In the same circular he explained that the Mohammedan population of Turkey was labouring under several delusions because they do not understand the Koran, which is written in Arabic, and has never been translated into Turkish. He promised that a translation should be made at once, because, if the people of Turkey cannot read the Koran, they will naturally be ignorant concerning the sacred law, and are likely to fall into mistakes because of a lack of knowledge of the truth. The Arab language is no more sacred than the Turkish language, and the only reason why the Koran was written in Arabic is that Mohammed was the son of an Arab, and knew that language better than any other. Inspiration is not a question of language.
Throughout the interior of the country there has been no trouble between members of the different religious faiths; there have been no persecutions, no complaints of ill treatment from Christians on the part of the Mohammedans, and even the Kurds, who are a barbarous, brutal horde, living on the borders of Armenia, have made no raids and committed no robberies, but are showing the most friendly disposition toward their Christian neighbours.
This is the first time for generations that the different religious denominations in Turkey have been in such a friendly mood toward each other.
One would not be apt to look for co-educational institutions in Turkey, but a very prosperous one is Euphrates College at Harpoot in Armenia, on the banks of the great river for which is was named. It is one of the largest and most influential of all the American colleges in Turkey, and was founded in 1876 by Dr. Crosby H. Wheeler, a human dynamo from the state of Maine. The first class graduated from the men's department in 1880 and from the women's department in 1883, and a good class has been turned out annually ever since. In looking up the record of the graduates I find that the largest number of both sexes are teachers. Nearly all the unmarried alumnge are at the head of schools and the married ones are the wives of teachers, ministers and college professors. Of the men graduates the second largest number are in business, the third are ministers, the fourth doctors, and the rest are scattered among the different professions, government officials, druggists, lawyers, farmers, and so on.
The latest catalogue for 1910 shows 1,045 students in the various departments — 540 men and boys and 505 women and girls — and the financial report shows that last year the institution came within $2,800 of being self-supporting. Its success is the more remarkable from the fact that it is co-educational in the face of traditions and the prejudice of ages.
Dr. Wheeler was a man of tremendous energy and strength of character, and he left his impress upon the institution, but it has had other important men connected with it since his time. Dr. Caleb F. Gates of Chicago, now at the head of Robert College, was president of Euphrates from 1898 to 1903. Dr. Henry Biggs has since directed its destinies with great ability.
Harpoot is the capital of one of the largest and most important interior provinces of the Turkish empire, called
Mamuretta-ul-Aziz. It is a city of some 20,000 inhabitants, situated on the top of a small mountain which rises abruptly from the plain a thousand feet below. The plain stretches away to the Euphrates River and is one of the most fertile and densely populated sections of Turkey. The residence of the governor is at the end of the mountain in a city called Mezereh, which in the last ten years has increased rapidly in population, while Harpoot has been practically at a standstill. There are other large cities like Malatea, two days to the west on the Euphrates River, Diarbekir,two days to the northwest, and Egin, still farther north, within the province.
It was inevitable that this centre of wealth and population should have been chosen by the American Board fifty years and more ago as a centre from which to carry on mission work for that district. The people were found to be unusually intelligent and enterprising. They responded quickly to Western ideas which the missionaries brought into the country. It was from that province that the first emigrants to America came in large numbers, and to-day there are probably more Armenians and Turks in the United States from Mamuretta-ul-Aziz than from any other single province in the empire, notwithstanding the fact that from Harpoot to the Black Sea is a journey of from four to five hundred miles, and it is nearly the same distance to the Mediterranean on the southwest.