What then, was the reason for the comparative failure that resulted? There can be but one answer. The Japanese failed to study the situation closely enough and to gauge the quality of the instrument by means of which Korea must be led. The king was young and physically strong and a long reign was to be expected. His will was led by the powerful Min faction. It was the province of statesmanship to study these factors and so gauge their qualities as to be able to mould them in the forms desired. The central figure was the Queen. The country and the court went with her. She was young and impressionable and favorably impressed by the Japanese. Behind her was the Min faction, strong, ambitious, selfish, tenacious of its prerogatives. That faction was itself impressionable. It recognized that a new era was opening, that the policy of the Regent had been cast aside. It felt the incentive of national independence and was ready and willing to undertake the responsible work of leading the nation into these new and untrodden paths; but first and most of all it held to its own prestige. The selfish element was preeminent. There was no love of country, detached and altruistic. It was their conviction that the progress of the country would enhance their own prestige. The motive was not a very high one but such as it was it should have received careful study from the Japanese before it was rejected. The latter strongly favored a radical change in Korean conditions, a change for which Korea had received no such preparation as Japan had received and for which it was not ready. There were two things which might cause such a radical change as that of the Japanese—education or the rise of an intense nationalistic spirit. It was the latter which worked in Japan, but in Korea there was neither education nor a national spirit to work upon. These things had yet to be evolved.