SUNSHINE IN TURKEY 



73 



by his very presence that this man, now 

 in his sixty-sixth year, is a man of force, 

 is a man of industry, is a man who has a 

 definite policy; and during these thirty- 

 three years since those first parliaments 

 he has been busy establishing schools, 

 building mosques, and erecting hospitals ; 

 busy establishing sanitary measures for 

 the improvement of the health of his 

 people ; busy constructing railways ; busy 

 these past years in establishing that great 

 railway from Damascus to Mecca. 



Then, of course, we know the Arme- 

 nians, the Kurds, the Circassians, the Al- 

 banians, the Syrians, and the Macedo- 

 nians, Bulgarians, Servians, Greeks, and 

 Moslems that occupy Macedonia — all of 

 them races of ability ; and lastly there are 

 the Arabs. History shows us how capa- 

 ble they are. 



As for the antagonism of races and re- 

 ligions, only the forces of patriotism, of 

 enlightenment, and the forces of reli- 

 gion can hope to overcome these antago- 

 nisms. 



During these past thirty years, as I 

 have indicated, many schools have been 

 established by the Moslems and the 

 Christian sects. At the present time I 

 suppose there are nearly forty thousand 

 schools in the Turkish Empire, and very 

 probably a million and a half boys and 

 girls are attending those schools. The 

 curriculum is not very advanced ; and yet 

 I was in the southern part of Syria some 

 months ago, in a little village far away 

 from the railway, hundreds of miles 

 from Damascus, and in that little village 

 there was the local school and there were 

 the scholars. They are all over the Em- 

 pire. Although the system is not ad- 

 vanced, these schools have been advanc- 

 ing. A school is a school, and the boy 

 who goes to school has pushed against 

 the door that opens into the twentieth 

 century. 



THE: AMERICAN COLLEGES IN TURKEY 



And now, I venture to speak of the col- 

 lege with which I happen to be connected 

 as a type of the higher schools and insti- 

 tutions that are scattered in various 

 places in the Turkish Empire. I wish I 



might speak at length of other institu- 

 tions. I wish I might speak of the 

 Roman Catholic institutions and of the 

 work that is being done by them, but 

 time does not permit. I speak of the 

 Syrian Protestant College because it is a 

 type of the American colleges in the 

 Turkish Empire. These colleges are the 

 best influences, I believe, in the important 

 work of the enlightenment of the people. 

 There is such a college at Aintab, one at 

 Harput, one at Smyrna, one at Marsovan, 

 another at Tarsus, and Robert College at 

 Constantinople. There is also the 

 Woman's College at Constantinople. 

 These colleges were established by Amer- 

 icans in order that the people of Turkey 

 might have the blessings and advantages 

 that we have received. 



And now I am going to take you a mo- 

 ment right to Beirut — that city which to 

 me is the most beautiful city in the 

 world — and into that chapel where all 

 the students are gathered together. On 

 the platform are assembled seventy of 

 our professors and instructors. There 

 are many races represented by the pro- 

 fessors, although a plurality of the force 

 is American. Here in front of us are 

 eight or nine hundred students. On the 

 right is the School of Medicine. Here 

 in the center are the students who are 

 studying for the degree of B. A ; on the 

 left are to be seen the students of the 

 School of Commerce and the School of 

 Pharmacy; then toward the back of the 

 building are those pupils who are in the 

 preparatory department. You would be 

 rather disappointed when you first saw 

 these students. You would expect to see 

 something more picturesque, for unfor- 

 tunately, instead of retaining their native 

 costumes, those men will persist in adopt- 

 ing our unpicturesque clothing ; but when 

 you come to ask where these men come 

 from and who they are, you realize im- 

 mediately why it is that these institutions 

 and schools are such important factors 

 in overcoming all these antagonisms of 

 which I have spoken. You might think 

 they were all Protestants, whereas the 

 Protestants constitute but a mere hand- 

 ful of them. There are over a hundred 



