"The whole country, suddenly awakened to the importance of education, is filled with a desire to study, and young men and women of all classes are eagerly demanding a share in the benefits that education gives. The most serious part of the situation, and a lamentable fact, is that there are so few Turkish teachers ready or competent to impart instruction, and already a plan is on foot to send groups to Europe to be trained. Several night schools have been started in the city, where, in the absence of other instructors, leaders of the Young Turk party have themselves undertaken the teaching.
"The Mohammedan women are no less eager than the men,^and they naturally turn for help to this college, which for so many years has been the only institution for the higher education of women in all countries in the East. We are ready and able to give them the education they so eagerly desire, but our quarters are so crowded that it is impossible to accept more than a small number of the many applications for admission that we receive. In spite of the knowledge of the present overcrowded state of the college many Turkish women are so anxious that their daughters shall share in the new life that is opening to the women of Turkey that they persist in coming to Scutari to beg us to take in their daughters. And when they get the inevitable answer that there is no room, the girls frequently burst into tears, while their mothers have difficulty in concealing their disappointment.
"When we get into the new buildings on the other side of the Bosphorus one of the first steps will be the establishment of a normal school. Even now, in the limited space at our disposal, we have the nucleus of a normal school in five Turkish young women sent to us by the government to be trained for teachers of Mohammedan children. Think of training teachers for Mohammedan schools in a Christian school, and you will have a slight suggestion of the extraordinary changes that have taken place in Turkey.
"I am often asked what is the use to educate women for the harem? But you must know that the character of the harem has entirely changed under the new regime, and the women of the harem are now at liberty to learn and to read, and to work, and even to come into contact with the outside world; to participate in the movements of the day, and even to influence them. With this liberty and this continual increase of opportunities it is even more important that the women of the harem should be educated than any others.! "It is true that the Turkish woman is still more restricted f than those of the European countries and the United States, but the day of her complete seclusion has passed forever; the barriers that confined her from contact with the outside world have been removed. She is no longer ignorant; she no longer is kept from a knowledge of what is going on around her, and she will have no lack of influence in the development of Turkey in future years.".
CHAPTER XX:
ROBERT COLLEGE AND OTHER AMERICAN
SCHOOLS
'T^HE forty-seventh scholastic year at Robert College -** opened in October, 1910, under most favourable and gratifying auspices. Never before were the prospects of usefulness so glowing. Through the efforts of Mr. Straus, the American ambassador, Robert College has been recognized by the Turkish government and is no longer a mere squatter on Turkish soil, without legal rights and simply tolerated. After many years of patient application and argument an imperial irade has been issued recognizing the institution in the fullest sense as entitled to all the legal rights and privileges of Turkish institutions of learning, under its charter by the State of New York; and, at the same time, granting it exemption from the recent "laws of association,'* which require all foreign corporations doing business in Turkey to have Turkish representation in their boards of directors and trustees. The same privileges are granted at the same time to the Protestant college at Beirut, the American College for Girls at Scutari, and to all other American missionary institutions for higher education throughout the Turkish Empire. For this recognition these institutions are indebted to the persistency and the influence of Mr. Straus, who, during all the years that he has served as the diplomatic representative of the United States at the Turkish court, has been an active friend and protector of Christian missionaries and the work in which they are engaged.