ABSTRACT
Our modern history has been a record of failures, national ruin and confusion. Our people have lacked autonomy of thought. They have been characterized by slavishness and subjected to the control of foreign powers. A Japanese historian once spoke of the “heteronomy of the Korean people,” and if we reflect on our national history, we must admit to the aptness of this characterization […] our history has been a record of a people constantly groping in the dark…. The [Chosŏn] dynasty yangban class, who did not have to work for a living, gave birth to a lazy national character […] and the Korean people have become, as a consequence, passive and resigned to being slaves…. What is important now is to thaw the frozen minds of the masses….
