D. J. Mahmoud Bey, the inspector general of public instruction, told me that there would be about 65,000 elementary public schools in operation throughout the Turkish Empire before the end of 1910, and that number will be increased as rapidly as possible. The greatest difficulty is to get teachers. Indeed, that is the only obstacle to the extension of the system. Mahmoud Bey says the inhabitants of the various provinces are "crazy" for schools, and are willing to pay any amount of taxes within their power to secure them. But there are no teachers to be had. The salaries that can be allowed will not tempt educated men away from other professions and there are so few educated women in the country that it is almost impossible to find instructors for the girls' schools. Mohammedan girls cannot attend mixed schools and cannot be taught by men.
"We have just started two large normal schools in Constantinople for the education of teachers," said Mahmoud Bey, "and will establish others in the provinces as rapidly as possible. It will be at least two years and probably three years before any of the students from these schools will be available for teachers, and in the meantime we will have to do the best we can. We are getting some teachers from the American missionary schools in different parts of Turkey, although they are, of course, reluctant to let their teachers go. We are placing promising young men and women in all the American institutions, to be educated at government expense. We have five government students in the American College for Girls at Scutari. We shall have as many or more young men in Robert College at the opening of the fall term. We have already sent 150 students to Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Geneva and other European educational centres at government expense. These young men are selected from the most promising students in our high schools. We will send more next year. We expect to send twentyfive, perhaps fifty, young men to America to be educated. We like the American system of education very much, but in the organization of our public schools we are adopting the German and Swiss systems rather than the American because it is more easily applied.
"There is a great educational renaissance in Turkey," continued Mahmoud Bey. "The deputies of our parliament are here every day demanding more schools for their constituents. One of them who was in this morning said that the people in his province were 'actually screaming for schools.' The deputy from Mesopotamia has just sent me a copy of a speech he has recently made in approval of our efforts and promising his earnest support for us in the future. *'
The appropriations for 1910 were divided as follows — a piaster being five cents in American money:
Piasters.
Subventions to primary schools 20,000,000
Subventions to secondary schools 12,000,000
Government primary schools 3,000,000
Government lyceums 3,000,000
Government normal schools 2,453,820
Subventions to provincial normal schools 3,000,000
Subventions to provincial lyceums 4,000,000
University of Constantinople 2,928,816
Agricultural schools 3,636,000
Piasters.
Medical schools 8,502,200
Schools of music and art 1,030,000
Technical schools 7,839,000
Schools of commerce 2,670,120
Students in private schools 5,190,000
The several military academies are supported from the appropriations for the war department. The provincial schools referred to in the above table are situated in forty or fifty of the largest centres of population in the different provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The lyceums are what we call high or preparatory schools. Schools of commerce are what we call commercial colleges where modern languages, bookkeeping, typewriting, stenography, and other accomplishments required in a business career are taught.