Show to knowledge cry which progressive party in turkey placards high ways governments seek to en hance own prestige by schools by WILLIAM T ELLIS beirut it a visitor in this city has sufficient curiosity to inquire the meaning of the arabic inscriptions which he sees em blazed upon the walls he will be told that they are a motto of the progressive party to kno ledge and juryman seek knowledge ignorance Is shame that points straight to the underlying problem of awakened turkey however farcical the present consal tut ional government may now appear it must ultimately rest upon the edu cation of the people not at the sub lime porte and in the inner offices of the administration but in the schools of the empire the destiny of turkey Is to be worked out A constitutional government Is simply impossible with out popular education the prevailing idea of education in old turkey was the memorizing ot the koran in faur tones the koran Is in arabic and so even where memorized utterly unintelligible to most ot those who study it these mosque schools were little else than hot beds of bigotry and hatred of christians they effected no change in the economic con dl tlona nor did they broaden the in tel horizon of their students traditions concerning the prophet were of little help to tho peasant in raising a living from the treated eoll of his land one of the hopeful signs ol 01 the new day Is that everybody seems to realize that education must have the right of way religious schools the rule when the constitutional era waa proclaimed there was at once a great flocking of children to existing schools especially to those kept by foreigners there has been some reaction in this respect as the moslems and greeks and armenians Armen ians have by means ot threats and other pressure compelled the parents to send children to their own however interior these may be the latter have been forced to improve their standing even at the cost of taking christian teachers from the foreign schools one office of the educational alons maintained by foreigners in tur key Is to stimulate the native schools to emulation while the young turk leaders have designed a scheme of non religious schools yet practically the religious schools are the prevailing ones the people here have such varying bellg lous beliefs and religious ideas bold such a supreme place in their thought that nobody Is satisfied with non re schools the result Is that the youth of turkey Is largely being edu bated to schools which put the church above the state the empire Is dl elded into great national groupings which are also religious classifications educationally the result Is chaos the government Is trying to find itself in athla matter and to adapt itself to the educational conditions of the new order diplomacy and education in the great game tor the possession of new turkey the school Is freely used by foreign governments france has heartily supported and championed the jesuit colleges and primary schools for they teach the french language and french history and incubate Inc the french view point they are visible reminder of french nationality and naturally enhance the prestige of that government which has strongly sup ported the rights of these schools with diplomatic representatives these french schools maintained by the jes alts are enormously successful germany baa tried but with poorer success to give the german language the right of way in turkey but the german tongue does not succeed in corresponding ratio with the other german triumphs here bo along the bagdad railway the germans are obliged to use the french language great britain has belatedly come to realize the advantages of the educational agency in promoting her pres alge in constantinople no english high school for boys has been opened with a fine staff ot teachers out from england the education alv en Is in the english language and along english lines the teachers avow that they are promoting the brit ish type of education as a matter of imperial policy on this basis they ore supported by the british press and british and they look forward to a grant from the british govern ment just as an appropriation would bo mada for the maintenance of a con eulate tulate where america leads it la only of recent years that tha american government seems to have awakened to whit may bo called the significance of the amerl an schools in the levant broadly america has been kept from eang a factor in the turk sh empire by the schools maintained acre by tuo foreign missionary lea ot the unite J stampa these schoola are admittedly the foremost n the land As a result of all the to ba found in turkey la th most popular three ut of four migrants seek abo it i the byias ot the al speaking people has been profoundly benefited by thesa institutions established with no thought of statecraft in all parts of the levant one may find english speaking graduates ot these schools to whom american his tory and american ideals have been made familiar there Is doubtless warrant for the statement that the american schools in the levant have done more to honor the american name and flag in these parts than all the embassies at constantinople some results it Is a curious and anomalous situation that the greatest educational in in the ottoman empire should fly the flag of another nation this Is unquestionably the case it is a source of immense pride to travel ing americans that the syrian pro college at beirut and robert college ot constantinople and the american college for girls in constan tl nople are the educational moun tain peaks in turkey none of these Is strictly speaking missionary but all are entirely american being supported by american money and con ducted by american teachers the potency of fall this Is to make clear to persons who do not un der stand oriental conditions the aln est buildings the largest institution and the most celebrated in all beirut Is the syrian protestant college which has a magnificent alto on the meitter fanean with the lebanon mountains in the distance this Is school fop boys of the presbyterian mission said to be the finest colleda campus and prospect in all the forrd th ce are from to students yearly of many colors and races and the grad bates may be found in influential pla ces in all parts of the empire especially numerous are they in the brit isn service in the sudan the cos of this college and rob ert college Is shown by the way its students scatter over the entire world this great american college was bom within the missionary circle and its teachers have been drawn hither by the missionary impulse yet it receives no aid from any missionary so clety but Is managed directly by a board ot gentlemen in new york recently the issue aa to religion was raised by the moslems who objected to attendance upon chapel services there was no little discussion but the end was at no time in doubt because the american public whatever its religious belief would not care to support an institution that made islam more potent the present con is that the students are obliged to attend chapel dally robert college on the to which many have assigned a large part of the credit tor the new order of things in turkey has some students it laid the corner stone of a new dormitory recently and instead of a lot of speeches the occasion was eel she has a staff c upwards of dozes american women teachers the grad nates who from many nations frequently go into teaching work the college Is an influential center of the new educational movement and moa lem teachers are on close terms ol 01 friendliness and operation cooperation co with the american faculty it Is no email mat ter that in this cosmopolitan institution turkish greek armenian bulgaria syrian and girls of nationalities are learning america ideals of life the international col lege tor boys the american school foi girls at smyrna and other notable institutions more than twenty five of cheso american schools are maintained by missions in different part of the cm alre their teachers aro american and an exceptionally large percentage of their puella become in turn teach ers of local schools or engage in re work there are many parts of turkey that are honeycombed with the influence of these mission schools the printing press lever A study ot the forces responsible tor the wonderful awakening of turkey leads investigators into many inter estling fields here I 1 have run across the significant fact that within tour years the presbyterian mission press at beirut has issued at a nominal price a large stock of s history of the reformation this was done originally to get rid of a surplus of books the demand tor this work which has in it the seeds ol 01 both political and religious revolution grew amazingly and still continues re bow comparatively small the number of educated readers in turkey has been it doea not seem an impossible task to touch the majority ol 01 them with some such influential book as this similarly the newspapers and books issued from this historic press despite the censors vigilance has been scattering the seeds of new thought widely oer the empire here more truly than in any other part of tha world of which I 1 have knowledge the printing press has been a lever of to overturn the old order the primary output has been the bible in arabic the entire arabic speaking world baa been supplied with bables from this press more than a million and a hall copies of the bible in whole or in part having been issued up to date even the georgian churches have accepted the translation of the bible into arabic which has come from this press the russian schools within the ottoman empire have taken their book supply from the mission press and the russian gov eminent is at present the largest single customer of the press modern maps have been a valuable output for in the war with citizens of old philadelphia and american missionary by a baseball game between tutors and a nine troia the crew of the scorpion so high Is the deputa alon of robert college that cabinet ministers and other leading turks send their sona to it it has got out of the acute financial difficulties which beset most ot these altruistic aduca atonal institutions in the levant through the receipt of the kennedy bequest ot nearly two million dollars american women in new turkey thanks to gifts from the Roc ketel and sago funds the american col lego lor garla in rl Is enabled to move to more commodious quarters on a hill overlooking the not tar from robert college the site Is a beautiful one and the building will be worthy of a great educational institution temporarily a part of ane college la bowed in an old palace on the bos chorus the bead of athla institution Is me patrick a noted educator who has elected to alv her life to turkey islam which christianity Is waging modern geography modem history and the physical sciences aro powerful weapons against the teaching of the prophet the entire moslem world has no printing outfit to match this one A better style of arabic la used than in the mohammedan books by the scholarly works that have como out a spirit of higher criticism has been created within the circle of islam and this Is a more insidious foe to the latter than the frontal attacks ot chris the mission press makes its own type and when each letter may have tour To wellings and twenty five different forms making one hundred 1 al it Is not a small matter to run a printing establishment in arabic never the leBB the missionaries count it well worth while for this institution la cutting away the foundations of the old As turkey goes to knowledge it goes to a new life in reality U by S v |