female attendants in the Palace are the readiest students and scholars of the vernacular, their positions at Court requiring them to prepare ön-mun copies of Government orders, current news, and general gossip, for Imperial use. Books in native script are readily purchased by all conditions of Koreans, and taken out from circulating libraries. Many of the works are written in Chinese and in Korean upon alternate pages for those who can read only one or the other; those who are quite illiterate learning the more important chapters by ear. A work, with which every woman is supposed to be intimate, is entitled The Three Principles of Conduct, the great divisions being (1) The Treatment of Parents; (2) The Rearing of a Family; (3) Housekeeping. Companion books with this volume, and of equal importance to Korean women, are the Five Rules of Conduct and the Five Volumes of Primary Literature, which, in spirit and contents, are almost identical. They deal with the relations between (1) Parent and Child; (2) King and Subject; (3) Husband and Wife; (4) Old and Young; (5) Friend and Friend. They contain also exortations to virtue and learning.
Apart from the direction and scope of female education in Korea, which I have now suggested, the theoretical study of the domestic arts is an invariable accompaniment of the more intricate studies. It is supplemented with much actual experiment. As a consequence, while the education of men of certain rank is confined to the books to which they are but indifferently attentive, a wide range of study exists for women apart from the writings and teachings of the accepted professors and classical authorities. Ornamental elegances, the tricks and traits of our drawing-room minxes, are ignored by the gentler classes, vocal music and dancing
