goes, is on the way to become the granary of the latter country, her export in 1890 having reached the value of £271,000.