"Robert College is one of the most remarkable creations of pure, unselfish beneficence, guided by admirable common sense, that the history of the world has known. It has been for more than fifty years making an educated middle class among the Christians of southeastern Europe and of Asia Minor. And many people who know the country well believe that it has done more to render possible a peaceful solution of the Eastern question than all the European powers and ambassadors. * The sole aim of the American missions and of Robert College has been to create self-respect and life in the people of this country.
"The American College for Women at Scutari, which is soon going to migrate to new quarters on the European side of the Bosphorus, aims at doing for the women of the various races of Turkey what Robert College has been doing for the men. It was started as a high school in 1871, it was chartered in 1890 as a college by the legislature of Massachusetts, and it has also an imperial Turkish irade. The language is English and the life is English or American, which in this case are equivalent; but the native languages of the students are also taught, and (if desired) the languages which are to them classical, ancient Greek, Latin, Persian, and Arabic.
"Hitherto," Sir William Ramsey continues, "Turkish girls could only be educated at the college in defiance of the will and the commands of the sultan, and therefore the number of such pupils has been small. Only two Mohammedan girls have graduated. But the different races in Turkey live side and side, and what is taking place in one community is not hidden from the other — especially such important facts as the sending away to school or college of the daughters of any family, and the inevitable, although gradual, changes in the ideas and life of the people that result from education. Many instances could be cited of the imitation by Turks of new habits thus introduced among their Armenian neighbours by the daughters returned from this college or educated at the American missionary schools and colleges in the country."
Sir William Ramsey continues to say: "The writer Halideh Salih is a graduate of the American College for Girls, and a writer of distinction. She has frequently been described as the leading woman in Turkey in popularity and influence. Her first published work was a translation into Turkish of an English book, *The Mother in the Home,' for which she was decorated by the sultan. It always struck me as remarkable that a Mohammedan sultan — and that sultan Abdul Hamid — should be the first monarch to bestow such a distinction upon a woman."
Halideh Salih is undoubtedly the foremost woman in Turkey. Her father was formerly minister of finance for many years under Abdul Hamid and sacrificed his political position and prospects by sending his daughter to the American College for Girls, because such an act was forbidden by the sultan. She spent seven years under Dr. Patrick's instruction, graduated in 1901, and married a professor in the Imperial University. "The Mother in the Home" is an old-fashioned book for girls written by Rev. Jacob Abbott seventy-five or eighty years ago, and she translated it into Turkish when she was a freshman in the American college. Her father was so proud of it that he had it 'printed and circulated privately among the families of his friends in Constantinople and other Turkish cities, and, considering its limited circulation, there is not the slightest doubt that this little volume of fatherly advice to girls, written by a modest Massachusetts village clergyman.
had as muchinfluence in the emancipation of Turkish women as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had in the emancipation of the slaves. When the constitution was proclaimed Halideh Salih wrote the leading editorials in the Tanin newspaper, the organ of the committee of union and progress, at the request of the editor, defining the policy and the purposes of the revolution. Her articles became the platform of the liberal party in Turkey.
She has written a great deal for the Tanin since, and for the London papers and magazines. She has a novel dealing with recent events in Turkey.