The Armenians, the Jews, and the other different races have their own schools, which have been made necessary because of the absence of a general educational system. And it is from the graduates of these schools that the Turkish government is now getting its supply of teachers.
The Mohammedan schools connected with the mosques are worthless for a practical education. The teachers are priests, most of whom have no knowledge outside the Koran, which, to them, is the source of all light and learning and law and morals, and is regarded with as much reverence as the maxims of Confucius by the Chinese. Connected with each medress, or theological seminary, are several ulemas, or theologians, who are supposed to be profound thinkers and expound the doctrines of the church to groups of students who gather around them in the different mosques. These students are called "softas" and there are said to be 7,000 of them in Constantinople to-day studying the Koran and the Shariat — a code of laws used, based upon the the teachings of the Koran, which is the authority of every court in the empire. These softas become priests, judges, notaries, valis, cadis, and other local oflBcials. Many of them go into private practice, but there are comparatively few lawyers in Turkey. A judge here gets the facts direct from the litigants who come before him and applies the law himself. The softas are never taught geography or history or mathematics, and most of them are so illiterate that they cannot read an ordinary book at sight. The text of the Koran would puzzle them if they had not been required to commit it to memory.
The English government has established a high school for boys, which will accommodate about one hundred and fifty, with rooms for thirty or forty boarders. It is intended primarily for the education of the sons of English families living in Turkey, but is free to everybody who can pay the fees. It is partially a charitable institution, and a fund of $50,000 has been contributed during past years by benevolent people to assist in the education of worthy young men who haven't the means to pay the fees.
Thus you will observe that the lack of government educational system in Turkey has been very largely supplied by foreigners, primarily for the benefit of their own children, but often available for the natives also. Most of these schools have been established and maintained in defiance of the prejudice and the hostility of the late sultan, who was opposed to all forms of education and did his best to keep his subjects in ignorance as well as poverty.
Mr. Straus, the American ambassador, has recently succeeded in correcting a great wrong inflicted upon these institutions by Abdul Hamid. He has obtained from the new government an irade authorizing all foreign schools and benevolent institutions to hold their property in their corporate name, instead of being compelled to place it in the names of individuals, as heretofore. His predecessors in the embassy have been working for it for thirty years or more. He tried to get such a decision when he was occupying the same post during the Cleveland administration, but Abdul Hamid was inflexible in his refusal to do anything for the encouragement of education. The recent decision of the council of state, secured by Mr. Straus, exempts all religious, benevolent and educational institutions founded and conducted by foreigners from the restrictions imposed upon other foreign corporations. It applies to about three hundred American schools, hospitals, colleges, orphanages, and asylums, and to as many institutions of the same kind supported by Europeans.
The privilege of searching the libraries of the mosques of Constantinople has long been coveted by the scholars of the world, because they are supposed to contain many ancient manuscripts of unique value and interest by Arabic, Persian,