FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
AND
RECOLLECTIONS OF ROBERT COLLEGE
CHIUSIOI'in K K KOIiMil
FIFTY YEARS
IN CONSTANTINOPLE
AND RECOLLECTIONS OF
ROBERT COLLEGE
BY
GEORGE WASHBURN, D. D., LL.D.
Commander of the Princely Order of 8t Alexander (Bulgaria)
Grand Officer of the National Order of Ctvtl Merit (Bulgaria)
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ttitaerjftbe jpretf CambnDge
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY GBORGE WASHBURN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published October IQOQ
PREFACE
THIS book has been written at the request of
many friends of Robert College. It embodies a
history of the College from its foundation to the
close of its fortieth year, 1903. I have chosen to
make it a record of personal recollections, because
this seemed to be the only way in which I could
write freely of events and personalities as they ap-
peared to me at the time, without compromising
the present administration of the College or mak-
ing it responsible in any way for my opinions or
actions.
It has been my purpose to make it as far as pos-
sible a history of the College, but the picture of a
college in Constantinople during these years could
not be drawn without a background of incidents,
personalities and events, such as would have no
place in the story of a college in America. On the
other hand, it did not seem wise to make the back-
ground more attractive than the picture, or even
to set the latter in the frame of a detailed history
of the Turkish Empire. The Introduction is a re-
view of the events of the last fifty years which have
led to the recent revolution in Constantinople.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION xv
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDING OP ROBERT COLLEGE
Mr. Robert interested in founding a College in Constantinople The
Messrs. Dwight Dr. Hamlin invited to join Mr. Robert Purchase
of a site The Trustees of the College incorporated in New York
Opposition of the Turkish government Mr Morgan and Admiral
Farragut have a part in securing an Imperial Charter 1
CHAPTER II
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEC
Name of the College Religious status Language Course of
study Resignation of the two professors Cholera epidemic New
tutors Beneficiaries Syrian Protestant College founded at Beirut
Lycee of Galata Serai Erection of building at Hissar Dr. Hamlin
and Mr. Robert 11
CHAPTER III
LAST Two YEARS AT BEBEC. 1869-1871
Dr Hamlin devoted to building at Hissar The Bulgarians in the
College Visit of Professors Park, Smith, and Hitchcock - Self-
suppoit Visit of Mr and Mrs Robert Visit of General Sheridan
Typhoid epidemic Removal of the College to Roumeli Hissar . S J
CHAPTER IV
NINTH COLLEGE YEAR. 1871-1872
Dr Hamlin leaves for America The fall of French influence in Turkey
Cholera epidemic Purchase of additional land Achmet Vefik
Pasha Visits of Professor North, General Sherman, and Lieutenant
Grant Corporal punishment I am appointed Director of the College
Failure of Dr. Hamlin to raise money in America Geological v\ ork 5 1
vii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
DEVELOPMENT OP THE COLLEGE. 1872-1873
Enlargement of the College Appointment of Dr. Long and Mr. Gros-
venor as professors and Mr. Djedjizian as adjunct professor A tem-
porary study hall built Racial conflict Our Turkish neighbors
Cricket matches with English naval officers Visit of Mr. Bancroft the
historian Why no senior class 64
CHAPTER VI
RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 1873-1874
Religious work of the College Question raised by the Armenians
Correspondence on the subject Attacks on the College in the news-
papers Great snow-storm New apparatus 76
CHAPTER VII
VISIT OF MR. ROBERT. 1874-1875
Political excitement I visit Bulgaria Seditious movements Mr
Robert spends six weeks at the College Horace Maynard appointed
American Minister Course of study Excess of linguistic work 89
CHAPTER Vin
POLITICAL CRISIS IN TURKEY. 1875-1876
How the crisis affected the College Massacre of Christians in Bul-
garia Deposition and death of Abd-ul-Aziz Deposition of Murad
Abd-ul-Hamid Sultan War with Servia and Montenegro How
the Bulgarian massacres were made known to the world Midhat
Pasha and Sir Henry Elliot Visit of Dr. Coe Arrival of American
^war-ships 100
CHAPTER IX
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR. 1876-1877
The European Conference Lord Salisbury The first Turkish Par-
liamentWar with Russia The "Vandalia" Fall of Midhat
Pasha Sir Henry Layard Question of closing the College The
Greek Department 115
viii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER X
THE RUSSIANS AT SAN STEFANO. 1877-1878
Mr. Panaretoff appointed professor The Russians at San Stefano
General Skobeleff The English fleet at Constantinople The treaty
of San Stefano The treaty of Berlin Dr. Long acting President of
Jhe College Dr. Hamhn at Bangor 127
CHAPTER XI
MR. ROBERT'S DEATH. 1878-1879
What he left to the College I am appointed President Mr van
Millingen appointed professor First catalogue of the College Rt.
Hon W E Forster and Matthew Arnold An attempt to raise money
in America for an Armenian University in Constantinople Bulgaria
adopts a Constitution and chooses a Prince 187
CHAPTER XII
AFTER THE WAR. 1879-1880
Trip around the Black Sea in U. S. Corvette "Wyoming" Inner life
of the College Our relations with Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia
Special mission of Mr Goshen Insecurity in Constantinople Mur-
der of the College steward Dr Hamhn invited to return to Con-
stantinople 149
CHAPTER XIII
Two YEARS IN AMERICA. 1880-1882
Political situation in Turkey and Bulgaria Prince Alexander
Commencement exercises My work in America .... .158
CHAPTER XIV
THE COLLEGE AT THE END OF TWENTY YEARS. 1882-1884
Mr. Brycc Lord Granville and the Egyptian question General
Lew Wallace and his relation to the same question Lord Dufferin
"The Teaching of the Apostles" Russia and Bulgaria Condition
of the College Professor Eliou 168
ix
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XV
THE GREAT CRISIS IN BULGARIA. 1884-1886
Dr. Long: visits America Mrs. Washburn and I spend two months in
Bulgaria The Phihppopolis revolution Edwin Pears Sir William
White and Mr. Nelidoff Sir Edward Thornton, British Ambassador
Samuel S. Cox, American Minister 170
CHAPTER XVI
THE OVERTHROW OP PRINCE ALEXANDER. 1886-1888
Russia secures the kidnapping and dethronement of Prince Alexander
Mr. Stambouloff Prince Ferdinand Enlargement of the College
Visit of Rev Dr. Arthur Brooks Mr. Oscar Straus, American Minister
Visit of Mr. and Mrs. John S. Kennedy and Mr. Walter of The Lon-
don Times Founder's Day 189
CHAPTER XVII
ARMENIAN AND BULGARIAN TROUBLES 1888-1890
Appointment of Professor Anderson Armenian troubles Russian
intrigues in Bulgaria New buildings projected Professor Grosve-
nor resigns Demoralizing influence of political agitations ... 199
CHAPTER XVin
ANOTHER Two YEARS IN AMERICA 1889-1891
Raising money for new buildings Mr. Stead on Robert College
Winter in Florida Mr. Blaine and a treaty with Turkey Meeting oC
the American Board at Minneapolis Various experiences in soliciting
money S08
CHAPTER XIX
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE COLLEGE. 1890-1892
Kennedy Lodge erected for President's house The Censorship Mr.
Chamberlain Death of Sir William White Sir Philip Tunic,
British Ambassador Young Men's Christian Association Parlia-
ment of Religions Question of elective courses Completion of new
Science Hall Mr Ormiston appointed professor 217
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XX
TRYING TIMES IN TURKEY. 1892-1894
A. W. Terrell, of Texas, American Minister The Grand Vizier on
Robert College Death of wife of Professor van Millingen Im-
provement of courses of study Parliament of Religions at Chicago
Serious earthquake at Constantinople Miss Hart appointed matron . 226
CHAPTER XXI
REORGANIZATION OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 1894-1896
Massacres of Armenians The first Constantinople massacre What
England failed to do Visit of Prince Ferdinand and of Bishop Potter
Assassination of a Greek student Beneficiaries 235
CHAPTER XXII
THE GREAT CONSTANTINOPLE MASSACRE. 1896-1897
Anxiety at the College Turkish troops come at midnight Sir
Michael Herbert Winter in Egypt War with Greece The Powers
occupy Crete . ... 245
CHAPTER XXIII
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE. 1897-1899
The new Board of Trustees take measures to enlarge the College
Miss Stokes and Theodorus Hall Legacies President Angell,
American Minister Sir Nicholas O'Conor The Spanish war
Athletic Club Water supply Lord Rosebery Sir William Ram-
say on Robert College . 254
CHAPTER XXIV
DEATH OF DR. HAMLIN. 1899-1901
Important action by Trustees Missionary Conference at New York
Mr Lybyer appointed professor Sudden death of Dr Hamlm
Bulgaria at Paris Exhibition Mr Lloyd Griscom, American Charge
d'Affaires Letters of the Greek Patriarch 264
xi
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXV
NEW PROFESSORS AND NEW BUILDINGS. 1901-1902
Death of Dr. Long Macedonia Capture of Miss Stone Assassi-
nation of President McKinley Two hundred and fifty American visit-
ors Appointment of Mr. W. S. Murray, Mr. G. S. Murray, Dr C W.
Ottley, and Dr. George L. Manning as professors Turkish and Ger-
man departments Theodorus Hall occupied 275
CHAPTER XXVI
MY RESIGNATION OF THE PRESIDENCY. 1902-1903
President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay Mr. Leishman settles impor-
tant questions with the Turkish Government Troubles in Macedonia
The Dodge Gymnasium and professors' houses Visit of Dr. Coe
Gifts to the College My resignation and the appointment of Rev.
C. F. Gates. D. D., LL D , as President 284
CHAPTER XXVII
THE WORK OF FORTY YEARS 1863-1903 293
APPENDIX
A Number and Nationality of Students and Graduates each year . 305
B. Receipts from Students, and Expenses at Constantinople, each year 307
C The Faculty of the College, forty-fifth year, 1907-1908 . . . 308
D Former Members of the Faculty .... 309
E Former American Tutors .... 309
F Mr Robert's Requirements for Tutors . . 311
G Summary of the Report of the Treasurer of Robert College for 1909 312
INDEX 313
ILLUSTRATIONS
CHRISTOPHER R. ROBERT Frontispiece
CYRUS HAMLIN . 30
GEORGE WASHBURN 58
HAMLIN HALL IN 1873 72
SULTAN ABD-UL-AZIZ 104
SULTAN ABD-UL-HAMID 116
ALBERT L. LONG 158
PRINCE ALEXANDER OP BULGARIA 184
KING FERDINAND OF BULGARIA 240
PANORAMA OF ROBERT COLLEGE 294
GRADUATES AND THEIR WIVES, SOFIA, 1904 . . . 300
INTRODUCTION
CONSTANTINOPLE has long been the queen city
of Europe. It has been an imperial city for sixteen
hundred years ; once the chief city of Christendom,
the centre of Christian missions, but since 1453 the
capital of the Turkish Empire and of the Moham-
medan world ; for centuries the one defense of
Europe against the advance of the Moslem hordes
of Arabia ; for three centuries the terror of the
Christian world ; during the last century the chief
battle-ground of European diplomacy over the East-
ern Question.
When I first knew it, in 1856, it was no longer
the city of Suleiman the Magnificent, or of Mah-
moud II, the great reformer, who first undertook
to check the progress of decay and save the empire
by introducing something of European civilization.
His son, Abd-ul-Medjid, owed his throne to the
intervention of the European powers, and they
used their influence, under the inspiration and di-
rection of Lord Stratford, the English ambassador,
to europeanize the government still further. This
period of reform under outside influence ended with
the Crimean War, and the treaty of Paris in 1856,
when Turkey was formally recognized as one of
the family of European States and her integrity
guaranteed by treaty. Great changes had taken
place in the empire. It had been consolidated and
the government centralized. Much that was pictur-
XV
INTRODUCTION
esque in Constantinople in the costumes of the
people had disappeared; the Janissaries had been
massacred ; the turban had given place to the red
fez ; but, after all, it was an Asiatic and not a Euro-
pean city. The Turk himself was unchanged. The
Sultan was an irresponsible autocrat, as his ances-
tors had always been. The Turks generally were
as ignorant and uncivilized as when they came
from Central Asia in the thirteenth century. There
were schools of theology, but otherwise education
was unknown. The highest officials were often
unable to read or write their own language. Still,
there were great men among them, and one could
not meet the humblest Turk without realizing that
he belonged to the ruling race.
For a few years after the Crimean War, Constan-
tinople probably enjoyed more freedom than ever
before, and more than most of the capitals of Eu-
rope at that time. The government was weak, but
feared nothing from the people, and left them very
much to themselves. As the people of Constanti-
nople were theoretically the guests of the Sultan,
there was no conscription for the army and very
few taxes of any kind. There was but little crime
among the natives, and the police did not interfere
with their private life. There was great freedom
of speech, anything might be discussed in the ba-
zaars or the coffee-shops, and as the Turks had
not begun to read newspapers, there were no laws
to limit the freedom of the press. There are no
class distinctions among the Turks. Every Turk
belongs to the ruling class and may aspire to the
highest offices in the government. There was no-
xvi
INTRODUCTION
thing to interfere with their individual liberty so
long as they observed the conventionalities of their
Faith.
There was a restf ulness in life in Constantinople
in those days which was refreshing to an Ameri-
can. No Turk was ever in a hurry. Time was of
no account. If a Turk moved, it was with deliber-
ation and dignity. If he smoked, it was a tchibouk
or a nargileh, and it was the business of the hour.
No modern improvements had come to disturb the
peace of the city and complicate the simple life
of the people. A few small steamers had begun to
ply on the Bosphorus, but it was still picturesque
with thousands of graceful caiques and hundreds
of sailing craft. I remember one day when more
than a thousand ships passed up the Bosphorus. I
counted more than three hundred in sight at once,
all under full sail.
All this has passed away. The Constantinople
of fifty years ago will never be seen again. It is
still an Asiatic city, still wonderfully beautiful,
still the place of all others where I would choose
to live, so long as I could enjoy the exceptional
privileges of ex-territoriality secured to foreigners
by the capitulations. For the subjects of the Sultan,
the easy-going, happy-go-lucky government of fifty
years ago was an era of relative liberty and comfort,
which they have since learned to regret.
But it was in those days that a few young Turks
first woke up to a sense of their ignorance and
the need of education. They founded a society
and started a periodical to promote the progress of
knowledge among their people. They used to come
xvii
INTRODUCTION
to the American missionaries for aid and counsel.
It was a new thing for the Turks, and the feeble
beginning of the movement which has revolution-
ized the government. In later years one of these
young men was Minister of Public Instruction for
the empire.
In 1861 the reign of the weak but well-intentioned
Abd-ul-Medjid came to an end, and his brother
Abd-ul-Aziz ascended the throne, a genuine Turk
of the old school, as determined an autocrat as
his father, but of unbalanced mind ; wildly extrava-
gant, to such an extent that he reduced the empire
to bankruptcy; fond of cock-fighting and similar
amusements. He once decorated a successful fight-
ing-cock with the first class of the Order of the
Medjidie. On another occasion he smashed the fur-
niture and mirrors in his palace, in a fit of rage.
During the first ten years of his reign, French
influence was supreme in Constantinople, and two
of the Turkish Ministers, Fuad and Aali Pashas,
were recognized in Europe as statesmen of unusual
ability. They induced the Sultan to ignore the tra-
ditions of his ancestors and make a tour through
Europe to visit the Emperor Napoleon. He was
careful to take with him the next heirs to the throne,
his two nephews, Murad and Hamid, to guard
against a revolution during his absence.
On the occasion of his return and of the visit
of the Empress Eugenie after the opening of the
Suez Canal, we had the most magnificent fetes on
the Bosphorus that Constantinople had ever seen.
During these ten years of French influence there
was comparative peace in Constantinople, except
xviii
INTRODUCTION
for the conflict between the Greeks and Bulgari-
ans over their church relations. The Sultan was
building palaces, buying ironclads for his navy,
and making foreign loans to pay for them. The
people were generally prosperous and contented,
and there was always talk of reforms in the empire.
But the influence of the great changes going on
in Europe stirred the subject races of European
Turkey to revolt against the Turkish rule. Servia,
Wallachia and Moldavia were successful. The Cre-
tans defeated the Turkish armies again and again,
and maintained an heroic struggle for liberty for
three years, aided by the Greeks ; but the powers
of Europe allowed them to be subdued at last.
The fall of the French Empire put an end to
French influence in Constantinople; and as Bis-
marck had no interest in the Eastern Question, there
was a battle royal between England and Russia to
win the confidence of the Sultan and control his
policy. It was the object of Sir Henry Elliott, the
British ambassador, to maintain and strengthen
the Turkish Empire as a barrier against the ad-
vance of Russia, while General Ignatieff, the Rus-
sian ambassador, hoped to free the Slavic pro-
vinces of European Turkey from Turkish rule,
and make of them a bridge by which Russia could
come to Constantinople. While the secret agents
of Russia were everywhere encouraging the Slavs
to rise in rebellion against the Turks, Sir Henry
Elliott was conspiring with the Turks to dethrone
the Sultan, and at the same time to put down the
revolutionary movements in the European Pro-
vinces with fire and sword.
xix
INTRODUCTION
The English ambassador cast in his lot with what
was then first known as the Young Turkey party,
the leader of which was Midhat Pasha. This party
at that time was a sort of " Cave of Adullam" ; the
only thing in which they agreed was the desire to
throw off the tutelage of Europe and restore the
strength and independence of the Turkish Empire.
For some of them this meant a great panislamic
revival and the restoration of the ancient power
of the Caliph. Others dreamed of a new Turkey,
in which Moslems and Christians should unite to-
gether to throw off the yoke of Europe, and build
up a great and prosperous Ottoman Empire by
themselves. A few were republicans, a few anar-
chists. Midhat Pasha himself had been a very suc-
cessful provincial governor, an able administrator,
devoted to road-making and other public improve-
ments, self-educated, and a most interesting talker
on political affairs. His personal following was
never very large, but his intimate relations with
Sir Henry Elliott made him an important conspira-
tor.
The conflict went on until, in May, 1876, General
Ignatieff appeared to have been defeated along the
whole line. Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz was deposed, and
a week later either murdered or allowed to commit
suicide. First Murad and then Hamid was put
upon the throne by Sir Henry and his Turkish
allies. Midhat Pasha was Grand Vizier, and Gen-
eral Ignatieff 's proteges in the European provinces
were slaughtered without mercy. It was dramatic,
a revolution and three sultans within three
months, but it was a barren victory for both
xx
INTRODUCTION
Sir Henry Elliott and Midhat Pasha. Within a
year Sir Henry was retired and Midhat Pasha sent
into exile, to be finally assassinated in Arabia, while
Turkey was plunged into a war with Russia which
resulted in the loss of most of her European pos-
sessions. There was one force which Sir Henry
resolutely ignored, and that was the public opinion,
the sympathies of the Christian world. The out-
side world did not care whether the Sultan was
Aziz or Murad or Hamid, but the wholesale mas-
sacre of unarmed Christian people by the Turks
in Bulgaria made a European intervention inev-
itable, and when, at the end of the year 1876, the
Conference of Constantinople opened a way for a
peaceful settlement in a partial autonomy for the
Christian provinces, Sir Henry and Midhat Pasha
made the mistake of believing that Europe could be
satisfied by the pretense that Turkey had suddenly
become a constitutional government under which
Moslem and Christian were to have equal rights.
After this, war was inevitable, and no Christian
state dared to ally itself with Turkey. This un-
happy constitution of Midhat Pasha, which the
Sultan had accepted to humbug Europe, had to
wait thirty-two years before the autocratic rule of
Abd-ul-Hamid had driven the Turks themselves
to revolt and to seek refuge in its establishment.
Life in Constantinople during these years of
massacre, revolution and war, from 1875 to 1878,
was anything but peaceful. They were years of wild
excitement, sometimes of joy, sometimes of despair,
on the part of the Turks. When they had beaten
the Servians, terrorized Bulgaria, defied Europe
xxi
INTRODUCTION
by rejecting the demands of the Conference, and
declared war with Russia, they were full of enthusi-
asm and hope. During the first months of the war,
when the Turks had checked the advance of the
Russians, the Christian population of the city was
alarmed for its own safety. When the tide turned
and the city was filled with disbanded soldiers and
starving Turkish refugees, the Christians prayed
for the speedy coming of the Russians. The hor-
rors of that winter can never be forgotten. Thou-
sands of these poor Turks, men, women and chil-
dren, died in the streets and mosques of starvation
and of pestilence. They were too far gone, when
they reached the city, to plunder it. Then came
the Russian armies, which camped outside the
city, and at whose headquarters the Sultan agreed
to the treaty of San Stefano, which provided for
the dismemberment of his empire. It was with
great difficulty that the Sultan was dissuaded from
abandoning Constantinople and retiring to Broosa.
But for the arrival of the English fleet, he would
probably have gone and the Russians would have
occupied the city.
The intervention of England led to the Congress
of Berlin, in which Prince Bismarck professed to
act the part of "an honest broker" between the
Powers. The treaty of Berlin, which took the place
of the treaty of San Stefano, humiliated Russia
without helping Turkey, while it ignored the rights
and interests of the people of the provinces of
which it disposed. It was a triumph for Lord Bea-
consfield, but it was a misfortune for England, and
has been a source of trouble in Europe ever since.
xxii
INTRODUCTION
When the war was over, peace concluded and
the treaty of Berlin signed, Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid
set himself to his task of rebuilding the shattered
fabric of his empire. To those who knew Turkey
best it seemed a hopeless task the treasury bank-
rupt, credit gone, the richest provinces lost, the
army defeated and demoralized, the people dis-
heartened or disloyal, and neighbors awaiting the
chance to strike another blow. All honor to Sultan
Hamid that he undertook this task with unshaken
faith in the destiny of his country. He bore the
burden alone, a solitary autocrat, trusting no one
but himself, least of all his appointed ministers. He
reigned supreme for thirty years after the war, and
proved himself more than a match for all the diplo-
mats of Europe. The story of these thirty years, up
to the time when his autocratic rule was brought
to an end by the revolution of July, 1908, ought to
have been heroic. In fact it is pitiful, and the pity
of it comes from two fatal mistakes. He was a self-
constituted prisoner in his palace, and undertook
to hold the whole administration of the empire
in his own hands. As no man could do this work
alone, he surrounded himself with irresponsible
attendants, secretaries, valets, astrologers, spies and
other vagabonds of various Moslem races, some of
them the worst characters in the empire. He was
possessed by the idea that he was in danger of assas-
sination, and his attendants made him believe that
it was only by their care that his life could be pre-
served. They were but little better than a band
of brigands, and there was no conceivable crime
which they did not commit under the protection
xxiii
INTRODUCTION
of the Sultan. Their chief object was plunder, and
as they were the real rulers of the empire, no one
was safe from their extortions. There was no escape
from this palace camarilla except in revolution.
Europe would no doubt have intervened years ago,
but for the fact that the German Emperor took
this camarilla under his special protection.
The Sultan himself had some ideas which were
worthy of a great sovereign, and which he at-
tempted to carry out. He saw the need of education
and ordered the establishment of a great number of
schools for Turks, even for girls. He saw the need
of training for the officers of the army and in-
duced the German Emperor to loan him a number
of distinguished officers for this purpose. He en-
couraged the building of roads and railways. He
interested himself in the sanitary condition of the
empire, built a number of admirable hospitals and
reorganized the medical schools. He favored the
development of the mineral resources of the coun-
try and was no doubt interested in its general pros-
perity. The palace camarilla had no interest in any
of these things except so far as they afforded them
opportunities for plunder. Death or exile was the
fate of those who opposed them. They made the
Sultan believe that his schools were fostering sedi-
tion, and that the officers trained by the Germans
were not to be trusted. They organized a system of
espionage which employed thousands of spies and
created a reign of terror for all intelligent Turks
and Christians. Hundreds were secretly put to
death, and many thousands sent into exile. Many
others secretly escaped from the country. These
xxiv
INTRODUCTION
were condemned in their absence, and their pro-
perty was confiscated. The suffering of the people
all through the empire under this regime was ter-
rible. Even the army was half starved and clad in
rags.
The Sultan took his religious rank as Caliph of
the Mohammedan world more seriously than his
immediate ancestors did, and in this he seems to
have been encouraged by the palace camarilla.
How far his motives were religious and how far
political, it is impossible to say. One of his inti-
mates assured a friend of mine that the Sultan was
an agnostic, with no faith in any religion ; but he
certainly did his best to rouse the militant spirit
of Mohammedanism, not only in Turkey but all
over the Moslem world, and also to break down the
influence of his own Christian subjects. He would
have taken away all their established rights, if Rus-
sia and other Christian powers had not intervened
in their behalf.
The treaty of Berlin had a special article in the
interest of the Armenians, but the Turks soon dis-
covered that England was the only power interested
in enforcing it, and nothing was done. The more
loudly the Armenians appealed to Europe, the
heavier was the hand of the Sultan; until finally,
in 1894, the work of extermination was commenced
in ancient Armenia. In 1895 there was a massacre
of about a thousand in Constantinople, and as the
powers tolerated this, the massacres went on for a
year all over Asiatic Turkey, culminating in the
great massacre in Constantinople in 1896, when
some ten thousand were slaughtered in the streets
XXV
INTRODUCTION
of the city, which literally ran with blood. Even
worse than the killing of so many was the tireless
plunder and persecution that went on from 1880
to 1908. It was only the palace camarilla and its
agents that profited by this. It was through its
influence that the Sultan approved it, while the
better, more enlightened class of Turks felt that
this plunder and massacre of the Christians was a
political blunder and a great moral wrong, whatever
provocation had been given by the Armenian revo-
lutionists in their attempts to attract the attention
and secure the support of Europe.
The palace camarilla made a similar mistake
in encouraging the revolutionists in Egypt, under
the impression that in so doing it was working in
the interest of panislamism, and strengthening the
hands of the Caliph. The result was the occupa-
tion of Egypt by England. Turkey had the opporr
tunity to join England in the occupation of the
country, but failed to improve it. The loss which
was most keenly felt at the palace was the cutting
off of the golden stream of backsheesh which was
always coming in from the Khedive.
Following closely upon the loss of Egypt came
the revolt of Eastern Roumelia, in 1885, and its
annexation to Bulgaria. In this case Turkey hap-
pily followed the lead of England and refused the
demand of Russia that she should reconquer the
province. The Czar had his revenge in stirring
up the Servians to attack Bulgaria, and, when they
were beaten, in kidnapping and dethroning Prince
Alexander; but Bulgaria lived and flourished in
spite of his enmity.
xxvi
INTRODUCTION
These changes in Egypt and Bulgaria brought
about great diplomatic conflicts in Constantinople,
which added not a little to the interest of life in
that city.
In the summer of 1894 Constantinople was se-
verely shaken by an earthquake, which caused the
death of some fifteen hundred persons, most of
whom were buried in the ruins of the bazaars, and
great numbers of people camped out for a month,
while the shocks were repeated almost every day.
The same year the Greeks in Constantinople
resented the action of the palace in restricting their
rights, by closing all their churches, and Russia in-
tervened in their behalf. In 1889, 1896, and 1897,
there were revolts of the Greeks in Crete, which
resulted in a war between Greece and Turkey, in
which the Turks, aided by German officers, easily
defeated the Greeks, and were prevented from occu-
pying Athens only by the intervention of Europe;
but, as generally happens in such cases, Turkey
was not allowed to reap the fruits of victory. The
European powers took possession of Crete, and
nothing was left of the Turkish rule over the island
but a small Turkish flag on an island in Suda Bay.
In 1903 the storm-centre in Turkey was trans-
ferred to Macedonia. The condition of the pro-
vince had been pitiable ever since the Congress of
Berlin had recommended that it be made an au-
tonomous province by Turkey. The Turks refused
to carry out this plan, and the Christian population
was given over to be exterminated by Albanian
brigands and Turkish officials. As Europe would
do nothing to help them, the people finally revolted.
xxvii
INTRODUCTION
This movement was directed by a committee of
Bulgarian revolutionists which had brought the
whole Christian population under its control by
systematic terrorism ; and for a while it was success-
ful. From that time up to July, 1908, the state of the
country was such as to force the European powers
to intervene. That nothing was accomplished by suc-
cessive interventions was due to the fact that Rus-
sia and Austria were allowed to take the lead, and
neither of them desired any permanent settlement
of the question. It was only the Western powers
which had any real sympathy for the people of
the province. The Turks might have put an end to
the existing anarchy, but they preferred to encour-
age the conflict of races and religions which was
going on and destroying the Christians. We may
find some excuse for the Turks, but the conduct of
the European powers, including Greece and Bul-
garia, admits of no excuse. For five years Constan-
tinople was constantly agitated by the different
phases of this question.
The revolution of July, 1908, was the triumph
of a process of enlightenment which has been going
on for many years among the Turks. They have
ruled over the many conquered races of the empire
for six hundred years in the spirit of Asiatic despots,
and have shown themselves to be the most remark-
able race that has ever come out of Central Asia to
trouble the peace of Europe. Fifty years ago they
were essentially unchanged from what they were
when they first appeared in Asia Minor. This immo-
bility has undoubtedly come from the unchange-
able character of Mohammedanism. It is only since
xxviii
INTRODUCTION
the Crimean War that any number of them have
come under the influence of Christian civilization.
Thirty years ago, in the time of Midhat Pasha, we
first heard of a Young Turkey party, which pro-
posed to modernize the form of government; but
it was too weak to influence Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid,
and the palace camarilla waged an incessant war
against the Christian nationalities which naturally
sympathized with the Young Turkey party.
The sudden and astonishing success of the revo-
lution was due to many causes, first of all to the uni-
versal fear and hatred for the existing government,
and next, to the wisdom and tact of the Committee
of Union and Progress which directed it. It was a
wonderful inspiration which led them to attempt
nothing at Constantinople, and, after having se-
cured the support of the army, to strike their blow
from Macedonia and revolutionize Constantinople
by telegraph. The palace camarilla and the regi-
ments of the Sultan's body-guard could do nothing.
There was nothing in Constantinople for them to
strike.
Of course, behind all these things was the rapid
progress of enlightenment among the Turks during
these thirty years. This was due in some measure
to the acts of the Sultan himself. He had seen the
necessity of education for the Turks, and founded
many schools of all kinds. He had brought Ger-
man officers for his military schools, and German
doctors for his medical schools and hospitals, who
inspired the Young Turks with modern ideas.
Every enlightened Turk sent into exile in the in-
terior became a centre of light, and every one who
xxix
INTRODUCTION
managed to escape to Europe was filled with new
ideas of society and of government.
Other influences have been, potent. Every mis-
sionary station, and every school and college, has
not only elevated its Christian students and the few
Turks who attended these schools, but it has shown
to all the value of education and made them more or
less familiar with the progress of Christian civiliza-
tion. The influence of education on the Bulgarians
made a profound impression upon the Turks, even
upon the Sultan himself,
In addition to all these things, intelligent and
patriotic Turks were moved by the rapid decline of
their power and the dismemberment of the em-
pire. They had a great history to stir their pride,
and felt that by nature they were the equals of any
other race while even in the Mohammedan world
their influence was waning. They felt that their
only hope lay in the transformation of their govern-
ment, the education and general enlightenment of
the Turkish people.
It was a Turkish revolution in the interest of the
Turks and designed to strengthen their power, but
its leaders took for their watchwords, Liberty, Jus-
ice, Equality and Fraternity, for all the races and
religions of the empire, with equal rights and equal
duties for all. As we in America proclaimed these
principles in 1776, and have not yet been able to
put them in force in all parts of our country, we
may expect to wait some time before they can be
fully carried out in Turkey ; but there is no reason
to doubt the honesty and sincerity of the Young
Turkey party in proclaiming them.
XXX
INTRODUCTION
Abd-ul-Hamid professed to accept the new order
of things which had transformed him from an auto-
crat into a constitutional sovereign, but at heart
he resented the dictation of the Young Turks and
secretly plotted for their destruction. April 13, 1909,
he startled the world by a counter revolution at
Constantinople and the massacre of many thou-
sand Christians in Asia Minor and Syria. In a few
days his triumph seemed complete, but eleven days
later the Young Turks, with an army from Macedo-
nia, stormed and captured the city. Abd-ul-Hamid
was taken prisoner, deposed and transported to
Salonica, while his brother was proclaimed Sul-
tan Mahomet V and reigned in his stead.
How far the conquered races in Turkey, Moslem
and Christian, will heartily accept this new form
of Turkish rule and give it their support remains
to be seen. The wild enthusiasm and joy of the first
days of emancipation from the tyranny of the palace
camarilla have passed, and already some of these
nationalities have come to remember that what
they have desired was not the reform but the de-
struction of the Turkish Empire. Russia and Aus-
tria are not likely to discourage this feeling, which
has been the basis of their policy for more than a
century.
However this may be, we have to-day a new
Constantinople hastening to be transformed into
a European city. The old Asiatic Constantinople
of a hundred, or even fifty years ago will soon
disappear.
BOSTON, 1909.
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDING OF ROBERT COLLEGE
ROBERT COLLEGE was founded by Mr. Christopher
Rheinlander Robert, a New York merchant descended
from a French Huguenot family of Rochelle, France. 1
There is still an impression in some quarters in
America, that the idea of founding a Christian college in
Constantinople was a whim of Mr. Robert's, a notion
which sprang from his brain as did Athena from the head
of Zeus, and it is often spoken of as Mr. Robert's college.
The truth is that the College grew out of the natural de-
velopment of American missions in Turkey, in which
Mr. Robert had long been interested. The policy of the
missionary boards at that time was opposed to the ex-
1 Mr. Robert was descended, in the fourth generation, from
Daniel Robert of Rochelle, who was believed to have been a di-
rect descendant of Count Robert of Normandy, the son of
William the Conqueror, King of England. Daniel Robert was
a Huguenot, and emigrated to New York in 1701, after the revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantes, when he became a British subject.
His grandson, Mr. Robert's father, was a graduate of Columbia
and Edinburgh Universities, a physician by profession, who, after
living ten years in the British West Indies, returned to New York
in 1784 and bought a large estate on Long Island, where Mr.
Christopher R. Robert was born March 23, 1802. When fifteen
yean old he went into a merchant's office in New York, and
continued in business all his life.
1
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
pendituie of missionary funds for education. A resolu-
tion was passed at the annual meeting of the A. B. C. F.
M. in 1856, that the only work of the missionary was to
preach the Gospel, " the oral utterance of the Gospel in
public or in private"; but the time had come when some
at least of the missionaries in the field saw the necessity
of a new departure, saw what a Christian college might
accomplish in the elevation of the people. Mr. Robert
was the first man of means in America to see and appre-
ciate this necessity, the man whom God chose to meet
this want in Turkey, and to turn the tide of missionary
work in other parts of the world in this direction. The
fact that he was the treasurer of the American Home
Missionary Society, which had already discovered this
need in the newer states of the West, was perhaps one
reason why he became a leader in this movement. Mr.
Robert himself always felt that he had been providen-
tially directed to the sacrifices which he made to found
and sustain the College. It was the Lord's work, not his.
There were good reasons why the first American col-
lege of this kind should have been founded at Constan-
tinople. Not only had the attention of the Christian
world been concentrated upon the Turkish Empire by
the Crimean War, but the people of Turkey had been
aroused to new life and were beginning to seek for edu-
cation. It was believed that a new era of tolerance and
liberty had dawned upon the East, that the government,
as well as the people, was desirous of encouraging prog-
ress in every form, that at last there was an open door in
Turkey. Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid was a reformer, Fuad
and Aali Pashas were enlightened statesmen. TheHatt-
i-houmayoun was a charter of liberty for all. This was
the general belief of the Americans in Turkey.
THE FOUNDING OF ROBERT COLLEGE
The French and the Roman Catholics had been quick
to see and improve the opportunity for political and reli-
gious propaganda. They had established a number of
schools of a low grade, and had induced many of the
wealthy families to send their sons to Paris. French in-
fluence was already dominant here. There were but few
native schools of any kind. There were some Moham-
medan schools for small children connected with the
mosques, as well as naval, military and theological
schools. There were a few Protestant and Catholic
mission-schools, and here and there the Christian nation-
alities had established schools, in some of which there
were teachers who were doing good work ; but there was
nothing corresponding to an American college in the em-
pire. More than anywhere else in the world at that time,
there seemed to be an open door and a great work to be
done. Constantinople was the natural place to begin it.
It was not only the capital of the empire, but it had been
for fifteen centuries the centre of life and power in this
part of the world.
The idea of founding a college at Constantinople was
first suggested to Mr. Robert in 1857 by Messrs. James
and William Dwight, the sons of Rev. Dr. H. G. O.
Dwight, then a missionary here. They were youngmen
of high character, graduates of Yale College and Union
Theological Seminary. They called upon Mr. Robert,
as a well-known philanthropist and friend of missions,
and stated that they had for some time contemplated
founding aschool at Constantinople, not in any way con-
nected with the Mission and tolerant of the religious
prejudices of the natives, which they hoped would soon
become self-supporting, and they proposed to associate
with themselves an Armenian, also a graduate of Yale.
3
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Mr. Robert was interested in their plan, and in Octo-
ber, 1857, a meeting was held at his house to consider
this proposition. Those present were Rev. Drs.Wm.M.
Adams, A. D. Smith, G. W. Wood, M. Badger, D. B.
Coe, W. G. Schauffler and E. Riggs (the last two from
Constantinople), Hon. Geo. P. Marsh, Messrs. Robert,
Ely, Moore, Ransom and Schiefflin. No decisive action
was taken at this meeting beyond the suggestion of six
names for trustees of the proposed school. Five of these
gentlemen appear to have met once in March, 1858, and
in May the Messrs. Dwight called on Mr. Robert again,
and he wrote to Dr. Hamlin to ask his opinion of the
plan ; but, so far as I can learn from the correspondence
in my hands, no money was ever pledged by any one to
carry out this project, and it was abandoned. The
reasons for the failure of the Messrs. Dwight to secure
support appear to have been their youth, lack of confi-
dence in the person associated with them, the financial
crisis in America at the time, and a difference of opinion
as to the religious status of the school. The Messrs.
Dwight proposed to make the school purely secular,
while Mr. Robert and others, to whom they appealed,
felt that there was no reason why they should give money
for a school in Constantinople, unless it was to be dis-
tinctively Christian. Dr. Hamlin had written to the
Messrs. Dwight in 1856, that it must be "a decided,
thorough Christian school from its very commence-
ment," or it would not secure the confidence of the
people. A school without a religion would be an inex-
plicable anomaly in Constantinople, and, as he said in
another letter, "would be regarded as a trap to cheat
the devil." 1
1 In justice to the memory of the Messrs. Dwight it should be
4
THE FOUNDING OF ROBERT COLLEGE
Mr. Robert had become too much interested in the
idea of founding a college in Constantinople to let it
drop when the Messrs. Dwight gave it up, and he natu-
rally turned to Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, whose acquaintance
he had made when he visited Constantinople during the
Crimean War, at the time when Dr. Hamlin was fur-
nishing the British hospitals and soldiers with bread. He
had previously consulted him as to the project of the
Messrs. Dwight and January 3, 1859, in a postscript to
a letter, he wrote : " Since writing a few lines this morn-
ing it has occurred to me to ask confidentially whether,
in view of the great importance of the institution referred
to, it may not be your duty to take charge of it. I think
thirty-five to forty thousand dollars can be secured for it
with comparative ease, if you do, and I doubt if it can be
without. My idea is to have the Messrs. Dwight as your
assistants. You may write me fully on the subject."
Apparently Dr. Hamlin either failed to notice the post-
script, or did not take it seriously. Mr. Robert wrote
him again March 15, repeating the question. To this
Dr. Hamlin replied at length. After calling attention to
the fact that he had certain disqualifications for the
place ; that he was not a persona grata with the Turks,
and had a very meagre knowledge of the Turkish lan-
guage ; that he had not the requisite scholarship for the
stated that in the original circular which they issued in 1856 they
say, " It is desirable that the leading object of this institution should
be to cooperate with the direct labor of others in the work of
Protestant Evangelization, by giving the whole instruction a de-
cided and unmistakable Evangelical influence, though it may be
important that it should be distinctly recognized as standing on its
own separate and independent basis " It appears to have been in
the discussion of practical details that a serious difference of
opinion arose.
5
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
post, and that his work in Bebec Seminary had aimed
only at preparing young Armenians for the ministry by
a short course of study, he concluded as follows : " This
letter will be quite as unsatisfactory to you as to me. I
do not see clearly what course the thing will take, and I
wish to know the position of the Dwights before I go
farther, also to ascertain the opinions of my associates
and some good friends and advisers like Count De Zuy-
len, the pious and excellent Dutch ambassador, Dr.
Millingen, and others."
Without waiting for a reply to his letter, Mr. Robert
commissioned Rev. Drs. Coe and Badger to address to
Dr. Hamlin a formal invitation to devote himself to this
enterprise, which they did March 28, 1859, without
mentioning Mr. Robert's name. Dr. Hamlin concluded
that Mr. Robert had inspired this proposal, and wrote
to him April 26: "I shall write to Messrs. Coe and
Badger as soon as any light dawns upon my path. If I
should feel it to be my duty to do anything for this great
undertaking, it would be only to get it fairly started and
leave it in abler hands. ... It is of the Lord and can-
not fail, whether I have anything to do with it or not."
Mr. Robert wrote again June 27, to press the question,
and August 22 Dr. Hamlin replied that he had laid the
subject before his associates in the Mission, and that the
majority had expressed a decided opinion in favor of his
undertaking the work. Two weeks later he wroteagain :
"I have, with feelings of deep solemnity and sorrow,
written my request to be released from the service of the
Board as soon as my place can be supplied. ... I
tremble at the responsibility I have assumed, but I trust
that He who has upheld me through many trials and
labors will not forsake me here."
6
THE FOUNDING OF ROBERT COLLEGE
It appears from Dr. Hamlin's autobiography that
what finally determined his acceptance of Mr. Robert's
proposals was that he regarded the educational policy of
the American Board as suicidal, and that the action of
the Mission in accepting this policy and removing the
Mission Seminary from Bebec to Marsovan put an end
to the work to which his whole missionary life had been
devoted. The proposed college would be a continuation
and enlargement of that work. 1
Mr. Robert and Dr. Hamlin were now both fully com-
mitted to the work of founding a Christian college in
Constantinople, and it was agreed that Dr. Hamlin
should come to America to consult with Mr. Robert as
to their plans and also to secure additional funds, but it
was thought best that he should first secure a site for the
College. This did not prove to be an easy task. At first,
the majority of his advisers, rather against his judgment,
favored a location in old Stamboul and proposed the pur-
chase of the old palace of Constantine Porphyrogenitus
on the city wall. A meeting of the friends of the College
at the Dutch Embassy, in January, 1860, finally ap-
proved of the site on the Bosphorus near the Castle of
Europe, where the College now stands ; but the owner of
this site, Achmet Vefik Pasha, then Turkish ambassador
in Paris, absolutely refused to sell at any price. This
was a bitter disappointment, but Dr. Hamlin purchased
what he considered to be the next best available site, the
land on the hill above the village of Kourou Tcheshme.
We held this property until 1904, when I sold it to the
Scheik-ul-Islam for a little less than it cost. We had
never been able to find a buyer for it before, at any
reasonable price. When Dr. Hamlin returned from
1 My Life and Times, pp. 413, 414.
7
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
America a year later, it was found that Achmet Vefik
Pasha had returned from Paris, needed money, and was
willing to sell the land at Roumeli Hissar. After some
months of negotiations, Dr. Hamlin, with Mr. Robert's
approval, bought about half of the lot, about six acres,
for sixteen hundred pounds sterling. Some years later,
I bought the other half for about eighteen hundred
pounds sterling. It was an essential part of Dr. Ham-
lin*s agreement with Achmet Vefik Pasha that no money
should be paid for the land until the necessary permis-
sion had been given to erect a building upon it for the
College. This was December 2, 1861. In March, 1862,
the Ministerpf Foreign Affairs having informed the Eng-
lish ambassador and the American minister that the gov-
ernment had given its consent to the erection of the Col-
lege on this site, and the Minister of Public Instruction
having authorized the establishment of the College, the
money was paid over to Achmet Vefik Pasha. Dr. Ham-
lin and his friends here felt that they had every reason to
be jubilant. There is no more beautiful site for a college
anywhere in the world, and no place on the Bosphorus to
equal it. All the city wondered that such a site had been
granted to an American college.
Dr. Hamlin went to America in the summer of 1860,
and returned in June, 1861 . It was not a favorable time
to raise money, as the whole country was absorbed in the
conflict between the free and the slave states, the Presi-
dential election and the outbreak of the Civil War, but
he had no little success in awakening an interest in the
proposed college. Harvard University took it up with
considerable enthusiasm, and it was under its auspices
that he had a very successful meeting in Boston. His
visits to England in going and coming were also of im-
8
THE FOUNDING OF ROBERT COLLEGE
portance in gaining friends for the College there. But the
great object of his visit was to come to a full understand-
ing with Mr. Robert as to the character and purpose of
the College, and to make such arrangements as were pos-
sible for its organization and the erection of a building.
A Board of Trustees was legally established, consisting
of C. R. Robert, Wm. A. Booth, Milton Badger, David
B. Coe, Wm. L. Lambert and David Hoadley, all per-
sonal friends of Mr. Robert, and I believe all associated
with him in the management of the American Home
Missionary Society. Wm. A. Booth was President, and
David B. Coe Secretary of the Board, and they held their
offices until they died, many years after the death of Mr.
Robert. They were his chosen advisers in everything
concerning the College, and, for years after his death,
the trustees were always guided by their judgment.
In 1864 they were formally incorporated by act of the
Legislature of New York, under the name of " The
Trustees of Robert College of Constantinople," and the
College was included with other state institutions in the
University of the State of New York. This established
the legal status of the College in America.
The outbreak of the Civil War was a great blow to Dr.
Hamlin and Mr. Robert, but neither of them was a man
to turn back, when once he had put a hand to the plough,
and they determined to go on and put up the building for
the College. Dr. Hamlin spent much time in preparation
for this. He interested Mr. Corliss of Providence in it,
who gave him a steam-engine and other machinery for
use in the woodwork of the building. He studied plans
and bought considerable material. Most of all, he and
Mr. Robert came to understand and trust each other, so
that they could work together harmoniously.
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
As has already been explained, Dr. Hamlin, on his re-
turn from America, abandoned the site which he had
bought at Kourou Tcheshm and bought the site at Rou-
meli Hissar. After some delay he received permission to
build on this site, and believed that his troubles were
ended. This was in March, 1862. It proved to be not
the end but the beginning of serious trouble. He was
destined to wait more than six years, until Decem-
ber 20, 1868, before he could begin work on this site.
The new era and the open door in Turkey supposed
to have been won by the Crimean War seemed to
have disappeared. This change was undoubtedly
due in some measure to the death of Sultan Abd-
ul-Medjid and the accession of Abd-ul-Aziz, in
June, 1861, a man of totally different character,
who soon changed the whole spirit of the govern-
ment. Whatever else might be said of it, it was no
longer weak. It soon became a strong government,
whether for good or evil. But I think Dr. Hamlin
was right in believing that the opposition to the Col-
lege did not originate with the Turks. If left to
themselves they would probably have regarded it
as a matter of very little importance in any way.
The powers that he had to contend with were
France, Russia, and the Roman Catholic Church.
Their influence was pushed to the utmost to prevent
the establishment of a college which would promote
and extend the use of the English language and the
influence of Protestant, English and American, ideas
in the East. They were formidable enemies because
at that time our friends were weak. America, en-
gaged in a great civil war, had little influence here,
Prussia and Holland were friendly but without
10
THE FOUNDING OF ROBERT COLLEGE
much influence. England, at the close of the Cri-
mean War, had lost her dominant position at Con-
stantinople. This had been won by France, and
under Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz Russia regained much of
her former influence here. England was still a
power to be reckoned with, but, at the time when
the college question came up, she was represented
here by Sir Henry Bulwer, a brilliant but unprin-
cipled man, who was ready to sacrifice anything to
his own personal interest. At first he supported Dr.
Hamlin, but in the end abandoned his cause to se-
cure a bribe which finally cost him his place. The
permission to build had been granted through the
influence of Achmet Vefik Pasha, then a minister;
but, only a few days after it was given, he was re-
moved from office and his enemies were glad to do
him any injury in their power.
Under these unpropitious circumstances, and with
the forces arrayed against the College, it was natural
for the Porte to oppose the erection of the College,
and in Turkey it is always easy to find excuses for
delay. How not to do it is the perfection of Turkish
diplomacy. The permission to build was never
formally revoked, but six years of wearisome and
often exasperating negotiations followed. When
Lord Lyons came from Washington to the British
embassy here in 1865, he took up the question with
vigor, but unfortunately he was transferred to Paris
in eighteen months. The last thing that he told me
before he left was that he had finally settled the col-
lege question with Aali Pasha. If he had remained
here, that would have been the end of it; but he had
no sooner gone than a new reason for delay was
11
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
found. For Dr. Hamlin and Mr. Robert these
years were alternations of hope and despair. No-
thing that they could do here or in Washington
seemed to be of any avail and the prospect was
never darker than in 1868.
The final settlement was brought about most un-
expectedly by a providential combination of agen-
cies, unconsciously working together, and was long
a mystery to Dr. Hamlin. The ball was set in mo-
tion by Mr. George D. Morgan of New York, a
gentleman who had never heard of the proposed
college until he'came to Constantinople as a traveler,
in the winter of 1868. He saw Dr. Hamlin, investi-
gated the case, and was so much interested that,
when he returned to America a few months later, he
went to Washington on purpose to persuade Mr.
Seward to take action in behalf of the College. He
first interested Senator Morgan and Mr. Evarts in
the case, and they three went together to Mr.
Seward, who had special reasons at that time to
wish to please them. He was persuaded, sent for
Blacque Bey, the Turkish minister, and pressed his
demands in such a way that the minister wrote to
Constantinople that this question must be settled
at once or there would be serious trouble. This let-
ter reached Constantinople not long before the ar-
rival of Admiral Farragut at the Dardanelles, who
insisted upon coming up to Constantinople in his
flag-ship. His appearance in these waters at this
time had nothing to do with the revolution in Crete,
but to the Turks it seemed suspicious. They al-
lowed him to come to Constantinople after some de-
lay, and received him with great honors. To please
12
THE FOUNDING OF ROBERT COLLEGE
his little son, now a professor in Columbia Univer-
sity, Dr. Hamlin took him to call on the admiral,
and by chance met a gentleman there who knew him
well and introduced the subject of the College and its
difficulties. The admiral was so much stirred by the
injustice involved that he promised to speak to the
Grand Vizier about it unofficially, if he had a
chance. He found his opportunity at a grand dinner
given in his honor, as Dr. Hamlin afterwards
learned. No one at the College knew anything at
that time of the action of Mr. Seward or the dis-
patch of Blacque Bey, but the Turkish government
put all these things together, and evidently believed
that Admiral Farragut's real mission here was to
settle the College question, with the possibility of his
taking his ships to Crete in the background. They
settled it, granting even more than had been asked,
giving the College a toghrali irade, or imperial char-
ter, as an American college under the protection of
the United States with ex-territorial rights, and with
all the privileges granted to educational institutions
in Turkey. Indeed, they were so friendly and cor-
dial that Dr. Hamlin wrote to Mr. Robert that, in
case more money were needed, he should apply to
the Sultan, who would undoubtedly give it. But he
never applied. The irade was issued by the Sultan
in September, 1868, but not communicated to the
United States Legation until December 20, 1868.
In October Aali Pasha informed the American min-
ister that Dr. Hamlin "could go on and build as
soon as he pleased and that an irade would appear
in due time"; but Dr. Hamlin had been deceived so
often that he did not care to act on this intimation.
IS
CHAPTER II
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEC
WHEN it became probable in the summer of 1862
that the contest over the site at Hissar would be a
long one, Mr. Robert and Dr. Hamlin began at once
to consider the possibility of opening the College
elsewhere. The building belonging to the mission
at Bebec, the suburban village on the Bosphorus
just below Hissar, where Dr. Hamlin had for many
years conducted the Mission school, was vacant,
and no further permission from the government was
necessary to open the College there. The American
Board at Boston offered it rent free. Dr. Hamlin
made extensive repairs, and the College was opened
there September 16, 1863, with 4 students, 3 Eng-
lish and 1 American, all residents of Constantinople.
Two professors had been appointed in 1862, Rer.
H. A. Schauffler and Rev. G. A. Perkins, and Mr.
Robert had sent one to Germany and one to Yale
to complete their preparation for the work in the
College. They were present at the opening, and
three or four native assistants had also been em*
ployed. Before going to Germany Professor Schauf-
fler raised twenty-one hundred and twenty dollars
towards the foundation of a library for the College,
and Harvard University contributed some two hun-
dred volumes. Mr. Corliss of Providence, Mr. B.
M. E. Durfee of Fall River, Mr. Wheelwright of
14
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEG
London, and Mrs. J. C. Whitin of Whitinsville
added to this fund, so that when the College went
to Roumeli Hissar the library contained some five
thousand volumes. It now (1907) contains over
twelve thousand volumes, has a card catalogue and
is open to students every day.
Before issuing a prospectus Dr. Hamlin felt that
it was necessary to give a name to the College, and
his advisory committee discussed the question with-
out reaching any satisfactory conclusion, although
many names were suggested. Mr. Robert had
called it the American College, but this was rejected
on the ground that it had a political significance.
Finally Dr. Hamlin proposed Robert College as a
neutral name, which could be spelled in all the lan-
guages of the East. 1 This was adopted with accla-
mation. Mr. Robert protested against it as unwise
and contrary to all his principles, but Dr. Hamlin
replied that it was too late to change it. The name
had already been adopted in all the languages and
was universally accepted as the best.
The discussion of the character, organization and
curriculum of the College commenced in 1859. Mr.
Robert wrote June 27, 1859: "In my judgment
the time has come for you in connection with some
of your wisest associates and any others in whom
you may think dwells the spirit of true wisdom to
draw out the plan of a college, taking as a pattern
the best in our country as to the course of study,
government, Faculty, etc. The beginning of course
must be small but let the plan be such that it can be
1 This is more important than it may appear. My name, for
example, cannot be spelled in any of these languages.
15
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
enlarged to meet the wants of the community in
which it is situated. The foundations therefore
must be broad and deep, but looking to a gradual
execution of the plan in its completeness. A rapid
and hasty growth must not be expected or desired."
The religious status of the College was made clear
in the constitution adopted by the trustees. It was
to be unsectarian and open to all without distinction
of race or religion. It did not aim to destroy or
weaken the ancient Christian churches of the East,
but to develop the moral and spiritual life of its
students, their faith in God and their purpose to
obey his law. The constitution states that "it is to
be founded and administered on the principles of
the Bible : it is hereby declared and ordained that,
while it is to be a scientific and literary institution,
God and His word shall be distinctly acknowledged
and honored therein: the Scriptures, as published
by the American or British and Foreign Bible So-
cieties being read and prayers offered at least once
each day of each collegiate term, and Divine wor-
ship held on the Sabbath, at which services the
Faculty are expected to be present, and all the stu-
dents shall attend unless for special and imperative
reasons some are excused by the Faculty and
teachers."
Dr. Hamlin replied at great length to Mr. Rob-
ert's letter of June 27, proposing in substance Eng-
lish as the language of the College, Preparatory
and Collegiate Departments, a governing Board of
Trustees in New York, a local Board of Managers
(or Advisers he wrote later) at Constantinople, a
Faculty of a president and three professors, a course
16
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEG
of study essentially the same as in American col-
leges, with the omission of Latin and Greek and the
addition of French and the native languages, with
some legal studies.
There were two special reasons for making Eng-
lish the language of the College. It was necessary
to have a neutral common language for students of
many races and tongues and this could only be some
European language. Among these it was natural
for us to choose English. Moreover, there were no
text books to be had in any native language and no
means of pursuing any science or other subject such
as was offered by the literature of England and
America. The use of English has attracted many
students to the College for its own sake.
Mr. Robert objected to the exclusion of the clas-
sics, and since the second year's graduates in 1869
Latin has always been required for the degree of
A. B. Otherwise the European universities would
have refused to recognize our diplomas. The local
Board of Managers was organized and was probably
useful for a time, but died a natural death in a few
years. Dr. Hamlin proposed to confine the study of
the native languages to the Preparatory Department,
but it has been found necessary to give them special
prominence and continue them through the whole
course. This helps the College to give a thorough
education to students of different nationalities with-
out denationalizing them or unfitting them to be-
come the leaders of their own people.
Dr. Hamlin was not discouraged by the small
number of students the first year, 1863-64. Before
the close of the year 20 had been registered, all but
17
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
2 Europeans or Americans. Towards the end of the
year 2 Greeks came.
The second year, 1864-65, opened with 23 stu-
dents, and 28 in all were registered during the year,
of whom 4 were Greeks, 1 Armenian and 1 Bulga-
rian. This year was a very trying one for Mr. Rob-
ert and Dr. Hamlin, aside from the troubles in
regard to the site. The two professors constituted a
majority in the Faculty, and even during the first year
there were serious differences of opinion between
them and Dr. Hamlin as to the management and
discipline of the College. These culminated early in
the second year, and the trustees were called upon
to decide whether to accept the resignation of Dr.
Hamlin or of the two professors. They did the
latter, and Dr. Hamlin was left alone in the middle
of the year to carry on the College as best he could
with his native assistants.
In addition to this difficulty Dr. Hamlin had to
expel for immorality four students belonging to the
best European families in the city, and this stirred up
new enmity against the College. One peculiarly
Eastern method of injuring an enemy was experi-
enced during the year. Some one secretly intro-
duced into the dormitories a piece of an old garment
swarming with lice, which was not discovered until
the evil had spread among the boys.
The year closed with one of those terrible calami-
ties which used to be so common in Constantinople.
The Asiatic cholera carried off some seventy thou-
sand persons in three months. The College was
closed early, before there had been any cases in
Bebec, and Dr. Hamlin and his family went to the
18
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEG
Princes Islands to regain his health. He was suffer-
ing from insomnia and nervous prostration. I re-
mained in Bebec, and one of my sons, about two
years old, was the first victim of the epidemic there,
after which Mrs. Washburn and I devoted our-
selves to the care of the sick in the village for two
months. I had to go to town frequently to attend
to my work there, where Dr. Long and Mr. Trow-
bridge had given themselves entirely to the care of
the sick in the public khans. It would require the
pen of a De Quincey to describe the scenes which I
witnessed, pathetic, grotesque, horrible, a dance of
death among men who had lost their hold upon the
humanities of life.
The epidemic passed away with a great fire in
Constantinople which consumed some ten thousand
houses and seemed to disinfect the city.
What with the cholera and the fire it was not
strange that the third college year, 1865-66,
opened with only 8 students. The number grad-
ually increased, and the whole number registered
was 51, of whom 20 were Armenians, 9 Bulgarians
and 6 Greeks.
In place of the two professors Mr. Robert sent
out two tutors, Messrs. Ostrander and Rodger, for
a period of three years. This was the beginning of
a plan which has continued in force all through the
history of the College. In the Appendix of this
volume will be found a paper which was drawn up
by Mr. Robert and sent by him to the colleges where
he was seeking candidates for this position. I think
that this is the latest form of it. He had modified it
from time to time as his practical experience with
19
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
the men sent out suggested weaknesses to be avoided.
I remember when he inserted the clause not conscien-
tiously obstinate. It is well worth reading, not only
as illustrating Mr. Robert's character but also his
idea of the work which the College ought to do.
Probably his ideal was never realized in any one
tutor; in fact, one college president wrote to him
that no such men existed in this world, but many of
those who have filled this position in the College have
been men of rare ability and the highest character.
Their personal influence over the students has been
a very important factor in the work of the College,
as they lived with the students and came into more
intimate relations with them than was possible to
the professors. It is the almost unanimous testi-
mony of the men who have filled these positions
that their years spent in the College were the most
fruitful years in their preparation for their life-work.
They gained here new and broader conceptions of
life, of the world as a whole and of men and in-
dividuals, besides enjoying rare opportunities for
study and travel.
The names of all the professors and American
tutors who were connected with the College during
the first forty years will be found in the Appendix.
At the beginning of this year Dr. Hamlin secured
the services of an English lady, Mrs. Julia Calluci,
as matron of the College.
There can be no doubt that the close of the Civil
War in America and the final triumph of the na-
tional government added much to the prestige of
the College among the people here and was one
cause of the increase in the number of students.
20
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEG
It was also a great relief and great joy to Mr. Rob-
ert and Dr. Hamlin. They were men of strong con-
victions and deep feeling, devoted patriots, whose
hearts were bound up in this struggle for national
life and freedom for the slave. Their letters are full
of it, and when peace came a great burden was re-
moved from their minds and hearts.
Mr. Robert at once interested himself in the edu-
cation of the poor whites in the South, bought the
United States Hospital buildings, with the land and
furniture, on Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga,
Tenn., and established a school there under the
direction of Mr. Bancroft, who in later years became
the famous principal of Phillips Academy, Andover.
Mr. Robert's letters show that his interest in this
school was quite as great as his interest in Robert
College.
The fourth college year, 1866-67, opened with a
large increase of students. The whole number reg-
istered during the year was 96, of whom 19 were
Armenians, 13 Bulgarians and 18 Greeks. There
was nothing to disturb the peace of the year but a
terrific storm of which Dr. Hamlin gives a graphic
account in his letters and which very nearly swept
the college building into the Bosphorus.
Dr. Hamlin's sympathies were deeply stirred
during the year by the long and serious illness of
two of the students, one of whom, a very promising
Bulgarian, died, and the other, a German, was dis-
abled, so that he was a cripple for life, although he
finally recovered so far as to graduate in 1869.
One of the questions much discussed during the
year and in regard to which Mr. Robert and Dr.
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Hamlin never agreed was that of beneficiaries, of re-
ceiving a certain number of students at a reduced
rate. To satisfy Dr. Hamlin the trustees in 1864
voted that "the President select any number, not
exceeding six, talented youth of high moral charac-
ter, one from each of the large nationalities of the
Turkish Empire, who shall enjoy the privileges of
the College by paying one-fourth to three-fourths
of the ordinary charges." In 1867 it was added
that "those so received should sign a pledge that
they will diligently pursue the prescribed course
of instruction not less than three years." In fact,
a much larger number had been received by Dr.
Hamlin and he also rejected the last regulation as
-"needless, useless and injurious." In 1868 one-
fourth of the students were beneficiaries and the
amount deducted for them from the regular charges
was about twenty-five hundred dollars, about five
hundred dollars of which was specially contributed
for this purpose by friends in England and America.
Dr. Hamlin writes: "Both for scholarship and char-
acter the students thus aided are the glory of the
College. Of four prizes these men won three."
The intensity of Dr. Hamlin's feeling on this sub-
ject will be appreciated when we remember that his
chief ambition was to make the College self-support-
ing, and that his own salary at this time was only
three hundred and seventy-five dollars a year and
the board of his family in the College, a salary fixed
by himself against the protest of Mr. Robert.
Serious efforts have since been made to raise a
substantial fund for beneficiaries but with limited
success, and the College has regularly expended from
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEG
two thousand to three thousand dollars a year from
its common funds for this purpose. It is under-
stood however that we do not receive free students,
and the aid given depends on scholarship and con-
duct.
Dr. Hamlin, in his annual report, writes very con-
fidently of the steady improvement in the character
and intellectual progress of the students and very
hopefully of the religious influence of the College.
No difficulties had arisen from the religious services
or the teaching of the Bible in classes, and the stu-
dents seemed interested in both.
At the close of the year the trustees at the sug-
gestion of Mr. Robert voted to invite Dr. Hamlin
to visit Paris during the great Exposition and appro-
priated five hundred dollars to meet his expenses.
He went there and also attended the meeting of the
Evangelical Alliance in Holland. He enjoyed this
trip very much, especially the opportunity he had
to make the acquaintance of many distinguished
men and to purchase in Paris some new and inter-
esting scientific apparatus for the College.
He returned by way of the Danube to escape
quarantine, and Messrs. Paine, Grosvenor and
Wilcox, the new American teachers, came with him.
As none of them had passports they were arrested
when they reached Turkish territory at Rustchuk.
Dr. Hamlin got through on the ground that he
belonged to the suite of the Dutch ambassador's
wife who had come with him from Holland, but the
tutors were held until Dr. Hamlin could get orders
at Constantinople to allow them to come on.
This fourth year of Robert College was the first
33
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
year of the Syrian Protestant College founded at
Beirut under the presidency of Dr. Daniel Bliss,
an old college-mate and dear friend of mine. It
was the first fruit of the influence of Robert College
in leading to the foundation of similar institutions
in all mission fields, and it was incorporated in the
state of New York in the same act with Robert
College. Dr. Bliss had been in America and in
England since 1862 to raise funds for it. The first
class of 16 entered in 1866. It has been a trium-
phant success, although like Robert College it has
passed through many trying experiences.
The fifth college year, 1867-68, opened with a
full number of students. One hundred and two
were registered during the year, of whom 14 were
Armenians, 16 Bulgarians, 33 Greeks, but Dr.
Hamlin in his report at the close of the year com-
plains that many, especially of the Greek day
scholars, "came only to try it. Not liking it, after
a few lessons half learned, they left," so that at the
end of the year there were but 75 students present.
He speaks in the highest terms of the work done
by Messrs. Grosvenor and Wilcox, the new tutors.
The College bore fruit this year of a very different
kind from the sister college at Beirut. The French
ambassador here and M. Bore, the Director General
of the Jesuit Missions, had failed to prevent the
opening of Robert College; but they took advantage
of the visit of Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz to Paris in 1867
to induce the Emperor Napoleon to extract a prom-
ise from the Sultan that on his return to Constanti-
nople he would found a grand Lyce, the teachers
in which should be appointed by the Emperor, the
24
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEG
language should be French and the whole cost
should be paid by the Turkish government. In
spite of the opposition of the Turks, the Russians
and the English, the French government had in-
fluence enough to hold the Sultan to his promise.
The Lycee of Galata Serai was opened in 1868 in
magnificent buildings, on a site unsurpassed in
beauty by any other in Pera. Everything was done
to make it attractive in every way and provision
was made for six hundred students. The Emperor
sent out a distinguished and experienced man as
director with a large staff of able professors. Both
our friends and our enemies felt that this would be
the end of Robert College, especially as provision
was made in the Lycee for a large number of free
students. Dr. Hamlin was anxious but not disheart-
ened, and there is no reason to believe that the Lycee
of Galata Serai or any other of the numerous
schools that have since been established in Con-
stantinople has seriously affected the work of
Robert College. The fall of the French Empire
and the decline of French influence in Turkey led
to great changes in the character of the Lycee.
The language is still French and there are some
eight hundred students, but it has long been a Turk-
ish rather than a French school. It was destroyed
by fire last winter (1907) but is to be rebuilt.
There was considerable correspondence during
the year between Mr. Robert and Dr. Hamlin in
regard to the organization and the discipline of the
College, suggested in some measure by troubles
which had been experienced at Lookout Mountain.
Dr. Hamlin did not think that it was desirable to
5
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
attempt a systematic classification of the students,
but preferred to deal with them individually. At
the close of the year he selected two of them, Hago-
pos Djedjizian, an Armenian, who had been two
years in the College, and Petco Gorbanoff, a Bul-
garian, who had been there three years, to graduate
and received the degree of A. B. He justified this
action in a detailed statement of the acquirements
of the two young men, each far advanced in certain
studies and far behind in others, but both mature
in age and character. Both of them became teach-
ers in the College the following year. The former
has long been a professor in the College. The
latter has held many important posts in Bulgaria.
The first "Commencement Exercises" of the
College were held at the close of the public oral
examination of the various classes, which in former
years had attracted considerable attention. This
year the audience was as large as could be accom-
modated, and all were enthusiastic over the orations
of the two graduates and the speaking of other
students in Turkish, Armenian, Bulgarian and
French. The diplomas given were unique, long
sheets of parchment, on which the conferring of
the degrees was written, in fancy penmanship, in
four languages English, French, Turkish and
Armenian or Bulgarian. I believe that similar
diplomas were given in 1869.
The sixth college year opened with 80 students,
and 95 in all were registered during the year, of
whom 11 were Armenians, 41 Bulgarians, 17
Greeks.
The all absorbing event of the year, which trans-
26
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEG
formed Dr. Hamlin from an educator into an archi-
tect, builder and mechanic, was the permission to
build at Hissar, which was given informally at
the beginning of October and officially December
20, 1868. In the evening of that day a general
meeting of thanksgiving was held at the College and
Dr. Hamlin writes, "It is a great triumph of right
over wrong, and the Providence of God in bringing
it about is truly wonderful and demands our warm-
est gratitude and daily thanksgiving." All Con-
stantinople had come to have an interest in this pro-
longed contest, and it had long been predicted that
the College would fail in its efforts to overcome the
vis inertia of the Porte. They regarded Dr. Ham-
lin's final triumph with wonder and admiration.
Dr. Hamlin was determined to put up the college
building himself without the aid or interference of
any architect or builder, and I suppose that no one
who reads his autobiography is surprised when he
finds him undertaking this work. He would say:
" It was just like him. He was that sort of a boy and
man." He firmly believed that he could erect a
better building at a less cost than any one else, and
he undertook this Herculean task with a light
heart. After the middle of the year he did not at-
tempt to do any work in the College at Bebec except
in the evening. He commenced excavations on the
site April 7, 1869. All the teachers and students
with many friends were present, and, after speeches
in eleven languages, each one in turn took a spade,
filled a barrow with earth and wheeled it away.
In May, 1869, he received a visit from Mr. W. A.
Booth, president of the Board of Trustees, and in
27
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
consultation with him made some changes in his
plans. By Monday, July 5, he was ready to lay
the corner stone. The day was unfavorable. Mrs.
Hamlin was very ill, and there was a pouring rain
all the morning, but quite an assembly gathered on
the grounds and there were appropriate addresses
in five languages. The ceremony of laying the
stone was performed by Hon. E. Joy Morris, the
American minister. Sir Philip Francis, Judge of
the Supreme Consular Court, and Canon Gribble,
Chaplain of the British Embassy, represented Eng-
land and made sympathetic addresses. It was
nearly two years before the building was ready for
occupation. During those years, while the work of
construction was going on, Dr. Hamlin was always
at Hissar, but one never knew where to find him.
He might be in the water at the bottom of the well
mending the force pump, or at the top of the build-
ing standing on an iron girder with forty feet of
empty space below him. He might be setting up a
steam-engine or doctoring a horse or teaching his
masons how to lay stone. He might be entertaining
some Turkish gentleman or using his rich vocabu-
lary of invective on some wild Kurdish laborer.
He made a sort of hut for himself in a pile of lum-
ber near the building, and you might find him there
taking a five minutes' nap in his chair or sharing
his meagre lunch with a tailless green lizard which
had made friends with him. If you came at the
right time, you might be treated to a delicious cup
of coffee made by himself. You might see him
losing his own fingers as he stumbled on to a buzz-
saw or tenderly dressing the wounds of some un-
28
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEG
fortunate workman. Wherever you found him, you
saw that his whole mind and heart was concentrated
upon the building. He had endless difficulties, but
was never discouraged and never daunted by any
new and unthought-of problem which presented
itself in the building. I think that those were the
happiest days of his life.
I shall have much to say of Dr. Hamlin in my
personal recollections of the College after I came
into it a few weeks before the close of the sixth
year, in June, 1869, but it seems desirable to preface
this by a brief statement of dates and details drawn
from the correspondence of Mr. Robert and Dr.
Hamlin, which do not directly relate to the work in
the College and which may also supplement the
statements in his autobiography.
After a full discussion of the situation with Mr.
Robert he went to America in September, 1871, to
raise an endowment for the College, leaving his
family in Bebec. He returned to Constantinople in
June, 1872, and remained here until October, 1873,
and while here he erected the Study Hall annex to
Hamlin Hall, which was a temporary structure, but
which served its purpose until 1906. In October,
1873, he went to America with his family to con-
tinue the work of raising an endowment and never
returned. In 1877 he resigned the office of presi-
dent of the College.
His letters to Mr. Robert bring out still more
strongly than his autobiography his utter aversion
to the work of raising money, and his ill success
strengthened this feeling; while Mr. Robert, who
was a man of moderate means, never a millionaire,
29
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
I believe, as the expenses of the College increased,
was more and more impressed with the necessity
of an endowment and with the belief that Dr. Ham-
lin was the only man who could raise it.
As early as August 21, 1867, Dr. Hamlin pro-
posed to Mr. Robert that as soon as Robert College
was well under way he should give himself to the
founding of a college for girls at Constantinople.
He writes : " It is not desirable that Robert College
should remain in my hands after age begins to dim
the eye and abate the natural force. I should then
ruin it and I pray God in His infinite wisdom and
mercy to keep me from it. I fear it now, but per-
haps after a few more years I shall begin to think
myself the only man who can carry it forward. In
a female seminary I should not be exposed to any-
thing of that sort. The work itself is necessary to
the completeness of Robert College. The two in-
stitutions should have no connection with each
other, but naturally female education should and
must have a certain correspondency to that of the
other sex. This has long been in my mind, but
the time has not yet come for more than the men-
tioning of it/'
Dr. Hamlin pressed this plan upon Mr. Robert
frequently in special letters and in 1874 almost per-
suaded him to agree to his giving his time to raising
money for this object rather than for Robert Col-
lege. It was due in some measure to his influence
that the Woman's Board of Missions in Boston
took the matter up and founded a school which
finally developed into the American College for
Girls at Scutari, a part of Constantinople situated
30
I Mil s 11 \ML1N
THE OPENING OF THE COLLEGE AT BEBEG
on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. Dr. Hamlin,
however, writes to Mr. Robert in August, 1873, that
"a girls' college in Constantinople should have no
connection with any missionary society, but be
governed by a corporate board like that of Robert
College, with no woman in it, unless insisted on by
the donor or donors and then I would weep in
secret places over the necessity. As a general thing
woman has not, and I pray she may never have,
the business education that would fit her for such
duties."
Mr. Robert finally insisted on Dr. Hamlin's de-
voting himself exclusively to the work of Robert
College, and he reluctantly consented. What Mr.
Robert thought of Dr. Hamlin at that time may be
gathered from a letter written to me in November,
1874. "If I do not greatly mistake, those who
come after us, fifty or one hundred years hence, will
see more clearly than we ever shall that those who
laid the foundations of the College were guided by
the wisdom that cometh down from above. Al-
though Dr. Hamlin is now highly appreciated by
those who know him best it is only an index of far
greater honor that will be showered on his name
in after generations."
The following years up to 1877 were very trying
ones to both Dr. Hamlin and Mr. Robert. Dr.
Hamlin had labored in vain to raise an endowment,
and now he felt that the great crisis of revolution
and war in Turkey had made his task hopeless.
No one who has had experience in such work can
fail to sympathize with his feeling that he could
endure it no longer, and, this given up, he felt that
31
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
he had no place and no work in America. Mr.
Robert was broken down in health. The troubles
in Constantinople threatened the very existence of
the College, and the burden of expense, with yearly
increasing deficits, was greater than he was able to
meet. No one who has ever found himself weighted
with a burden too heavy for him to carry, but which
could not be thrown off, can fail to sympathize with
him. Rightly or wrongly, he felt that, in the interest
of the College, it was not wise for Dr. Hamlin to
return to Constantinople at that time. The ques-
tion was discussed between them several times, and
in June, 1877, Dr. Hamlin resigned the place of
president and accepted an appointment for one
year in Bangor Theological Seminary. He and Mr.
Robert kept up a constant correspondence during
the year, and October 23, 1877, Mr. Robert wrote
to Dr. Long, then acting as director of the College,
"I suppose that the faculty at Bangor will wish to
make his appointment permanent, but I have not
much fear that he will stay if the College needs his
services next year, as I hope that it will."
The office of president was not filled until June,
1878, just as Mr. Robert was leaving for Europe,
broken down in health, to die a few months later
in Paris. Dr. Hamlin remained in Bangor to the
sincere regret of his old associates in the College at
Constantinople.
CHAPTER III
LAST TWO YEARS AT BEBEC. 1869-1871
I CAME to Constantinople in 1858 as treasurer of
the Missions of the American Board, and up to
1869 my connection with the College was only in-
cidental. When Dr. Hamlin went to America in
1860 he left me in charge of a well to be dug on the
Kourou Tcheshme lot. After going down about
one hundred feet through solid rock without finding
water I gave it up, and there it remains to this day.
When Dr. Hamlin was left alone by the resigna-
tion of the two professors, 1865, I taught several
classes until the end of the college year. When he
was trying to secure permission to build at Hissar
I was living in Pera, and for about two years I had
charge of all the negotiations with the American
Legation and with the British Embassy. We de-
pended chiefly at that time upon Lord Lyons, who
had just come from Washington, who was an en-
thusiastic friend of America and who saw clearly
that Robert College would strengthen English in-
fluence in Turkey. Dr. Hamlin was so disgusted
with what he felt to be a want of sympathy on the
part of the American minister that he had broken
off personal relations with him, and the situation
was farther complicated by the fact that the min-
ister and his first secretary and dragoman were not
on speaking terms. Yet all the official communica-
33
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
tion with the Porte had to be carried on through
the American Legation. Happily I was on good
terms with all the parties concerned. Dr. Hamlin
told me what he wanted and I went first to the
minister and got his promise to act; then I went
to the dragoman and persuaded him to act on the
same line, in both cases listening to the complaints
which the one had to make against the other. It
was the most curious experience that I ever had in
diplomacy. In 1868 Dr. Hamlin resumed direct
intercourse with the American minister.
I have already mentioned the aid given by Mr.
George D. Morgan of New York. In January,
1868, Mr. Morgan and his family met at their
Hotel in Constantinople Mr. C. C. Coffin of Boston,
the well-known war correspondent, who was a
friend of mine. Mr. Morgan was ill, but Mr.
Coffin brought the family to a prayer meeting at
my house in Pera, and the next morning I went to
see what I could do for Mr. Morgan. In the course
of our conversation I told him the story of Dr.
Hamlin's conflict with the Turkish government.
He was so much interested that he gave up a day
to go to Hissar with me and see the site. I took him
to Bebec to call on Dr. Hamlin, and there he care-
fully examined all the documents connected with
the case. He told me that evening that he should
not return to America before May or June, but that
lie would make it his first business after his arrival
to go to Washington and settle this matter with
Mr. Seward. He kept his promise, and this was the
beginning of the end of the struggle for permission
to build the College.
84
LAST TWO YEARS AT BEBEC
I left Constantinople in the spring of 1868 with
no expectation of ever returning to work here. I
had other plans in view. In the winter of 1868-69
I was at my father's house on a visit, when one
morning I received a telegram from Chicago ask-
ing me to take charge of a church there, a letter
from two gentlemen in New York offering to fur-
nish all the money needed for the carrying out of
the plans which I had in view when I left Constanti-
nople, and a letter from Mr. Robert, who wrote that
it was absolutely necessary for me to go to Constan-
tinople to look after the work of the College while
Dr. Hamlin was engaged in erecting a building at
Hissar. I declined the invitation to Chicago and
went to New York to see Mr. Robert and to consult
my friends there. I got their consent to postpone
my work in New York for two years, and agreed
with Mr. Robert to go and assist Dr. Hamlin for
that length of time if he wished me to come, know-
ing as he did that I had no special preparation for
such work. He had expressed some doubt about
my health and my willingness to come, but ap-
proved of Mr. Robert's proposal fully when he
found that another man whom he had invited had
declined to go. I had no thought of making this
my life-work, but I believed in the College. I loved
and admired Dr. Hamlin and I was willing to sacri-
fice two years to help him out. I suppose that the
one thing which led Mr. Robert to insist upon my
going was the fact that my wife was Dr. Hamlin's
eldest daughter.
Dr. Hamlin telegraphed me to come at once, and
we arrived in Constantinople in season to be present
35
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
at the laying of the corner stone of the new building
at Hissar, July 5, 1869, and went to live in one of
the college buildings at Bebec just opposite the
main building. The College was still in session.
Dr. Hamlin writes, "We welcome the Washburns
with great rejoicing, for all these difficulties so
absorb my time that the college year would wind
up badly without him." My official position was
that of Professor of Philosophy.
Robert College in 1869 was a unique institution.
It occupied an old wooden house, built in 1798, on
the side of a steep hill in the midst of the village of
Bebec. It was entered from a court, with three
stories below this level and three above. At the op-
posite end of the court was the kitchen. Dr. Ham-
lin's family lived in the story on the level, and the
students occupied the rest of the building. They
also occupied part of a house on the opposite side of
the street which Dr. Hamlin had built some years
before for a flour mill and bakery. I lived in the
upper story of this house. The main building was
very picturesque, but there were very few conven-
iences in either house, and what there were were
chiefly the handiwork of the president. Not a penny
which could be saved was ever wasted on the place,
and the College was practically self-supporting. It
was generally known as Dr. Hamlin's College.
There was one professor when I came who had
already resigned and who left in July. There were
two American tutors, Grosvenor and Wilcox, and
four assistant teachers for French and the native
languages. Dr. Hamlin was the College. If the tu-
tors were wise and tactful enough to understand and
80
LAST TWO YEARS AT BEBEC
cany out his ideas, they were a help. Sometimes
they were a hindrance. There were no regular col-
lege classes. Every student was treated as though
he were the only one and given such studies as were
adapted to his capacity. Every year those who were
advanced were selected and formed into a class to
graduate at the end of the year. With the small
number of students then in the College this system
worked very well. We have had no graduates who
have distinguished themselves in later life more than
those who were under Dr. Hamlin's personal influ-
ence. He had a marvelous power of impressing his
own personality on his students. He was a great
teacher and he lived with the students, ate at the
same table, and managed, in spite of the variety of
his occupations, to see much of them. He believed
in righteous anger and sometimes came down upon
a student like a cyclone, but behind this there was a
tenderness of heart and a sense of humor which I
think invariably won the affection of the students.
I have found among my papers an old document
in Dr. Hamlin's handwriting which illustrates his
methods of discipline, which were often as unique as
this, and almost always successful. It relates to two
brothers, Italians, who were always quarreling.
ARTICLES OF PEACE BETWEEN
SILVIO AND PIERRE BISCUCHIA TERMINATING
THE WAR OF 1867 & 1868
MARCH 7, 1868
The two high contracting parties agree :
1. That in order to preserve peace, amity and
good will and to confirm a strict brotherhood to all
37
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
future generations one shall not call the other an ass
or a dog or a pig or a thief, robber, rowdy, pezevenk
or other opprobrious epithet in Italian, French,
Turkish, Greek, English, Bulgarian, Armenian or
any other language spoken at the tower of Babel or
since that day.
2. Silvio shall in no case strike Pierre nor Pierre
Silvio.
3. If either is guilty of any injustice toward the
other the injured party shall state it to the Principal
in writing and judgment shall be rendered accord-
ing to the evidence.
Witnesses : (Signed)
GUSTAVE CAZE. SILVIO BISCUCHIA.
HENRI COIDAN. PIERRE BISCUCHIA.
YANKO AGELASTO.
These boys left the College soon after, and some
years later one killed the other in a quarrel.
He was as supreme in the kitchen as in the school-
room and generally superintended the making of
the morning coffee himself. Although he knew
nothing of book-keeping he managed the financial
affairs of the College with success, as he had man-
aged his bakery and laundry in the time of the war.
About three-fourths of the students boarded in
the college, 35 in all. They studied in the study
hall, slept in dormitories, 12 or 15 together, bringing
their own bedding, ate in the dining-room, played in
the small court, made their ablutions in a small
lavatory or in the open court, got exercise by walk-
ing and occasional games on the hills above Bebec.
They had prayers conducted by Dr. Hamlin at
88
LAST TWO YEARS AT BEBEG
6.80 in the morning and any student who failed
to be present lost his breakfast. Lunch was at
12.30 and dinner at 6. The study hours were 4
in the morning, 2.30 in the afternoon and 1.30 in
the evening. Every student was in bed and all
lights extinguished at 10. I think that Dr. Hamlin
himself seldom slept more than four hours in the
night, with some five-minute naps during the day.
Each dormitory had a tutor's room next it, and the
tutors were expected to keep a surveillance over the
students at all times, but especially in the study hall
and the dormitories. No student could leave the
building without special permission.
Most of the boarders at this time were Bulga-
rians, and for twenty years the great majority of the
graduates were of this nationality. During the pre-
vious decade the Bulgarians had awakened from
the sleep of centuries. They had thrown off the
yoke of the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople and
began to dream of escaping from that of the Turk.
It was a nation of peasants, held in ignorance by a
double bondage. When they began to seek for en-
lightenment their attention was first directed to
Robert College by Dr. Long, then an American
missionary in Bulgaria and later a professor in the
College. Although Dr. Hamlin had interested him-
self in the Bulgarians in 1856 and used his influence
to have missions established in Bulgaria, it does
not appear from their correspondence that either he
or Mr. Robert had ever thought of them as possible
students in the College, and Mr. Robert died with-
out knowing that he had played an important part
in founding a new state in Europe.
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
When I reached Constantinople Dr. Hamlin had
been absorbed for some time in the work of building
at Hissar, and, having no head, the College had
fallen into confusion; but it was soon reduced to
order, the examinations were satisfactory and Dr.
Hamlin looked upon the Commencement exercises
as a great success. Five Bulgarians and one Ger-
man were graduated and eighty persons attended
the exercises. Dr. Hamlin writes to Mr. Robert
August 6, 1869 : " Our Commencement was the best
we have ever had and left a very excellent impres-
sion. The orations of the graduating class were
sober, manly, dignified, earnest and full of Chris-
tian thought. I would have wished you no greater
luxury than listening to them. Mr. Washburn will
put things in shape and keep them there. You will
enjoy having a business man to correspond with
instead of a busy man. I think he will do grandly."
The seventh college year opened September 15,
1869. Dr. Hamlin continued in charge of the
boarding department. Otherwise he was absorbed
from the very early morning until evening at Hissar,
but always ready to give me advice. Two new tu-
tors arrived from America, Wetmore of Michigan
University and Anderson of Hamilton College, and
together with Mr. Grosvenor they entered into the
work with enthusiasm and whole-hearted devotion.
There were six assistant teachers.
October 6 there were present 53 boarders and 18
day scholars from the vicinity of the College, making
71 in all, of whom 35 were Bulgarians, 10 Greeks,
8 Armenians, 6 Americans, 4 English, 2 Dutch, 2
Syrians, 2 Christian Osmanlis, 1 Persian prince, 1
40
LAST TWO YEARS AT BEBEC
German. Dr. Hamlin could pick out only one stu-
dent who could be called a Senior, an Armenian, but
I managed during the year to organize a Junior class
of five Bulgarians.
Up to this time the Sabbath services at the College
had been in charge of Rev. Dr. Schauffler, who had
been for many years the pastor of a church made up
of missionaries and foreign residents, which held
regular services in the building which Dr. Hamlin
had rented for the College. The students attended
this service. Dr. Schauffler resigned this work at
the end of 1879 on account of feeble health. The
College then became responsible for the services.
The preaching was done by Dr. Hamlin and myself
with what help we could get from the missionaries.
The Bible classes had always been a part of the col-
lege work, and Dr. Hamlin was nowhere more suc-
cessful than in this department.
In March the number of students had increased
to eighty-three, but an epidemic of measles, brought
into the College by a day scholar, created a panic,
and thirty boys, mostly day scholars, left, some of
them not to return. None of the cases proved fatal,
but it was a serious interruption to our work. Mr.
Robert was seriously ill in New York at this time
and came to Europe to regain his health. This also
was a source of great anxiety to us. We were
greatly refreshed by a visit from Professor Park of
Andover and Professors Smith and Hitchcock of
New York. Their enthusiastic interest in the Col-
lege and in the building at Hissar gave us all new
courage. I do not think that a gift of five thousand
dollars would have done us as much good. They
41
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
were great and good men and their hearty indorse-
ment of our work, which many of the missionaries
looked upon unfavorably, confirmed our faith in it.
Professor Park had been lamed by the kick of a
horse, but he insisted on going to the new building,
and Dr. Hamlin had him hauled up the hill in a
Turkish cart drawn by two buffaloes. Those who
remember Professor Park can imagine how he
looked and the play of humor between him and
Professor Hitchcock.
On Sunday, June 5, 1870, Constantinople was
visited by a conflagration which destroyed a large
part of the quarter of Pera, consuming over eight
thousand houses, destroying at least one thousand
lives and leaving some fifty thousand people home-
less. Among the buildings destroyed was the palace
of the English Embassy and many of the best
houses in the city. No one ever attempted to esti-
mate carefully the pecuniary loss. The homes of
three of our students were burned and the parents
of several others lost most of their property. Dr.
Hamlin anticipated such a rise in the cost of ma-
terial and in labor as would greatly increase the
cost of his building, but the calamity was so great
that the opposite result followed.
The year closed with only one graduate, an Ar-
menian, but we put the Juniors all on the stage with
orations and had a very successful Commencement.
Dr. Hamlin left his work at Hissar to attend the
examinations and wrote to Mr. Robert: "The
examinations were good and gratifying. The prog-
ress of the year has been decided and hopeful for
the future." The financial results of the year were
42
LAST TWO YEARS AT BEBEG
equally satisfactory, as the income was sufficient to
pay the expenses. But I called Mr. Robert's atten-
tion to the fact that this could only be hoped for so
long as we had no permanent faculty and depended
on cheap and transient tutors. Dr. Hamlin had en-
couraged Mr. Robert to believe that it was not only
possible to make the College self-supporting, but
that the profits would accumulate rapidly and fur-
nish the means to erect additional buildings. He
wrote to Mr. Robert that in the new building with
250 students, no more teachers would be needed
than with 80 students, the number then in the Col-
lege. It will be seen that this optimistic view has
not been justified in our experience. A college
without professors would be an anomaly anywhere,
and to-day with 400 students we find 12 professors
and 28 other teachers none too many for our work.
The eighth college year opened in the old build-
ing at Bebec in September, 1870, with 103 students,
which increased during the year to 100 boarders and
35 day scholars, when we moved into the new build-
ing at Hissar. We had managed at the close of the
previous year to organize another class so that we
began with a regular programme of studies and
Sophomore, Junior and Senior classes, the balance
of students being more or less irregular.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert came to Constantinople in
the middle of October and spent a month here.
They went from here to Syria and visited the col-
lege which had been opened under the direction of
Dr. Daniel Bliss at Beirut. The Beirut College in-
terested Mr. Robert because it had been founded on
somewhat different principles from that at Constan-
43
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
tinople. It was closely connected with the Mission
and was distinctively Protestant, taking the name
Syrian Protestant College. It was largely under the
control of a local board of managers. It had a medi-
cal department in view, which later became the
most important branch of its work. The language
of the college was Arabic, this being the common
language of all nationalities in Syria, but after some
years of experience this was changed to English. I
regret that I have not in my possession and have
never seen any of the letters written by Mr. Robert
at the time of his visit to Constantinople and must
depend upon my memory for everything connected
with it. Mr. and Mrs. Robert spent most of the
time that they were with us in the old mill house at
Bebec, but Dr. Hamlin naturally saw much more of
Mr. Robert than I did. He spent almost every day
with Dr. Hamlin at Hissar and interested himself
in all the details of the building, although he did
not approve of the way in which Dr. Hamlin often
exposed his life in various kinds of manual labor.
It was not long after Mr. Robert left that he fell
against a buzz saw and lost two of his fingers.
However, Mr. Robert told me that he had never en-
joyed anything more than these days spent at His-
sar with Dr. Hamlin. He took time also to see
everything at the College in Bebec to make the
acquaintance of the teachers and students and in-
vestigate every detail of every department. He did
not hesitate to criticise and advise in regard to the
work at Bebec or at Hissar, and so far as Bebec
was concerned his criticisms were generally wise
and timely, although it was sometimes impossible
44
LAST TWO YEARS AT BEBEG
in our straitened circumstances to correct the
deficiencies which he discovered. He also saw the
missionaries and interested himself in them and
their work, and drew out such criticisms of the Col-
lege as they had to make.
The Grand Vizier, Aali Pasha, lived at Bebec
and naturally knew of Mr. Robert's presence here.
He informed the Sultan, who proposed to confer on
Mr. Robert the decoration of the Medjidie, in dia-
monds. The Grand Vizier invited Mr. Robert to
call on him and informed him of the will of the
Sultan in most complimentary language. Mr. Rob-
ert expressed his high appreciation of the honor
but declined to accept the decoration, as something
altogether foreign to American ideas. The Grand
Vizier took it very kindly, but there was a difference
of opinion among friends of the College here as to
the wisdom of his act. This official recognition of
the College by the Sultan would have had its value
in later years, and it is not exactly a gracious thing
to refuse an honor of this sort, or a possible thing to
make Turkish officials understand the motives of
such a refusal. Still there is no evidence that any
positive harm came of it in this case, and it would
be difficult to imagine anything more incongruous
than Mr. Robert wearing a Turkish decoration on
his breast in a New York drawing-room.
There can be no doubt that this visit of Mr. and
Mrs. Robert to Constantinople confirmed him in
his determination to support the College to the ut-
most extent of his ability.
Not long after his departure we had a visit from
General Sheridan, who was fresh from the great
45
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
battlefields of France and enough of an American
to interest himself in the peaceful work of an Ameri-
can college on the Bosphorus. He told me that,
although he had seen the most bloody battles of the
war, near Metz, he had seen no such desperate
fighting as took place on several occasions during
our Civil War in America.
After Mr. Robert left us we plunged into a sea of
troubles, such as are incident to such an institution,
but which were new to me. First came a most trying
case of discipline involving two of the most promi-
nent students, one English and one Persian, in a
gross offense against morality. There was nothing
to be done but to expel them both, although one
belonged to a Christian family who were among
our best friends. Later developments proved that
this young man was a hopeless degenerate; but I
felt then, as I have felt quite as strongly ever since,
that to expel a student is a humiliating confession of
failure on the part of the teacher and in some cases
at least an evidence that the teacher has failed to do
his duty.
Early in January we had an outbreak of typhoid
fever in the College, due, as I believed, to the over-
crowding of the old building at Bebec, although Dr.
Hamlin was unwilling to admit this. Many were ill
and there were four serious cases. The worst case
was that of a young German boy from Trieste. We
took him into our house, and Mrs. Washburn and I
took care of him for many weeks. He sank so low
that for two days he was unconscious and lay like
dead, but he rallied again and finally recovered his
health, to our great joy, as did all the rest of our
46
LAST TWO YEARS AT BEBEC
patients. But for a time the College was a hospital,
with no doctor within five miles of us and no trained
nurses. It was a great strain on all the teachers.
It was partly on this account that Dr. Hamlin in-
sisted upon moving into the new building at Hissar
before it was finished. I think that no one else ap-
proved of it, but the result justified Dr. Hamlin's
decision. There is a common proverb current here,
"If you build a stone house, rent it to your enemy
the first year, to your friend the second and live in it
yourself the third." Every one prophesied evil of
the dampness of the walls, and many would not
send their sons on this account, but in fact the
health of the College was perfect after our removal.
The only inconvenience was the intolerable noise
made by the forty or fifty workmen in the building.
Dr. Hamlin's family moved into the building at the
same time with the students. It was May 17, 1871,
that the new building was occupied; and the change
made in perfect weather from the narrow quarters
in the midst of the village of Bebec to the hill-top at
Hissar, the most beautiful site on the Bosphorus
and one unsurpassed by any in the world, more
than compensated for all the inconvenience of our
unfinished building and the bare, unimproved
grounds, cumbered with workshops and piles of
rock and unprotected with walls. The number of
students rose to 130 before the end of the year. The
public opening was postponed to July 4, just two
years from the laying of the corner stone. It so hap-
pened that Ex-Secretary Seward, on his way around
the world, was in Constantinople at this time, and
he came to the College to take the principal part in
47
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
the opening exercises. Blacque Bey, who was the
Turkish minister at Washington at the critical time
when Mr. Morgan brought the college question
before Mr. Seward with such success, was also
there. Mr. Seward was a physical wreck, but he
made a noble address, and his presence on this oc-
casion impressed the Turkish government and all
Constantinople with the idea that the College was
under the special patronage as well as protection of
the government of the United States. I suppose it
was one of the happiest days in Dr. Hamlin's life
a day of triumph in what he believed to be a great
and good cause and for which he had battled for ten
years.
The Commencement exercises a month later were
held in the study hall which occupied the northeast
corner of the first story of the new building which I
shall henceforth speak of as Hamlin Hall. Up to
that time there had been 9 graduates, 2 in 1868, 6 in
1869, 1 in 1870, 6 Bulgarians, 2 Armenians and 1
German. Mr. Petco Gorbanoff remained several
years in the College as instructor in Bulgarian and
since that time has been a prominent citizen of Bul-
garia, a lawyer by profession, and often a member
of the National Assembly. Mr. Hagopos Djedjizian
has been a Protestant preacher and an instructor or
professor of Armenian in the College since 1869. Of
the next class Mr. Jordan Economoff and Mr.
Stephan Thomoff studied theology in Drew Theo-
logical Seminary in America and have since been
Protestant clergymen in Bulgaria. Mr. Theodore
Djabaroff has been a prominent official in Bulgaria.
Mr. Peter Mattheoff has occupied high ministerial
48
LAST TWO YEARS AT BEBEG
and diplomatic positions in the Bulgarian govern-
ment after having been in the British postal service,
and after having been engaged for the British Mu-
seum in explorations in Babylonia with George
Smith. Mr. Diran Garabetian of 1870 has been
an official of the Imperial Ottoman Bank ever since
his graduation, and Mr. Naiden Nicoloff also a
banker.
The class of 1871 were all Bulgarians, and no
more distinguished class has ever been graduated
from the College. Stephan Panaretoff has been in-
structor or professor of Bulgarian and Slavic in the
College ever since his graduation, and Bulgaria
has produced no more distinguished scholar and
teacher. Mr. Stoiloff and Mr. Slaveikoff were both
teachers in the College for a time. Constantine
Stoiloff was the ablest statesman in Bulgaria until
he died in 1901. Ivan Slaveikoff was one of the
leading literary men in Bulgaria and held many
high offices during his life until he died in 1901, as
Minister of Public Instruction. Ivan S. Gueshoff is
still a leading politician and just now diplomatic
agent of Bulgaria in Constantinople, as he has been
in Paris and Vienna. Petco Taptcheleshloff has
been and is a merchant.
I was not present on July 4 nor at the Com-
mencement. I had left for America June 20. The
two years which I had agreed to give to Robert
College while Dr. Hamlin was engaged in building
had been completed and the building was occupied.
Family affairs and other considerations made it
necessary for me to go to America. But Mr. Robert
and the trustees in New York and Dr. Hamlin in
49
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Constantinople urged me to accept a permanent
position in the College, especially in view of the fact
that it had been arranged for Dr. Hamlin to go to
America in the autumn to raise an endowment for
the College. Dr. Hamlin knew from two years* ex-
perience that I could never manage a college on his
plan and declared often that he could never manage
one on mine; but he thought that I had learned
enough from him and had caught enough of his
spirit, to make me the only possible candidate to
fill his place while he was in America. I accepted
the appointment after much hesitation, because I
had become deeply interested in the College and
because I believed, after two years of trial, that, in
spite of our differences, we could work together in
harmony peacefully agreeing to differ as we
always had. I did not forget that I had come to the
College without any experience in teaching or in the
administration of a school of any kind and that most
of what I knew at the end of two years I had learned
from Dr. Hamlin. Our differences grew out of our
characters. He was an original genius, I was not.
He abhorred all the trammels and details of system-
atic organization, which he declared belonged to
Jesuits. To me such system seemed to be essential.
We got on together because he tolerated my system
and I was glad to have him work outside of it in any
way he pleased.
50
CHAPTER IV
NINTH COLLEGE YEAH. 1871-1872
DR. HAMLIN left for America September 30, 1871,
leaving his family in the house which I had occupied
at Bebec, while I moved into Hamlin Hall, occupy-
ing the suite of rooms in the second story on the
south side of the building, where we lived for twenty
years.
A great change had taken place in the political
situation at Constantinople due to the Franco-
Prussian War. It was illustrated by a request made
to me by an Armenian merchant at this time.
"Please excuse my son from studying any more
French, that is played out. Let him study the
Prussian language instead." Since the Crimean
War French influence, and under its protection
Jesuit influence, had been supreme at Constanti-
nople. Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz had visited Napoleon
III at Paris, and the Empress, after opening the
Suez Canal, had been entertained by the Sultan at
Constantinople. The great Lyc6e of Galata Serai
had been opened, with a staff furnished by the
Emperor but supported by the Sultan, to compete
with Robert College; and Dr. Hamlin had found all
this influence arrayed against him when he was seek-
ing permission to build at Hissar. All this was
changed by the war and the fall of the empire.
It was some years before Germany gained much
51
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
influence here, but Russia came to the front and
England regained much of her old prestige in the
eyes of Turkish statesmen if not with Sultan Abd-
ul-Aziz himself. The men who deposed him a few
years later were in league with England. Russia
took the place of France as the chief enemy of the
College and used her influence to turn Bulgarian
students from Robert College to Russia for their
education. Unfortunately for Bulgaria she opened
the way for a boy in Tirnova, where Dr. Long was
a missionary, and a friend of this boy, whose name
was Stambouloff, to go to Russia for a free educa-
tion in a theological school. If he had come to
Robert College he would have had other ideas of
government than those which he learned in Russia.
He was probably the strongest man that Bulgaria
has produced and saved Bulgaria from Russian
domination ; but so far as the internal government
of the country was concerned he too often fell back
upon Russian methods. When a student he was
expelled from Russia as a nihilist but secretly em-
ployed by the Russian Embassy as a sort of brigand
revolutionist against the Turks, before the massa-
cres, and came to the front as a great leader after
the fall of Prince Alexander.
The College opened September 15 with four
college classes and a preparatory class, with but
few students ; but by the first of October there were
135 boarders and 30 day scholars. Mr. Grosvenor
had left for America and in his place two new tutors,
Mr. Forbes from Amherst College and Mr. Richard-
son from Hobart, had come, making with Mr.
Anderson and Mr. Wetmore a most efficient staff of
52
NINTH COLLEGE YEAR
American teachers. We have never had better men
and they have all distinguished themselves since.
I can never forget what I owe and what the College
owes to their devoted service.
The cause of so few students entering the College
was the outbreak of an epidemic of cholera in the
city. The horrors of the great epidemic of 1865
were fresh in the minds of all, and students were
afraid to come. It was a wonder that we had so
many. The first cases occurred before Dr. Hamlin
left for America, and he hesitated about starting. It
was while he was still detained in the quarantine at
Trieste that I was roused from my bed by a mes-
senger from Bebec, saying that Willie Hamlin had
the cholera. It was a terribly stormy night, and it
took me three quarters of an hour to reach them.
I found the case far advanced, and no doctor could
be found. Six years before in that very room my
own son Harry had died of cholera in my arms. I
fought the disease in this case until six o'clock in
the morning, made all the arrangements for his im-
mediate burial and disinfecting the house and came
back to Hissar more dead than alive to go to bed
and fight off an attack of cholera myself. Had I re-
mained until the authorities knew of the case I
should have been kept there some days in quaran-
tine. It was a terrible shock to Mrs. Hamlin, but
happily no other case occurred in the family.
Within a few days I was called to three other cases
in the families at Hissar. All died. There was
something peculiar about this epidemic, unlike that
of 1865. Nearly every case proved fatal, with treat-
ment which in 1865 was generally successful. I had
53
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
a second slight attack myself after one of these
visits, and we had some three hundred cases of stu-
dents with threatening premonitory symptoms, but
every student was carefully watched, and we had
no fully developed case of cholera in the College.
Many thought that we ought to suspend and send
the students home ; but they and their parents had
such faith in us that, so far as I can remember, only
a single student was withdrawn. At one time Mr.
Wetmore had an attack when spending a night at
Bebec, but I got to him at once and he recovered.
Those were weeks when everything looked dark
about us, but we put our trust in God and kept right
on with the required routine of college work, and
He did not fail us. The epidemic lasted about four
months. There were about four thousand deaths
in the city besides soldiers and sailors. The frantic
attempts of the Turkish authorities to deal with
the epidemic on modern principles frightened the
people more than the disease itself. It was then
that they first heard of microbes, and Turkish doc-
tors stuffed chloride of lime into the mouths, noses
and ears of their patients to keep the microbes from
crawling out and attacking others.
Perhaps the most important event of the year was
the purchase of the land between the College and
the village of Hissar. It belonged to Achmet Vefik
Pasha of whom Dr. Hamlin had bought the college
lot of about six acres. This one contained about
twelve acres, and included the well which was our
only water supply, besides the cistern of Hamlin
Hall. Dr. Hamlin had written at length to Mr.
Robert urging him to authorize the purchase by
54
NINTH COLLEGE YEAR
telegraph. After Dr. Hamlin's departure a long
letter came from Mr. Robert forbidding the pur-
chase, but here appeared one of Mr. Robert's most
admirable characteristics. Although the most posi-
tive of men in his judgments, he hesitated about im-
posing his authority upon us, even where it was a
question of money which must come out of his
pocket. He had held the letter over a day and then
added a postscript which left the final decision to
me. 1 I bought the land at once for thirteen thou-
sand two hundred dollars. On this land to-day
stand Theodorus Hall and six professors' houses.
Achmet Vefik Pasha was in no special need of
money at that time, but he was a warm friend of the
College, and the price which he asked was very
reasonable. He was the most interesting Turk
whom I have ever known a great linguist, famil-
iar with sixteen languages and with the classic
authors of all Europe, had held the highest offices
in the government, was a great reformer and an
1 In regard to this postscript Mr. Robert wrote to me October 80,
1871: "I think I see clearly the hand of God in suggesting those
lines. I had conferred with Mr. Booth on the subject . . . and we
both decided it was not best to make the purchase. I went to Throgs
Neck that evening feeling that we had done right, but thinking and
praying over it, it occurred to me that I had never given Dr. Hamlin
positive instruction as to anything, though I had several times
differed from him, saying to myself why should I do so in this case.
I name it because I have had the most pleasant emotions since read-
ing your letter advising the purchase and cannot forbear expressing
my feelings, for I have often during the past six weeks asked our
Heavenly Father to guide all interested in the matter to such action
as would be most for His glory, and my conviction is strong that in
this thing we have all been directed by wisdom from above."
55
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
honest man, a very rare thing for a Turkish offi-
cial; but his ideas of government were altogether
oriental and I think that Haroon-al-Rashid was his
ideal for a sovereign. He lived very near the Col-
lege, and I spent many evenings with him. One I
shall never forget. I found there a German savant,
and they were discussing the inspiration of the
Bible. I declined to take part and listened. The
nominal Christian was denying it, and the Moham-
medan defended it quite as though he had been a
professor in a Protestant theological seminary. I
was amazed, and the next day I went to ask him
where he had studied theology. He laughed one of
his hearty laughs and said, "Oh! when I was
ambassador in Paris I lived next door to Renan, and
we discussed religious questions almost every day."
He died some years ago, a poor man; his family has
disappeared, and the very house in which he lived
has been pulled down and sold for firewood. His
magnificent library, the best in Constantinople, was
scattered, partly stolen and partly sold to pay
debts.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that in February,
1872, Nature favored us with an exhibition of the
Aurora Borealis which surpassed everything that I
have ever seen. For hours the heavens were as red
as blood, great waves of light pouring down from a
corona at the zenith and coming up from the hori-
zon. It was the more remarkable as we seldom see
anything of these displays here, and it made a great
impression upon our students, as well as upon the
superstitious people of the city.
We had some very interesting visitors during the
56
NINTH COLLEGE YEAR
year. First Professor North of Hamilton College,
"the old Greek" as he was called by his students,
and one who was greatly trusted by Mr. Robert.
Many of our best tutors we owed to his recommen-
dation. Three of them were here at the time of his
visit. He was very enthusiastic about the College,
and I have no doubt that his report of it was a great
encouragement to Mr. Robert at a time when he
specially needed it when he was reluctantly giv-
ing up his school on Lookout Mountain that he
might concentrate his efforts upon Robert College.
Later came General Sherman and Lieutenant,
now General, Grant Prince Grant as he was
called by the Turkish newspapers, his father being
at that time President of the United States. Gen-
eral Sherman was the guest of the Sultan, and he
brought with him to the College the staff of pashas
who were in attendance on him. He made an ad-
mirable address to the students and made it appar-
ent to the Sultan and to all the city that Robert Col-
lege was an institution honored by the government
of the United States. Such support by such a man
was invaluable to us. Later came Mr. Remington,
of whom I shall write in connection with the Com-
mencement exercises.
One of the questions brought up by Mr. Robert
during this year was that of corporal punishment,
which he objected to. Dr. Hamlin had flogged
students publicly for gross offenses and considered
this a proper punishment, and I had been so far in-
fluenced by Dr. Hamlin's example that in the earlier
years of my administration I did sometimes resort
to forcible measures in extreme cases even with
57
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
older students, and some amusing stories are current
among the alumni of my punishments. For a man
as big and strong as I was it was not unnatural to
meet resistance sometimes with force. I did once
throw a Turk down stairs, who had intruded into
a dormitory after having been ordered out of the
building, and some students did feel the weight of
my heavy oak cane when they were riotous. Look-
ing back upon it now, I am inclined to feel that in
those earlier years something of this kind was nec-
essary ; but as the College came to be a recognized
power in the world its moral influence increased so
much, that physical force was no longer needed to
maintain discipline. In later years I never resorted
to it with college students. But I have always be-
lieved that whipping was a punishment well fitted
for the younger boys in the Preparatory Depart-
ment in a certain class of offenses. Only I insisted
that it should be administered by the president in
private, not publicly nor by any other teacher, and
solemnly. There were ten cases during this college
year where such punishment was administered. In
the later years I found that a public reprimand at
morning prayers was one of the most effective of
punishments, only it was necessary to resort to this
as a rare punishment, and for serious offenses. If
it had been common it would have been useless.
The most difficult cases to manage were those in
which I had to settle quarrels between students,
especially when they were of different nationalities,
to be an absolutely just judge between them, and
to so far satisfy both parties that there would be no
further trouble.
58
GEORtiE WASH BURN
NINTH COLLEGE YEAR
In May, 1872, I was appointed by the trustees
Director of the College, which did not disturb the
position of Dr. Hamlin as president, and was
equivalent to the position of vice-president, giving
me full authority during his absence. The title of
director was chosen as one that would be better
understood in Constantinople.
Dr. Hamlin reached Constantinople June 17 on
his return from America. His special purpose in re-
turning was to erect a study hall building and two
professors' houses. He was greatly impressed by
the enthusiastic reception which was given to him
by the College. He writes to Mr. Robert, "It was a
most unexpected and enthusiastic affair." A week
later he writes in regard to his eight months in
America: "I have been able, some way or other,
to secure a good hearing, but in the very crisis of the
work, the getting of the money, I have failed. I
have learned some things I never dreamed of as
possible, and now it remains to be seen what success
God will give to another year's deliberate and con-
secutive effort. If I can raise an endowment of
thirty thousand dollars a year I am willing to give
four years to it."
Dr. Hamlin's failure to get money is a mystery to
me. 1 Since that day I have had long and repeated
1 In a letter to me Mr. Robert gives the following reasons for Dr.
Hamlin's failure. 1st. The low state of religion in the churches.
2d. Humanitarian efforts. These were stimulated by the war and
since then the sympathies of benevolent men have run in this di-
rection. 3d. Denominational zeal. Ministers try to turn all gifts
into denominational enterprises. 4th. For two years several of the
largest denominations have been getting up ''memorial funds."
59
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
experiences in raising money for the College and
ought to understand the business, but I cannot un-
derstand why Dr. Hamlin failed. I have never done
such grand work or created any such enthusiasm as
he did. He worked day and night. He had a great
number of very successful public meetings, attended
by the elite of America, and he diligently followed
them up by personal interviews. No missionary
has ever been more honored. No college president
ever worked harder. But he got very little money.
The great Chicago fire which took place while he
was on the way to America may have had some in-
fluence, and in New York City the fact that Mr.
Robert's name had been given to the College fur-
nished some with an excuse for not giving. No man
in New York was more highly or more universally
respected than Mr. Robert, but he was not a popu-
lar man. There was no more liberal or conscien-
tious giver in New York, but he carried out the in-
junction not to let his left hand know what his right
hand gave, and few knew how generous he was. It
5th. The Chicago fire. 6th. "Charity begins at home," the com-
mon excuse for not giving to anything foreign. My impression is that
he might have added another more important one.
Both he and Dr. Hamlin thought that their strongest argument
was to say that the College was and would be self-supporting. I
have always used the opposite argument. Without an endowment
the College could not live. There is a pleasure in starting a good
thing which will go on by itself, but where is there a genuine college-
which is progressing without an endowment ? According to Mr.
Robert's books the College was self-supporting the fifth, seventh,
eighth and ninth years, years when there were no professors. The
other years there was a loss of more than two thousand dollars a
year. It has never been self-supporting since the tenth year.
60
NINTH COLLEGE YEAR
is not surprising that Dr. Hamlin found difficulties
in New York City, but I never found Mr. Robert's
name or character an obstacle in other places, where
most of Dr. Hamlin's work was done. I cannot
account for his failure. It was a terrible disap-
pointment both to him and to Mr. Robert, and
in April Mr. Robert had written to me that Dr.
Hamlin feared that I was dooming the College "to
financial ruin" by insisting upon the appointment
of professors and perfecting our equipment. He
seemed to share this feeling. Under these trying
circumstances nothing in the history of the College
is more remarkable than the way in which Mr.
Robert's faith and courage rose above it all to meet
the emergency. He not only consented to every-
thing which I had asked for, but sent Dr. Hamlin
back to put up three new buildings.
It was during this college year and the next that
Mr. Forbes and I made a careful geological survey
of the Bosphorus region, extending back some
twenty miles on each side of the Strait. Educated
at Amherst under President Hitchcock, I had at
one time thought of giving my life to geology. Mr.
Forbes was also an Amherst man and had inter-
ested himself in this subject, and he joined in this
work most heartily. I probably owe my long life
to the fact that for some two years Mr. Forbes and
I devoted all the time that we could get to this out-
of-door work, and there is no part of my life here
that I look back upon with more pleasure. It was
a field which had hardly been worked at all, and we
made many interesting discoveries. We settled
the age of the different formations in this vicinity
61
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
and learned much of its geological history. One
incident brought our work to the knowledge of the
scientific world. Much was made just at this time
of the discovery of evidence of the existence of man
in the Miocene period, based on the discovery by
Mr. Calvert of fossil bones in Miocene strata eight
hundred feet below the surface which were "cov-
ered with pictures which must have been made
by human hands." The locality of the discovery
was near the shore of the Dardanelles just on the
edge of the Troad. Mr. Forbes and I went down
there to investigate, and Mr. Calvert very kindly
showed us the bones and informed us exactly
where they had been found. We found the place,
and the formation was undoubtedly Miocene. We
found plenty of fossil bones of that period, some
with similar marks on them, but we were able to
demonstrate the fact that no human hands ever
had anything to do with making these marks to the
satisfaction of the scientific world. We afterward
visited Hissarlik and were entertained there roy-
ally by Mr. Schliemann and his beautiful wife. The
world is generally agreed now that this is the site
of ancient Troy; but we came to the conclusion,
after visiting all the supposed sites, that there is no
place in the Troad which answers to all the demands
of the Iliad.
The college year closed with 210 students, and Dr.
Hamlin wrote to Mr. Robert of the Commence-
ment exercises, July 25, 1872: "Yesterday was a
great day and a high day at Robert College. It was
the best of all our Commencements. It crowned
them all, and in all respects the exercises of the grad-
62
NINTH COLLEGE YEAR
uating class were excellent, not merely satisfactory,
but positively gratifying, solid, thoughtful, clear, no
flash, no 'hi-falutin/ but noble, manly and ele-
vated. Music introduced for the first time and
good. Speeches by Mr. Boker, American minister,
Mr. Francis, our minister to Athens, Mr. Reming-
ton'* and others. Mr. Remington helped to cele-
brate the day by giving five thousand dollars, the
income of which was to be used for general pur-
poses until it might seem wise to use the principal
to start a museum of useful arts. We had already
commenced a zoological museum, by the purchase
of a unique collection of Turkish birds, which is
still, I think, the only one in the city.
The graduates numbered 8, 6 Bulgarians,
1 Greek and 1 English. Andrew C. Zenos, the
Greek, has been for many years a very distinguished
professor in American theological seminaries,
now at McCormick Seminary in Chicago. Edward
Binns, the Englishman, was thrown from a horse
and killed in 1876. Of the Bulgarians the one to
whom their country owes the most is Peter Dimitroff.
He had paid his way through college by teaching
Turkish and remained a teacher for several years
after graduating. From the time of the Bulgarian
massacres to the present day he has been one of the
wisest, best and most devoted servants of his country.
Constantine Calchof is now a wealthy banker and
has occupied many important positions in the
government of Eastern Roumelia and Bulgaria.
Dimitry Economoff and Ivan D. Gueshoff have
done good service in high official positions. Stephan
M. Camburoff entered the army and died in 1882.
63
CHAPTER V
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE. 1872-1873
THIS year marks an era in the history of the Col-
lege. We crossed the Rubicon. We settled the ques-
tion that this should be a college and not a high
school, and that we would trust in God to raise
up friends to support it. If Mr. Robert had not
been a man of great faith, who lived very near to
God, this decision would never have been made. I
can never recall this decision on his part without a
feeling of profound reverence for the man. Up to
this time he had cherished the idea that the College
might be self-supporting, and Dr. Hamlin had used
this as one of his chief arguments in his campaign in
America to raise funds. In fact during the last three
years it had been self-supporting so far as current
expenses were concerned, and the failure to raise
money for endowment must have been a cogent
reason in Mr. Robert's mind to avoid additional
expenses, especially as we had managed to do some
very good work under the existing system of having
only one permanent teacher. Dr. Hamlin was a
college in himself, as President Garfield said of Dr.
Hopkins; but it must be remembered Garfield had
in view that there should be only one student, "Dr.
Hopkins on one end of the log, he on the other."
During the ninth year there had been over two
hundred students in the College. I was acting
64
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
president, I was the Faculty, I was the college
preacher, I was professor of Philosophy and Politi-
cal Economy. I taught English, I was treasurer,
I was dean, I managed the boarding department,
I was secretary and had all the correspondence
and the direction of fifteen temporary instructors
of eight different nationalities; and I was not Dr.
Hamlin. It would have been ridiculous to call
such an institution a college except for the one
fact that it was in Turkey and that there was no
other school in the empire in those early years to
equal it. On the same plan it might have con-
tinued to exist as a self-supporting high school, but
it could never have been a college and never have
attained the commanding position which it has
held since 1872. Two professors were appointed
and one adjunct professor. I was furnished with a
secretary and Dr. Hamlin had returned from
America. We had a Faculty. Rev. Albert L. Long,
D.D., was appointed Professor of Natural Science,
Edwin A. Grosvenor, Professor of Latin and History,
Hagopos Djcdjizian Adjunct Professor of Ancient
and Modern Armenian. Dr. Long was a rare man,
of distinguished ability and not quite forty years
old. He had taught several years in America. He
had been a missionary of the American Methodist
Church in Bulgaria for some twelve years, where he
had won the confidence and affection of the people
and with Dr. Riggs had translated the Bible into
Bulgarian. It was through his influence that Bul-
garians first came to the College. No college presi-
dent ever had a more devoted and efficient associate,
and he was a tower of strength in the College until
65
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
he died in 1901, mourned by all Bulgaria and by
every student who had been under him. He had
been beloved as a brother by all his associates.
Professor Grosvenor had been a tutor in the College
for three years and had proved so efficient that we
were glad to persuade him to return as a professor.
He came back as an ordained minister. He filled
the place with distinguished ability until he re-
signed in 1890 to go to America and accept a pro-
fessorship in Amherst College. Professor Dje-
djizian was a graduate of the College in 1868 and
had been an instructor ever since. He already had
the reputation among the Armenians of being a
very eloquent preacher and orator, as well as an
Armenian scholar. His appointment as adjunct
professor was a reversal of the former policy of the
College, in which policy I had fully agreed with Mr.
Robert, that we should appoint no natives of the
country to permanent positions in the College. We
all agreed in 1872 that this was a mistake, and our
experience ever since has fully justified this conclu-
sion. My secretary, Mr. Robert Thomson, who
remained with me five years, was a young Scotch-
man who had been a student in the College. He
was an ideal secretary, and after leaving me he went
to America and studied theology and has since been
one of the best missionaries of the American Board
in Bulgaria. In addition to these professors we
began the year with four American tutors, Messrs.
Richardson, Forbes, Arthur Hoyt and Woodbridge,
eight other instructors and an English lady, Mrs.
Dick, as matron. Our salary account for the year
was increased about four thousand dollars over the
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
previous year. The increase in our permanent
staff enabled us to revise and improve our curricu-
lum of studies, one thing Mr. Robert had con-
stantly impressed upon us from the beginning. He
often wrote about it. Dr. Hamlin's letters to him
reechoed the same thought, and we all fully realized
the fact that progress, development in the College,
was essential to life. No one realized it more
strongly than I did, and it has been my principle of
action always. But progress means more men and
more money. Our progress has never caught up
with our desires. We had made progress before
1872. To move from the old house in Bebec to
Hamlin Hall at Hissar was an evidence of progress
which deeply impressed all Constantinople. And
we had done what we could from the first to improve
our organization, our equipment and our course of
study. We had been very fortunate in many of our
tutors and instructors; but although we did our
best with the men and the means which we had, the
establishment of Robert College had already led to
the establishment of the Galata Serai Lycee and
several other national schools which in their equip-
ment were in advance of us. Our superiority lay
altogether in the moral and religious influences
which went to the building up of character. Now
with a live Faculty and Mr. Robert's determination
to press forward, we were in a position to keep in
advance of all rivals, and at the same time to bid
them God-speed in their work.
One of our most pressing wants was a material
one. Our study halls and recitation rooms were
absurdly inadequate to the number of our students,
67
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
and Dr. Hamlin had returned expressly to erect a
new building to meet this want. He trusted per-
haps too much to the good will of the Turkish
government and commenced work without waiting
for any permission, but Aali Pasha had passed away
and the Grand Vizier was the tool of Russia. Per-
haps it was our fault in having failed to give a back-
sheesh to the inspector who came to see what was
going on. At any rate, the work was stopped, and it
was some months before Mr. Boker, the American
minister, succeeded in getting an irade for it. He
could not get permission to erect professors' houses,
and Dr. Hamlin returned to America without erect-
ing them; bufmeanwhile he purchased the house in
the village of Hissar in which I am now writing.
Dr. Long moved into it at that time. The study
hall building was a large one-story building behind
Hamlin Hall, made with dry stone walls plastered
without and within, containing two study rooms
and recitation rooms in the roof, a temporary struc-
ture which cost about ten thousand dollars. Dr.
Hamlin was probably joking when he wrote of it as
"adding to the magnificence of the College." It
was an ugly building externally, but it answered its
purpose admirably for thirty years, when it was
pulled down, and at the time when it was built it
added greatly to the efficient working of the College.
After investing so much capital in land and build-
ings and authorizing this increase in current ex-
penses, Mr. Robert's faith was to be severely tried
up to the time of his death, but he never expressed
to me any regret at what he had done. The year
had hardly opened when the news of the great fire
68
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
in Boston put an end to the hopes that he had had
of help from there, and the great financial crisis of
1878 was not only discouraging in a general way,
but it seriously reduced his own income. Much of
his property was in real estate in the city of New
York, and the value of this was steadily declining.
Still he firmly believed that, in His own good time,
God would provide for the College, as He has. His
faith was not in vain.
The number of students registered this year was
257, of whom 68 were day scholars and 189 board-
ers, but the number present at any one time was
never more than 170 boarders and 45 day scholars.
There were some troubles during the year which led
to the expulsion of 6 students. The number of
Greeks in the College had increased to 48, and the
great conflict of the Greeks and Bulgarians over
the church question had lately been decided by
the Turks in favor of the Bulgarians, in view of
which the Greek Patriarch had excommunicated the
Bulgarian nation as schismatics. The intensely
bitter feeling between the two nationalities was
political as well as religious, for this recognition of
the Bulgarians as a separate nationality put an end
to long cherished hopes of a restoration of the
Greek Empire at Constantinople. It revealed to
the world that the Christians of European Turkey
were mostly Slavs and not Greeks. It was inevi-
table that our Bulgarian and Greek students should
share in the general excitement, and on one occa-
sion we escaped a general battle at the evening sur-
veillance only because I happened to be within a
hundred feet of the study hall. The Bulgarian
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
instructor was in charge of the study hall, and I
found him closed with a big Greek, while every
student was on his feet just rushing to the fray. I
sent the Greek to my office and had no difficulty in
restoring order in the hall, but it was a narrow
escape from a great calamity. It is to the credit of
both the Greeks and Bulgarians that after this they
respected the neutral territory of the College so far
as not to have any more serious conflicts. But it
was years before the better class of Greeks began to
come in any number to what they often complained
to me was a Bulgarian college. At this time, how-
ever, the Armenians had rather suddenly taken up
the College and outnumbered any other nationality,
which caused a combination against us of their
national schools and attacks upon us in their news-
papers, which culminated in the difficulties of the
following year.
I had to go to America on important business in
the summer, and as the president was here and
Professor Grosvenor was living in Hamlin Hall I
was able to get away a month before the close of
the year. Nothing really serious happened in my
absence; but with Armenians, Bulgarians and
Greeks all in rather an excited state, it was natural
that after my departure they should try the metal
of the modified administration and see what they
could do, especially as Dr. Hamlin was not living
in the College. There was some rioting in the
building at the close of the year, after Commence-
ment, but nothing more serious than often takes
place in American schools. Dr. Hamlin made
little of it. His great trial was with a case of drunk-
70
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
enness. He thrashed two students publicly and
expelled the third. This last was a curious case.
The boy had given me endless trouble. Much of
the time he was not an unattractive boy, but at
intervals his behavior was such that it seemed to
me like the cases reported in the New Testament
of demoniacs. He seemed to be literally possessed
of an evil spirit whom I could not cast out so that
he should not return. I never heard of him after
his expulsion until the time of my giving up the
work here in 1904, when the old students raised a
fund to found a scholarship in my name, when the
committee showed me a most complimentary letter
from him with a contribution of twenty francs for
the testimonial, and then I learned that he was a
most estimable man of very modest means, who
wished to testify to the good that he had got in
the College. Evidently Dr. Hamlin's discipline cast
out the devil.
Our Turkish neighbors in Hissar were in general
rather fanatical and sometimes made things un-
pleasant for us and our students, but we took as
little notice of it as possible, hoping that as they
came to know us better they would become friendly.
They occasionally stoned us, sometimes spat on us
and generally made use of their rich vocabulary
of vituperation to abuse us. This year for some
reason these manifestations increased so that we
had to apply to our Legation for protection. It
took six months of negotiations with the Sublime
Porte to bring the affair to an end. The following
year, under similar circumstances, when a lot of
boys from the village molested us, I sent for the
71
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
chief of the police, gave him a backsheesh and
asked him to settle the matter, which he did by
arresting the boys and thrashing them. We have
not troubled our Legation with such matters since.
The leader in these attacks was the wife of the
village imam, a remarkable woman who for many
years ruled this quarter of the village, a virago
whom I do not care to describe, for we have been
good friends for many years. I think it was Dr.
Long who first won her over, when he lived just
opposite to her in the house where I am writing.
It was hard for any one to withstand his kindness.
It was some years later that she came to my house
and one day begged me to understand that the
trouble she made us in those early years was all
a mistake. "We thought," she said, "that you
were bad people and would corrupt our village and
we determined to drive you away, but we have
found out that you are much better people than we
are and we are very sorry for what we did."
After the purchase of the house in Hissar Dr.
Hamlin in some way got the idea that I intended
to leave Hamlin Hall and move into this house. In
fact I had never thought of doing so, but he wrote
to Mr. Robert a solemn and rather violent protest
against this. One paragraph may be quoted.
"This measure would be revolutionary. Its ulti-
mate moral result would be bad. It would end in
failure. Should the measure ever be proposed and
acceded to what course should I feel impelled to
pursue? ... I will never assent to it, I will die
first. Such a revolutionary measure would neces-
sarily dissolve my connection, whether nominal or
72
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
real, with the College and with its endowment."
I lived in Hamlin Hall twenty years and only left
it when forced to do so by my health; and when
Professor Anderson and his family took our place,
I still lived on the college grounds in Kennedy
Lodge. I mention this matter here to record my
absolute agreement with Dr. Hamlin's feeling,
which prompted his protest. I believe that the
work which Mrs. Washburn and I did in those
twenty years was the best work we have ever done,
that our influence over the teachers and the stu-
dents was far greater and better than it has ever
been since, even though we were living within
a stone's throw of the College. So long as Professor
Anderson lived in Hamlin Hall it was no great loss
to the College, but it was a loss to me and Mrs.
Washburn. In the end, after some ten years, he also
was forced to give it up. Our personal influence
over the students while we lived in Hamlin Hall
was worth more to them than the instruction they
received in my classes.
One interesting episode of the year was a chal-
lenge to a cricket match sent to our students by
the officers of the British gunboat Antelope. They
anticipated an easy victory, but they were igno-
miniously beaten by our boys, and the same thing
happened on the return match played a week later.
They could not understand how Bulgarians, Ar-
menians and Greeks in an American college could
beat Englishmen at their national game, but they
took it very good-naturedly.
Among other interesting visitors during the year
were Mr. Bancroft, the historian, then American
73
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
minister at Berlin, and Bevan Braithwait, one of
the leading Friends in England. Mr. Bancroft was
greatly interested in the College and was one of
our best friends in America until his death. I took
him to call on Achmet Vefik Pasha, who was as
entertaining as usual, and made a great impression
on Mr. Bancroft. He was just then Minister of
Public Instruction, and he assured Mr. Bancroft
that he had established forty thousand schools in
the empire. Perhaps he had on paper. Mr.
Braithwait is still one of our warm friends in Eng-
land and has visited us several times. "The Lord
has always moved him" to address the students,
and his addresses have been admirable.
We had only one graduate at the end of this year,
and he had gone over the studies of the Senior year
a second time, having failed to pass his examina-
tions the year before. He was a Bulgarian, John J.
Sitchanoff, and he has been one of the most useful
of our graduates. He has been for many years the
pastor of the Protestant church in Philippopolis,
the most important in Bulgaria, and is held in high
esteem by all classes in the city.
It will seem strange that the tenth year of the
College, with more than 200 students, we had no
Senior class. This resulted in part from the en-
largement of our course of study, but chiefly from
another cause. Of the 257 students registered the
tenth year, only 54 ever graduated. This number
would have been somewhat larger, but for the Ar-
menian troubles the following year. Still it repre-
sents an important fact. If we take the whole
number of students who have entered the College
74
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
since its foundation, not more than one in six has
completed the course and graduated. The primary
reason for this is that when the College was founded
the only idea that the people of Turkey had of edu-
cation was the acquiring a practical knowledge of
three or four languages, and this idea is still very
common. Then again the majority of our students
come to the College to be prepared for business and
are always ready to leave when their parents find
a promising opening for them. Many are too
poor to complete their education. Again in Turkey
proper there are very few openings for Christians
in professional life or in government offices, so that
the need of a college education is not apparent.
Many fall out because they are dropped from their
classes for failure to pass examinations and from
other personal reasons. During the tenth year 24
students left either from illness or because their
families were leaving Turkey.
But we have never measured the value of our
work by the number of our graduates. The aver-
age length of time spent in the College by those who
have not graduated is more than three years. We
do what we can to induce those who are of more
than ordinary ability to finish their course, whatever
career they may have in view, because there is great
need of such men to become leaders of their people;
but many of our old students who did not complete
the course have done more honor to the College
and shown more affection for it than some of those
who have graduated.
75
CHAPTER VI
BELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 1873-1874
DR. HAMLIN left Constantinople September 26
with his family to renew his efforts to raise an en-
dowment, honored and beloved by men of many
races, but most of all by those who had been under
his instruction in the Bebec Seminary and in Rob-
ert College. He never returned. On the twenty-
fifth anniversary of the opening of the College
every effort was made to induce him to come to
Constantinople, at our expense, but he replied that
if he could be sure that he would die there he would
go. He could not again go through the trial of
leaving.
I have postponed any extended statement in
regard to the religious work of the College until
this time, because it will be better understood in
connection with the Armenian difficulties, which
had been threatening for some months and culmi-
nated early in this college year. I cannot present
it more clearly than by giving some of the letters
which were written at the time to Mr. Robert. It
should be said in advance that this is the only con-
flict that we have ever had with any of the old
Christian churches of the East, and that for many
years the highest authorities in the Armenian as
well as the Greek and Bulgarian churches have
been our warmest supporters and have recognized
76
RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS
the fact that our religious efforts are directed to
making Christians rather than Protestants that
it is not our purpose to destroy these churches, but
to strengthen their spiritual life and their moral
influence.
" October 2, 1873.
"There is good reason to believe that we are just
now entering upon one of the most trying experi-
ences of our college life. I have already informed
you that the College has been made the object of a
series of bitter attacks in the Armenian newspapers
of the city. The nominal cause of this was a case of
discipline which occurred while I was in America
near the end of the year. In fact, however, this was
only a pretense. The real cause came out in various
letters published in these papers. 'Why,' they say,
4 should Armenians patronize foreigners and here-
tics when we have such fine schools of our own and
such distinguished instructors?' I saw a result of
these attacks at the commencement of the term.
No new Armenian students came. A number
had been registered but have not come. Almost
every one who was here last year came back this
year, but on one pretense or another they have put
off paying their bills, not all but most of them. . . .
On Sunday last I received a letter signed by eleven
Armenian students of which the following is a copy :
Considering that the commentaries on the Bible
will not be in direct and strict conformance with the
especial doctrines of the Armenian Church, con-
sidering that we are required by our religious officers
as well as by our parents to be taught in religious
77
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
matters by them, as they are exclusively acknow-
ledged by the Armenian Church, we confess our-
selves not authorized to conform to your summons
concerning the Bible class, unless the permission of
our parents be procured by an especial correspond-
ence/
"I let the matter rest a day or two, and last even-
ing I called these boys and had a two hours' talk
with them. At first they declined to say anything
but that this letter expressed the will of their par-
ents. I cut them off from that tack and finally led
them into a frank, full confession of their plans and
ideas. They assured me that they had nothing
special to complain of in the Bible classes, that they
and their religion had always been treated with re-
spect. They confessed that what they intended to
demand and insist upon was ' the absolute abolition
of att religious teaching in the College. Only on this
condition could they consent to remain. No one
was authorized to give them religious instruction ex-
cept the priests of their church, and as they did not
understand the grounds on which their own faith
was based, they feared that they might lose faith
altogether in it. They and their parents were con-
stantly abused and annoyed by other Armenians for
patronizing a Protestant school and listening to
heresy/ etc. I reasoned with them in the most
kind, considerate and friendly manner, and the
whole interview was very pleasant. Not one angry
or excited word was spoken. But it was evident all
through that they had not originated this scheme
and were not their own masters, that they were
simply a skirmishing party thrown out "to feel the
78
RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS
enemy/ It is not necessary for me to report my
part of the conversation any farther than to say that
I explained to them that you founded this College
for the one object of giving a Christian education
to the people of Turkey, that you regarded educa-
tion without religion as more a curse than a blessing,
that if I yielded to their demands you would remove
me at once from my position as director. Moreover
that I fully sympathized with your views, as we all
do, that much as we might wish to retain the favor
of the Armenians we regarded the favor of God as
infinitely more important, that this was a matter
upon which there could be no compromise and no
hesitation.
"This morning five of them went to town to
report and get further instructions from head-
quarters. What I anticipate is that they will do
nothing until Sunday and then stay away from all
the religious exercises, leaving it to me to punish
them and thus give them a pretext for raising the
cry of persecution. This would be the shrewdest
course for them to take. [They did not do it, but
attended the services.] I do not think that there is
a chance of their giving up the battle without a
sharp fight.
"I have looked back carefully over the past ten
years in the light of this difficulty and I can see
nothing to regret, nothing that I would wish undone
in the course we have taken as to religious instruc-
tion. We have never attacked the faith of any of
our students. We have had no controversy with
them, but we have preached and urged upon them
constantly the simple, practical truths of the New
79
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Testament, principles recognized by all Christian
churches. We have never concealed from any par-
ent, Christian, Jew or Mohammedan, the fact that
we should teach their sons these things. On the
contrary we have made it a point to explain it to
them, that they might have no cause of complaint
afterwards. I believe that this attack does not
originate with the boys or their parents, but they
are driven up to it by outside influence."
" Saturday, October 5, 1873.
" An Armenian newspaper of yesterday had a letter
and an editorial on this subject in which it was said
among other things that 'the director of the Col-
lege was formerly engaged in paying Armenians to
become Protestants, but now he had devised a plan
by which he made them pay forty-four pounds for
the privilege. 5 [This referred to my having been
treasurer of the Mission Board.] This morning I
called the leading Armenian students and told them
that neither they nor we wished to have any conflict
or any break in the uniform friendliness of our in-
tercourse, that their plan of presenting me their
parents' protest to-night and their refusing to attend
the services to-morrow would inevitably bring on
such a conflict and that, if they could not attend the
services, it was better for them to go home for the
Sabbath and return Monday morning. About
twenty went home. As next week is the monthly
vacation this will give us two weeks' time to settle
the controversy. Their plan was to push things to
a final crisis to-morrow and carry it through under
excitement. They had made great efforts to induce
80
RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS
the Greeks and Bulgarians to unite with them, but
they failed utterly."
" Monday Evening, October 7.
"The Armenians returned and presented me with
the following ultimatum signed by thirteen persons
representing twenty-three boarding students :
" * SIR : Considering that the Protestant church
ceremonies and Bible classes have become obliga-
tory : considering that we have sent our boys simply
to receive instruction in languages and in science,
we beg of you by this present document that you
would free our boys from attending the religious
services and Bible classes, or if that is wholly con-
trary to the principles of your College you will please
inform our boys that they may at once withdraw
from the College/
" To-morrow I shall give them this reply :
" ' GENTLEMEN : I have the honor to inform you
that no new regulations have been made in Robert
College with regard to religious instruction of the
students, and that the instruction has been simply
such as is considered in all Christian colleges essen-
tial to good order and to the development of the
moral character of the students. We have highly
valued your favorable opinion and we shall regret
to lose your patronage, but we cannot accede to
your request to excuse your sons from attendance
on religious services. Should we do so we must ex-
tend this permission to all students of all nationali-
ties, which would involve the cessation of all moral
instruction in the College, without which we believe
no institution of learning can secure the favor of
God or man/ "
81
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
" October 18, 1873.
" Tuesday morning I called these students together
at half past eight o'clock and gave them the reply
with some additional explanations. I then sent
them home, having posted two or three teachers in
such places that no disturbance could be made and
they all went off in school hours as quietly as pos-
sible. They collected, however, in the field outside
the college grounds and marched in a body through
the village of Hissar, singing Armenian national
songs and making other demonstrations. Twenty-
three left on Tuesday, 1 on Wednesday, and 1 on
Thursday, 1 later, 26 in all, of whom 9 afterward
returned. Others would have been sent back by
their parents but the boys declared that they could
not stand the merciless ridicule which would be
heaped upon them by the Greeks and Bulgarians."
The following year we had only 32 Armenian
boarders in place of 70 the year before these troubles.
This was not the end of the controversy. It was
continued for months by the Armenian newspapers,
with the result that for two or three years very few
new Armenian students were sent to the College.
The following is a translation of a letter pub-
lished in the Armenian papers after the students
had left. It is signed by two of the best Armenian
students in the College, who were leaders in this
affair and did not return.
"We have recently seen several articles in the
Armenian papers in regard to the religious instruc-
tion given to the students of Robert College. Since
there are some who do not believe these statements,
RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS
we as students of the College feel obliged to state
publicly what the real facts are. It has always been
obligatory on the students to attend the religious
services and Bible classes, but we and other stu-
dents have attended them without realizing the con-
sequences of so unjust a regulation or giving any
information to our parents. We attended them at
first mechanically, but we unconsciously came un-
der the influence of this indirect preaching about
the different doctrines of the Christian Church and
the Bible exercises. The consequence was that we
lost our faith in the Orthodox Armenian Church.
For this reason we have been obliged to guard
against the probable and necessary result that we
should become Protestants. We first informed the
director about this state of things and asked him to
excuse us from attending these religious services.
We did not expect that he would refuse so just a
request. It was impossible for us to believe that a
celebrated American institution in Turkey would
ever be the means of violating the freedom of con-
science. The object of this institution, as it is ex-
pressed in the programme, being ' the highest mental
and moral training of the students/ we wished to
make another effort, so we presented the following
document signed by our parents. [For this and my
reply see previous page.] The consequence of this
reply of the director was the withdrawal from the
College of the sons of those persons who had signed
the paper, but it is to be regretted that there are
still about thirty Armenians in the College. We
hope that those who feel any interest in their own
religion will remove their sons to our national
83
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
schools. Finally we advise our people not to be de-
ceived by the programme of the College, and assure
them that if they send their sons there they will be
the means of making them Protestants.
(Signed) HAGOPIAN AND CAPAMADJIAN."
Later, one of the prominent Armenians, who
kept his son in the College, said to me with tears in
his eyes: "The one thing that I desire for my son
is that he should be a good man. I belong to the
Orthodox Armenian Church and so have my an-
cestors for hundreds of years. It would be a grief
to me if my son should become a Protestant, but if
he cannot be made a good man without that then
let him be a Protestant."
Some time after this the Hagopian who signed the
above letter sent the following to the papers :
"There is one thing that, up to this time, I have
kept secret. Mr. Washburn, when we went to be
excused from religious exercises, said to us: 'We
are no longer in the dark ages. This is the nine-
teenth century. It is an age of light. Men do not
now cover their eyes and stop their ears from fear of
learning something different from what they have
believed before. Men do not accept blindly every-
thing they are told by their priests, but investigate
and judge for themselves. We do not ask you to ac-
cept what we say because we say it, but to judge it
and see if it is true. You expect to be educated men,
to be the leaders of your people. You can only be
so by becoming thinking men, willing and anxious
to know the truth/
" He also said that Mr. Robert would rather cut
84
RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS
off his right hand than abolish all religious instruc-
tion in the College."
The Mr. Hagopian who wrote these letters has
been for many years one of the leading Armenians
in Constantinople and one of the most faithful and
devoted friends of Robert College.
I should add a brief statement of exactly what was
required of our students at that time in the way of
religious services. It has been modified since 1902
in some details, but is essentially unchanged.
All students are required to attend morning
prayers at 8.15 every day except Sunday. At
these the Scriptures are read and prayer of-
fered. Sometimes there is a very brief applica-
tion made of the Scripture passage. On the
Sabbath we have a preaching service at 11 o'clock;
at 3 P.M. we have Bible classes, with a general
exercise of half an hour under the direction of the
president at the opening, prayer, singing and
a brief address either historical or exegetical. At
7.30 P.M. an informal service, where a great variety
of subjects are treated. All students who do not live
at home are required to attend these Sabbath ser-
vices. At that period I preached half of the time,
Dr. Long and Professor Grosvenor the other half.
The evening services were conducted by the tutors
and instructors and often in the native languages or
in French. At these services it is intended that the
teaching shall not be polemical and shall not touch
on points at issue between the churches. No attack
is ever made upon any religion, but the essential
and practical teachings of the New Testament are
presented as clearly as possible. It is no doubt
85
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
true that this religious instruction has an influence
upon the students. If we thought that it did not
we should give it up. The old Christian churches
have long since come to appreciate its value, and I
believe that it is the religious and moral influence of
the College which, more than anything else, leads
parents to send their sons here. Even the Turks
appreciate this and they have sometimes said to me,
"I send my son here that he may be brought up
with English morality," English in this case mean-
ing Protestant.
The long continued and violent attacks upon the
College in the Armenian papers probably had some
influence in stirring up the Turkish government to
adopt hostile measures. The Grand Vizier told Mr.
Boker, the American minister, that the government
had determined to prohibit the circulation of the
Bible in any language and that they would not allow
that Protestant college to put up the houses we had
asked for. He told Sir Henry Elliott that they had
determined to oppose Protestantism with all their
might as a matter of patriotism. This Grand Vizier
was a tool of Russia and no doubt this also accounts
in some measure for his opposition to England and
to Protestantism. He was the same man who, dur-
ing the Crimean War, as Turkish commander at
Kars, is said to have sold the place to Russia.
Other interesting events of the year can only be
noticed very briefly. In February and March we
had great snow-storms and cold which paralyzed the
city and threatened us with starvation at the Col-
lege. Men were killed and eaten by wolves within
sight of the College. Wild boars were shot on the
86
RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS
shores of the Bosphorus. There were remnants of
these snow-banks on the hills near us two months
later.
In the summer of 1873 Dr. Long had gone at Mr.
Robert's request to Paris and Vienna to purchase
the apparatus needed in his department. This
came early in the year and attracted much atten-
tion, bringing us many visitors of different nation-
alities, including Turkish pashas, who were much
impressed by the experiments which they saw.
April 1 we had our first Junior exhibition, under
the direction of Professor Grosvenor. The new
study hall was crowded with guests, and the orations,
ten in number, were remarkably good. The moral
and religious tone breathing through them im-
pressed the audience most favorably.
Aside from the Armenian troubles the year was a
peaceful one, although two students had to be ex-
pelled for engaging in a diabolical plot against one
of their companions. The health of the students
after the great storm was unusually bad, and I had
to send my son to America in May with Mrs. Wash-
burn as he was threatened with tuberculosis. Hap-
pily he recovered. We were greatly distressed also
by hearing of the illness of Dr. Hamlin.
The number of students present at the close of
the year was 178, of whom 47 were day scholars, 31
less boarders than at the end of the previous year,
representing a loss in tuition of some five thousand
dollars. It is not strange that this unhappy experi-
ence impressed upon us and upon Mr. Robert the
absolute necessity of an endowment. Dr. Long
wrote to Mr. Robert: "To secure the permanence
87
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
of the College it must be sufficiently endowed to
enable it to tide over just such difficulties as this,
even if they should take away four-fifths of our
students. Those who know the character of the
nationalities of the East, know that a popular tu-
mult is very easily raised and a storm is liable to
arise at any time, when we shall be in danger of
going down so long as we are pecuniarily dependent
on their patronage. The life of so noble an institu-
tion as this must not be contingent upon the favor of
a fickle populace/' or, he would have added a
few years later, of political disturbances and revolu-
tions.
The Commencement exercises were about as well
attended as the year before and five students were
graduated, all Bulgarians. One of these died a few
years later. The other four have all distinguished
themselves in the government of Bulgaria, and are
still living.
88
CHAPTER VII
VISIT OP MB. ROBERT. 1874-1875
IT was evident, even at the opening of the college
year, that storms were gathering about us in the
political world which might seriously affect our
work. The Eastern question had reached a critical
period when some form of European intervention
seemed probable, but which form it would take
could not be foreseen. In Constantinople Russia,
under the lead of General Ignatieff, and England,
represented by Sir Henry Elliott, were both playing
a dangerous game, which ended in massacres, revo-
lution, war and the dismemberment of European
Turkey. While the College had nothing to do with
these political intrigues we felt the influence of them
in many ways. Constantinople was in a ferment;
there was a vague fear of what might happen which
kept away some students and naturally excited
those who came. We, who knew what was going on,
could not but feel some anxiety. It was not dimin-
ished by a visit which I paid to Bulgaria in the
Easter vacation with Mr. Panaretoff. I had never
before had any conception of the suffering of the
Christians under Turkish rule, but I saw things
there which filled me with horror, which were not
so much direct acts of the government as the results
of a general policy the tyranny of the armed
Turkish minority over the unarmed and helpless
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Christian majority. It was not so bad in the towns
where the well-to-do Bulgarians kept the Turkish
officials in their pay, but the peasants were practi-
cally serfs with no rights. I accidentally met one
young man who confessed that he belonged to a
company which was planning a rebellion against
the government, and I spent an hour in trying to
convince him of the utter folly of such an attempt,
which was certain to fail and could only add to the
suffering of the people. Such outbreaks had taken
place near the Danube, under the secret patronage
of Russia, but were easily put down.
Notwithstanding these political troubles the year
opened and passed away without any disturbance
of the peace of the College. Our staff consisted of
the director, Professors Long, Grosvenor and Dje-
djizian. Mr. Panaretoff was also appointed adjunct
professor of Slavic and Bulgarian. Our tutors were
Messrs. Arthur Hoyt, Webber, Savage and Webster.
There were seven other teachers. Mr. Hoyt lost his
health and very nearly his life from malaria result-
ing from a summer excursion through Bulgaria, and
to our great regret was obliged to return to America,
where in time he recovered, to become a distin-
guished professor in Auburn Theological Seminary.
Mr. Webber had charge of the Preparatory Depart-
ment. Miss Haynes came as matron in November.
The whole number of students registered during
the year was 208. The number present at the close
of the year was 176.
Boarders . . . 144
Day scholars . . . 32 176
90
VISIT OF MR. ROBERT
As all of the Bulgarians were boarders, they were
more numerous than any other nationality in Ham-
lin Hall.
The nationalities represented were as follows :
Armenians . . .55
Greeks . 48
Bulgarians .... 45
English . . . .21
Americans .... 8
Turks .... 6
Jews .... 6
Germans .... 6
Italians .... 4
Dalmatians . . . 2
French .... 2
Austrians .... 2
Dutch .... 1
Russian .... 1
Pole 1208
The most interesting event during the year was
the visit of Mr. Robert, who reached the College
June 12, 1875, and lived in Hamlin Hall until after
the Commencement exercises, just six weeks. At
the time of his first visit we were still in Bebec. It
has been said many times that Robert College was
the product of Dr. Hamlin's brains and Mr. Rob-
ert's money. Dr. Hamlin never said this, and it is
no disparagement of him to say that Mr. Robert
not only gave his money and his heart to the Col-
lege, but that every step that was taken from the
first conception of the College to the time of his
91
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
death was fully discussed with him and largely in-
fluenced by his judgment. It was to his credit that
when an agreement could not be reached with Dr.
Hamlin or with me he never used his authority to
override our judgment, but left the final decision
with us. His two visits to the College were devoted
to the most careful study of existing conditions and
future development to getting light on every-
thing connected with the work. He talked with all
the teachers, made the acquaintance of students and
their parents, consulted the missionaries and other
foreign residents and listened to everything that any
one wished to say about the College. He investi-
gated every department of work, and this not as a
matter of curiosity or a question of expense, but
that he might be able to give more intelligent advice
in what was the one thing that he was always insist-
ing upon the necessity of steady growth. He
gave us the best he had of brain work as well as of
money.
He entered heartily into the social life of the Col-
lege and the city, and he told me after his departure
that he had never spent six happier weeks in his life.
He greatly enjoyed a grand picnic that he gave to
the teachers and students of the College. He char-
tered a steamboat and made an excursion up to the
Black Sea, returning to Hunkiar Iskelessi, where we
had our dinner under the trees, with speeches and
sports afterwards, getting back to the College in the
evening. He also gave a breakfast to the mission-
aries and their wives at Buyukdere. He found
them more friendly to the College than they had
been five years before. His addresses to the stu-
92
VISIT OF MR. ROBERT
dents were very practical, and they were greatly in-
terested in what he told them of his own early life
and the lessons that he had learned from the Book
of Proverbs. He gave each student a copy of the
book, and I have often had occasion since to quote
his authority, in addition to that of Solomon, as to
how a young man was to win success in life.
In those early years he was a subject of much
discussion among the people of the country, who
could not understand what motive prompted him
to found the College. I have often heard it dis-
cussed on the Bosphorus steamers. Mr. Hanson,
the English banker, told me that he heard this con-
versation between two Turkish gentlemen. "Do
you see that College?" "Yes." "Well, in my
opinion it is the greatest disgrace to the Turks of
anything in Constantinople." "Why so, I never
thought of that. It is a fine building." "So it is,
but what does it mean? Here was a stranger, an
American gentleman, who came to Constantinople
for a few days and was so impressed with the neces-
sities of our people, with their ignorance and their
need of education, that he took his own money and
built this splendid College and endowed it for the
good of those who were strangers to him. We have
hundreds of rich pashas, some of the richest living
in sight of this College. Which of them ever saw or
cared for the wants of the people or gave a piaster of
his money to educate them? This College is a
shame and disgrace to us." The native Christians
often said, "He did it for his soul," i. e. to purchase
a high seat for himself in heaven. There were
many, however, who had a sufficient appreciation
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
of hisK motives and of the advantages the College
had brought to them to express, and I have no doubt
to feel, gratitude and now I seldom hear any
other comment.
One important subject of discussion when Mr.
Robert was here was the question of the title to the
land which we had bought since the first purchase,
which was made secure by the irade. The other
land was held by a legal fiction in the name of
"Mariam bint Toma" which was Mrs. Hamlin,
who had been registered under that name as a
Turkish subject. English and other foreign insti-
tutions held their property in the name of the con-
sulates or embassies; but the United States gov-
ernment refused to allow this, and for a long time
refused to sign the protocol allowing Americans to
hold property in their own names. It was tempo-
rarily transferred to me as director of the College,
and a few months ago (1906) the greater part of it,
after all these years of negotiation, was secured to
the College by irade which reminds me that it
took thirty years to get permission to build, at our
own expense, a sewer from the College to the Bos-
phorus. These delays to which we are always sub-
ject do not come from any hostility to the College
on the part of the government, but from the nature
of the government itself, and are the common expe-
rience of all, natives and foreigners. Much also
depends upon the character and spirit of the min-
ister who represents the United States government
here. We were particularly fortunate at this time in
the appointment of Horace Maynard, who arrived
here in May, 1875, who was not only a statesman
04
VISIT OF MR. ROBERT
of great ability, but an earnest Christian in full
sympathy with our work. Many of the ministers
sent here to represent the United States have had
no interest whatever in the Americans resident in
Turkey and have had as little to do with them as
possible. Personally I have never had occasion to
complain of any one of them. For many I have had
the highest respect ; but there have been times when
if it had not been for our intimate relations with the
British Embassy, the College would have fared very
badly. It has generally, not always, been true that
the English government has shown much greater in-
terest in the College than the government at Wash-
ington. A distinguished Englishman who visited
Washington when Mr. Bayard was Secretary of
State was amazed to find that he had never heard of
Robert College. I suppose that Mr. Bayard was
equally astonished to learn that this Englishman
thought that the founding of Robert College was the
most important thing that America had done in
Europe. Mr. Hay was the best friend that we have
ever had in the State Department. Mr. Elaine was
also very friendly. No President has shown more
interest in the College than Mr. Roosevelt. Some
of the distinguished ministers who have been here
have been warm friends, and all of them have been
ready to preside at our Commencement exercises
and thus give their official sanction to the College.
Among them all we have had no better minister
than Horace Maynard and none to whom the Col-
lege owes more. I do not think that any minister
here has ever won the confidence and respect of the
Turkish government so fully as he did. The famous
95
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
editor of the Louisville Courier- Journal told me, some
years after the war, that he considered Mr. Maynard
the greatest man in the South who remained loyal to
the government. He was rather a singular looking
man, and it was said at the time that the Sultan, after
his presentation, inquired whether he was an Ameri-
can dervish. But he soon acquired great influence,
by his straightforward integrity and the skill with
which he defended every American interest, while
carefully abstaining from all association with the
great political intrigues which were going on at the
time.
The class work of the College went on very satis-
factorily during the year. We had settled down
upon a programme of studies for the four college
classes which was based upon what was generally
adopted at that time in New England colleges, but
modified to adapt it to the practical wants of our
students. The great practical difficulty which we
had to meet was the multiplicity of languages.
There was no escape to giving a prominent place to
English. That was the language of the College. If
we did not require Latin the European universities
would not recognize our diplomas. Every student
wished to study French. Armenians, Bulgarians,
Greeks and Turks must have thorough instruction
in their own languages and in the ancient languages
from which these were derived, or they could never
hold their places among their own people. This
meant that each student must study at least five
languages probably Turkish also for Turkish
subjects. As there was no escape from all this lin-
guistic work, the question was how to find time for
96
VISIT OF MR. ROBERT
anything else. We have since added a year to the
college course and put four years into the Prepara-
tory Department, but in 1875 this was not prac-
ticable. It did not trouble us that we had to depart
from American standards, for it was our duty to
adapt the College to the circumstances of the East,
but we had to learn from experience that the study
of modern European languages and an introduction
to their literature was worth quite as much to our
students as the study of Latin and Greek had been
to us. We give more time to the native languages
now than we did then.
At that time we took our students through Alge-
bra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Surveying, Ana-
lytical Geometry, and Conic Sections, giving six
hours a week to these mathematical studies. In
Science they had Zoology, Physics, Physiology,
Chemistry, Botany, Geology and Mineralogy, and
Astronomy, in this order, an average of five hours a
week. History three hours a week, Political Econ-
omy, Rhetoric, Parliamentary Law, Physical Geog-
raphy, Psychology, Ethics, History of Philosophy,
History of Civilization, International Law, each five
or six hours a week for one term. There were no
optional studies in the course, but some students did
get additional work in some branches. This course
of study was quite equal to that of any American
College fifty years ago, and there was no school in
this country which at that time even professed to
equal it. To most people here it seemed unneces-
sarily extended. They would have been quite con-
tented with the languages, arithmetic and a little
science, the latter just for the name of it. It is due
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FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
to those who were teachers in the College at that
time to say that so far as it went the instruction in
all these branches was honest and thorough.
There was no pretense or humbug about it.
The number of graduates in 1875 was 11, 7 Bul-
garians, 3 Armenians and 1 Greek, all but 2 of
whom are still living (1907). The Armenians and
the Greek are all merchants, one of the Bulgarians
was a distinguished teacher, one has been Prime
Minister, one has been several times a minister, one
was private secretary of Prince Alexander and later
of Prince Ferdinand, and the others have occupied
important positions in Bulgaria.
Commencement in those early years of the Col-
lege was in some respects a more important and
more interesting affair than it has been since 1894.
There was a freedom of speech which has not been
possible of late years. Our audiences were neces-
sarily limited by the size of the study hall, which
however was always crowded, with more or less
Turkish women looking in at the windows. One
afternoon was devoted to prize speaking, and that
evening in 1875 was occupied by an English spelling
match. Sometimes it was a prize debate between
two classes. On Commencement Day only invited
guests were admitted, and after the orations of the
graduating class in various languages, addresses
were made by the distinguished official guests who
occupied the places of honor on the platform. In
1875 the principal speakers were Mr. Maynard
and Mr. Robert. It was on this occasion also that
prizes were announced and given out for the prize
speaking, for the highest rank in scholarship in the
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VISIT OF MR. ROBERT
different classes and for special work in certain de-
partments. At the close of the exercises the guests
were entertained at lunch in the college dining
room.
That year Mrs. Washburn, who had returned
from America in November, and I spent the sum-
mer vacation in Switzerland, and Mr. Robert went
with us as far as Zurich, where we met our son re-
turning in good health from America.
CHAPTER VIII
POLITICAL CRISIS IN TURKEY. 1875-1876
THIS is in no sense a history of Turkey, but it is
impossible to write a history of the College at this
period without some reference to our environment,
and an explanation of our relations to what was
taking place about us, and it should be made clear
at the outset that Dr. Long and I were personally
responsible for the attitude of the College at this
time. Dr. Hamlin was so violently anti-Russian in
his sympathies that he was the principal advocate
of Turkey in the United States and was officially
thanked for this by the Turkish government. Mr.
Robert had always forbidden all meddling with
political affairs, and he was right. This has always
been the policy of the College. It was mine and Dr.
Long's. The College has always used all its influ-
ence to keep the students out of politics and to
make them realize the folly of rebellion against the
government. We have always recognized our duty
to respect the laws of the country, and no official
complaint has ever been made against us by the
Turkish government, nor was any complaint ever
made against Dr. Long or me as individuals, al-
though it is true that great political changes were
brought about in some measure by our personal
influence. We did our best to prevent the outbreak
in Bulgaria which was the excuse for the massacre
100
POLITICAL CRISIS IN TURKEY
which followed; but when it was a question of the
massacre of thousands of innocent and unarmed
Bulgarians, men, women and children, we did
everything in our power to put a stop to it. We saw
then, what the Turks see now, that this massacre
was one of the greatest blunders that they have ever
made. We did our best through the British Em-
bassy to make them see it at that time. Whatever
we did we reported to Mr. Robert from week to
week, and in the end we had his full approval.
When the College opened in September, 1875, the
situation of political affairs in Constantinople was
alarming and complicated. There was a Turkish
conspiracy, supported by England, secretly working
against Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz, who was defended by
Russia; and a serious insurrection against the Turks
had broken out in Herzegovina, also one of little im-
portance in Bulgaria. The Grand Vizier, Mah-
moud Nedim Pasha, who lived just below the Col-
lege, was the tool of Russia, and there is evidence
that he had arranged for the sending of Russian
troops to Constantinople to defend the Sultan. The
alarm and excitement in the city was increased by
his communication to the embassies that he had
discovered a plot for the massacre of Christians and
foreigners, and by his stopping the payment of in-
terest on the national debt and seizing all the hy-
pothecated revenues. Mr. Robert was so much
alarmed by the news that he proposed to send us a
consignment of rifles to defend the College, which
we declined. As time went on Servia and Monte-
negro threatened war and aided the revolutionists
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the European
101
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Powers prepared to intervene. This resulted in the
" Andrassy Note/* which was a demand for certain
reforms in the insurgent provinces. The Sultan
tried to forestall this by issuing an irade decreeing
general reforms in the empire. The Powers re-
garded this as so much waste paper. Nothing came
of either the irade or the note, except more general
discontent and excitement. Thus ended the year
1875.
Meanwhile the College had opened with 137
boarders, of whom 33 were Bulgarians, and 30 day
scholars 167 students in all, only 9 less than at
the close of the previous year, which was evidence
that the public regarded the College as a safe refuge.
We had one new tutor, Mr. McLean from Hamilton
College, whose health gave out so that he left before
the end of the year. Some friends missionaries
in Persia came in September to spend the night
with us, and that night one of the children came
down with what proved to be typhoid fever. It was
nine weeks before they could leave us, happily all
well. It was during this autumn that began the
stream of distinguished English visitors to the Col-
lege, which continued for twenty-five years, bring-
ing us into acquaintance with many of the leading
statesmen and philanthropists of England. Lord
Campbell and Lady Strangford were among the
first. She was especially interested in the people
of the Balkan Peninsula, and the College was al-
ready known in Europe for its connection with the
Bulgarians. The winter passed quietly at the Col-
lege, although every one saw that a storm was gath-
ering all about us which would bring changes of
102
POLITICAL CRISIS IN TURKEY
some kind, either for good or evil, and there was a
constant exchange of notes between the Powers,
which came to nothing.
May 2, 1876, there was an insurrection in the
mountain towns not far from Philippopolis in Bul-
garia. It had been planned for several months, and
the Turkish government was fully informed of the
details of the plan and of those engaged in it. The
Turkish governor at Philippopolis had implored
the government at Constantinople to allow him to
put a stop to it, and had promised to guarantee ab-
solute quiet, if a single regiment of troops were sent
to him. But the Turks anticipated a war with
Servia and wished to find a pretext to terrorize this
part of Bulgaria, which commanded the road to
Servia, before the war broke out, so they had quietly
fostered this revolutionary movement which was
too insignificant to constitute any real danger.
They had withdrawn their troops, but the whole
Turkish population was armed, while the Chris-
tians were unarmed, and all arrangements had
been made to give over the Christian population to
the tender mercies of the Turkish militia (Bashi-
bozooks), having first, as far as possible, cut off all
communication between Bulgaria and the outside
world. The results are too well known to be de-
tailed here. In these first massacres and the reign
of terror which followed fifty or sixty thousand
men, women and children were massacred in cold
blood, sold as slaves or judicially murdered. It
was the most natural thing in the world that in their
terror and helplessness the Bulgarians should have
thought of us, who had no political interests at stake,
103
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
as friends whom they could trust to help them, and
they found means to communicate to us the details
of what was going on from week to week. At the
outset we alone had these details, and what we did
with them is no secret. It was no secret at the time
that we first of all gave them to Sir Henry Elliott, the
British ambassador, who was a warm personal
friend of ours and who represented a government
which was at that time the chief supporter of
Turkey in Europe. We did this in the hope that
he could make the Turks see that they were making
a terrible mistake. We also communicated the facts
to powerful friends in England and to our friends
Mr. Pears, correspondent of the Daily News, and
Mr. Galenga, the correspondent of the London
Times. Could we have done less or acted more
honorably ? It will be seen later on that Sir Henry
Elliott was at this time engaged in a conspiracy
which he regarded as likely to change the whole face
of affairs in Turkey.
The day after the outbreak in Bulgaria, of which
the world knew nothing, all Europe was startled by
the murder of the French and German consuls at
Salonica by a fanatical Mohammedan mob. This
increased the excitement in Constantinople, which
was already at fever heat, and when, a week later,
a mob of thousands of Moslem theological students
(softas) rushed through the streets of Stamboul on
their way to the palace to demand the dismissal of
the Grand Vizier and the Sheik-ul-Islam, the whole
city realized that it was at the mercy of revolution-
ists. The Sultan yielded to the demands of the mob,
and another near neighbor of ours was made Grand
104
\N AllD TL-\Z1Z
POLITICAL CRISIS IN TURKEY
Vizier in place of Mahmoud Nedim. A little more
than two weeks after this (May 30) the city was
roused in the morning by the roar of cannon which
announced the advent of a new Sultan, Murad.
Abd-ul-Aziz had been dethroned in the night.
This was the outcome of the conspiracy to which I
have referred. The real leader in this was the Min-
ister of War, Hussein Avni Pasha, supported by the
new Grand Vizier, Mahomet Ruchdi Pasha, and
the new Sheik-ul-Islam, who had given afetva (de-
cision) authorizing the act. Kaisarli Achmet Pasha,
the Minister of Marine, who controlled the iron-
clads anchored before the palace, joined them. The
supposed leader was Midhat Pasha, and it was
through him that Sir Henry Elliott was brought into
the plot and the support of England secured. Her
Mediterranean fleet arrived off the Dardanelles the
day before the act and was ready to come to Con-
stantinople in case of need. Murad, the new Sul-
tan, who lived in the palace with his uncle, had not
been forewarned; and, when he was taken by armed
men, he believed that he was to be put to death. He
never recovered from the shock sufficiently to as-
sume any control of the government. The week
which followed was one of wild excitement in the
city, at first of joy and satisfaction, but as the days
went on there was a decided reaction against the
revolution among the Turks in favor of the old Sul-
tan. At the close of the week it was suddenly an-
nounced that Abd-ul-Aziz had committed suicide.
Nobody believed it at the time; and after hearing all
the evidence my own belief is that he was murdered
by order of the new administration through fear of a
105
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
counter-revolution, though Queen Victoria had tele-
graphed to Sir Henry Elliott to protect his life.
This was not the end of the tragedy. A few days
later there was a council of ministers at the house
of Midhat Pasha. A Circassian officer, whose sister
had been a favorite of Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz, obtained
admission to the house, entered the chamber and
shot Hussein Avni Pasha and the Minister of For-
eign Affairs, very nearly killed the Minister of Ma-
rine and killed several of the attendants before he
was captured. As the house had been left un-
guarded and no attack was made upon Midhat
Pasha, it was suspected at the time that he might
have had knowledge of this attack, the result of
which was to make him the principal power in the
state. The officer was hanged without examination
or trial. This new shock still further demoralized
the Sultan and incapacitated him for all business.
At the end of August, 1876, he also was deposed and
his brother made Sultan. In this change also Sir
Henry Elliott took the lead, and Abd-ul-Hamid be-
came Sultan. His brother was kept a close prisoner
until he died some thirty years later. Meanwhile
Servia and Montenegro had declared war against
Turkey in July, and the story of the Bulgarian mas-
sacres had roused no little excitement in the Chris-
tian world, especially in England, where it was felt
that the English government was largely respon-
sible for existing conditions in Turkey, which, as
we have seen, was true.
During the spring and summer, while these events
were taking place, there was a general feeling of in-
security in Constantinople, and unpleasant incidents
106
POLITICAL CRISIS IN TURKEY
were very frequent. We did not know what to ex-
pect from one day to another, as the city was filled
with half savage irregular troops who were under
very little control. We were always on the watch,
and one day the alarm was given that a large armed
band was coming down upon the College from the
hill above us. Happily the students were all in the
building, and having given orders that no one should
be seen at the windows and that all doors should be
closed, Dr. Long and I went out unarmed to face
the mob, who were already entering our grounds.
They were Turks, mostly young, who had come
several miles from the Arsenal on the Golden Horn
to make an end of the Bulgarians. It was a trying
quarter of an hour that we had, not to be forgotten;
but they were evidently puzzled by finding no one
but two foreigners, who met them without any ap-
pearance of fear and quietly explained to them that
they were trespassing on our ground. If they had
had an enterprising and fearless leader I do not
know what would have happened, but it was a mob
without leaders; and when they came to face us and
our authority, their courage failed them, and in the
course of half an hour we had won the day. Extraor-
dinary stories are current in America of the de-
vices which we resorted to in defense of the College
during this and the following year, such as that we
met a night attack by parading a skeleton rubbed
with phosphorus. There is no truth in this or any
of these stories. Another incident, which was char-
acteristic of the unsettled conditions of the time,
occurred in June, 1876. I was sitting in my office
one evening when a servant came to say that a
107
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Turkish pasha begged to see me. He had just
arrived on horseback. I invited him in. He proved
to be a fine looking, well-dressed gentleman, per-
haps fifty years old. He introduced himself as
Ibrahim Pasha, and after the usual exchange of
compliments he told me that he had just escaped
assassination and come to take refuge in the College.
Would I protect him? I bid him welcome, gave
him dinner and a bed, but I reminded him that,
although this was American territory, the authori-
ties could apply to the American minister and he
would have to give him up. I excused myself and
went over to see Achmet Vefik Pasha, to see what
he knew of the man and what he would advise me
to do. He knew all about the man and advised me
to send him to take refuge in the British Embassy at
Therapia. I proposed this to Ibrahim Pasha, and
he agreed to do it; so I gave him a letter to the am-
bassador and he started in the early morning, but
he never reached the Embassy, and I could never
find out what became of him. Probably the author-
ities were on the watch for him. It is not uncom-
mon for people to disappear in Constantinople.
While these things were happening in Constan-
tinople the reign of terror continued in Bulgaria, and
we communicated information about it to Sir Henry
Elliott and to our friends in England. The Turkish
government denied the truth of these statements to
Sir Henry, and, in the confusion which prevailed
here at that time, it is very likely that the govern-
ment really knew very little of what was going on in
Bulgaria. It was under Abd-ul-Aziz that the mas-
sacres were planned and commenced. But we had
108
POLITICAL CRISIS IN TURKEY
to face a more serious difficulty. It was to be ex-
pected that the Turks would deny everything ; but
Mr. Disraeli, the English Prime Minister, declared
in Parliament that the reports, for some of which we
were responsible and which he must have known
came from us, were "mere coffee house babble"
and without any foundation that he had official
information to this effect. We begged Sir Henry
Elliott to send one of his own secretaries to Bulgaria
to investigate and report to him. After excusing
himself for some time he sent for me one day and
told me that he had at last received orders to do so,
and that he would send Mr. Baring down to see me
before he started, which he did. But before that I
had learned from Sir Henry himself that he was not
only sending his youngest secretary, who knew but
little of the country and none of the languages, with-
out any interpreter who knew Bulgarian, but that
he was to get his information from the Turkish
authorities and to be in the country only two or
three days. I protested in vain, although Mr. Bar-
ing agreed with me. Sir Henry told me that he was
acting under instructions from home. This made it
clear that there was to be no real investigation, and
what was wanted by Mr. Disraeli was an official re-
port to confirm his statements that nothing serious
had happened in Bulgaria. There was nothing left
for us to do but to defend our honor and our verac-
ity as best we could. I went at once to Mr. May-
nard, explained the situation to him and begged him
to send Mr. Schuyler, who had just arrived in Con-
stantinople as secretary of the Legation and consul
general, to make an independent and impartial in-
109
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
vestigation of the situation in Bulgaria with proper
interpreters for Turkish, Bulgarian and Greek. He
said that he had no authority to do this, but that, if I
could persuade Mr. Schuyler to go, he would find a
way to send him. I found it easy to persuade Mr.
Schuyler, and he left Constantinople with his inter-
preters the day after Mr. Baring, overtaking him at
Adrianople. Mr. Baring was an honest man, and I
do not think that he was sorry to find himself
checkmated at the beginning of the game. He saw
at once that Mr. Schuyler's report would be ac-
cepted and believed by all the world. I do not know
what report Mr. Disraeli got. He did not publish
it; but the first result of Mr. Schuyler's preliminary
report, made in ten days, was to convert Mr. Glad-
stone and make him the leader in the great agita-
tion which finally overthrew the Disraeli govern-
ment, and which before that led to the Conference
of Constantinople. Mr. Baring went with Mr.
Schuyler to Batak,and saw with his own eyes the un-
buried bodies of some five thousand men, women
and children who had been slaughtered in this one
town, far from the seat of the insurrection. Our
graduate Mr. Peter Dimitroff went with Mr. Schuy-
ler as his Bulgarian interpreter. Could we have
done less than this under the circumstances ? It did
not in any way interrupt our friendly relations with
Sir Henry Elliott, who never charged us with having
any political aims in view. In the summer vacation
Mrs. Washburn and I went to the Engadine to re-
cruit my health, and Professor Panaretoff, who was
with us, improved the opportunity to go to England
and see our friends there. He was in the Speaker's
110
POLITICAL CRISIS IN TURKEY
Gallery in the House of Commons and heard the
last speech made by Mr. Disraeli, before his pro-
motion to the House of Lords. It was on the ques-
tion of the Bulgarian massacres.
I do not think that the Turkish authorities ever
thought of the College in those troublous times, al-
though Mahomet Ruchdi Pasha, the Grand Vizier,
was our near neighbor, and Midhat Pasha was of ten at
his house. Dr. Long had known the latter very well
when he was in Bulgaria, and Midhat was himself a
Bulgarian by race and birth, but a Pomak or Mo-
hammedan Bulgarian. Sir Henry Elliott's faith in
him was absolute, and it is true that he had been re-
markably successful as a provincial governor in
Bulgaria and in Bagdad. I once spent two days
with him on an Austrian steamer, and we discussed
Turkey most of the time. He was a very remark-
able conversationalist, and his head was full of
schemes of reform. I am free to confess that he
captivated me; but Dr. Long did not believe in his
capacity to reform the empire. He certainly failed,
and, at the time of his greatest power, he failed to
organize any party to support him and failed to get
the confidence of the Sultan whom he had put on
the throne. He was finally exiled to Arabia and
assassinated.
To return to what is more strictly the history of
the College. Mr. Robert remained in Europe until
the end of October, 1875. Very soon after his re-
turn to America it was evident from his letters that
he was very much tried by the financial conditions
there, as well as by the political situation at Con-
stantinople. His letters were full of exhortations to
111
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
economy and to caution about mixing in political
affairs. His advice was good, and we did our best
to follow it. Some of the things which we did in the
spring alarmed him, and he was evidently in doubt
whether to adopt Dr. Hamlin's opinions or ours
about Turkish affairs. We told him everything, and,
in the end, he thanked God that we had been able
to do something for the Bulgarians, of a sort which
the founders of the College had never dreamed of.
In the spring of 1876 we had a visit from Rev. Dr.
David B. Coe, one of the trustees, who had been
the secretary of the Board from the beginning, and
who was the chief support of the College after Mr.
Robert's death a man of admirable spirit and
great practical wisdom. One of the amusing inci-
dents of the year was the arrival of a consignment
of codfish from New York. Mr. Robert had in-
terested himself while here in the students' table and
it appears had concluded that Yankee codfish balls
ought to be an acceptable addition to their diet.
Mrs. Washburn superintended the Armenian cook
so that we produced the genuine article, and I made
a speech at the table in honor of Mr. Robert and the
dish; but, alas ! we discovered that early education
was necessary to an appreciation of this national
dainty and most of the codfish was disposed of
to American families.
One of the most welcome results of the political
troubles here was the arrival of American war ves-
sels, sent here by our government for the protection
of its Legation. At different times the Vandalia,
the Quinnebaug, the Gettysburg, the Wyoming,
the Despatch, the Marion, were here, sometimes two
112
POLITICAL CRISIS IN TURKEY
or three at once. Their presence here was an assur-
ance of protection, and it was a joy to see the Ameri-
can flag on the Bosphorus. We were not so proud
of the ships as we were of the officers. We saw much
of them. Like our great generals who have visited
Constantinople, and unlike some of our civil repre-
sentatives, they were interested in us because we
were Americans, and I have been a firm believer in
the navy ever since. To many of them we were
under special obligations.
As the year went on and the political troubles in-
creased the number of our students diminished. At
the end of the year the number of boarders had
fallen from 137 to 111. One hundred and forty in
all were present at the close. Some of the Bulga-
rians were unable to return home on account of the
state of the country, and we had to keep and protect
ten or twelve of them at the College during the long
summer vacation. As we could not suddenly reduce
our expenses to any great extent, the loss on the
current expense account was heavier than for any
previous year, amounting here and in America to
sixty-five hundred dollars. As Mr. Robert's private
income had been seriously reduced during the year,
this must have been a severe trial to him, but he did
not complain. He exhorted us to have faith in the
future. We arranged to reduce our expenses for the
following year by taking Dr. Long and his family to
live with us in the College, while Professor Grosve-
nor moved into the house in Hissar belonging to
us. The change was made in July, so that Dr. Long
looked after the College and the students remaining
there during the vacation, while I was in Switzer-
113
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
land. Mr. Robert had insisted on my taking this
trip and had sent me the money for my expenses.
The Senior class held together to the end of the
year, and there were 15 graduates, the largest num-
ber since the opening of the College. One of them
took the degree of B.S. ; 7 were Bulgarians, 7 Ar-
menians, and 1 Greek. Twelve of them are still
living (1907). All of the Bulgarians became dis-
tinguished men, four of them as soldiers. Two of
them commanded regiments in the famous battle
of Slivnitza, one of whom was killed. His name was
Marinoff , one of the most attractive men who ever
graduated at the College. The other died in 1902
as Minister of Public Works in Bulgaria. The
other two are among the best officers in the Bulga-
rian army to-day, one of them a general. Of the
others one is a physician, one is judge of the Court
of Appeals at Sophia and one was secretary of the
same court. The Greek is a successful physician
in Constantinople. Of the Armenians three are
merchants, one in Chicago, one in England and one
in Constantinople. One is the head of the Society
for Ethical Culture in Chicago, one is a clergyman,
and two are physicians. One of them is one of the
leaders of his profession in Constantinople.
114
CHAPTER IX
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR. 1876-1877
WHEN I returned from Switzerland in September,
1876, I found a new Sultan on the throne. Murad
had been deposed and his brother Abd-ul-Hamid
installed in his place chiefly through the influence of
Midhat Pasha and Sir Henry Elliott. Very little
was known about him even by the Turks, but he
was supposed to be a quiet, unobtrusive man with
little knowledge of political affairs, who would be a
tool in the hands of the conspirators who had de-
posed his uncle and his brother. It was not long
before they and the world were undeceived.
The College opened with 83 boarders, 27 of
whom were Bulgarians, and 27 day scholars, 110 in
all. Ten more Bulgarians came later, but other
students left so that the number at the end of the
year was still 110, in place of 140 at the close of the
preceding year. It was much better than we had
feared. We were not able to make any essential re-
ductions in our staff of teachers. Professor Pana-
retoff returned with us, and, although his presence
in London had attracted some attention and had
alarmed Mr. Robert, nothing was ever said to us
about it here. The Turks were too much taken up
with their own affairs to trouble themselves about
him. One of the most serious of their troubles was
financial They had destroyed their credit by going
115
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
into practical bankruptcy and could borrow no
money and were forced to resort to the issue of an
irredeemable paper currency (caime). It was the
financial condition of the country, even more than
the unsettled political condition, which reduced the
number of our students, for people generally re-
garded Robert College as about the safest place in
Constantinople. The Turks set traps for us now
and then, during this and the following years, to
test our loyalty ; but, as we never walked into them,
they found nothing to complain of.
In the war with Servia the Turks were successful
in spite of the fact that a large number of Russian
officers and soldiers had been allowed by their gov-
ernment to go to aid the Servians. The Turkish
armies were arrested only by the direct intervention
of Russia and the threat of war. The Great Powers
finally agreed to call a European conference to meet
at Constantinople to consider the situation and in-
duce the Turkish government to agree to such re-
forms as would satisfy the people of European
Turkey and prevent a war, which might involve
all Europe.
This conference was for many reasons a matter
of the greatest interest to the College. If successful
it would insure a long period of peace to Turkey
and quiet and prosperity to the European prov-
inces. It would check any advance of Russia, and
give the Bulgarians a chance to educate the nation.
We were brought into somewhat intimate relations
with it by the fact that England had been a leader in
the plan of the Conference and that her representa-
tives believed that we knew more of the people and
116
SUL1AN AHI) I L HAM11)
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR
the situation in Bulgaria than any one else in Con-
stantinople. Lord Salisbury and Sir Henry Elliott
were the English delegates, and two of the men who
came with Lord Salisbury were in later years am-
bassadors here, Lord Curry and Sir William White.
Admiral Sir John Hay was also here. The delegates
gathered here early in December, 1876, and had a
number of informal sessions, to see if they could
come to an agreement among themselves before
meeting with the Turkish delegates. The antici-
pated antagonism between Lord Salisbury and
General Ignatieff, the Russian delegate, did not ap-
pear. They worked together all through the Con-
ference, and reached a plan which, if it had been
accepted by the Turks, would have brought peace
and prosperity to the empire. Unhappily Sir Henry
Elliott did not agree with Lord Salisbury, as he told
me himself, and, perhaps unconsciously, he en-
couraged the Turks to resist. The full Conference
met December 23. Midhat Pasha had prepared a
coup de theatre for the occasion. The Conference
was formally opened and discussions about to begin
when it was interrupted by the roar of cannon; and
the Turkish president of the Conference, Safvet
Pasha, rose and declared that "these guns an-
nounced the promulgation of a constitution, a
change in a form of government which had lasted
six hundred years and inaugurated a new era of
prosperity for the Ottoman people." There was no
longer any need of a conference. All the people of
Turkey were to enjoy far more than the Conference
was prepared to ask for the European provinces.
The Conference did not accept this view because it
117
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
offered no guarantee for the carrying out of reforms.
The session continued, and the delegates gave up
one demand after another until the scheme was of
little account, but the Turks refused to accept any-
thing ; the Conference adjourned, and all the Great
Powers recalled their ambassadors and broke off
relations with the Sultan. The Turks, before the
final refusal to accept, went through the farce of
calling an assembly of the Turkish notables and
the heads of the Christian communities to express
an opinion. The Bulgarian Exarch refused to at-
tend on the ground that he was ill. The Vekil of
the Protestant community was the only one present
who dared to speak of the danger of refusal and to
advise caution. The man in the street, whether
Turk or Christian or Jew, was equally careful to
express nothing but joy at the new Constitution.
The Constitution was full of sonorous words and
phrases, borrowed from similar documents, but was
altogether worthless as a charter of liberty and not
adapted to the conditions of the country. Only six
weeks after its promulgation Midhat Pasha was
summoned to the Palace in the middle of the night,
seized there, put on board of a steamer and shipped
out of the country in disgrace, to Brindisi in Italy,
nominally under a provision of his own constitution.
However, the promised Parliament a Senate ap-
pointed by the Sultan and a House of Deputies
chosen in various fashions in different provinces by
the people did meet six weeks after the exile of
Midhat and was opened by the Sultan in person,
March 19, 1877. Our friend Achmet Vefik Pasha was
chosen president of the lower house, and there were
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THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR
a number of members whose independence and
good sense astonished every one, but it was a unique
assembly. I attended one of the sessions. Among
other incidents a green-turbaned descendant of the
Prophet interrupted a speaker and was called to
order twice, with no result. When Achmet Vefik
Pasha roared at him, "Sows eshek" (Shut up, you
donkey), he dropped into his seat as though he had
been shot. The Parliament was altogether too in-
dependent and was dissolved June 28, 1877.
Another was chosen six months later which made
itself still more disagreeable, and that was the end.
The failure of the Conference was a disappointment
to us at the College, and, as we believed, a misfor-
tune for Turkey. We also believed that it would be
better for the Bulgarians to be gradually emanci-
pated. I am of the same opinion to-day. What-
ever influence we had at the Conference was ex-
erted with this in view. All that we did was in the
interest of peace. The failure of the Conference
meant war. A distinguished member of the Ulema
explained to me at the time that the difficulty was
that the government had stirred up the fanaticism
of the people and had found it impossible to explain
to the rank and file the necessity of yielding to the
demands of infidel Europe.
Painful negotiations between the Powers fol-
lowed the failure of the Conference, and war was not
declared by Russia until April 29, 1877. The Eng-
lish government was unwilling to permit Russia to
act in the spirit of the Conference and coerce the
Turks; but the Bulgarian massacres had roused
public opinion in England to such a pitch of hostil-
119
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
ity to Turkey that the government did not dare to
protect her openly. Austria also had to be bought
over to the side of Russia by the promise of Bosnia
and Herzegovina. England and Austria both stipu-
lated that Russia should not occupy Constantinople.
It does not come within the scope of this history
to narrate the events of the Russo-Turkish War.
At the outset the Turks had the advantage, and, if
the Sultan had not attempted to direct the armies
from his palace and had given the supreme com-
mand to any one of two or three of his generals, the
Russians would have been miserably defeated, the
first year at least; but Suleiman Pasha with the
best of the Turkish troops was kept in Montenegro
to be beaten by those mountaineers, while the
troops who should have united against the Russians
in Bulgaria were commanded by generals who did
not work in harmony. The Russians were alto-
gether unprepared for war, and the government had
been forced into it by public opinion. The excite-
ment in Constantinople during the spring and sum-
mer was intense, and the whole Mohammedan popu-
lation of the empire was roused to defend the faith
against their old enemy. The Christians did not
know which to fear most, a great defeat or a great
victory for the Turks. Our students shared in this
excitement, especially as nearly half of our board-
ers were Bulgarians; but the College was never mo-
lested in any way, and we did our best to keep the
students occupied with their studies.
At one time there were reports of a great Russian
victory, and there was great alarm among the more
ignorant Turks in the city. One day the wife of the
120
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR
imam of the quarter next the College came to me
in great excitement and told me that the Russians
were coming and would certainly murder them all.
She came in the name of the women of Hissar to
know if we would take them all into the College and
protect them against the Russians. I told her that
we would, and that she would find the American flag
a sure protection. She went away comforted. It was
very fortunate for us during the excitement of the
war that our neighbors were friendly. At one time
they took pains to warn us that it would be danger-
ous for a few days for our Bulgarian students to
leave the college grounds.
We were greatly indebted to the officers of the
Vandalia for the interest which they took in the Col-
lege at this time. Their frequent visits were a boon
to us in many ways. One evening Lieutenant
Danenhower brought up some twenty sailors, who
gave the students a negro minstrel concert, closing
with a tableau of the Goddess of Liberty supported
by the army and navy. It was a great success, and
the sailors spent the night at the College. Another
day they came up for a baseball match. These
things were a great relief to the strain under which
the students lived. The College was also a centre to
which all visitors, English and American, to Con-
stantinople came for information. Mr. Maynard,
Mr. Schuyler and Mr. Tuckerman, minister to
Greece, were also constant visitors, and they gave
lectures to the students on various subjects.
The fall of Midhat Pasha made it impossible for
Sir Henry Elliott to return to the British Embassy
here, and Sir A. Henry Layard was sent to take his
121
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
place. He had been here in the time of Lord Strat-
ford, before he became famous for his work in
Babylonia, and he was welcomed by the Turks as
an old friend and a well-known Turcophile. He
was also a devoted friend of ours, which at that
time was most fortunate for us. Dr. Long and I
continued to conduct the Sunday services at the
British Embassy in Therapia as we had done for sev-
eral years in the summer months under Sir Henry
Elliott. A good many Turks at that time gave us
the credit of having brought on the war, and Sir
Henry Layard improved a favorable opportunity
to ask the Sultan and the Grand Vizier whether they
had any complaints to make of Robert College.
Both of them assured him that they were perfectly
satisfied that neither the College nor any of its stu-
dents had ever done anything to encourage rebellion
in Bulgaria. This was the simple truth. It was a
relief to know that it was acknowledged to be true
by the Sultan. Sir Henry Layard represented here
the pro-Turkish and anti-Russian policy of Lord
Beaconsfield, and his relations with the Sultan were
more intimate than those of any other ambassador
before or since. He was consequently in a position
to mitigate, in some measure, the severity of the
treatment of the Bulgarians by the Turkish author-
ities. We were able through his influence to save
some lives in Bulgaria of old students and others.
In one important case, however, we had an illustra-
tion of the difficulty of accomplishing anything
under the Turkish administration. There were
some fifty Bulgarians, some of them educated gen-
tlemen and friends of ours, who were in imprison-
122
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR
ment or exile, mostly in Mesopotamia and Syria.
Some had been there for years. They had never
been tried, but had been arrested and sent off on
suspicion, simply because they were more intelli-
gent than others. They had never been told what
their offense was supposed to be. Before the Rus-
sians crossed the Danube it was a time when it was
the policy of the Turks to conciliate the Bulgarians,
and we represented the case of these Bulgarians to
Mr. Layard, giving a detailed statement of each
case. He saw the point and took our paper to the
Sultan, who also saw the point and in Mr. Layard's
presence ordered the immediate release of these
men. Nothing was done, and Mr. Layard again
spoke to the Sultan. He immediately summoned
the officer to whom he had given orders and asked
why his orders had not been carried out. It was
said that they had not yet verified the statements
in our paper. Again he gave orders and again
nothing was done. A third time Mr. Layard called
the Sultan's attention to the matter. He got this
answer, " Have I not given you my word ? " No-
thing was ever done until the Russians at San
Stefano secured their release.
We had troubles of our own in the College during
the year, two cases of scarlet fever and a case of
chicken pox, and at that time we had no doctor
within five miles and no trained nurse or proper
hospital. It was due to the devotion of the teach-
ers and one of the students that we escaped an epi-
demic. In June Dr. Long had to go to America to
bring home his eldest daughter, who was seriously
ill. Professor Grosvenor was ill for some time, and
123
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
I was not in good health at any time during the
year. Then we were perplexed as to what policy we
ought to pursue in regard to the College. The
Lycee of Galata Serai and the national schools in
Constantinople were closed soon after the out-
break of war. For a time Mr. Robert was in favor
of closing, and the question came up as to what
would be done with the building in that case.
Could it be used as a hospital ? Would the United
States minister be willing to occupy it officially, or
the consul general? It was our opinion that we
should not close the College, whatever might hap-
pen, unless forced to do so by the Turkish govern-
ment, a contingency which we had no reason to
anticipate. Mr. Robert finally accepted this view,
although it seemed very doubtful whether we
should have many students. Another important
question was brought up during the year by Pro-
fessor Grosvenor. He was an enthusiastic Greek
scholar and more interested in the Greeks than the
Bulgarians. He wrote very strongly to Mr. Robert
as to the weakness of our Greek Department and
attributed to this the small number of our Greek stu-
dents. We had only seven Greek boarders and four
day scholars. His criticism of the department was
just. We had one Greek professor, learned, but a poor
teacher, who was of very little use to the students.
We dismissed him at the end of the year and found
it very difficult to get another. In fact the Greeks
who were here did not come here for Greek, but for
English and for a general education, and objected
to studying Greek. The real reason why we had so
few was that Robert College was looked upon by the
124
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR
Greeks as a Bulgarian college and they detested the
Bulgarians. I was often told this in so many words.
Still Professor Grosvenor was right in principle, and
we never reached the Greeks to any extent until we
found our present Greek professor, Professor Eliou,
and through him were able to make this depart-
ment equal to a Greek gymnasium. We now have
six Greek teachers. The trouble in 1877 was that
we had no money to expend in experiments.
Our Commencement exercises at the close of the
year were an agreeable disappointment to us. It
seemed doubtful whether, in the existing state of
feeling in the city, it would be wise to have public
exercises and whether any one would come if we did.
The prize speaking on Wednesday and the public
debate in the evening brought together large audi-
ences, although the day was very hot and sultry.
The debate on the question, "Has war produced
more good than evil in the world ?" interested the
students very much and justified their choice of this
subject. Thursday was a beautiful day, and the
study hall was crowded to its utmost capacity with
a distinguished audience. The orations were good
and the speeches made by our guests excellent, as
well as judicious, which was very important at that
time. The Turkish representative of the govern-
ment, a member of the Council of Public Instruc-
tion, declared that they held the College in the high-
est esteem and wished it all possible success. After
the exercises we gave a luncheon to two hundred
of the guests.
The graduating class numbered 14, of whom 10
are now living (1907). Five were Bulgarians, 6
125
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Armenians, 2 Greeks, and 1 was an Englishman.
Two of the Bulgarians have occupied high official
positions, 2 have been teachers and literary men,
1 a successful merchant; 3 of the Armenians, the
Englishman and the Greeks have been merchants; 1
of the Armenians is now a professor in Robert Col-
lege, 1 died soon after graduation.
Many of our Bulgarians could not go home or
even leave the college grounds. The feeling against
them was more bitter than ever. General Gourco's
foolish, unsupported raid across the Balkans and
occupation of Eski Zagra, with the atrocities com-
mitted on the Turks there, had been terribly re-
venged by Suleiman Pasha, who had been recalled
from Montenegro, with thousands of Bulgarians
slaughtered and the town destroyed. Both events
had increased the desire for vengeance among the
Turks here. So Mrs. Washburn and I spent the
summer in the College to protect the students who
remained there. It was well for us that we had
American men of war in the harbor, and that the
officers and Mr. Maynard were frequent visitors at
the College. As it was we had no serious difficulties of
any kind. Dr. Long's wife and daughters lived with
us. The deficit for the year on the current expense
account here and in America was eighty-six hun-
dred and twenty dollars, two thousand dollars
more than the preceding year.
126
CHAPTER X
THE RUSSIANS AT SAN STEFANO. 1877-1878
THE College opened September 18, 1877, with 69
boarders and 26 day scholars. Thirty-nine of the
boarders were Bulgarians. At the close of this year
there were 80 boarders, of whom 44 were Bulga-
rians and 28 day scholars. Dr. Long returned
from America September 21 and was in charge of
the College as acting director during the year.
Mrs. Washburn and I left for America September
26, my health having given out. I was suffering
from nervous prostration. Professor Panaretoff had
gone to Europe for the summer vacation and could
not return on account of the violent persecution
of all Bulgarians who came within the reach of the
Turkish authorities here. The arrival of the Rus-
sians at San Stefano in March put an end to
this, and Professor Panaretoff returned for the rest
of the year. Mr. Slaveikoff had done his work up
to this time, when he left the College and accepted
a place on the staff of one of the Russian generals.
Similar positions were already filled by several
of our former students. Mr. Ludskanoff of the
class of 1875 had greatly distinguished himself on
the staff of General Skobeleff, who spoke of him to
me in the highest terms. The necessity of such ap-
pointments grew out of the ignorance of the lan-
guage of the country by the Russians, and the pres-
127
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
ence of a large number of Bulgarian volunteers in
the Russian army. Two new tutors arrived in
September, Messrs. Truax and Nash, both of whom
in later years distinguished themselves in America,
the first as a lawyer in New York and the second as
a theological professor in California.
It was near the beginning of this year that
the prospects of the war began to change in
favor of the Russians both in Europe and Asia.
The condition of the Russian armies had steadily
improved, and the Roumanians had joined them in
Bulgaria, while the Turkish armies were steadily
deteriorating, through the weakness of the govern-
ment at Constantinople. We cannot follow the
course of the war in the field. We have only to do
with events at Constantinople. After the fall of
Plevna, the terrible winter passage of the Balkans
and the rout of the Turkish army in the bloody
battle of Shenova, the Russians pressed on to Con-
stantinople, sweeping everything before them. The
Turkish population of the country fled in terror,
believing that the Russians and Bulgarians would
avenge the massacre of the Bulgarians by a general
slaughter of the Turks. It would require the pen of a
De Quincey to picture the horrors of that winter
exodus. I have heard the number of those who died
on the road and in the streets of Constantinople esti-
mated at a hundred thousand, but no one will ever
know whether it was more or less. General Skobeleff ,
who commanded the advance guard of the Russians,
related tome one incident of his own experience which
may illustrate faintly the nature of this flight. It
was between Philippopolis and Adrianople that he
128
THE RUSSIANS AT SAN STEFANO
unexpectedly heard the sound of guns and hastened
to the front. It was at a place where two rivers came
together, and crowded in between them were an im-
mense number of carts and some thousands of
Turks, men, women and children. He ordered his
troops to retire and rode forward himself to assure
the refugees that they had nothing to fear; but he
could not approach them as they persistently fired
upon him, so he waited until they could get away.
When he finally started at the head of a regiment of
Cossacks he soon saw a baby by the roadside. He
ordered a soldier to pick it up, and before he reached
the next town nearly every soldier in the regiment
had a child in his arms, which had been thrown
away by its parents in their mad flight. At this
town he seized a sufficient number of carts to carry
these children to a Turkish village in the mountains
where there was hope that the people might feed
them. What their fate was he could not tell. It was
reported from other sources that some two thousand
children were thrown by their parents into the rivers,
and that their bodies actually dammed the streams.
It was said that the whole line of the railway from
Adrianople was marked by the corpses of those
who had fallen from the trains, too nearly frozen to
keep their hold on the tops and sides of the cars.
Great numbers starved to death with cold and hun-
ger on the roads through the desolate country this
side of Adrianople. Including the disbanded troops
it was estimated that some three hundred thousand
reached Constantinople in such a piteous state that,
instead of plundering the unprotected city, they
lay down and died in the streets and mosques.
129
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Typhus fever and smallpox raged among them and
infected the city. There was a scarcity of food and
of places to shelter them. It was altogether the most
terrible experience that Constantinople had wit-
nessed since the Turkish conquest. It was in the
midst of these scenes that the new Parliament,
chosen in some fashion, was holding its sessions,
and it astonished every one by suddenly rousing it-
self and passing a vote of censure on the ministers.
The ministers resigned, and the Sultan, without any
apparent reason, abolished the office of Grand
Vizier, appointed our friend Achmet Vefik Pasha
Prime Minister, and ordered him to form a homo-
geneous ministry. Three months later, after he had
been ignominiously dismissed, he told me many
things in regard to his experiences. He found it
almost impossible to transact business with the
Sultan, and at times for two or three days together
he seemed to be out of his mind. He trusted no one
and really allowed the ministers no initiative in any
business. But one thing Achmet Vefik Pasha ac-
complished with the aid of Sir Henry Layard which
was of vital importance. When the Russians ap-
proached Constantinople the Sultan determined to
retire to Brousa, the old Turkish capital, and gave
orders accordingly. If he had done so the probabil-
ity is that he would never have returned. They
finally persuaded him to abandon the project. The
story is that Sir Henry literally went down on his
knees to the Sultan, but I do not know whether this
is true. Certainly he did metaphorically. The
Parliament was dispersed, many of the members
escaped from the country, others were imprisoned,
130
THE RUSSIANS AT SAN STEFANO
and that was the end of the Constitution. It was
never formally revoked, but died a natural death.
It was originally decreed by absolute power, simply
to checkmate the European Powers, not because it
was demanded by the people or adapted to the
wants of the country, and it had never in any way
limited the autocracy of the Sultan. He had made
the war of his own will and he made peace in his
own way.
With the arrival of the Russian army came the
English fleet, which had nominally forced the pas-
sage of the Dardanelles in defiance of treaties, and
hoped to prevent the occupation of Constanti-
nople by the Russians. It was not war but a threat
of war. So far as the Turks were concerned there
was nothing to prevent the Russians entering the
city without firing a shot. General Grant, who
was here a little later, was in St. Petersburg at this
time, and he told this story on the authority of a
high official there. "When the Grand Duke ar-
rived at San Stef ano he sent many telegrams to
the Czar, among others this, 'We are in sight of
St. Sophia. There are no troops between us and
the city. Shall I enter and take possession?' All
the other telegrams were answered at once. This
one was not, in the full belief that the Grand Duke
would understand that he was to take the respon-
sibility himself and occupy the city. To the great
disappointment of the Czar he did not." General
Grant added that this seemed to him the greatest
mistake the Russians had made.
March 3, 1878, a treaty of peace was signed be-
tween Russia and Turkey at San Stef ano which
131
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
would have been final but for the attitude of Eng-
land and Austria. For some time it looked as
though war would result from this intervention,
and during these months we received many visits
from English and Russian officers, which puzzled
us at first, but we soon discovered that it was a
question of whether Russian batteries on the
grounds of Robert College could prevent the British
fleet from ascending the Bosphorus and entering
the Black Sea to cut off the communication of the
Russian armies. Dr. Long had information that a
large force with heavy guns was not far away, and
for a time was quite anxious about it. Happily we
escaped this danger. The only occasion that we
ever had to complain of the Russians grew out of
what they had learned of Robert College in Bulga-
ria. All the forces that returned to Russia were
brought to Constantinople and sent home by sea,
so that every transport passed the College, and when
opposite us, if there was a band on board, it struck
up some American tune and the men gave three
cheers. We had to explain to General Skobeleff
that while we were grateful for the interest they had
in us, this manifestation of it was not likely to im-
prove our relations with the Turks, and we begged
that it might be dispensed with. The streets of
Constantinople were full of Russian officers and
soldiers as long as they were at San Stef ano, and
we never heard of any conflicts between them and
the Turks.
The treaty of San Stef ano was of course a hard
one fojJTurkey, but it would have been better for
Englandfand for all the people of European Turkey
1 132
THE RUSSIANS AT SAN STEFANO
if it had been allowed to stand, and far better for the
Armenians of Asia. The Sultan himself had no
reason to thank England or Austria for their inter-
vention. The secret convention by which England
acquired Cyprus was little better than a theatrical
trick of Lord Beaconsfield's. It interested the Col-
lege only in that the British government asked us
to furnish them with officials from among our
graduates. The treaty of Berlin, which was signed
July 13, 1878, was one of the most important
events of the nineteenth century in European his-
tory, but it was not made in the interest of any one
in the Turkish Empire. I do not know that it pro-
fessed to be, although Lord Beaconsfield congratu-
lated himself on having "consolidated" the em-
pire, an euphemism for having reduced the size of
it. Each Power sought only to further its own in-
terests and ambitions; and for the people chiefly
concerned the result has been a succession of wars,
revolutions and massacres down to the present day.
This is not the place to discuss this treaty, but we
may take a single illustration from the people in
whom the College was most interested at that time,
the Bulgarians. The treaty of San Stefano had
created a Bulgaria essentially on the lines agreed to
by the Powers at the Conference of Constantinople.
The treaty of Berlin divided the Bulgarians into
jive sections, giving one part to Servia, one to Rou-
mania, one to an autonomous province called East-
ern Roumelia, one to Turkey and one to constitute
the Principality of Bulgaria under the suzerainty
of the Sultan; and it was England especially that
insisted upon this and also upon the right of Turkey
133
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
to occupy and fortify the range of the Balkans, all
with the object of making it impossible for the Bul-
garians to form a viable state, which might be
friendly to Russia. The Englishmen who knew
Bulgaria, all our friends, understood the folly and
wickedness of this at the time. All England has
learned it since. Thus far the results have been the
revolution of 1885, which resulted in the union of
Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia, the war with
Servia, the insurrection in Macedonia and the prov-
ince of Adrianople, and all the massacres and un-
speakable horrors of the last thirty-nine years in
Macedonia, to say nothing of what Bulgaria has
suffered from the intrigues of foreign Powers ever
since the treaty of Berlin. The awful massacres
and persecutions from which the Armenians have
suffered since 1886 have been equally the result of
this treaty.
At the time, however, the advent of peace was a
great boon to Constantinople and to the College,
although we were brought into direct relations with
an amount of human suffering on the part of the
Turkish refugees from Bulgaria which was very
distressing, and we found ourselves feeding and
clothing some of the very people who had massacred
the Bulgarians two years before. There were many
of them quartered near the College, and a few re-
main to this day (1907) still recipients of our char-
ity. Some of them suffered great remorse for what
they had done and felt that their present suffering
was a just judgment of God, and most of those near
us have proved to be very decent though very igno-
rant people. Some have returned to Bulgaria.
134
THE RUSSIANS AT SAN STEFANO
There was a severe shock of earthquake in Con-
stantinople April 19, which alarmed the city and
shook Hamlin Hall vigorously, but without doing
any injury to the building or causing any loss of life
in the city. People's minds were so much occupied
with the political disturbances that the earthquake
excited very little attention.
Dr. Long proved himself a very efficient director
of the College and a very wise representative of its
interests in these troublous times, with our neigh-
bors the Turks as well as at the embassies and with
the government. It was due largely to him that
the peace of the College was never disturbed and
that none of our Bulgarian students were molested.
I spent the year in America, and so far as my
health permitted I devoted myself to raising money
to aid those students who had been left in poverty
by the massacres and the war in Bulgaria. Thanks
to the kindness of many friends, especially in
Boston and vicinity, I raised five thousand dollars
for this purpose. We also received some money
from friends in England. I often saw Mr. Robert
during the year. He was in feeble health, and the
doctors sent him to Europe in June, 1878; but his
interest in the College never flagged, and his ina-
bility to sufficiently endow it was a constant burden
on his mind. The last time that we spoke about
it the tears ran down his cheeks as he talked, but
he had great faith in its future. I also visited Dr.
Hamlin in Bangor. His heart was still in the Col-
lege, but he altogether disapproved of everything
which the College had done in connection with the
Bulgarians, and thought that Dr. Long and I had
135
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
very nearly, if not quite, put an end to its usefulness.
I did not succeed in convincing him that times had
changed since he left Constantinople. All the same,
I had a very pleasant visit and, in spite of what he
said, had very little doubt but that if he had been
in our place he would have done very much the
things that we did.
The Commencement exercises took place in the
middle of July, a few days after the signing of the
treaty of Berlin, when the city was rejoicing in
peace, and brought together quite a distinguished
assembly. Mr. Maynard, the American minister,
presided; Sir Henry Layard, the British ambassa-
dor, made a speech; the Turkish government was
represented by an officer who spoke in praise of the
College; and the Armenian Patriarch sent his vicar
to present his salutations and best wishes. It was a
happy end of a very trying year, and all our students
were able to return in peace to their homes.
There were 8 in the graduating class, of whom 3
were Bulgarians, 3 Armenians, 1 a Greek and 1 an
Englishman. Only three of this class are still living
(1907), two of them in Constantinople and one in
New York. One of the Bulgarians was distin-
guished as a jurist and a diplomatist, the other two
were officers in the Bulgarian army. Of the others,
two were in the civil service of the British govern-
ment, one is a banker, one a merchant in Con-
stantinople, and one an official in New York.
136
CHAPTER XI
MB. ROBERT'S DEATH. 1878-1879
THIS year marks the beginning of a new era in
the history of the College. Mr. Robert died sud-
denly in Paris, October 27, 1878. He had been in
feeble health for some months, but his death was
unexpected. He had written me a long letter on the
25th and was about to return to America. His death
left the College to stand or fall on its own merits.
Up to this time he had controlled and supported it.
Nothing had been done in the College without his
knowledge and approval. In addition to weekly
letters, monthly reports were made to him of every
detail of expenditure and of every student in the
College, and in return we received advice or instruc-
tions from him in regard to everything. It is true
that we did not always follow his advice or even
obey his instructions; but in such cases we never
failed to explain and justify our action by a full
statement of our reasons, which he generally ac-
cepted as satisfactory and always with a recogni-
tion of the fact that he might be mistaken. The
trustees in New York naturally left everything to
him. We had no correspondence with them, and
except Mr. Booth and Dr. Coe he seldom con-
sulted them. They knew very little about the Col-
lege. Whatever money was expended during these
fifteen years for building, current expenses or
137
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
any other purpose, he furnished. How much it
amounted to I do not know, but it could not have
been less than two hundred and fifty thousand dol-
lars. This was not an ideal arrangement, and Mr.
Robert's death left the College in a precarious posi-
tion. But in reading the correspondence of those
fifteen years I have been deeply impressed with its
revelation of Mr. Robert's character, as a man
whose chief end in life was to understand and do
the will of God. He loved the College and cared
for it as a shepherd might love and care for his
master's flock, but it was not as his College. It
was the Master's. He did not look upon those who
were at work in the College as his servants, but with
him fellow-servants of the Master. His experience
in connection with the College seemed to develop a
spirit of humility rather than pride and self-satis-
faction, and as the years went on it was more and
more a work of faith rather than self-confidence.
It was God's work, and it would prosper. It should
be remembered that he solemnly protested against
having his name given to the College, and that he did
everything in his power to induce others to share his
interest and responsibility. He realized as fully as
we did the dangers of the situation in which we
might be left. He never drew upon the money in-
vested for endowment to meet expenses, and he set
apart a contingent fund himself which the trustees
might use to meet any emergency in case of his
death. Nothing tried his faith so sorely as Dr.
Hamlin's failure to interest others in the College.
He never blamed him, but he felt it to be a mys-
terious dispensation of Providence, which he could
138
MR. ROBERTS DEATH
not understand, but which he must not allow to dis-
turb his faith.
When he died we found ourselves in possession of
property in Constantinople valued at $150,000
Endowment raised by Dr. Hamlin and
invested 12,000
Endowment given by Mr. Remington
and invested ..... 5,000
Contingent Fund invested . . 10,000
Total $177,000
In his will he left the College the real estate that he
owned at Lookout Mountain, where he had opened
a school after the war, which we sold some years
later for forty thousand dollars, and also one-fifth
of his general estate. His will was contested by
some members of his family, but finally, some years
later, it was decided in favor of the College, and we
received about one hundred thousand dollars as our
one-fifth.
The trustees to whom we were responsible were
William A. Booth, President, Rev. Dr. D. B. Coe,
Secretary, J. D. Vermilye, Treasurer, W. G. Lam-
bert, A. S. Barnes and E. A. Brinkerhoff.
Except the first two we had at this time no ac-
quaintance with them, and they knew but little of
us or our work. Mr. Merriman, who had been for
some years Mr. Robert's private secretary, was the
only other person in New York who had any per-
sonal knowledge of the details of college affairs, and
he continued to assist the treasurer for many years,
being at the same time in the service of Mr. Robert's
139
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
eldest son, who was the executor of his father's will
and united with the College in defending it.
It was of course impossible for the trustees to
assume any such supervision of the College as Mr.
Robert had carried on, but they realized their re-
sponsibility for the property and legal status of the
institution and did what they could to carry out the
wishes of the Faculty; but we were made to under-
stand that henceforth the fate of the College de-
pended upon us and not upon them. They had
appointed me president June 6, 1878, just before
Mr. Robert left for Europe, and at our request Dr.
Long was appointed vice-president. I find in the
correspondence that they also appointed an advis-
ory committee in Constantinople, consisting of the
American minister, the American consul general
and half a dozen missionaries, nominated by us;
but I have no recollection of ever having called this
committee together, and I suspect that it was even
more short-lived than Dr. Hamlin's advisory com-
mittee, although we often had occasion to seek the
advice of individual members.
Probably the most important act of the trustees
during the year was the appointment of Rev. Alex-
ander van Millingen as professor. He has been one
of the main pillars of the College ever since. Born
in Constantinople, educated in Scotland and a min-
ister of the Free Church, the son of a distinguished
English physician, who was one of the most note-
worthy men in Constantinople during a long period
of years, he has rendered invaluable service to the
College and is recognized as the highest authority
on the archaeology of Constantinople. Although
140
MR. ROBERT'S DEATH
appointed during this year, he did not enter upon his
work until the beginning of the next, having in the
meantime married one of the most brilliant and at-
tractive ladies in New Haven, Conn.
The fact that Professor van Millingen's appoint-
ment was made at the request of the Faculty is evi-
dence that we had not lost our faith in the future of
the College. In fact we felt that there was nothing
for us to do but to go forward, trusting in God,
and to make the College worthy of support. That
meant progress and development. To remain sta-
tionary meant failure, for the influence of the Col-
lege had already created a demand for a higher and
better education than any one in Turkey had
thought of fifteen years before, and the new Bul-
garia was crying out for thoroughly educated young
men. We could not diminish our expenditure. We
prepared to increase it. Only, as president of the
College, I determined that we should keep out of
debt and never spend money which was not in sight.
We adhered to this principle, although we often had
occasion to mourn over lost opportunities, or what
seemed to be such, but I believe in the principle to-
day as firmly as I did thirty years ago. I have al-
ways looked upon this as God's work and felt that,
if we did our duty in it, He would give us the means
to carry it forward just as fast as He saw it to be
best.
When the College opened in September, 1878, the
treaty of Berlin had been signed, but the condition
of things in Constantinople and in the provinces
was far from satisfactory. The Russian armies still
occupied Bulgaria and were still encamped at San
141
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Stefano. The Turkish government was bankrupt
and disorganized, the city was still full of starving
refugees, and the irredeemable paper money was
our only currency, so that business was stagnant.
We could not hope for any immediate increase in
the number of our students. The year opened with
96 boarders and 38 day scholars, 134 in all, against
108 at the close of the preceding year, which, all
things considered, was encouraging. At the close of
the year there were 103 boarders and 43 day schol-
ars present.
It was during this year that we published the first
catalogue of the College. It was in the English
language and designed for circulation in America
rather than in Turkey. Statements in regard to the
College for use in this country had to be published
in five different languages. This catalogue shows
that at that time there were five professors (not in-
cluding Professor van Millingen), three American
tutors, one French, one German, one Italian, one
Greek, one Turkish and one Armenian instructors,
besides a teacher of music and the president's
secretary. It gives a detailed account of the 76
graduates of the College, and shows that up to that
time there had been 912 different students in the
College. It gives the names, nationality and resi-
dence of 11 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 19 Sophomores, 14
Freshmen, 22 Sub-Freshmen and 76 preparatory
students, 151 in all registered during the year, to-
gether with all necessary information in regard to
the course of study, the terms of admission, and, in
general, of the objects of the College. It is a pam-
phlet of twenty-eight pages, printed in Constant!-
MR. ROBERT'S DEATH
nople by an Armenian who learned his trade in
Andover, Mass.
Looking over the list of instructors reminds me of
my experience with the German instructor. He
was a brilliant and accomplished young man of one
of the best families in the kingdom of Hanover,
and the leading German pastor in New York city
gave him the highest recommendations; but he
turned out to be a thoroughgoing vagabond, who
had run away from Hanover to escape from military
service. When we found him out we had to expel
him from the College, and for many years he used
to send me, every few months, from different parts
of the world, abusive postal cards, informing me of
his intention to come to Constantinople to kill me or
to horsewhip me in the streets, or some other threat.
It is some years now since I have heard of him, and I
have no doubt that he is dead. The story of my
experience with him from first to last would furnish
material for the stage of a Bowery theatre.
The American tutors this year were Mr. Nash, of
whom I have already spoken, Mr. Porter, who was
here only one year, and Edward M. Vittum, who is
now (1907) president of a College in North Dakota.
I returned from America in September, 1878, in
better health, traveling by way of England, where
Mrs. Washburn and I stopped to visit Mr. William
E. Forster, the famous English statesman, at his
home in the English Lake Country. Mrs. Forster
was the daughter of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, and we
saw much of Matthew Arnold, who was visiting
his mother at this time. Mr. Forster had been for
several years one of our most trusted and most
143
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
influential friends in England and was so as long as
he lived. He was one of England's ablest statesmen.
The misfortune of his life was his appointment as
Irish Secretary. I visited him in London soon after
his appointment, and I know that he accepted the
office out of pure benevolence, with the one thought
of conciliation and with full faith that the Irish
people would trust his justice and goodwill. In the
time of the great famine he had gone with his father
to the rescue of the sufferers in Ireland and had
never lost the sympathy for them which had its
origin in that visit. He was of an old Quaker family
and a man of very tender heart. I was walking
with him one day over the hills near his house when
we started several hares. I asked him if he ever
indulged in shooting. He answered, "I never shed
the blood of any fellow creature.'* It was in this
spirit that he went to Ireland and there escaped
assassination only by an accident. I asked him once
what he thought of Matthew Arnold as a philoso-
pher. He said, "I have often told Matthew that
he ought to make up his own mind before un-
dertaking to instruct the world." We found Mat-
thew Arnold a most interesting conversationalist,
and, as we went to church together one Sunday, I
found him apparently one of the most devout wor-
shipers in the congregation.
The next time that I visited Mr. Forster was in
the summer of 1880, when he had just carried
through the House of Commons a bill designed to
conciliate the people of Ireland. I was in London
when it came before the House of Lords, and the
Marquis of Bath secured from the Lord Chancellor
144
MR. ROBERT'S DEATH
an invitation for me to a seat on the steps of the
throne, where I had the Prince of Wales, Mr.
Forster and other distinguished men for company.
It was one of those rare occasions when the Lords
muster in full force to resist a Liberal government.
They were all there that night, and they rejected
Mr. Forster's bill by an overwhelming majority.
This was a foregone conclusion, and the debate was
not of a high order. Beaconsfield, who led, was
dull. The only eloquence was on the Liberal side.
What impressed me most was that the Lords were
not an intellectual looking set of men. There were
great men there, but the majority looked as though
they neither knew nor cared anything about the
questions old men with one foot in the grave,
young fellows who looked excessively bored and
men with no gleam of intelligence in their faces.
I lost my faith in the House of Lords that night.
On our arrival at Constantinople after a year's
absence we found Dr. Long very anxious as to the
health of his daughter; and, not long after, Mrs.
Long and his daughter went to southern France in
the hope that a change of climate might restore her
health, but before the end of the year he found it
necessary to go to Montpellier and bring his family
back. His daughter died at the College, August 3,
1879, after which the family went to live at the
house belonging to the College in Hissar. In the
intimate relations in which we lived, the whole
College in Hamlin Hall, we all shared in the trial
through which Dr. Long and his family were
passing.
While I was in America my attention was called
145
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
to the fact that a young Armenian, who had come to
America and graduated at Bowdoin College, was
raising money to found a university at Constanti-
nople, under the patronage, as he claimed, of the
President of the United States and other distin-
guished officials and philanthropists, in opposition
to Robert College. I was requested by some persons
to whom he had applied for money to investigate the
matter in America and in Constantinople. I was
told in America that he claimed to be sure of a very
large sum of money as much as a million, it was
said; but Peter Cooper, whom he claimed as one
of the largest givers, declared that he had never
promised to give anything. He had secured, how-
ever, some money and the patronage of a number
of distinguished men and women, including one or
two personal acquaintances of mine. One of the
best-known clergymen in New York roundly abused
me and called me hard names for the inquiries that
I made. In Constantinople I could find no one
who knew anything of this projected university.
The young man came to Constantinople with some
money and was said to have bought a house for
himself in Scutari. That is the last that I have
heard of him. I have nothing to say of this young
man's honesty or good intentions. He had been a
long time absent from Turkey and perhaps did not
know that his scheme was an absurd and impossible
one. What interested me in the matter was this:
Dr. Hamlin, whom everybody had professed to
honor, had been trying for years to raise money for
Robert College; and many of the very people, the
best of people too, who had honored him but given
146
MR. ROBERTS DEATH
him no money, were ready to take up, champion
and support a young man, a foreigner, just out of
college, in founding a university in Constantinople in
opposition to Robert College, without even taking
the trouble to inquire whether his scheme was a
practicable one or not. I record the story here
because it is one of the mysteries of American
benevolence, of which this is not the only illustra-
tion that has come to my notice.
The political event of the year which most inter-
ested us at Robert College was the national con-
vention which met at Tirnova in April, 1879, to
adopt a constitution and choose a prince of Bul-
garia, under the supervision of a Russian general.
All Europe looked on with interest, and all Europe
was astonished at the result. It was natural enough
that the favorite cousin of the Czar, Prince Alexander
of Battenberg, should be chosen prince, with the
consent of the Powers. It was most unexpected
that the constitution adopted should be one of the
most democratic in Europe, and that Russia made
no objection to it. The assembly itself was unique,
made up largely of peasants, many of them in their
sheepskin clothes, and I think that there was no one
in the assembly who knew anything about parlia-
mentary law except the old students of Robert
College, who were in force. There was not a mem-
ber who had had any personal experience in civil
government. One of the acts of the assembly was
to pass a resolution of gratitude to Dr. Long and
myself for what we had done for the elevation and
independence of Bulgaria. Similar resolutions of
thanks to Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Schuyler were
147
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
adopted. Prince Alexander himself was a young
man without experience, and for his private secre-
tary he chose Mr. Stoiloff, a graduate of the class
of 1871, who became his most intimate friend and
counsellor.
The other Bulgarian province of Eastern Rou-
melia was also organized by a European com-
mission, and a Bulgarian, who had been in the
Turkish service, appointed governor. Austria se-
cured Bosnia and Herzegovina only by conquest
after a long and fierce conflict with the inhabitants.
Servia, Roumania and Montenegro became inde-
pendent states, but other provisions of the Treaty of
Berlin, as to Greece, Macedonia and Montenegro,
were not carried out.
The class which graduated in July, 1879, num-
bered 11, 6 Bulgarians and 5 Armenians, 6 of
whom are still living (1907). Of the Bulgarians
one became a teacher, two lawyers, of whom one is a
distinguished judge, one an officer in the Bulgarian
army, two are dead. Of the Armenians one be-
came a physician, one a teacher and clergyman,
the others merchants.
148
CHAPTER XII
AFTER THE WAR. 1879-1880
IN the summer vacation of 1879 Mr. Maynard
invited Professor Panaretoff, who knew both Turk-
ish and Russian, and me to go with him on a trip
around the Black Sea in the United States corvette
Wyoming, commanded by Captain Watson. It was
the first time that an American war vessel had been
seen in the Black Sea, and we visited all the prin-
cipal Turkish and Russian ports, and were received
everywhere with the highest honors by the authori-
ties and with enthusiasm by the people. The Wyo-
ming itself was a sad specimen of the decay of the
American navy. Her boilers leaked so that she
could not make more than six or seven knots an
hour, and her guns were in such a damaged condi-
tion that it was not safe to fire them; but her officers
and men were an honor to the country, and, when
she was lying in a harbor, she was not a bad looking
ship. What most interested us in Russia was that it
was an Empire of Discontent. High or low, official
or unofficial, it made no difference; every one talked
of the unsatisfactory condition of the country
even General Todleben, the hero of Sevastopol and
Plevna, who was then the governor-general of
Odessa. It was a result of the Russo-Turkish War
a foretaste of what was to follow the war with
Japan, and, but for the assassination of the Czar, it
149
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
might have led to such changes as would have saved
Russia from the calamities of the last few years. It
is well known that at the time of his death he was on
the point of giving a constitution to his people.
We returned to Constantinople in season for the
opening of the College. The number of students
was 130 boarders and 48 day scholars. At the close
of the year it was 137 boarders and 56 day scholars.
The whole number registered during the year was
209, Bulgarians 77, Armenians 74, Greeks 27,
other nationalities 31, a decided advance over the
previous year. Professor Grosvenor was absent
during the year on account of the health of his fam-
ily. Professor van Millingen joined us, and Miss
Susan Farley, a niece of Dr. Hamiin, came out as
matron. During the year we lost Mr. Maynard,
who was recalled to be Postmaster-General. To
him and to his family the College owes a debt of
gratitude which no one connected with us at the
time can ever forget, and the United States has
never been more worthily represented in Constan-
tinople than by them. He was followed by General
Longstreet, who found himself out of his sphere and
remained here less than a year.
The inner life of the College during this year was
uneventful, but the work done was most satisfac-
tory. Everything was harmonious, and the students
not only did good work in their classes, but encour-
aged us to feel that we were really moulding their
characters and fitting them for a higher life. We
have always felt that the religious side of our work
was the most important part of it the only reason
for our being here at all; but it is very difficult to
150
AFTER THE WAR
tabulate or even to describe the nature or the
results of it. The Sunday services and the daily
religious exercises which all the students are re-
quired to attend are very important, but I have al-
ways felt that our direct personal influence and the
incidental religious teaching in the classroom were
more important. I have just read a letter from one
of the most distinguished of our earlier graduates
which was written in 1880, in which he says, " My
interior and religious convictions show me only one
principle of life and that is duty towards God and
duty towards my fellow men," and he thinks that
the government of Bulgaria should send young men
to Robert College as the one place where this lesson
can be learned. We have been disappointed in
some of our students, but it is a fact that many of
them have illustrated this principle in their lives,
and it is also true that the high reputation of the Col-
lege all over this part of the world is due to the per-
sonal character of our graduates. A tree is known
by its fruit and a college by its graduates.
While it was always our purpose to keep politics
out of the College, we could not but feel an intense
interest in the course of events about us, and this
year everything seemed to be going wrong. What-
ever personal influence I had I used in the various
complications which arose, without in any way com-
promising the College, in the interest of peace and
progress. To begin with Bulgaria, Mr. Stoiloff was
the private secretary of Prince Alexander and Mr.
Dimitroff was chief of the Chancellery of Aleko
Pasha, the Governor-General of Eastern Roumelia,
so that I was in intimate relations with both; and
151
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
in the spring of 1880 I visited Eastern Roumelia.
Prince Alexander had loyally undertaken to organ-
ize the government of the Principality of Bulgaria
under its democratic constitution, but the result was
discouraging and threatened anarchy and a new Rus-
sian intervention. There were parties in Bulgaria
calling themselves conservative and liberal, but there
were no leaders who had any experience in govern-
ment, and the National Assembly chosen by the
people was hopelessly ignorant and unmanageable.
I suppose that nothing better could reasonably have
been expected of a people suddenly emancipated
from Turkish rule, but it was a great disappoint-
ment to us as well as to Prince Alexander.
In Eastern Roumelia Robert College men were
more numerous and the administration better or-
ganized, but the people resented their separation
from Bulgaria and the constant intervention of the
Turks in their affairs, and were encouraged by
Russia to hope for union with the Principality.
They were more interested in revolutionary plots
than in the existing government. This was an in-
evitable result of the treaty of Berlin, but unfor-
tunate for the people of Eastern Roumelia. While
I sympathized heartily with their desire for union, it
did not seem to me that it could best be brought
about by these revolutionary methods. It was sure
to come in time in a peaceful way.
In Asiatic Turkey the situation was more discour-
aging than in Bulgaria. We naturally felt a deep
interest in the Armenians, and England, by her ac-
tion at Berlin in regard to the treaty of San Stef ano,
and by the Cyprus treaty, had made herself respon-
152
AFTER THE WAR
sible for such reforms in Turkey as would secure
their well-being. The Patriarch Nerses, a noble
Christian man, was a friend of mine and was the
embodiment of the hopes of his people, but in no
sense a revolutionist. He had great faith in Eng-
land, and when he lost it he died of a broken heart.
To a certain extent the government of Lord
Beaconsfield had realized its responsibility, and Sir
Henry Layard had pressed the matter here, with
the result that there was much talk about reforms
and an irade issued which professed to ordain "such
reforms as would secure equal rights to all his Maj-
esty's beloved subjects." As it was only a reform
on paper it did not matter much that it was far less
liberal than some previous ones. The condition of
the Armenians in the provinces meanwhile was
growing steadily worse, especially where the Kurds
were given a free hand to plunder them. Sir Henry
Layard gave up all hope of accomplishing anything,
and when Mr. Gladstone came into power he was
replaced by Mr. Goschen, who came out on a special
mission to bring the Sultan to terms, and failed. We
not only regretted this failure from our sympathy
with the Armenians, but because it seemed to us
that the Sultan had made a mistake which might
lead to serious consequences. It is clear now that
he had a better knowledge of the possibilities before
him than we had, and he has maintained the same
policy successfully to this day (1907) of resisting
foreign intervention and restricting the influence of
his non-Mohammedan subjects.
The situation in Constantinople was not much
better than in the interior. The Sultan had already
153
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
concentrated the administration of the government
in the palace and begun to gather around him the
sort of adventurers who have since been the great
curse of the empire. For a time a Tunisian states-
man, Khairadin Pasha, had been Grand Vizier and
had excited the hopes of the people, but he was
summarily dismissed. The spirit of the palace was
illustrated by the assassination of the military at-
tache of the Russian Embassy, as he was riding
along the public street, by one of the Sultan's ser-
vants. This man intended to murder the charge
d'affaires, but mistook the military man for him.
All the influence of all the embassies was not suffi-
cient to secure the punishment of the assassin.
The insecurity of the city was brought home to us
by the murder of Haritoon, the Armenian steward
of the College, who had been for many years Dr.
Hamlin's right-hand man and most trusted assist-
ant in everything mechanical, as well as in the man-
agement of the boarding department. He was mur-
dered by two hired assassins at midday within a
stone's throw of the College, and these assassins
were employed by an officer of the palace, who had
attempted to abduct the two attractive daughters of
Haritoon, but had failed, as their father had suc-
ceeded in getting them out of the country. Nothing
could be done to secure the punishment of the offi-
cer or of the murderers, although the whole story
was known by everybody in the vicinity, and told
pretty fully in the Turkish newspapers.
Some two years later an attempt was made to
murder me at exactly the same place, but I think
that, in this case, the object was robbery. The man
154
AFTER THE WAR
had crept up behind me and was just in the act of
throwing a girdle around my neck to strangle me
when some unconscious mental activity led me to
suddenly turn round face to face with the assassin;
and this unexpected movement so startled him that
he jumped back, and finally fled, believing no doubt
that I was armed.
One of the curious incidents of this year in which
we were interested was the effort made by Mr.
Spanoudis, a Greek gentleman, to rescue the Bul-
garian women and children who had been captured
during the war and were held as slaves in Constan-
tinople and the vicinity, by the Turks. He under-
took the task as a Christian duty and had many
extraordinary adventures. He came to us that we
might secure for him the support of the British Em-
bassy, which we did. He was the means of rescu-
ing a large number, who were sent back to their
homes. Of this there is no doubt, although I must
confess that some of the adventures which he re-
lated sounded very much like fairy tales and cer-
tainly could not have been true, even in Constanti-
nople, in ordinary times; but it was a period of
uncertainty, before the Sultan had established his
authority. Other extraordinary things were taking
place, and the Turks knew that, in the eyes of the
world, they had no right to hold these Bulgarians as
slaves. Mr. Spanoudis had the moral support of
the Russian and British embassies. No one dared
to challenge or resist the authority which he as-
sumed. An English society, The Aborigines Pro-
tection Society, also interested itself in this matter,
but there is no doubt that a very large number of
155
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Christian women and children were held in slavery
in other places where they could not be reached.
The question came up during the year of the pos-
sibility of Dr. Hamlin's return to the College, and
the Faculty unanimously voted to request the trus-
tees to propose this to him; but, after due consid-
eration, the trustees decided that under the circum-
stances this was not practicable. About the same
time they began to insist upon the necessity of my
going to America to raise money for the endowment
of the College, as nothing could be expected from
Mr. Robert's estate for some years, even if the deci-
sion of the highest courts should finally be in our
favor, and our means of support would soon be ex-
hausted. Before the end of the year it was decided
that I must come during the summer and undertake
this work. It appeared to me almost a hopeless task ;
but, as it seemed to be a matter of life or death for
the College, and there was no one else to go, I con-
sented, left Constantinople in July and was absent
two years, Dr. Long acting as president in my ab-
sence.
At the close of the year Professor Panaretoff was
sent to London by Prince Alexander on a special
mission to the British government. As there was no
conflict with the Turkish government involved we
made no objections.
The Commencement exercises passed off as suc-
cessfully as could be expected in the old study hall,
which was the only room that we had for religious
services or public occasions. It was a wonder that
guests came to be packed in among the desks and
benches in discomfort for two hours; but we did
156
AFTER THE WAR
our best to hide our nakedness with flags, flowers
D '
and green leaves, making it appear a special favor
to allow them to come by admitting only those who
had cards of invitation. The crowd came as usual,
the distinguished and official guests occupying the
platform, and I suppose what really brought them
was the prevalent idea that Robert College was a
centre of influence unsurpassed by any other in Con-
stantinople, in spite of its meagre appointments. In
fact, we had no official position, no army behind us,
no selfish ambitions to gratify, nothing but goodwill
to all and the desire to lend a helping hand wherever
we could.
There were 7 graduates that year, all of whom are
still living (1907), 4 Bulgarians and 3 Armenians.
All the Bulgarians have occupied important offi-
cial positions and two of them have been distin-
guished as teachers. One of the Armenians is the
first secretary of the Persian Legation in Washing-
ton and two are honored merchants in London and
New York.
157
CHAPTER XIII
TWO TEARS IN AMERICA. 1880-1882
I LEFT Constantinople in July, 1880, to raise
money for the College in America and did not return
until August, 1882. During my absence Dr. Long
was acting president of the College, so that I was
never disturbed by any anxiety as to what might
happen here. Dr. Long was by choice a scholar
and teacher and shrank from the responsibilities
of administration; but when called to this work
he never spared himself, and he made an admirable
president. He understood the students, he loved
them, and his personal influence over them was one
of the best things in the College to the day of his
death. The eighteenth year the Faculty consisted of
Professors Grosvenor, van Millingen, Hagopos, Pa-
naretoff and Vittum, with Messrs. Orville Reed and
Charles Hoyt as American tutors, and seven other
instructors. The nineteenth year Mr. Vittum had
returned to America and Messrs. Beckwith and
Haynes had come to the College as additional
tutors.
In 1881 Professor van Millingen built a house for
himself on the college grounds, for his own use
while he lives and then to be the property of the
College.
The number of students registered the eighteenth
year was 232, of whom 74 were day scholars. There
158
ALBERT L LONG
TWO YEARS IN AMERICA
were 89 Bulgarians, 85 Armenians, 28 Greeks, 7
Turks and 23 others. The nineteenth year the
number registered was 259, of whom 86 were day
scholars. There were 105 Bulgarians, 94 Arme-
nians, 24 Greeks, 12 Turks, and 25 others. The
building was overcrowded and the staff of teachers
too few for the work, and Dr. Long wrote to me in
October, 1881, "We must have a new building or
decline." Nothing saved us at that time from a
serious loss in the number of our students but
the fact that Bulgaria had not yet organized her
school system and that there was no other institu-
tion in Constantinople which attracted either
Bulgarians or Armenians, and they believed in
Robert College. The Greeks were not unfriendly
to us, but they did what they could to keep their
students in Greek schools, and we were too poor to
organize a Greek department which would attract
them.
In December, 1881, we were distressed by the fail-
ure of our bankers, Messrs. Charles S. Hanson &
Co., not so much by the loss of money, as we had
only about twelve hundred dollars on deposit at the
time, as by the misfortune which had befallen a
family which had been for almost fifty years the
leading English family in Constantinople and had
been the most trusted and devoted friends of the
College in the city. Mr. C. S. Hanson had died
not long before. He and Mrs. Hanson were the
best specimens I have ever known of the ideal
English gentleman and lady of the first half of the
nineteenth century. Lord Lyons, when he was
ambassador here, said the same thing to me about
159
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
them. Their sons, with their families, were equally
warm friends of the College, and their failure was a
decided loss for us, as well as to the English-
speaking colony generally.
The political situation in Turkey and Bulgaria
during these two years was even more discouraging
than in the previous year, and a cause of anxiety
to Dr. Long, although the consequences of it were
not apparent at that time in the College, which was
more prosperous than ever before. The Sultan had
fairly inaugurated the policy which has character-
ized his reign, of resisting to the utmost all foreign
influences in the Empire and reducing the number
and influence of his Christian subjects, while at the
same time building up and strengthening the Mo-
hammedan population and reviving the old spirit
of Islam. I do not know that we have any right to
blame the Caliph of the Mohammedan world for
adopting this policy, if he believed that, as Sultan
of Turkey, he could put it in execution without
endangering the existence of the empire or violating
treaty obligations. At the time of which I am writ-
ing he was interested in encouraging a panislamic
movement in Syria, Egypt and northern Africa,
which finally led to the English occupation of Egypt.
He had commenced his work of putting down the
Armenians, of limiting the rights of foreign and
native Christian schools and of the Christian reli-
gious organizations generally. He was successfully
resisting the decisions of the Congress of Berlin, in
favor of Greece, Montenegro and Macedonia, and
had refused to recognize the right of England, under
the Cyprus treaty, to interfere in the government
160
TWO YEARS IN AMERICA
of his Asiatic provinces. He had made it clear that
no Mohammedan would be allowed to change his
religion and that no criticism of Islam would be
tolerated. The general censorship of the press had
commenced. Although none of these things directly
affected us, except the school regulations, which
were never enforced against Robert College, the
general outlook was discouraging, not only here,
but for me in America, where there was a natural
hesitation about investing money in Turkey.
We were also very anxious about the state of
things in Bulgaria, where, in May, 1881, Prince
Alexander, with the approval of the Czar, sus-
pended the Constitution for seven years, and brought
in Russian officials to govern the country. He was
supported in this by the so-called conservative party,
which was in the minority in the country. It
looked as though Bulgaria had been freed from
Turkey only to fall under the equally bad rule of
Russia, especially after the assassination of the
Czar and the accession of Alexander III, who had
hated Prince Alexander of Bulgaria ever since they
were boys together. The Russian officials now
took their orders from St. Petersburg and treated
the prince with contempt. They undertook the
Russification of everything, and if they had been
men of a different stamp they might have won the
people over to their side; but they treated the
Bulgarians as a conquered people, like the tribes
of Central Asia, alienated their sympathies and
really prepared the way for Prince Alexander's
coup d'etat of 1883, when he restored the Constitu-
tion and cleared them out. But in 1882 there was
161
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
no such change in view, and we felt as though we
were to be disappointed of all our hopes for this peo-
ple of whom we had expected so much. There was
little that we could do for them beyond the influence
that we had over our present and former students
and over the policy of the British government
through our friends in the ministry and at the
Embassy here. Things were somewhat better in
Eastern Roumelia, but here two Russian consuls
were doing what they could to create trouble and
foment discontent. There was nothing promising
improvement in the condition of Macedonia or of
the Armenians in the Asiatic provinces, but rather
a foretaste of what was to come in later years.
The conflict of interests among the European
Powers made it impossible for them to intervene,
and gave the Sultan a free hand to carry out his own
plans. England was the only Power that had the
interests of the people of the East at heart. At
this time, under Mr. Gladstone, she did what she
could, but she was in danger of war with Russia.
France was unfriendly and Germany doing what
she could to create difficulties. She already had
her eyes on Asia Minor as her share of the Ottoman
Empire when the empire went to pieces, and had
begun her exploitation of it under the pretense of
friendship for the Sultan. I happen to know that
the English Liberal ministry did not look upon
such a scheme with disfavor. Russia was the
power which they feared, and Asia Minor in the
hands of Germany would be a barrier to her ad-
vance and also make it necessary for Germany,
with her small navy, to keep on good terms with
162
TWO YEARS IN AMERICA
England. England at that time did not want any
more territory on the Mediterranean. Bismarck,
after the Franco-Prussian War, had urged upon her
the occupation of Egypt, but no statesman whom
I knew of either party was in favor of it.
I find nothing in the records of the Faculty
during the two years of my absence of general
interest, beyond the evidence which they give of the
hard work that was done by all the teachers and the
constant effort to advance, to do better work in every
department and to bring the students up to a higher
standard of life. I have no account of the Com-
mencement exercises in 1882, but a letter from Dr.
Long gives a detailed account of those of 1881.
On July 13 there were prize declamations in the
afternoon and a prize debate in the evening
between the Sophomore and Freshman classes on
the question whether a state owes more to her
literary men than to her inventors. There were
good audiences, and the students acquitted them-
selves with honor. But the great day was July 14,
which brought out the usual crowd of many
nationalities, and the orations of the graduating
class were in English, French, Armenian and
Bulgarian. The subjects are worth recording,
when it is remembered that these orations were
delivered in Constantinople by Armenians, Greeks
and Bulgarians, True Education, Christianity
and Patriotism, The Dark Ages, The Influence of
the Fine Arts, Man and Nature, Free Thought,
Representative Government, Violation of Popular
Rights, The Destiny of States and Nations, The
New Sovereign (i. e. the People), Fall of the City of
163
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Constantino, and Political Parties. There was
certainly no other place in Constantinople where
such subjects could have been publicly discussed,
although there was nothing seditious in any one of
them. They were new subjects of thought for the
young men of the East and for a Constantinople
audience.
Among the distinguished guests present were the
Persian Ambassador, Lord Dufferin the English
Ambassador, and the Marquis of Bath. The two
latter made very interesting addresses, after the
orations, and were warm friends of the College all
their lives.
In 1881 there were 12 graduates, of whom 8 are
still living; 9 were Bulgarians, 2 Armenians and
1 Greek. Six of the Bulgarians were teachers for
a time and one an editor. One has been for many
years in the diplomatic service. Four have occupied
important official positions. Two are merchants.
One of the Armenians is a distinguished teacher, the
other studied medicine. The Greek is in business.
In 1882 there were 9 graduates, of whom 8 are
living (1907); 5 were Bulgarians, 4 Armenians.
Two of the Bulgarians were teachers and one an
editor. Two are now judges and one has been Min-
ister of Public Instruction. One is a merchant.
One of the Armenians is an official of the Turkish
government. The others are in business.
My work in America during these two years was
one for which I am sure that I was never fitted. I
never had any difficulty in interesting people in
Robert College, and they were often enthusiastic in
their sympathy. I can never forget all the kindness
164
TWO YEARS IN AMERICA
and goodwill which I met with the delightful
homes that were opened to me and the friends that
I made; but I lacked altogether that sort of per-
suasive power which I have seen in many other
beggars, and could never argue the question with
one who declined to give. I had many bitter dis-
appointments, but when the two years were over I
had the satisfaction of knowing that whatever
money I had collected had been given heartily, not
under pressure of any kind, but only because God
had put it into the hearts of the donors to lend a
hand in what they saw to be a good work. In many
cases it was without my ever directly asking for it.
Nearly all of these benefactors of the College have
passed away to a higher life, but their memory is
very precious. The following is a list of the prin-
cipal donors. In Boston, William Endicott, Jr.,
Mrs. V. G. Stone, William S. Houghton, H. P. Kid-
der, S. D. Warren, W. O. Grover, Ezra Farnsworth,
Henry Woods, Miss E. F. Mason, J. N. Dennison,
R. C. Greenleaf, Frederick Ayer, J. L. Brewer, Eli-
sha Mulford, Phillips Brooks, B. H. Nash, William
Claflin, Mrs. Hemenway, T. G. Appleton, E. P.
Beebe. In New York: William E. Dodge, William
E. Dodge, Jr., M. K. Jesup, D. Willis James, A. J.
Barnes, John Taylor Johnson. In other places,
C. P. Whitin and Mrs. John Whitin of Whitinsville,
P. L. Moen and Stephen Salisbury of Worcester,
George H. Corliss of Providence, Mrs. M. B. Young
of Fall River, S. M. Edgell of St. Louis. The whole
sum contributed was sixty-one thousand eight hun-
dred and fifty-four dollars.
There were many others who were like the Apos-
165
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
ties Peter and John. Silver and gold they had none,
but such as they had they freely gave, their sym-
pathy, their counsel, their influence, Edward Ev-
erett Hale, President Eliot, Rev. Dr. N. G. Clark,
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, the ministers and editors
generally in Boston. Other college presidents and
ministers in New England and New York were
equally in sympathy with the College ; but most of
my time, when I was well enough to do any work,
was spent in Boston and vicinity, where I was at
home. I was a stranger then in other parts of the
country except in New York City. I visited other
cities and met with a hearty reception in many
homes, but got no money. The first gift that I re-
ceived came unsolicited from a very poor man, a
good minister. It was two silver half dollars. I re-
placed them and keep them still as a memento and
shall have them framed and put in the College
Museum.
I have just gone through the long list of the names
of those upon whom I called, from most of whom I
got nothing, and I do not recall anything unpleasant
in connection with any one of them. Only one man
ever treated me uncivilly and ordered me out of his
office, and he repented and did works meet for re-
pentance gave me the largest gift that I received.
I do not regret the experience of these two years or
of those which I have had since in this work. They
have brought me friends whom I should not have
known otherwise, whose friendship has been one of
the chief joys of my life, and given me strength and
courage for my work in Constantinople. I have no
complaint to make of those who might have given
166
TWO YEARS IN AMERICA
money to the College and did not. I have come to
feel a deep sympathy for all those who are known to
be givers, and to marvel at the patience with which
they listen to endless applications for money for
every conceivable scheme, good, bad and indiffer-
ent. They are right in declining to give to anything
which they do not approve or do not understand,
and they must choose among the things which they
recognize as good. No man can give to everything.
Robert College was far away. It did not appeal
to any national, denominational or party interest.
There were but few who had ever visited Con-
stantinople or realized its importance as a centre
of influence, and few who could understand the
power of a Christian college to influence the destiny
of a nation. Those who gave were those who were
already interested in foreign missions and who had
some knowledge of what Robert College was doing.
Some who began to be interested at that time kept
up this interest, learned more about it and gave
liberally in later years.
167
CHAPTER XIV
THE COLLEGE AT THE END OF TWENTY YEARS.
1882-1884
ON my return from America in the summer of
1882, I spent some days in London and visited my
old friends Mr. William E. Forster and Mr. Bryce 1
as well as other influential men. Lord Granville was
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he invited me
to call on him at the Foreign Office, as he wished to
talk with me about affairs in the East. I found him
one of the most agreeable of men and well informed
in regard to the state of affairs in Turkey. The
question of Egypt was then approaching the crisis
which resulted in the bombardment of Alexandria,
the outbreak of fanaticism which followed and the
English occupation of the country. He had a keen
appreciation of the dangers resulting from the state
of excitement in Egypt and Syria, connected with
the revolutionary movement of Arabi Pasha, and
the intrigues of the Sultan, who sought to take ad-
vantage of this to bring about a panislamic revival.
He told me that he wished to avoid armed inter-
vention, especially by England alone, and con-
sidered it impossible for England to occupy Egypt
for any length of time. I saw no one in London who
1 No English statesman has followed events in the nearer East
so carefully and sympathetically for the last thirty years as Mr
Bryce, and no one has been a more devoted friend of Robert College.
168
THE COLLEGE AT THE END OF TWENTY YEARS
did not share his opinions. If Arabi Pasha had
yielded to the demands of the British admiral at
Alexandria, which were very reasonable, I do not
believe that England would have occupied Egypt.
On the other hand, it was the general opinion of
foreigners living in Egypt and Syria that if this
movement were not checked in some way it would
result in a general rising of the Mohammedans in
Syria, Arabia and northern Africa against Chris-
tian and European influence. It was this and the
importance of the Suez Canal which led the govern-
ment of Mr. Gladstone to run the risk of presenting
an ultimatum at Alexandria, and the obstinacy of
Arabi Pasha which determined the measures which
followed.
After I reached Constantinople General Lew
Wallace, who was the American minister here,
told me that at the request of the Sultan he
had telegraphed to Washington a request for our
government to intervene and mediate between
England and Turkey, to which our government had
replied that, if England also wished it, we might
do so, and he thought that it was the knowledge of
this which decided England to act at Alexandria to
forestall any such proposition; but he had no evi-
dence of this beyond the coincidence of time.
General Wallace was a special favorite of the
Sultan, more so than any other minister or am-
bassador here, and after his return to America
he was his eulogist. He was always ready to take
up his defense and say a good word for him,
but I do not know that he ever told in public the
story of one tragic incident connected with this
169
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
same Egyptian question. There was a time when
it was a question of the joint occupation of Egypt by
England and Turkey, and Lord Dufferin was doing
his best to persuade the Sultan to agree to this.
France and Russia, who did not wish to see Eng-
land's occupation legalized, advised against it and
represented that the plan proposed would make
England dominant there, while the Turkish forces
would be a mere side show. The Sultan sent for
General Wallace to ask for his advice. General
Wallace very properly told him that this was an
affair in which the United States minister could not
possibly take any part. The Sultan told him that
he had not sent for the United States minister and
did not wish the opinion of the United States
government, but that he had sent for his personal
friend General Wallace and wished his personal
opinion. After vainly endeavoring to evade the
question, General Wallace said, "If you really
wish to know what I would do if I were in your place
I will tell you." The Sultan insisted, and General
Wallace said: "If I were in your place I would get
my troops ready, embark them and go with them
to Egypt. Once there no one can question your
supremacy and you have the game in your own
hands." The interpreter had hardly finished the
translation of this when the Sultan gave a groan and
fell forward in a fainting fit. He saw the point of
General Wallace's advice and knew that he did
not dare to follow it. General Wallace was hurried
out into an antechamber and left in suspense as to
his own fate for a couple of hours. Finally a
chamberlain came with the Sultan's regret that
170
THE COLLEGE AT THE END OF TWENTY YEARS
he had an ill turn and could not continue the
conversation. The subject was never alluded to
again. General Wallace told me this story him-
self. It was generally believed in Europe that
England did not desire a joint occupation of Egypt
and that Lord Dufferin was really "riding for a
fall " to have the credit of wishing a joint occu-
pation, but pressing it in such a way as to secure
a refusal, and he got great credit in diplomatic
circles for his skill in playing this double game.
Just before he left Constantinople he assured me
confidentially that this was all a mistake that
in fact he had been in dead earnest and that his
mission here had been a failure.
We greatly enjoyed General and Mrs. Wallace
during the four years of his stay here. They were
warm friends of the College, and a great addition to
our social life. The most curious incident of his life
here was the declaration of a Presbyterian minister
in Missouri that he had been in Constantinople and
had seen and handled in the library of the Mosque
of St. Sophia the original manuscript from which
General Wallace had borrowed his story of "Ben
Hur." This absurd tale gained such currency in
America that General Wallace obtained the Sultan's
permission for Dr. Riggs and me to investigate the
matter in the library itself. I happened to be ill, and
Dr. Long went in my place. It proved that, except
two European princes, no foreigner had visited this
library for many years, and it goes without saying
that no manuscript having any relation to "Ben
Hur" existed there. The most remarkable thing
about this masterpiece is that when General Wallace
171
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
wrote it he had never been out of America, and yet
the book breathes the spirit of the East and of the
age which it represents.
We had another interesting experience which
grew out of the discovery of the "Didache" or
"Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" by the Greek
Bishop Bryennios in the library of the Jerusalem
Monastery at Constantinople. It at once excited
the attention of the Christian world, and Dr. Schaff
of Union Theological Seminary wrote to me asking
me to see if I could get a photograph of the manu-
script. I went to see Bishop Bryennios and met
with a cordial reception. He promised me all that
I asked, and I arranged for Dr. Long to go down and
take the photograph. Dr. Long went, but found the
monks in charge of the library anything but cordial.
After much delay they allowed him to take a photo-
graph of what they declared to be the last page of
the "Teaching." When he got home and printed
the photograph he found that, while it was the last
page of the manuscript, it did not contain a word
of the "Teaching," which was not the last docu-
ment in the manuscript. It was valuable as it gave
the name of the copyist and the place and date of
the writing (1056), but it was not the "Teaching."
A few weeks later Bishop Bryennios was exiled to
Nicomedia by the new Patriarch.
The College had no direct interest in Egyptian
affairs, but the air in Constantinople was charged
with political electricity, and this naturally influ-
enced our course of thought during the year. It
was the situation in Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia
which chiefly interested us. We had a larger num-
172
THE COLLEGE AT THE END OF TWENTY YEARS
her of Bulgarian students than ever before, but
until Prince Alexander's coup d'etat in 1883 the condi-
tion of things there seemed more hopeless than ever,
and then this revolt of the prince against Russian
dictation gave new strength to the party in Russia
which was determined to make his rule impossible.
The Russian papers attributed this anti-Russian
feeling in Bulgaria to the influence of Robert Col-
lege, and one of them declared that I had expended
half a million dollars of British money to bring
about this result. It was no doubt true that the
general influence of Robert College was a factor in
leading the Bulgarians to resent Russian methods,
but there were Robert College graduates and stu-
dents in all the various parties in Bulgaria. I do
not think that any of them favored the absorption
of Bulgaria into the Russian Empire, but there
were those who felt that the independence of all
Bulgaria could be secured only by the help of Rus-
sia, and that it was necessary to conciliate the Czar
at any cost, even by the sacrifice of Prince Alex-
ander, whom he hated. As to money influence, I
never had a dollar to spend in Bulgaria or anywhere
else for political purposes; and I happen to know
that the British government failed to supply its own
diplomatic agency at Sofia with money even to ob-
tain information, which it ought to have had, at a
critical moment. It was the Russian agents them-
selves whose high-handed abuse of power changed
the universal gratitude of the Bulgarians into fear
and dislike.
The twentieth and twenty-first years of Robert
College represent a period when it had reached the
173
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
greatest development possible with the means at its
disposition and under the conditions in which it
existed, and it is in place to give a picture of what
it was at this time.
It occupied one building with a temporary annex
which served as a study hall and room for the Sun-
day services and all general and public gatherings.
Hamlin Hall, the main building, was occupied by
dormitories, the boarding department, a hospital
room, library, museum, laboratory, recitation
rooms, tutors' rooms, servants' rooms, offices and
the apartments of the president's family and the
matron. Everything about this building, except its
solid walls, and everything about the annex, their
furniture and their conveniences, represented en-
forced economy and primitive conditions. We had no
water supply except what we caught on the roof and
stored in a cistern, and no drainage, except into a
cesspool. The students slept in dormitories, fifteen
to twenty in a room, which could not be heated or
properly ventilated. We had not been able to build
a wall around our grounds. When Hamlin Hall
was built it was the finest school building in Turkey,
and it certainly occupied the finest site in Turkey,
if not in the world ; but the founding and successful
development of Robert College had roused the gov-
ernment and the various nationalities to the neces-
sity and the power of education. The Sultan had
determined to do for the Turks what he believed
that Robert College had done for the Bulgarians;
and the Bulgarians so fully appreciated the im-
portance of education that they had already begun
to establish colleges and schools of all grades in
174
THE COLLEGE AT THE END OF TWENTY YEARS
Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia. The Greeks and
Armenians in Turkey were also doing what they
could. Robert College found itself in competition
with all these rival institutions, and some of them
were far better equipped than it was. Our defi-
ciencies became apparent to all, although it cannot
be said that our general influence had diminished
or that our reputation had suffered. It would have
done so very soon if we had not shown evidence of
progress.
In the crowded and inadequate quarters, which I
have described we had, the twentieth year, 243
students on our registers, 165 of whom were board-
ers: 110 Bulgarians, 83 Armenians, 26 Greeks, 11
Turks, 13 others. The twenty-first year 215 regis-
tered, of whom 142 were boarders : 91 Bulgarians,
82 Armenians, 29 Greeks, 5 Turks, 8 others.
The rising bell rang at 6.30 o'clock. Breakfast
for the tutors and students in the basement dining-
room at 7, and prayers at the commencement of
study hours at 8.20. All the students were re-
quired to be present. Then came classes until
12.30. Lunch, classes again from 2 until 4.30.
Dinner at 6 and study hours in the evening from
7.30 until 9. All in bed at 10. Wednesday P.M.
declamations at 1.30 was the only college exercise.
Saturday afternoon was free. Sunday at 10.45 re-
ligious services, preaching by president, Professor
van Millingen, Dr. Long or Professor Grosvenor.
Bible classes in the afternoon after a general meet-
ing at 2.30 under the direction of the president,
occupying an hour in all. Meeting in the evening
generally under the direction of tutors. All board-
175
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
ing students were required to attend all of these.
During the recreation hours there were games,
walks, etc., when the weather permitted. The stu-
dents had an average of twenty-five classes a week
and each teacher from twenty to twenty-five classes,
besides his other duties. We had an interesting
museum, a library of about five thousand volumes
and a very fair supply of apparatus. We had no
doctor within six miles of us and no proper hospital.
Dr. Long, Mrs. Washburn and I had some know-
ledge of the care of the sick and of what needed to
be done in case of accidents; and no small amount
of work of this kind fell upon us, which brought us
into the most intimate and friendly relations with
the students. Mrs. Washburn knew the other lan-
guages and had learned Bulgarian that she might
get nearer to the boys when they were ill. I am not
sure that we did any more profitable work than
this. We had a number of small boys in the Pre-
paratory Department at that time who lived in
Hamlin Hall, occupying two dormitories on the
same story with the president's rooms, who needed
special care. Miss Farley and Mrs. Washburn gave
a good deal of attention to them.
The most important characteristic of the College
was that the professors and their families and all
the teachers who lived in Hamlin Hall were inspired
with the idea that we were making men who in turn
were to be the leaders of their people to a higher life.
Giving instruction in various branches of learning
was not the end for which we were working, but
only a means to a real end which we had in view.
To attain this end was the one thought of our lives,
176
THE COLLEGE AT THE END OF TWENTY YEARS
and no one counted it a sacrifice to do anything
which would help on this work. We did not doubt
that it was an essential part of it to discipline the
intellectual powers of our students, to teach them
to think for themselves, and we never neglected our
classes. That we were reasonably successful is
proved by the fact that the universities of Europe
recognized our diplomas, and that many of our
graduates distinguished themselves in their profes-
sional studies. We naturally rejoiced in this, but it
was not the secret of our success, or of the harmony
and enthusiasm with which we worked together,
or of our intimate relations with the students, who
thoroughly appreciated the fact that there was
nothing perfunctory about our work, but that we
were doing our best to make men of them that
we were living for them and not for ourselves; that
whatever concerned them interested us, to whatever
race or nationality they might belong.
The class which graduated in 1883 numbered 10,
of whom 7 are living 5 Bulgarians, 4 Armenians
and 1 Greek. Of the Bulgarians Mr. Voicoff has
been ever since one of the most valued instructors
in Robert College. Stoicoff is the principal naval
officer in Bulgaria, Dimitroff is a banker, Djam-
bazoff was a judge and Djabaroff a teacher. Of the
Armenians Djiladjian is a chemist, Tashdjian was
a lawyer, the others are merchants. The Greek was
in business.
The class of 1884 numbered 22, of whom 19
are living. 14 were Bulgarians, 7 Armenians, 1
Greek. Of the Bulgarians, 4 were teachers, 4
merchants, 2 connected with the Ministry of War,
177
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
2 physicians, 1 major of cavalry, 1 in the diplomatic
service. Of the Armenians 3 are merchants, 1
teacher, 1 dentist in New York, 1 was private sec-
retary and 1 in publication department of the
American Mission. The Greek is a steamship
agent.
Many of those who were students in the College
during these two years but did not graduate have
held honorable positions in various walks of life.
One of them is now Minister of Finance in Bulgaria.
One of the most important events of the twenty-
first year was the coming of Mr. Louisos Eliou,
Ph. D., a graduate of the University of Athens, to
take charge of the Greek Department in the College.
Up to this time we had never been able to do for the
Greeks what we were doing for the Armenians and
Bulgarians, as we had never found a satisfactory
teacher to build it up. In Mr. Eliou we found the
right man. He was appointed professor later on
and has been one of our most honored colleagues
ever since, honored alike by us and by the Greek
nation.
178
CHAPTER XV
THE GREAT CRISIS IN BULGARIA. 1884-1886
PROFESSOR PANARETOFF was absent the twenty-
second year on account of a very serious illness,
which attacked him on the train when on his way
to Vienna with my sister and son. He was in a
hospital in Vienna for a long time and later at
Meran, but at the end of the year returned in good
health. Dr. Long was absent the twenty-third
year, having been requested by the trustees to
go to America to raise money for the College. He
was a distinguished and highly honored minister
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which had a
mission in Bulgaria, of which he had been the
director before coming to the College. The trus-
tees thought that he would be able to interest the
Methodists as well as others in the College. He
was in every way a most attractive man, and we also
had faith in his success. It was a critical time for
the College, when we must show some signs of
progress or lose our influence. The number of our
Bulgarian students had already fallen from 110 to
71, owing to the opening of similar institutions
there. The whole number registered of all nation-
alities had fallen from 259 in 1881-1882 to 173 in
1884-1885. Unhappily we were all disappointed.
He was well received everywhere and got plenty
of sympathy, but no money. I believe that no
179
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Methodist has ever given any money to Robert Col-
lege, although the bishops of the church have been
our good friends, and some of our graduates are
Methodist ministers.
Miss Farley, the matron, was absent for two years
in America on account of ill health.
Professor Ormiston came to the College in the
summer of 1885 to take Dr. Long's place for one
year, but remained as instructor and later as Pro-
fessor of Chemistry, Geology and Mineralogy.
The number of students registered the twenty-
second year was 173, of whom 115 were boarders.
Seventy-one were Bulgarians, 63 Armenians, 28
Greeks, 2 Turks, others 9.
The twenty-third year the number registered was
182, of whom 120 were boarders. Seventy-one
were Bulgarians, 64 Armenians, 37 Greeks, no
Turks, 10 others.
The absence of Turkish students then and in
the following years was due to the effort of the
Sultan to prevent Turkish boys attending foreign
schools rather than those which he had himself
provided for their benefit, not to any special hostil-
ity to Robert College, although everything English,
even the English language, was regarded with dis-
favor at this time on account of the occupation of
Egypt by England.
In the summer of 1885 Mrs. Washburn and I
spent two months in Eastern Roumelia and Bul-
garia. We had received many pressing invitations
to make this visit from our graduates who occupied
important official positions in both these states, and
the time seemed to us favorable, as there was no
180
THE GREAT CRISIS IN BULGARIA
political controversy at that time between them and
the Turkish government. We had long desired to
visit our old students in their own homes and to see
with our own eyes what they were doing for their
country, and what progress had been made in the
country itself.
We went by train to Philippopolis, which then
took two days, as the trains did not run in the night
or at any great speed in the day time. To our
great surprise we were met at the station by the
prefect of the province, the mayor of the city, the
Bishop and a large number of other notables and
escorted to the home of the prefect, our graduate
Mr. Dimitroff, where we were entertained; and
later on we found that we were the guests of the
state as well as of the people and were received and
entertained with great honor everywhere. It be-
came a sort of triumphal journey through the
country, in honor of Robert College. The details
of that trip are not in place here. Mr. Shipkoff was
with us for a part of the journey and Professor
Panaretoff for the rest. From Philippopolis we
made an excursion into the Rhodope Mountains
with Mr. Dimitroff, and Mr. Stoiloff entertained us
at Sofia. We traveled in a phaeton drawn by
three horses abreast, and accompanied by an
honorary guard. In some places we had to travel
on horseback. We visited the most beautiful parts
of the Rhodope and Balkan Mountains, crossed the
Shipka pass to Tirnova, the ancient capital, spent
some time in Sofia, the present capital, and some
days in the famous Rilo Monastery in the moun-
tains on the frontier of Macedonia, finally returning
181
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
to Philippopolis. Aside from our relations with the
people it was an ideal excursion, unsurpassed by
any other in our experience; but after all, the chief
interest of it was in the reception given us by our
former students and the people generally, in their
grateful recognition of what Robert College had
done for them, and in our satisfaction at the in-
fluence of our students in the country. I also gained
a knowledge of the real situation of affairs in both
provinces, of the difficulties and dangers in view,
and of the spirit of the people, which enabled me, in
the trying times which soon followed, to be of
greater service to them than I had ever been before.
It was made plain to me that, sooner or later, an
attempt would be made to unite Eastern Roumelia
and Bulgaria; but I was no less astonished than the
rest of the world when the revolution broke out at
Philippopolis, September 18, less than two weeks
after our return to Constantinople. Meanwhile I
had given Mr. Pears, 1 the distinguished correspon-
dent of the London Daily News, a long interview on
the situation there; and his letter, embodying this,
with my name, was published in London on the
day when the telegraph announced the outbreak of
the revolution. As it was the only news on the
1 Edwin Pears, Esq., was not only the correspondent of the
London Daily News, but was and still is the leading English lawyer
in Turkey. He is also the author of two of the most valuable his-
torical works on Constantinople The Fall of Constantinople and
The Destruction of the Greek Empire. Through a long period of
years he has been one of my most intimate personal friends and a
devoted friend of the College, to whom we owe a great debt of
gratitude.
182
THE GREAT CRISIS IN BULGARIA
subject it was reproduced all over Europe, and it
was generally believed that I had had some part in
the plot. This was absolutely untrue. I know of
only one Robert College student who was a leader
in it, and, as it was absolutely necessary for it to be
kept a secret from the prefect, with whom I was
staying, this student told me nothing about it. It
was only the general unrest which came to my
knowledge, with the fact that Russia was interested
in some such plan in the hope that it would lead to
the overthrow of Prince Alexander, which was the
chief end of Russian policy at that time. Prince
Alexander himself had some knowledge of the plot,
but before it came to a head he did what he could to
prevent the outbreak; while the Russian consul at
Philippopolis attended the meetings of the conspira-
tors, and encouraged them, believing that Prince
Alexander, who was then in Varna, was not in a
position to profit by it. It was a bloodless revolu-
tion; the elaborate but artificial government of
Eastern Roumelia went to pieces and disappeared
without a struggle, and the people cried out for
Prince Alexander. He came, knowing very well
that he did so at risk of his throne and probably of
his life. There is nothing more pathetic in the
history of Europe and nothing more diabolical in
the history of Russia than the story of the events
in Bulgaria which followed this Philippopolis re-
volution. The prince was sacrificed by Europe to
the personal hatred of the Czar, and Bulgaria be-
came a united state, in spite of Russia. The Turks
had very little interest in the matter so long as their
people in Eastern Roumelia were unmolested and
183
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Macedonia was not invaded; but Russia insisted
on an immediate invasion of the country by the
Turks and carried most of the Powers with her.
Happily England was then represented here by my
old friend Sir William White, who was not afraid to
defy the world in a good cause, and who had the
full confidence of Lord Salisbury. He alone saved
the day by sheer force of will, and the Turks did not
move. The Russians also attempted to destroy the
power of Prince Alexander by suddenly recalling
all the Russian officers from the Bulgarian army,
which had up to that time been kept in their hands.
The Minister of War and all officers above the rank
of captain were Russians. Then, having failed to
persuade the Turks to war, they encouraged Servia
to attack Bulgaria. The result of their success in
this was the utter defeat of the Servians, making
Prince Alexander a hero in the eyes of the world,
and rousing the sympathy of Europe for the Bul-
garians; but no one who was not behind the scenes
<ean know what a desperate struggle went on from
day to day, before anything was settled. In
'Constantinople it was a conflict between Sir William
White and the representatives of all the other
Great Powers, led by Mr. Nelidoff, the Russian
ambassador, whose object was to restore the
-status quo ante in Eastern Roumelia and thus
prevent the union. The conflict here finally re-
sulted in a compromise by which Prince Alexander
was appointed Governor-General of Eastern Rou-
melia, which was a personal union, but which im-
plied a separate administration under the old
regime. In Eastern Roumelia it was a conflict
184
PK1NCK ALIXVNDI'K OF M T KSAUIA
THE GREAT CRISIS IN BULGARIA
between Prince Alexander and his friends under
the lead of Mr. Dimitroff , prefect of Philippopolis,
with the agents of Russia and their adherents, in-
cluding the consuls, except the English; and in this
Prince Alexander won the day, for the old regime
was never reestablished and the union was per-
fected. No little credit is due to the Sultan for this
result, for, while he kept up the appearance of
following Russia in the exact execution of the
treaty of Berlin, he refused to become so far her
tool as to use force to prevent the union. The
difficulties were unhappily complicated by the
action of Greece, which threatened war if Eastern
Roumelia were united to Bulgaria. As this did not
suit the plans of Russia she joined the other Powers
in keeping Greece quiet.
The troubles of Prince Alexander did not end
with the defeat of the Servians and his appointment
as Governor-General of Eastern Roumelia. Russia
was as determined as ever to destroy him, and spared
no effort to stir up opposition among the Bulgarians,
and even organized plots to kill him. The Bulga-
rians generally were devoted to him; but there were
party leaders and army officers, I am sorry to say
some graduates of Robert College, who allowed
themselves to become the tools of Russia, some
from the honest conviction that Bulgaria could not
afford to antagonize Russia, others from purely
selfish interests. As I was in correspondence with
men of all parties, I did what little I could to keep
the peace between them and strengthen the hands
of Prince Alexander.
Meanwhile the Gladstone government had re-
185
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
turned to power in England and Sir Edward
Thornton replaced Sir William White at Constanti-
nople. It was a sad mistake for all concerned,
especially for Bulgaria. Sir Edward was a first-
class ambassador of the stamp of Sir Henry Elliott,
and the Gladstone government even more in sym-
pathy with Bulgaria than Lord Salisbury; but Sir
Edward was absolutely ignorant of everything con-
nected with the political situation here, and Russia
had the field to herself. He was recalled in a few
months and Sir William White sent back, but not in
season to save Prince Alexander. Lord Rosebery
was responsible for this mistake, and bitterly re-
gretted it before Sir Edward reached Constantinople.
Personally I found Sir Edward a most intelligent
and agreeable gentleman, and under ordinary cir-
cumstances he would have filled the post with
honor. But England has had no representative
here since Lord Stratford who can be compared
with Sir William White. He had a more compre-
hensive and accurate knowledge of everything con-
cerning the Eastern question than any other man
living and a better knowledge of all the men with
whom he had to deal here and in Europe. Like
Lord Stratford, too, he had unbounded faith in
England and a lofty conception of her mission in the
world. He felt that when he spoke it was England
speaking, and he made those who heard him think
so too. He was somewhat rough in his manners,
like the typical English squire, and when he saw
fit to be angry it was like the descent of a cyclone
with plenty of thunder and lightning in his vocabu-
lary. No man cared to experience it a second time.
186
THE GREAT CRISIS IN BULGARIA
This was the Ambassador. Personally he was a
man to be loved, of tender heart and deep religious
feelings a friend to be trusted to the death. He
was a sincere Roman Catholic, but he used to say
that I was his father confessor, which meant simply
that he enjoyed talking with me frankly about
whatever was in his mind or heart, whether of the
political situation or of his deepest religious feelings.
He always did most of the talking, and I have never
met a man to whom it was more profitable or more
entertaining to listen.
The American minister here at that time was
Hon. S. S. Cox, commonly known as Sunset Cox.
He and Mrs. Cox were genuine Americans, who
were more interested in their own people than in
the foreign society of Pera. They were warm
friends of the College, and we were indebted to
them for many pleasant hours of social intercourse.
I do not think that he enjoyed his position here,
and he resigned it after two years; but he found
time to write three very entertaining books, and the
"Diversions of a Diplomat" show that he appre-
ciated the humorous side of life here if he did not
enjoy the tragic side of it, which he could not modify.
There was nothing special in the inner life of the
College during these two years which needs to be
mentioned. They were years of very hard work for
all of us of peace, harmony and progress within
the College of considerable anxiety as to our
financial prospects, and of deep sympathy with the
trials of our students in the political situation of
their nationalities. It was a wonder to us that they
could do such good work in their studies.
187
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
The graduating class in 1885 numbered 15, of
whom 14 are living (1907). Nine were Bulgarians,
4 Armenians, 1 Greek, 1 Hebrew. Of the Bulga-
rians 3 are physicians, 2 merchants, 2 government
officials, 1 lawyer, 1 professor of law in Sofia Uni-
versity. Of the Armenians 1 is a teacher, 1 a manu-
facturer, 1 is dead, 1 went to America, graduated at
Massachusetts Agricultural School and is a prac-
tical farmer in the interior, making his farm a model
for others. The Hebrew is a lawyer in Bulgaria, the
Greek in business.
The class of 1886 numbered 20, of whom 16 are
living. Twelve were Bulgarians, 8 were Armenians.
Nine of the Bulgarians have been teachers at some
time, 5 are so still, 2 army officers, 1 is a judge, 1 a
merchant, 3 government officials. Of the Armeni-
ans 5 are merchants, 1 Protestant pastor, 2 died
soon after graduating.
188
CHAPTER XVI
THE OVERTHROW OF PRINCE ALEXANDER. 1886-1888
AT the close of the twenty-third year the doctors
sent me to Carlsbad for the cure there. When I
reached Vienna on my return I heard from the
British ambassador what was known of the kid-
naping of Prince Alexander, and went at once to
Bucharest to Sir William White, who had returned
to his former post there, after leaving Constanti-
nople. Prince Alexander had already passed on his
return to Bulgaria, but his brother who had been
with him was still with Sir William. From them I
learned details, and to this day my blood boils with
indignation whenever I recall them. For the Bul-
garian officers who executed the will of the Czar
there is this excuse. They had been educated in
Russia they were young and had grown up with
no experience of a country of their own, towards
whose sovereign they had any feeling of loyalty.
They had just taken part in a revolution and evi-
dently did not realize the infamous character of their
treason, especially as they acted in the name of the
Czar. But for the Czar, the cousin of Prince Alex-
ander, the embodiment of the divine right of the
sovereign, there is no excuse. He could not plead
ignorance of the nature of the plot. He honored
and rewarded his agents. He made no apology to
the civilized world and pushed it to the bitter end,
189
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
by making the peace of Europe depend upon the
Powers uniting to drive Prince Alexander out of
Bulgaria.
It was a military plot carefully elaborated and
carried out by officers who had fought under Prince
Alexander at Slivnitza. They broke into the palace,
seized him in the night, and hurried him off by car-
riage to the Danube, where a steamer was waiting to
take him to Russia. He was treated with the greatest
indignity on the way and finally delivered over to
Russian officials, who in turn transported him in the
same fashion to the Austrian frontier town of Lem-
berg. Lemberg did not love Russia, and Prince
Alexander was received there with enthusiastic
demonstrations of welcome, after his five days of
suffering every indignity, to learn that all Bulgaria
had risen against the traitors and demanded his
immediate return. He went back, and his journey
through Austria, Roumania, and especially in Bul-
garia was like a Roman triumph ; but he went back
to learn at Sofia that the enmity of the Czar was
more bitter than ever, and to hear from the capitals
of Europe, even from England, that the peace of
Europe depended upon his abdication. He re-
mained there only a few days, long enough to re-
store order and establish a regency to take charge of
the government, abdicated and left the country,
with great difficulty persuading the people not to
prevent his departure by force. So far as Prince
Alexander was concerned the Czar had won the day
by base means to which no other sovereign in
Europe would have descended. Even Prince Milan
had never thought of such barbarism; he never
190
THE OVERTHROW OF PRINCE ALEXANDER
paid agents to assassinate the prince. But the Czar
had forgotten the people of Bulgaria, who boldly
defied him and all his plots to the day of his death,
secured the permanent union of Bulgaria and East-
ern Roumelia, and won the confidence of all the rest
of Europe, and to-day Prince Alexander is the hero
of the Bulgarians. When he died his body was
brought to Sofia, and his mausoleum is the most
sacred place in the city. The father of the Czar,
who freed Bulgaria, is equally honored; but the
name of Alexander III is, as far as possible, for-
gotten. Prince Alexander came to Bulgaria a young
man without experience and no doubt made many
mistakes; but he identified himself with the people
over whom he ruled, made every sacrifice for them,
lived for them. He was a man of high character
and very simple tastes, economical of the people's
money and perfectly at home with the most humble
of his subjects. As a ruler he developed rapidly,
and had made great progress in educating the
people in the science of self-government and in
adapting the administration to their wants. His
chief difficulties came from the constant intrigues
of the Czar to make his position untenable. Bul-
garia does well to cherish his memory.
It was at this time that Stambouloff came to the
front as one of the regents appointed by Prince
Alexander, and commenced that terrible struggle
with Russia for the independence of Bulgaria,
which lasted to the day when he was murdered in
the streets of Sofia, after he had seen Prince Fer-
dinand firmly seated on the throne. The conflict
began as soon as Prince Alexander had left the
191
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
country, when General Kaulbars arrived as the
representative of the Czar to get control of the gov-
ernment, and continued on the part of Russia until
the death of Alexander III by such means as are
supposed to be peculiar to anarchists, rather than
to emperors. In this conflict the Turks had the
good sense to sympathize with the Bulgarians
rather than with Russia, and were supported by the
Western Powers, especially by England.
The Bulgarians sought everywhere to find a
prince who would accept the place in face of Russian
opposition, and finally chose Prince Ferdinand of
Coburg, a grandson of King Louis Philippe, but a
resident of Austria. He was a young man about
twenty-six years old, of whom little was known, by
religion a Roman Catholic, and supposed to be
favorably regarded by the Austrian government
a very different man from Prince Alexander. He
had the courage to accept the place and to hold it,
although he was not officially recognized by any
Power until after the death of Alexander III.
It was in the midst of this intense political excite-
ment that the College opened in September, 1886.
There was a general expectation of a European war
and a general stagnation of business in Turkey and
Bulgaria. In addition to this the Turks established
a very strict quarantine against Bulgaria, partly for
political reasons, but nominally because of an out-
break of cholera on the Danube. The outlook for
students was not promising, but, in spite of all ob-
stacles, we had more than during the previous year.
The character of our Bulgarian students was well
illustrated by their determination to reach the Col-
192
THE OVERTHROW OF PRINCE ALEXANDER
lege. One party of twelve, from places only two or
three days from Constantinople, were four weeks
making the journey; having vainly tried two routes
and spending a week in quarantine, they started
anew and came over the mountains in carriages.
The whole number of students, the twenty-fourth
year, was 182, of whom 130 were boarders. Seventy
were Bulgarians, 53 Armenians, 36 Greeks ; English
and Americans 15, others 8. The first death in the
College since my connection with it occurred this
year a most promising Bulgarian boy, who died
in my arms after a painful illness of two weeks.
Professor van Millingen was absent during the
year on leave in America, without salary. The Board
of Instruction for the year consisted of the president,
four professors and eleven other instructors and
too much cannot be said of their absolute devotion
to the work of the College and the highest interests
of the students. Much time was given during the
year to a thorough revision of our course of study, to
meet, as far as our means allowed, the increasing
demands of our patrons. One year was added to
the Preparatory Department and the requirements
for admission to the college classes correspondingly
raised. The necessity of at least one new building
had become so pressing that we began to take steps
for its erection, hoping that the money might be
found when we had obtained the necessary permis-
sion from the Turkish government, the circumlocu-
tion offices of the Porte requiring from one to two
years, under constant pressure from the American
Legation, to bring the matter to the attention of the
Sultan and secure his action. We have never failed
193
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
to get permission for any building that we have
asked for and have never had our work stopped,
although in this and most cases the official irade has
not been received until after the building had been
completed which is a good proof of the friendly
spirit of the Turkish officials. My personal relations
with them have always been friendly.
I have rather a vague recollection of the Com-
mencement exercises of twenty years ago and few
records of anything except my baccalaureate ser-
mon and the order of exercises for the day ; but I
have no trouble in recalling that of 1887, and what
has fixed it in my mind was the closing prayer at the
Commencement. It happened that Rev. Dr. Ar-
thur Brooks of New York was one of the guests on
that occasion. As he was an Episcopal clergyman
accustomed to a formal service I hesitated about
asking him to make an extemporaneous prayer, but
he accepted the invitation at once, and such a prayer
I have seldom heard. It was that of a man who
lived in constant and intimate communion with God,
and it brought us into His immediate presence in a
way which I can never forget. The presiding officer
that day was Mr. Oscar S. Straus, the American min-
ister, who made an admirable address, and there
were twelve orations in five different languages by
the graduating class. An Armenian bishop made
a most sympathetic and interesting address.
Immediately after the Commencement in June I
went to America partly on private business neces-
sitated by the death of my sister and partly to see
the trustees in regard to the erection of a new build-
ing. Mrs. Washburn had gone to America two
194
THE OVERTHROW OF PRINCE ALEXANDER
months before. The trustees approved of going on
with preparations for a new building, but with the
understanding that I should come to America in
1889 to raise money for it. We waited in America
for the marriage of my son, and after visiting friends
in England reached Constantinople early in Novem-
ber, to find the College going on as usual, but with a
falling off in the number of boarders.
The whole number the twenty-fifth year was 170,
of whom 113 were boarders. Sixty were Bulgarians,
55 Armenians, 33 Greeks, 19 English and Ameri-
cans, 3 others.
Looking back upon it now, it would seem that the
most important event of the year was the visit to the
College of Mr. and Mrs. John S. Kennedy of New
York in May, 1888. It was the beginning of an
interest in the College on their part which has gone
on deepening ever since, and been of incalculable
value to us, and which is one of many illustrations of
the way in which God has raised up friends for the
College, when we most needed them, without any
plan or forethought of ours. Such experiences as
these have done more than anything else to sustain
my faith in the College as really God's work and
not ours. I believe that its success is due to the fact
that from its foundation we have sought to make it
first of all a Christian college. It is as such that God
has blessed it. Our political influence has inciden-
tally been very great. We have done our best to give
our students a thorough and practical secular edu-
cation, but I believe that the people of the East, of
all religions, rate the moral and religious influence
of the College as its most important work. In our
195
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
summer in Bulgaria, I was struck with the fact that
in all the addresses presented to me, the first thing
spoken of was the religious influence of the College,
and I believe that the same feeling exists among the
Greeks and Armenians to some extent at least
among the Turks. They sometimes say, " Of course
my son will not cease to be a Mohammedan, but I
want him brought up with English morality."
Our most trying experience was in the spring of
1888, when Mrs. Washburn and Professor Pana-
retoff came down with scarlet fever at the same
time, taken, in an act of charity, from a poor boy
whom they brought across the Bosphorus in a caique
with them. Miss Farley, who was also in the boat,
had had the scarlet fever before and was immune.
In our crowded quarters there was nothing to be
done but to cut off our apartment from the rest of
the building, absolutely except for a dumb waiter
which connected our dining-room with the kitchen,
Mrs. Washburn in one room and Professor Pana-
retoff in another. From the 9th of April to the 13th
of May I took the whole care of both of them, night
and day, no other person but the doctor ever enter-
ing our apartment. Mrs. Washburn was very dan-
gerously ill, but happily Professor Panaretoff's case
was a mild one. In the end the whole apartment
was thoroughly disinfected, and there has never been
a case of scarlet fever in the College since. The
College work went on as usual, under the direction
of Dr. Long.
The last visitor whom I saw before going into
quarantine was Mr. Walter, the proprietor of The
London Times, whom I had met in England,
196
THE OVERTHROW OF PRINCE ALEXANDER
when visiting at Newstead Abbey. I was sorry not
to see more of him here, for the editors of The
Times had long been among my good friends in
England, and they were friends worth having.
Before the college year ended we were saddened
by another death among our students, a German
from Roumania, who died after a long illness of
typhoid fever. It was a strange case. For several
weeks until a few days before he died he would have
gone to his classes if the thermometer had not
shown that he had the typhoid fever and was grow-
ing steadily worse. He was the only child of a
widow, and his mother, who had been ill herself,
arrived here only just before his death.
As this was the twenty-fifth year of the College it
seemed to us appropriate to inaugurate the annual
celebration of Founder's Day, which we fixed for
the 23d of March, Mr. Robert's birthday. It was
made a holiday in the College, with a religious ser-
vice at nine in the morning and a thanksgiving din-
ner for the students in the evening. It was not de-
signed so much to glorify Mr. Robert as to have an
appropriate occasion to make our students under-
stand the object for which the College was founded,
the motives of the founders and the principles which
we were trying to act upon our ideal of a Chris-
tian college. This day has been observed each year
ever since and has served to keep fresh the memory
of Mr. Robert, Dr. Hamlin, Dr. Long and others to
whom our students are indebted for the privileges
which they enjoy.
The class which graduated in 1887 numbered 26,
of whom 23 are living (1907). Thirteen were Bul-
197
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
garians, 10 Armenians and 3 Greeks. Of the Bul-
garians 4 are government officials, 3 teachers, 3
physicians, 2 merchants, 1 a lawyer. Of the Armeni-
ans 7 are merchants, 1 a physician, 1 a publisher, 1
a civil engineer. Of the Greeks 1 studied medicine,
1 is a dentist and 1 a merchant.
The class which graduated in 1888 numbered 28,
of whom 24 are living. Fifteen were Bulgarians, 12
Armenians, 1 Greek. Of the Bulgarians 3 are phy-
sicians, 3 teachers, 2 judges, 2 merchants, 1 a lawyer,
1 a government official, 1 a civil engineer, 1 died soon
after graduation, 1 unknown. Of the Armenians 6
are merchants, 2 teachers, 2 government officials, 1 a
civil engineer, 1 an agriculturist. The Greek, who is
now in the office of the American Bible Society, was
sent to the Chicago Exposition in an official capacity
in 1893 by the Turkish government.
The American minister, Mr. Oscar S. Straus, pre-
sided at the Commencement exercises in the old
study hall on both these occasions. He was then
and has been ever since a warm friend of the Col-
lege.
198
CHAPTER XVII
ARMENIAN AND BULGARIAN TROUBLES. 1888-1890
IN the summer of 1888 the doctors sent me to
Carlsbad again, and Mrs. Washburn went with me
to recruit after the sickness and work of the previous
year. We had a delightful summer, meeting many
friends, and stopping at Sofia on our way home,
where we had an enthusiastic reception. We came
back early in September to arrange our apartment
for a new order of things before the term opened.
During the previous year the Faculty had passed
the following resolution: "Resolved, That with a
view of relieving the president of all duties not
properly connected with his office, the trustees of the
College be requested to send out a man at the begin-
ning of the next college year, if a proper person can
be found, who shall live in the college building
with his family, take charge of the boarding de-
partment and students' accounts, have a general
supervision of the boarders out of study hours and
aid in their physical and moral training." A full
consideration of the subject satisfied the trustees
that no one could take my place in Hamlin Hall who
had not the rank and work of a professor, and after
due deliberation they appointed Rev. Charles An-
derson Professor of Ethics, Rhetoric, Oratory and
Physical Culture, with the understanding that he
should live in the College building and relieve me
199
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
of the duties mentioned in the resolution. Mr.
Anderson had been a tutor in the College for three
years from 1869 to 1872, after which he graduated
at Andover Theological Seminary and was at this
time the pastor of a church in Woburn, Mass. His
wife was a daughter of Dr. Hamlin. For a year we
all lived together in Hamlin Hall until I went to
America in the summer of 1889. I was very glad to
welcome him as a colleague; but Mrs. Washburn
and I have never ceased to regret that, with in-
creasing years, our strength had so far failed that
we had to give up this common life with the tutors
and students in Hamlin Hall. When we returned
from America we lived in Kennedy Lodge, the
president's house on the college grounds, and so
long as Professor Anderson lived in Hamlin Hall
the College suffered no loss.
The number of students this year was somewhat
less, owing to the unsettled state of affairs in Turkey
and Bulgaria. The number registered was 158, of
whom 104 were boarders. There were 52 Bulga-
rians, 43 Armenians, 33 Greeks, 20 English, 5
Americans, 3 Turks, 7 others.
The condition of the Armenians had grown
steadily worse since the Berlin Congress, especially
in the interior. The policy of England was largely
responsible for this. She had undertaken to defend
their rights and secure reforms in the Turkish ad-
ministration and had encouraged them to look for-
ward to the establishment of an autonomous prov-
ince of Armenia, partly out of sympathy for this
Christian race and still more in her own interest, as
she believed that an autonomous Armenia would be
200
ARMENIAN AND BULGARIAN TROUBLES
a barrier against the farther advance of Russia. It
was not an anti-Turkish policy, for England had no
desire to acquire any of her Asiatic territory, and
believed that the Turkish government would be
strengthened by such changes. She utterly failed to
convince the Sultan of this, and could not induce
him to do anything to ameliorate the condition of
his Christian subjects. Unhappily a certain num-
ber of Armenians conceived the idea that it would
be possible to force the hand of England in the same
way that the Russian government had been forced
by popular excitement over the massacre of the
Bulgarians to declare war against Turkey; and they
organized secret revolutionary societies with the
object of bringing about a crisis, which would re-
sult in such atrocities on the part of the Turks as
had taken place in Bulgaria, but, as they believed,
would force England and Europe generally to in-
tervene in their behalf, and create an independent
Armenia. I did not personally know any of these
revolutionists, but I used whatever influence I had
with the Armenians whom I knew to make them see
that they had everything to lose and nothing to gain
by such movements that there was no similarity
between the situation of the Armenians and the Bul-
garians, and no hope of any European intervention
to make them independent. So far as I know they
got the same advice from all the embassies here,
and the sober minded among them saw the truth of
it; but the revolutionists would listen to no one.
What would have happened if these societies had
not been formed I do not know, but their activities
have been the excuse put forward by the Turks for
201
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
all the massacres and persecutions of the last twenty-
five years. I shall have occasion to speak of these
later on. In 1888-1889 the most serious troubles
were in Armenia, where the Kurds were encouraged
to harry the Armenian population without mercy.
England succeeded at this time in getting one of the
principal Kurdish chiefs, Moussa Bey, brought to
Constantinople for trial. The atrocities which he
had committed were innumerable and unspeakable ;
incidentally he had very nearly killed an American
missionary, but his trial was a farce and changed
nothing in Armenia. Here and throughout the
country the hostility of the government, the im-
prisonment of great numbers on suspicion, and the
agitation of the revolutionists excited a feeling of
terror and general unrest. The number of our
Armenian students was reduced more than fifty per
cent.
It was not the fault of the Turks that the same
state of things existed in Bulgaria, and made the
position of Prince Ferdinand precarious. All the
Bulgarian troubles came from Russia. As the Rus-
sian governors left in Bulgaria after the war had
told them, "It was not for the beautiful eyes of the
Bulgarians that Russia had sacrificed so many lives
and so much treasure, but it was to build a bridge
to Constantinople. " Prince Alexander had been
removed, but now Prince Ferdinand and Mr. Stam-
bouloff blocked the way, supported by the great
majority of the Bulgarian people. It was war to the
knife against them. Murder and treason were pat-
ronized and paid for by Russia, and it was pitiful to
see how some really honest and patriotic men were
202
ARMENIAN AND BULGARIAN TROUBLES
deceived and won over to the belief that it was neces-
sary for Bulgaria to sacrifice everything to please
the Czar. Some of them were graduates of Robert
College, although in general our alumni were loyal
to Bulgaria rather than to the Czar. At Constanti-
nople Sir William White was the principal support
of Bulgaria. All these foreign intrigues and the un-
certainty of the future greatly delayed the develop-
ment of the country and led to an excessive expendi-
ture of money and men, in keeping up a large and
efficient army. It was this generally unsatisfactory
state of things which so greatly reduced the number
of Bulgarian students.
The work of the College went on satisfactorily
during the year, and Mr. Straus secured permission
for the erection of a new building for the College and
a house for the president. But when the papers
finally came from the Porte there was no mention of
the college building in them. Somebody in the office
of the Grand Vizier had been paid by some enemy
of the College to omit it. We had already com-
menced work on the building on plans prepared by
Professor Hamlin of Columbia University, and
some months of anxiety followed, although we did
not stop the work. Happily the Grand Vizier was
friendly. He acknowledged that the fraud had
taken place in his department, although he declared
that he could not find out who was responsible for it,
and in the end he secured for us the necessary irade
from the Sultan.
In the autumn of 1888 we had the pleasure of see-
ing the United States flag once more on the Bos-
phorus. The Quinnebaug came up here again,
203
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
but no American war vessel has appeared here since,
although all the Great Powers of Europe have two
each stationed here. It is due chiefly to the oppo-
sition of Russia and Germany that this right has
been denied us. We enjoyed our acquaintance with
the officers, and they challenged our students to a
game of baseball, in which I am sorry to say our
boys were beaten, the game having been played
under stricter rules than they were familiar with.
However, it did our boys good.
In the summer of 1889, as had been agreed with
the trustees, I went to America to raise money for
the new building. I returned in May, 1890, at the
earnest request of Dr. Long, and remained here
until after the Commencement, when I went back to
finish my work, which occupied me until the sum-
mer of 1891. During my absence Dr. Long was
acting president of the College.
The twenty-seventh year of the College opened in
September, 1889, with about the same number of
students as the previous year, 164 in all, of whom
104 were boarders. Forty-five were Bulgarians, 47
Armenians, 41 Greeks, 20 English and Americans,
11 others.
At the close of this year Professor Grosvenor re-
signed his place as professor here and returned to
America, where he has ever since been a professor
in Amherst College, his and my Alma Mater. First
as tutor and then as professor he had been con-
nected with the College for twenty-one years a
progressive scholar, a devoted, enthusiastic co-
worker in all the activities of the College, and a suc-
cessful teacher, with a charming family, he had
204
ARMENIAN AND BULGARIAN TROUBLES
filled a large place in the life of the College. In his
well-known book on Constantinople he has associ-
ated his name with the place.
It was during this year that Professor Ormiston
published an arithmetic adapted to the wants of the
various nationalities in the College. It has not met
with the same fate as the geography of the Turkish
Empire which we published some years earlier.
The geography of the empire changed so rapidly in
the following years that the book became a political
curiosity.
The letters which I received in America this year
from the professors were not altogether optimistic,
but had a good deal of criticism of the state of things
in the College. Some of them thought that I ought
to return at once, and others that I ought to stay in
America until I had raised money enough to put the
College upon a better foundation. Various schemes
were proposed for improvements, which would
broaden our curriculum and raise the standard of
scholarship. Except as they showed some lack of
harmony in the Faculty, I was neither surprised nor
discouraged by these criticisms. I knew very well
that we were not realizing our own ideal or meeting
the demands of some of our patrons, and it was en-
couraging to know that the professors and teachers
were not satisfied with their work. If they could not
coin money, they could at least do their very best
with what they had. I do not think that we had as
promising material in the College at that time as in
previous years, and this taken together with the
serious falling off in the number of our students was
discouraging, whatever might be the reason of it,
205
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
whether it was due to our deficiencies or to circum-
stances altogether beyond our control. I am con-
vinced that long-continued political agitation, es-
pecially when it is revolutionary in its character, is
unfavorable to sound education. I believe that this
is true everywhere. It is certainly true in my ex-
perience. We have a striking illustration of it to-day
in Russia, and I have seen plenty of it in Turkey and
the neighboring states. Boys and young men are
the first to be demoralized in such movements. We
have done our best always to keep the College free
from such influences, but at the time of which I am
writing, boys came to us whose minds were already
distracted by what was going on in the political
world, and it was hard to make them see that the
best thing they could do for their nation was to en-
lighten and discipline their own minds and fit them-
selves by study to become intelligent and worthy
citizens. In the early history of the College many of
our students, especially the Bulgarians, came to us
with exactly this conception of their duty; but this
sort of patriotism is no longer common, although we
have never relaxed our efforts to develop it.
All the nationalities were abnormally excited, the
Greeks quite as much as the Armenians and Bulgari-
ans. By way of a demonstration against the Turkish
government and the Bulgarians, the Greek Patriarch
had closed all the Orthodox churches and suspended
religious services. It was a crisis over the question
of Macedonia, where the Turks sometimes favored
the Greeks and sometimes the Bulgarians nomi-
nally a church question, but in fact purely political,
as it continues to be to this day. That these warring
206
ARMENIAN AND BULGARIAN TROUBLES
nationalities can meet on equal terms in Robert
College and live together in peace, as in general they
do, is itself an important part of their education.
The graduating class in 1890 numbered 11, of
whom 10 are now living. Three were Bulgarians,
3 Armenians, 4 Greeks and 1 English. Of the
Bulgarians 1 is a merchant, 1 a lawyer and 1 a phy-
sician. Of the Armenians 2 are merchants, 1 a
Protestant minister. Of the Greeks 1 became an
editor, 1 a physician, 2 are in business.
The class of 1891 numbered 8. Four were Ar-
menians, 3 Bulgarians, 1 Greek. Of the Armenians
1 is a teacher, 1 a dentist, 2 merchants. Of the Bul-
garians 1 is an army officer, 1 a teacher, 1 in dip-
lomatic service. The Greek is a merchant.
From this time on the Bulgarians no longer con-
stitute the majority in our graduating classes.
I suppose that before this those who read this
book have been impressed with the small number of
our graduates who have become clergymen. It
should be remembered that but few of our gradu-
ates are Protestants. They belong to the Oriental
churches, and although serious efforts have been
made to educate the clergy in these churches, this is
not yet a career which is attractive to an educated
young man. The higher and educated clergy are
celibates, and the priests are generally uneducated.
Several servants have gone from our college kitch-
ens to be priests, but I have never been able to
persuade a graduate to undertake this service in an
Oriental church. It has seemed to them that it
would diminish rather than increase their influence
for good. Many have done good work as teachers.
207
CHAPTER XVIII
ANOTHER TWO YEARS IN AMERICA. 1889-1891
IN the summer of 1889 Mrs. Washburn and I
went to America at the request of the trustees to
raise money for new buildings and for endowment.
Professor Panaretoff went with us and returned
for the opening of the college year. Professor van
Millingen took my classes during my absence. We
were tired out when we left Constantinople, and
we took our journey very leisurely, stopping to see
our friends in Germany and England, and visiting
Oxford and Cambridge universities. I was not
at all well when I reached Boston, and one of my
friends invited me to go with him to Poland Springs
to recruit. A few hours before we were to start he
sent a messenger to say that unexpected business
would prevent his going that day, so I went out to
spend Sunday with my mother in the country.
That night I came down with typhoid fever, and it
was two months before I left my bed. It was mid-
winter before I could begin my work for the College.
In a few weeks I broke down again, and the doctors
sent me to Florida, or, more accurately, the doctors
said I must go, and Mr. Kennedy sent me with Mrs.
Washburn, who was just leaving the hospital in
Philadelphia.
When I entered upon my work I found the situ-
ation quite different from what it was ten years
208
ANOTHER TWO YEARS IN AMERICA
before when I made my first campaign in America,
just after the Russo-Turkish War. There was
much less interest in Turkish affairs and in the
fate of Bulgaria. Robert College was more widely
known and perhaps more fully appreciated, al-
though by no means so generally known in America
as it was in Europe. Mr. Stead, when he visited
Washington in the first administration of President
Cleveland, was horrified, as he told me afterward,
to find that Mr. Bayard, then Secretary of State, had
never heard of Robert College; and like a true news-
paper man he blamed me for not blowing my trum-
pet so loud that all America would hear it. I pro-
tested that some things were better done with the
least noise possible, but he improved the opportu-
nity, at a dinner given to him that night by the Rus-
sian ambassador, to declare that Robert College
had more influence in the East than either Russia or
England, and that it would end in Americanizing
Turkey, for which I did not thank him. It was a
fact in America that it was chiefly in religious society
that the College was known, while in England and
Russia, for example, it was best known in the min-
istries of foreign affairs, and known on account of
the incidental influence of the College in Bulgaria
rather than for its real purpose as a Christian college.
The College was not less appreciated in religious
circles in America, but it was no longer unique. Its
success had not only modified the policy of foreign
mission boards, but had already led to the estab-
lishment of similar institutions in other parts of the
world, in connection with the missions of different
religious denominations. While I met with less
209
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
criticism of the College than ten years before, on
the part of good people who did not believe in edu-
cation as a legitimate form of missionary work, the
interest of the givers for such work was now divided.
Other colleges in foreign lands were in need of
money just as we were, and I had no desire to stand
in the way of their getting it, even when they took it
out from under my hands. It was the Lord's money
going into the Lord's work just as much as though
it came to Robert College.
I can never forget as long as I live, and I believe
that I shall remember with thanksgiving in another
world, all the kindness and sympathy that I met
with during these two years. It seemed like a reali-
zation of Christ's promise of the hundredfold in
this world. It was freely given by old friends and
new, who treated me as a brother beloved when they
had nothing but gratitude and love to expect in
return. All that was painful in this work for the
College came from a lack of confidence in my own
ability to present the claims of the College in such a
way as to make them understand. When I broke
down in New York and was sent to Florida I felt
as though my mission was a failure. We had a
delightful winter, regained our health, made many
friends, interested ourselves in much good work
that we found going on there, and learned much of
the burning questions which were agitating the
country. Among other friends at St. Augustine we
were specially indebted to Rev. and Mrs. Edwin
K< Mitchell of the Presbyterian church, who did all
they could for us and to interest others in the
College. I had a letter of introduction from Mr*
210
ANOTHER TWO YEARS IN AMERICA
Kennedy to Mr. Flagler, and he was very kind. He
even offered to furnish the needed funds, if I would
drop Constantinople, to found a college at St. Au-
gustine, but he had no interest in Turkey. We went
as far south as Lake Worth and found kind friends
there; but when I returned to Mr. Kennedy's in the
spring with no money for the College, I felt as
though my winter was a failure. It was not long
after this that I received a note from Mr. Alanson
Trask, of whom I had seen much at St. Augustine,
inviting me to call on him in Brooklyn. I called
and he gave me five thousand dollars. A year or
two later he gave twenty-five thousand dollars more,
also unsolicited.
In the spring I had to go to Washington to con-
sult with Mr. Elaine and Senators Sherman and
Edwards in regard to a treaty with Turkey which
had been negotiated by Mr. Straus under the direc-
tion of Mr. Bayard, but which had not been acted
upon by the Senate. In general it was a very good
treaty, but it denationalized a number of persons
who had long been recognized as American citizens,
and on this ground I recommended that it should
not be ratified, without modifications. Mr. Elaine
withdrew it, with the consent of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs. I had never met Mr. Elaine before,
and my previous experience with American Secre-
taries of State had not led me to anticipate such a
reception as he gave me. The charm of his manner
was a revelation to me. He received me as though I
had been an old friend whom he was delighted to
see and asked me questions which implied that he
knew all about me and Robert College, and had
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
nothing more important to do than to enjoy an
hour of social intercourse. I understood then the
great secret of his popularity in the country. Sena-
tors Sherman and Edwards were very different men,
but they were very cordial and asked the Senate in
secret session to furnish me with all the papers
relating to the treaty, that I might give them a
full memorandum on the subject, which I did.
Washington was not a good place to raise money,
but I found many warm friends there, some of
whom I had known in Constantinople.
In the autumn of 1891, by advice of the trustees,
I attended the meeting of the American Board in
Minneapolis. I had visited St. Paul in 1857 when
it was a modern village, and the change which
had taken place there seemed miraculous. I had
some very dear Constantinople friends living in
the Northwest Territory four hundred miles west
of Winnipeg, and so I went by Montreal and the
Canadian Pacific to visit them on my way to
Minneapolis. When I left the train at a station
fifty miles from their home, in the night, I was as-
tonished to hear my name called by a young man,
who took my valise as I stepped on to the platform
in the dark, and still more astonished when I came
into the light to see an old student of Robert College,
who had heard accidentally that I was coming and
had walked eight miles, after his day's work, to
welcome me. When I returned to Winnipeg I had
a very hearty welcome from the Presbyterian Col-
lege and the churches there. They knew more
about Robert College than the majority of similar
people in the United States. I did not expect to get
212
ANOTHER TWO YEARS IN AMERICA
any money at Minneapolis, but it was a delightful
and profitable experience in the renewal of many
old friendships, and profitable in the opportunity
it gave me to consult with others engaged in similar
work, as well as to make known what Robert
College was doing. I had hoped to get some money
in Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland on my way
back, and I was not altogether disappointed; but I
found my friends too heavily burdened with good
work near home to spare much for Constantinople,
and that many of their gifts at home were really
drafts on the future. I shall never forget two or
three days that I spent at Lake Forest and the re-
ception given me there by Dr. McClure. At Chi-
cago I found a home with Mr. Blatchford, always
a warm friend of mine and of the College.
I visited a good many colleges and universities to
interest the students in our work and met with a
hearty welcome, especially at Amherst, Williams,
Hamilton and Princeton. I found college presi-
dents generally ready to aid me in every way in
their power, and with a keen appreciation of the
value of the work we were doing in Constantinople,
and I met a number of peripatetic Western college
presidents on begging expeditions in the East, who
could at least sympathize with me if they did not
help me. One gentleman on whom I called re-
ceived me almost with a groan and opened con-
versation with the information that I was the
seventh college president who had called on him
that day, and intimated that we left him no time to
attend to his own business.
With the ministers I had a varied experience.
213
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Some of them evidently looked upon me as a wolf
trying to enter their fold or at least as a sneak-
thief. Some wished me all possible success in
churches of my own denomination, or at least in
some other congregation than theirs. I did not
blame them. It was easy to understand that they
felt that their people were already distracted by the
multiplication of the appeals made to them. On the
whole I found the ministers most sympathetic and
ready to do anything in their power to help me. If
I had been strong enough I might have had a
good congregation to speak to every Sunday, in the
strongest churches; and I did a good deal of this
work with profit, especially in New York, where I
was received as a brother in the ministerial club,
Chi Alpha, which united the leading Presbyterian,
Dutch Reformed and Congregational ministers in
the city. Very precious memories are connected with
the members of this club. Some of the Episcopalian
clergymen also were very friendly and ready to help
me. So were Dr. Hale of Boston and several other
Unitarian ministers. The editors of the religious
newspapers were mostly old friends of mine and
were always ready to lend a hand. The same thing
was true of some of the daily papers. I have no
doubt about the value of their support, although I
have seldom known any money to come from this
source alone. For that matter I never, when I spoke,
appealed for a general contribution, although I
know of some large gifts which have been prompted
by addresses that I made. Dr. Field, Dr. Ward, Dr.
Abbott and the Primes, all the professors in the
Union Theological Seminary, Dr. Taylor, Dr. van
214
ANOTHER TWO YEARS IN AMERICA
Dyke, Dr. Hall, Dr. Booth, Phillips Brooks and his
brother Arthur, are only a few of many devoted
friends whom I might name among the ministers
and editors. And I had no more enthusiastic sup-
porters than our former tutors who were then oc-
cupying various important positions in America.
With all this sympathy and support it would
seem that I ought to have found it easy to raise all
the money we asked for. It was not the Lord's
will. He gave us what He saw that it was best for
us to have. I say this the more confidently because
most of the money which has come to us since
has not come from any immediate solicitation on
my part, and most of what I got at that time
came without my directly asking for it. As a gen-
eral rule when I asked I got nothing but sympathy
and often only a polite refusal without sympathy.
There were some very interesting exceptions to
this which were like flowers strewed along my path.
The late Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of them. I
had never met him when I went to his office at the
Central Station to ask him for money; but he knew
something of the College, and he listened to what I
had to say and questioned me as though it were a
part of his business, which it was necessary for him
to understand. He gave me a thousand dollars then
and another donation later on. Another exception
was Mr. Elbert W. Munroe. In answer to a letter
he invited me to come to his house in the country,
where he and Mrs. Munroe received me most cor-
dially and carefully questioned me as to everything
connected with the College. Later on they sent for
me again and gave me five thousand dollars. It was
215
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
not simply the cordiality with which I was received,
it was not simply the money given, which impressed
me so happily; it was the fact that the money was
given after a careful and conscientious consideration
of the real worth of the College in the Kingdom of
God.
I went to America to ask for fifty thousand dol-
lars for buildings and at least one hundred thousand
dollars for increased endowment. Mr. J. S. Ken-
nedy gave the money for the president's house,
which we call Kennedy Lodge, and I found the
money for the building now known as Albert Long
Hall. Through Professor Newton of Yale Univer-
sity, the children of Mrs. Lois Newton of Sherburne,
N.Y., gave the property left by their mother, about
fifteen thousand dollars, for the establishment
of one-hundred-dollar scholarships for the sons of
Protestant clergymen in Turkey or Bulgaria, or for
other Christian young men a very timely gift.
But aside from this very little was added to the en-
dowment.
In May, 1891, I returned to Constantinople,
somewhat disappointed, but thankful for what had
been accomplished and with precious memories of
my two years in America.
216
CHAPTER XIX
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE COLLEGE. 1890-1892
FOR the greater part of the twenty-eighth year I
was in America, but returned before its close.
The number of students registered was 159, and
for the third successive year the number of board-
ers was 104. Of the whole number 59 were Ar-
menians, 41 Bulgarians, 39 Greeks, 13 English and
Americans, 7 others.
The twenty-ninth year the number registered was
194, of whom 130 were boarders. Seventy were
Armenians, 52 Bulgarians, 47 Greeks, 13 English
and Americans, 12 others.
The increase in the number of students which
commenced this year was undoubtedly due in some
measure to the new signs of life in the College, in
the erection of new buildings. No such outward
signs had appeared for many years. We had not
even built a wall around the college grounds. This
also was done in 1891, and it added wonderfully to
the general impression of the prosperity and dignity
of the College. We continued our efforts to obtain
permission to build a sewer to the Bosphorus, but
it was still years later that we obtained it. No per-
mission could be had to build it along the road
through the Turkish Cemetery, as it was said that
there might be graves of some of the faithful under
the roadway which would be desecrated by a sewer.
217
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
It was finally built by a circuitous route through the
old castle.
On our return from America we went to live in
Kennedy Lodge, although it was not quite finished,
Professor Anderson continuing to live in Hamlin
Hall. There is no more beautiful site for a house in
any part of the world that I have seen than that of
Kennedy Lodge, which we occupied until 1904.
The political situation during these two years was
essentially unchanged the Russian government
was still plotting against the existing regime in Bul-
garia in a way which tended to demoralize the
people. It was about this time that Dr. Vulcovitch,
the Bulgarian diplomatic agent at Constantinople,
was assassinated in front of his own house by per-
sons protected by the Russian Embassy. The con-
flict between the Greeks and Bulgarians over the
ecclesiastical affairs in Macedonia went on as be-
fore. The Turkish government was not unfriendly
to Bulgaria so long as Russia was hostile to it, but
it was suspicious of Bulgarians coming to Constan-
tinople; and in September, 1890, one of our students
was arrested and thrown into prison on his return
after a vacation because a copy of Freeman's " Sketch
of European History " was found in his trunk. We
secured his release after a few days, but the incident
was typical of what our students often suffered on
account of their books. I once went myself to the
Ministry of Public Instruction to protest against
the seizure of some French text-books which were
issued by the French government. The official
whom I found in charge was a native of India who
spoke English very freely. He refused to give up
S18
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE COLLEGE
the books, although he acknowledged that they con-
tained nothing to object to except a notice of Vol-
taire's drama of Mohammed, which in fact was
very complimentary to the Prophet. I asked on
what principle they condemned books. He replied
that they would admit nothing which mentioned the
Turkish government or the Mohammedan religion
favorably or unfavorably. I objected that this
would exclude history, cyclopedias, dictionaries,
and a great amount of literature, Shakespeare for
example. "Well," he said, "what the devil do
you come here for, anyway ? Why can't you let us
go to hell in our own way?" And then he very
politely bade me good-morning. I never got the
books.
There was no change for the better in the affairs
of the Armenians. The agitators were not numer-
ous, but they were active in stirring up discontent
in the country and in appealing to public opinion
in Europe. The Turkish government did nothing
in the way of reform and was increasingly active in
measures of repression. The old friendly feeling
between the Turks and Armenians, who had al-
ways been regarded with more favor than the other
Christian nationalities and who seemed to under-
stand each other better, had given place to distrust
and fear. It seemed as though the government was
doing what it could to develop this mutual distrust,
and desired to bring about a conflict, and was thus
playing into the hands of the revolutionists who be-
lieved that such a conflict would bring about a
European intervention. The sober-minded Arme-
nians had no sympathy with the revolutionists, and
219
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
saw plainly that the hope of their people scattered
all over the country was not in rebellion, but in the
peaceful progress of enlightenment. It was this
feeling which had led so many to send their sons to
Robert College. The event proved that the Sultan
had a much more accurate knowledge of European
politics than the revolutionists and their friends
in Europe. We saw many European statesmen in
Constantinople in those days who came here as to
a storm centre to see more clearly what was to be
expected. The most interesting among those whom
I saw was Mr. Chamberlain, who at that time ap-
peared to have sacrificed his own career to his loy-
alty to the unity of Great Britain and Ireland. I
had seen him in the House of Commons, where I saw
no other who was his equal in debate, and I found
him one of the most intelligent and interesting in-
vestigators of the Eastern question. England suf-
fered a great loss at this time in the sudden death of
Sir William White in Berlin, where he had gone to
spend Christmas. If the time ever comes when the
government allows the publication of his private
papers, which it took possession of after his death,
it will be the most interesting of books. They sent
Sir Philip Curry here as ambassador in his place,
another acquaintance that I had made through
Lord Salisbury at the same time that I first met Sir
William White. He had never had any experience
in the diplomatic service, but had been private sec-
retary of Lord Salisbury and later Under Secretary
for Foreign Affairs. He was always a good friend of
mine and of the College. My relations with him
were as pleasant as they had been with Sir William
220
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE COLLEGE
White, and in general I was in sympathy with
the English policy here. It was neither anti-Turk-
ish nor anti-Russian, a policy of peace and not of
war, but not peace at any price. England would
have resisted the conquest of southeastern Europe
by Russia, and she favored the natural solution of
the Eastern question in the development of the
smaller states, Greece, Bulgaria, Roumania and
Servia. So in regard to the Asiatic provinces of
Turkey, what she aimed at was not the destruction
or the weakening of the Turkish power, but the
strengthening of it by good government and the fair,
just and equal treatment of all the Christian sub-
jects of the Sultan, especially of the Armenians. In
securing this she did not wish to act alone but in
concert with the other Powers. Whether a more
active policy two years later would have prevented
the calamities which followed is not a question to be
discussed here.
Another old friend of the College died soon after
Sir William White Mr. Heap, who had been for
some years consul-general of the United States at
Constantinople. He was born in the consular service
at Tunis, where his father was consul.
We lost our leading French teacher in 1892, not
by death, but by the will of the Sultan, who took
him to teach his sons ; and he is still in service at the
palace, although the last time I met him, he told me
that he had not given a lesson for eighteen months.
This was the second time that the Sultan had taken
one of our teachers, the first being a German.
In the winter of 1891-92, following a visit
from Mr. Wishard, the secretary of the Collegiate
221
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Y. M. C. A., a branch of this organization was
founded by our students which was adapted to the
peculiar wants of this polyglot institution and was
at the same time in full harmony with the general
society.
It was composed of four sections: Armenian,
Bulgarian, Greek and English, each using its own
language and meeting three times a month, united
in one General Association, meeting once a month
and using only the English language. Most of the
personal work in each nationality is conducted
under the direction of the respective sections. The
president of the General Association is always a
member of the Faculty. This society is now con-
nected with the International Association and has
been represented at various general meetings in
Europe.
It was during the twenty-ninth year that I be-
gan to take some part in the preparation for the
proposed Parliament of Religions, to be held in
Chicago in 1893, and I had some very interesting
interviews with the heads of different religious com-
munities and others whom I invited to be present in
person or by deputy. I sympathized heartily with
Dr. Barrows' plans and did what I could to help
him, although I had not so great faith as he had in
the practical results which would follow. I found all
the religious communities afraid to commit them-
selves by sending official representatives, but, in one
way or another, they were represented. Constan-
tinople itself is a Parliament of Religions, but the
discussions are not irenic, and it is very difficult for
people to understand how they can be. The Sun-
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE COLLEGE
day congregation at Robert College comes nearer to
the ideal than any that I have seen.
We did our best during the twenty-ninth year to
make some advance in the College internally as well
as externally. We had a very harmonious Faculty,
and the work done was reasonably satisfactory.
Professor van Millingen became Professor of His-
tory and English Literature. Mr. Ormiston spent
the year 1891-1892 at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, and on his return was appointed Profes-
sor of Chemistry and Mineralogy. Professor Eliou
had been made professor and the head of the Greek
Department, which he had already raised to a level
with the Armenian and Bulgarian. We suffered, as
we always have, from the excessive amount of lin-
guistic work which is demanded in this country.
Some wag proposed, when the College was founded,
that it be named Babel College, and it was not al-
together a joke. We met the difficulty in part by
making the College course five years in place of
four, but we have not escaped giving additional time
to the vernacular of each nationality, to meet the in-
creasing demands of the Bulgarian and Greek gov-
ernments and the popular sentiment of the Armeni-
ans. The Turkish government will no doubt make
equal demands in the course of time. It is reason-
able, and we have no desire to denationalize our stu-
dents and unfit them to be leaders of their own
people.
The question of elective courses had already
forced itself upon us, and we yielded something in
this direction. I suppose that it is heresy to confess
this now, but I did not believe in elective courses in
223
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
colleges and never favored them. I do not believe
in them now. They belong to the university, and, as
Professor Miinsterberg once said, the American col-
lege of to-day seems to me to be a cross between a
university and a kindergarten. The old college was
a place of severe discipline, mental and moral. It
has dropped out in America, and nothing has taken
its place. It may be true that in this age of speciali-
zation the "all-round man" of the old time is an
impossibility. Certainly it is hard to find one;
but it seems to me all the more necessary for the
specialist to have four years of general discipline
and culture, with no option as to what he will study,
before he begins to specialize; and I say this with-
out any reference to the many obvious abuses of
the elective system, which are not an essential part
of it. We have yielded something in the way of
electives without giving up our idea of what a college
ought to be, and we are forced to have a preparatory
department to meet the peculiar wants of the
country. The majority of our students have never
graduated or intended to graduate when they
entered. We do our best for them and have reason
to be proud of some of them, but we wish that all
who are capable of it might have the full course of
discipline and culture necessary for graduation, for
their own sake and for the good of their people.
The new college building, which was then called
Science Hall, but which since Dr. Long's death has
been named for him, was completed in the spring of
1892. It was furnished by Mrs. Davies of New
Haven, the sister of Mrs. Professor van Millingen.
The Chemical Department was in the basement, the
224
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE COLLEGE
museum, library and Department of Physics on the
first floor. The whole of the upper story was occu-
pied by a hall, which was divided by a movable par-
tition into a chapel and lecture room. It was de-
signed by Professor Hamlin of Columbia University
and built by Mr. Burness, a Scotch builder, who is
one of the most respected and reliable men in Con-
stantinople and has put up most of our buildings.
The college buildings and Kennedy Lodge are all
built of blue limestone quarried on the campus.
It was in the great hall of the new building that we
celebrated the Commencement exercises June 26,
1892, with an audience of nearly a thousand, includ-
ing the British ambassador, diplomatic representa-
tives of Austria, Holland, Greece and Bulgaria,
and many other official and distinguished guests of
various nationalities. This was the formal inaugu-
ration of the building. I was not present on this
happy occasion, having started for America at the
end of May to recruit my health and return in
September.
It was the beginning of better days, but the
class which graduated was the smallest since 1874,
only five in number, and smaller than any class
since. Four were Armenians and 1 a Bulgarian.
The Bulgarian is now a merchant in Russia. Of
the Armenians 2 are merchants, 1 a dentist and 1
a physician.
The class of 1891 numbered 8, 4 Armenians, 3
Bulgarians and 1 Greek. Of the Armenians 1 is a
teacher, 1 a dentist, 1 a merchant, 1 unknown. Of the
Bulgarians 1 is in the diplomatic service, 1 an army
officer and 1 a teacher. The Greek is a merchant.
225
CHAPTER XX
TRYING TIMES IN TURKEY. 1892-1894
THE number of students registered the thirtieth
year was 203, of whom 143 were boarders. Seventy-
three were Armenians, 60 Bulgarians, 46 Greeks, 15
English and Americans, others 9. The thirty-first
year the number registered was 200, of whom 123
were boarders. Sixty-eight were Armenians, 65
Greeks, 44 Bulgarians, 14 English and Americans,
others 9.
These two years were the beginning of more try-
ing times in the country and in the College, mingled
with many experiences for which we were very
grateful. In Constantinople itself the thirtieth year
was comparatively uneventful; but the Armenian
troubles in the interior were increasing, and special
complaints were made against the American
schools. Hon. A. W. Terrell, an ex-Confederate
officer from Texas, had been sent here by President
Cleveland to represent the United States, and we
were under his protection for four years. He was
without diplomatic experience and in many ways
a typical Texan of the old school; but he was a
brave, warm-hearted, reconstructed American of
great natural ability, who did his best to defend
American citizens and American interests. We
were under constant and great obligations to him.
He had a talk with the Grand Vizier one day in
TRYING TIMES IN TURKEY
1893 which is worth noting here. The Grand
Vizier said they had no reason to complain of the
Jesuits, because they always spoke well of the Turks,
but " where did you ever see anything good said of
the Turks by an American missionary?" Mr.
Terrell replied, "Why, I was at the Commence-
ment exercises of Robert College, and I heard the
president charge those young men to be loyal to
the sovereign, and then I heard him pray for the
Sultan." "Oh, yes!" said the Grand Vizier, "that
was Robert College. That is altogether different.
Did any one ever hear of the government having
any fault to find with Robert College? Robert
College is all right, but those people at are
quite different."
It is easy to say good things about the Turks. We
live in the most friendly relations with them and
always find good things to say about them. What
the Grand Vizier meant was, good things about the
Turkish government. There are some good things
to be said about this also. Robert College has
reason to be grateful that for the last forty years it
has never interfered with our work in any way, or
refused any of the requests that we have made for
new buildings or for the protection of our students,
and that it has freed us from taxation. In return for
this it has always been our purpose to respect its
laws and its wishes. We have taught our students to
do the same thing, and have never tolerated any
seditious movements among them.
Personally, outside the College, I have expressed
my own opinions as to the policy of the government
and used what influence I had in favor of what
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
seemed to me the true interests of all the people
of Turkey. I love these people, and I could not do
otherwise. I only regret that I have not been able
to do more for them.
The saddest event of the year for the College was
the sudden death of Mrs. van Millingen on a French
steamer from Marseilles. She went to America with
me in the spring and was returning with Professor
Panaretoff. The news of her death came to us by
telegraph from Athens, while we were having a
general Thanksgiving Day dinner at Kennedy
Lodge, as a shock never to be forgotten. No one in
the College filled a larger place in our hearts and
lives than she did, and her memory will be cherished
as long as any of those who knew her continue to live.
The records of the Faculty show that much time
was given during the year to the perfecting of the
course of study. Among other things importance
was given to the development of vocal and instru-
mental music, which had never been altogether
neglected, but which had been kept in the back-
ground by our poverty, although its importance for
our students had been recognized. Our students
were able in June to give a concert, with the aid of
their teacher, which attracted a large audience from
all parts of the city and brought in about a hun-
dred dollars for the charity fund of the Y. M. C. A.
Something was also done to provide commercial
instruction for those who desired it. I had taught
bookkeeping in the College myself for many years,
so far as I considered it an essential part of every
educated man's preparation for life. I believed
that incidentally it had also an ethical value.
228
TRYING TIMES IN TURKEY
The French Department was organized and put
on a solid foundation by the appointment of a
permanent instructor to direct it. It had never been
satisfactory to us or to our students up to this time,
as our teachers were constantly changing and
often inexperienced.
The Scientific Department also made very satis-
factory progress, with the advantage of the new
Science Hall and the division of work between Dr.
Long and Professor Ormiston. Through the kind-
ness of a friend in Pittsburg, Pa., large additions
were made to our apparatus, and our museum was
enriched by a complete and beautiful collection of
the fish and the algae of the Bosphorus, besides a
number of prepared skeletons of birds and ani-
mals.
The marriage of Professor Ormiston and Miss
Farley left the College without a matron, and we
had the good fortune to find a lady to take her
place who was an experienced trained nurse, Miss
Meredith Hart, who has ever since filled a large
place in our college life, and to whom teachers,
their families, and students who have been sick
owe a debt of gratitude which cannot be expressed
in words, but which is never forgotten.
In the summer of 1893 I went to America to at-
tend the Parliament of Religions at the Columbian
Fair. At Chicago Mrs. Washburn and I were the
guests of our dear friends Mr. and Mrs. Blatchford.
I spoke on Mohammedanism and Christianity, and
was so far successful in presenting a fair statement
of the former that no complaint was made of it
at Constantinople, although Orthodox Mohamme-
229
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
dans naturally could not accept the address as a
whole, while some of my Turkish friends here re-
ceived it with favor. I also delivered an address on
the Aim of Foreign Missions. The Parliament of
Religions was much discussed at the time and in
the following years, bitterly attacked by some and
greatly exalted by others. It is certain now that
neither the fears of the one party nor the hopes of
the other have been realized. My own deliberate
opinion is that it did no permanent harm and much
real good. It fell to Dr. Barrows to bring out,
define and express to the world a thought which was
already working in men's minds, and which is now
the source of much of the religious controversy
going on in the world. It was well that it should be
brought out by a man who had unshaken faith
in the Divine origin of Christianity, and there is
no reason to fear that it will not in the end lead to
a clearer conception of what Christianity means.
While in America and after my return I was drawn
into a public and private discussion in regard to the
secret society known as the Mystic Shrine of Mecca,
which professes to be affiliated with the Mohamme-
dan order of Bektashi dervishes, some of whom in
Constantinople are near neighbors and special
friends of mine. It is true that Orthodox Moham-
medans look upon the Bektashis as a heretical sect,
but they are Mohammedans. If this American
society is what it professes to be, its members are
Mohammedans who do not live up to their faith,
for the first duty of a Mohammedan is to confess his
faith and defend it. If it is a fraud and a parody on
Mohammedanism, it is an insult to a great religion
230
TRYING TIMES IN TURKEY
which is a shame to America. The Bektashis here
are still in doubt as to which it is, and so am I.
When the thirty-first college year opened* in
September, 1893, Constantinople was surrounded
by quarantine stations which made all travel very
difficult, and about the same time cholera broke out
in the city and continued with more or less severity
until April, with sanitary regulations which caused
even more excitement and alarm than the disease
itself. The number of students coming from Bul-
garia and other places fell off seriously. I managed
to get back by way of Trieste with only one day of
quarantine, but the land quarantines were more
dangerous to health than the cholera, and it was a
wonder to us that so many students came.
As we had deliberately increased our expenses
considerably by the appointment of new teachers,
and in reasonable expectation of an increased
revenue from students, we found ourselves under
the necessity of cutting down the salaries of all our
professors until we were relieved from our financial
difficulties by a special contribution from seven of
our tried friends in America who came to the rescue.
This is the only time in the history of the College
that we have made such an appeal to our friends.
In July, 1894, just after our Commencement,
came the great earthquake which caused the death
of some fifteen hundred people, destroyed or seri-
ously injured many thousand houses and public
buildings, and caused such ruin in the bazaars that
the seven thousand shops there had to be aban-
doned. The shocks lasted about a month, and
great numbers of the people camped out in the
231
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
fields, cemeteries and open places for much of
this time. The College buildings were vigorously
shaken but not seriously injured; and, so far as is
known, none of the many earthquakes here have
ever done serious injury on this part of the Bos-
phorus. The centre of disturbance is the line
where the Silurian formation of the Bosphorus
meets the Miocene strata in old Stamboul. At
the time of the first shock Professor van Millingen
and Professor Ormiston were engaged in archaeo-
logical work in the dungeons of the old prison
of Anema, under the old walls of the city. Their
escape from being buried alive there was almost
a miracle.
It was during this year that the Armenian troubles
took an acute form in the massacres in the Sassoun
district in Armenia and were followed by a Euro-
pean intervention. The Christians in that part of
the empire had long been a prey to the Kurdish
tribes, unprotected by the Turkish government;
but in this case the Turkish troops, under orders
from Constantinople, took part in the massacre and
plunder of the Armenians, and the work of their
extermination was officially commenced. England
called upon the Powers which had signed the treaty
of Berlin and guaranteed the good treatment of the
people of Armenia to intervene. England, France
and Russia took the lead in demanding redress for
what had been done and such changes and reforms
as would secure the lives, property and rights of
the Armenians in those provinces where they
constituted an important part of the population.
The Turks soon discovered that England was the
232
TRYING TIMES IN TURKEY
only Power to be feared in this question and that the
"Concert of Europe" would not tolerate any inde-
pendent action on her part.
Schemes of reform were devised by the ambassa-
dors and discussed with the Turks, who refused to
accept any kind of foreign control of the reforms
demanded, but professed all manner of good inten-
tions. So the negotiations went on month after
month, while the political excitement in the coun-
try steadily increased and the condition of the Chris-
tians grew worse, until the climax was reached in
the great massacre of 1895-1896. These were trying
times for the College, where it required all our energy
and skill to keep the minds of our students on their
work; and as a result of the earthquake and the
cholera there was great distress in the city, and many
well-to-do families were reduced to poverty. In
August the destruction of a town in Bulgaria by
fire ruined several families whose sons were in the
College.
I was not present at the Commencement exer-
cises in 1894. I was in bed, attended by several
doctors who could not agree as to the cause and
nature of the sudden attack which seemed to
threaten my life; but happily they did agree as to
what should be done for me, and I survived. I was
well in the morning, though tired out, as I generally
was at the end of the year; but a stormy interview
of two hours with a half crazy student, who threat-
ened all kinds of vengeance on me and the College
and had to be quieted down before the public
exercises, very nearly finished my work in the
College. I recovered in season to leave Constanti-
233
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
nople for Switzerland the evening before the great
earthquake, and thus escaped the great nervous
strain of a month of earthquake shocks which
caused the death of hundreds of people.
The number of graduates in 1893 was 13. Of
these, all of whom are living, 6 are Bulgarians, 3
are Armenians, 3 are Greeks and 1 is English. Of
the Bulgarians 1 is a merchant in West Africa, 2
are lawyers and 3 physicians. Of the Armenians 1
is a merchant, 2 are or have been teachers. Of the
Greeks 1 is an instructor in Robert College, 2
are in business.
The number of graduates in 1894 was 21, all but
one of whom are living, Of these 8 were Armenians,
6 Bulgarians, 4 Greeks, 2 English, 1 American. Of
the Armenians 4 are merchants 2 teachers, 1 a den-
tist, 1 unknown. Of the Bulgarians 3 are in the civil
service in Bulgaria, 2 lawyers, 1 a teacher. Of the
Greeks 3 are merchants, 1 a teacher. The English
are merchants. The American is a civil engineer
in America.
234
CHAPTER XXI
BEORGANIZATION OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
1894-1896
GREAT and important changes took place during
this period in the constitution of the Board of
Trustees. Mr. Booth, who had been president of the
Board from the beginning, died in December, 1895;
and Dr. Coe, who had been secretary from the first,
had to resign on account of illness and died in
February, 1895. Mr. Hatch and Mr. Vermilye, the
treasurer, had also died. Mr. Kingsley resigned.
Dr. Coe's son, Rev. Edward B. Coe, D. D., LL. D.,
took his father's place. Mr. William C. Sturges,
president of the Seaman's Savings Bank, became
treasurer in place of Mr. Vermilye, Mr. Cleveland
H. Dodge and Mr. W. T. Booth, the son of the
former President, joined the Board, and finally Mr-
John S. Kennedy consented to become the President.
Whatever progress the College has made since
that time is due to the generous support, the wise
counsels and the active efforts of this new Board of
Trustees. The College opened in 1894 with 205
registered students, of whom 116 were boarders.
There were 80 Greeks, 63 Armenians, 36 Bul-
garians, 13 English and Americans, 13 others.
The thirty-third year there were 221 registered,
of whom 132 were boarders. There were 92 Greeks,
69 Armenians, 37 Bulgarians, 8 English and Ameri-
cans, 4 Turks, 11 others.
235
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
For the first time in the history of the College the
Greeks outnumbered the Armenians and the Bul-
garians. The Bulgarians had fallen off, owing to
the establishment of government gymnasia, where
students were educated at very small cost to their
parents, and on account of the many difficulties put
in the way of Bulgarians coining to Constantinople
by the Turkish government. Constantinople was
no longer a political or a business centre for Bul-
garia. The Armenians were suffering from the po-
litical troubles here and in the interior. The
Greeks, on the other hand, had come to realize at last
that this was not a Bulgarian college, that it was no
part of its object to attack or weaken the Orthodox
Church, and that our Greek Department offered to
them everything that they could ask in the way of
mental and moral discipline. They had come to
appreciate the real value and importance of our re-
ligious instruction and our efforts to build up the
character of our students.
Professor van Millingen was absent on leave
during the year 1894^1895. Otherwise the Faculty
was unchanged. The following year the College
was saddened by the death of Mr. Charles H. Dur-
fee, a tutor who had just come to the College, but
had already won the hearts of teachers and students.
He had an attack of typhoid fever, and I took him to
Kennedy Lodge. It seemed a mild attack, but the
second week he suddenly died, when Miss Hart
and Mrs. Washburn were both with him.
Mr. Hagopian had gone to America for his health
at the end of the thirty-second year and on account
of the Armenian troubles did not return for four
36
REORGANIZATION OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES
years. He spent most of the time studying in the
University of Edinburgh, where he made hosts of
friends. He had never had anything to do with
revolutionists, but the Turkish government was in-
discriminate in its arrest and imprisonment of all
Armenians coming from Europe or America, and it
was thought better that he should delay his return.
His stay in Scotland fitted him for the position of
adjunct Professor of Philosophy, which he now oc-
cupies in the College.
In reading the correspondence of these years and
the following one I am surprised to find that through
all these trying times, when it now seems to me a
wonder that the College continued to exist, we kept
up our courage and were optimistic in our hopes for
the future. We suffered, and suffered keenly ; some-
times it seemed more than we could endure, but it
was not for ourselves. Our friends in America were
alarmed and anxious about us, and Mr. Kennedy
offered to send us a steam yacht upon which we
might take refuge in case of need. We were very
grateful, but felt that the appearance of such a
steamer anchored near the College might of itself
create a panic which would endanger those about
us. It was a serious question at one time whether
we ought not to suspend the College, as Mr. Robert
had advised at the time of the Bulgarian massacres,
but so long as the Turkish government manifested
no inclination to molest any one within our walls
we felt that there was every reason why we should
keep our doors open.
This is not the place to enter into any details of
the events of these two years, and I have not the
837
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
satisfaction of feeling that any influence of mine
modified the action of the Turkish government or
did the Armenians any good. I can only claim that
it never did them any harm. I had influence in Lon-
don and here and used it in efforts to put a stop to
the extermination of the Armenians, but the real
defender of Turkey through all these horrors was
Russia. No doubt the Russian government looked
upon the massacre of Armenians in Turkey as it
has since looked upon the massacre of the Jews at
home, as a matter of little consequence, with which
the outside world had no concern. She made it a
question of the peace of Europe that there should
be no armed intervention here; and while she joined
England and France in demanding reforms, it was
apparently with the purpose of playing into the
hands of the Turks.
After the Sassoon massacres and the official in-
vestigation of them, which had no practical result
except to turn a stream of charity into the country
from England and America, the negotiations here
went on while the sufferings of the Armenians
steadily increased. In the autumn of 1895 the em-
bassies encouraged the Armenians here to break the
deadlock in their negotiations by presenting a peti-
tion to the Grand Vizier. They asked permission
and received it, but it was revoked at the last minute,
when troops were sent to prevent the presentation.
A collision resulted between troops and petitioners,
which was followed by a cold-blooded massacre of
some eight hundred Armenians in the streets, most
of whom had nothing to do with the petition.
As such things never happen in Constantinople
38
REORGANIZATION OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES
without the knowledge and approval of the govern-
ment, it is generally believed that this first massacre
of Armenians here was a bold and carefully devised
plan to test the spirit of the European Powers, be-
fore entering upon a general slaughter throughout
the empire. If it proved that such things could be
done with impunity, in face of Europe, under the
very eyes of the ambassadors, it would be safe to go
on without fear of intervention. In England the
Liberal government, which had been honestly and
earnestly devoted to securing the rights of the Ar-
menians, had fallen, and Lord Salisbury had come
into power. The Turks felt that it was time to test
his policy. I was in London in July, on my way to
America, and was asked to see Lord Salisbury. My
old friends in the Liberal government could not have
expressed their determination to put an end to the
existing state of things in Turkey in stronger lan-
guage than he did. When I reached England on my
return five days had passed since the massacre, and
I went to the Foreign Office to see Lord Salisbury
and get the latest news. I found that Lord Salisbury
was in France, the Under Secretary, Mr. Curzon, in
the north of England, and the Permanent Secretary
in Scotland. The whole Foreign Office was taking
a vacation. I went to see Mr. Chamberlain, the only
other minister whom I knew, and he was in Spain.
It was a week later that Lord Salisbury returned. I
had come on to Constantinople and did not see him,
but I know that he finally realized the gravity of this
crisis and was ready to send a fleet to Constan-
tinople. He thought that it was too late to act
summarily and alone, and he entered into commu-
239
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
nication with the other Powers. For a time it
seemed as though something might be done, but
Russia finally put her veto on it, and the " Con-
cert of Europe" contented itself with demanding
the immediate acceptance of the meagre scheme
of reform which it had agreed to, which in fact
amounted to nothing, and which did not delay the
general slaughter which commenced in a few weeks
and went on for a year. It was in vain that the ter-
rible details of these massacres were published to
the world, and that in England and America, and to
some extent in France and Italy, public opinion was
roused to demand some form of intervention. These
publications simply exasperated the Turks and
failed to interest the "Concert of Europe/' What-
ever plans the Sultan had he carried them out to the
bitter end without fear, only tolerating the distribu-
tion of great sums of money which were contributed
in Europe and America to relieve the suffering of
those who survived the massacres.
During the college year of 1895-1896 we realized,
as no one out of the country could realize, the signifi-
cance of what was going on in the interior, and the
burden of the people's suffering was hard to bear;
but we had no fear of any massacre in Constanti-
nople or any serious danger for the College. Once
only we were made to feel the dangers about us.
One of our Greek students, who had friends in Pera,
left the College secretly one afternoon, after having
been refused permission to go, and went with his
friends to the theatre. They were insulted by a
Turk who sat near them, and our student com-
plained of it to the manager. The Turk waylaid
840
KI\(; PH<1>IN\M> OP III 1(, \KI V
REORGANIZATION OP BOARD OF TRUSTEES
him as he came out of the theatre and murdered him.
I went to his funeral in the Greek church in Pera
and was startled to find hundreds of armed Cepha-
lonians (he was from Cephalonia) ready to escort
the procession through the principal streets of the
city. Thanks to the precautions taken by the po-
lice, no one interfered with this demonstration. It
was not the policy of the government to stir up
trouble with the Greeks at this time.
We had an alarm of cholera in the city in 1895 and
the usual quarantine, which deprived us of a visit
from our dear friends Mr. and Mrs. William E.
Dodge, who were on their way to Constantinople,
but turned back from Athens to escape the quaran-
tine.
Later we had a very interesting visit from Bishop
Potter of New York, who made an admirable ad-
dress to the students.
Our most distinguished visitor was Prince Ferdi-
nand of Bulgaria. He had at last been officially
recognized by all the Powers and had come to visit
the Sultan. He came to the College, attended by a
brilliant retinue of Turkish and Bulgarian officials
and guards, made himself very agreeable to the Bul-
garian students, and took afternoon tea at Kennedy
Lodge, where he was kind enough to say that Robert
College had been a nursery for Bulgarian statesmen
and he hoped that it would continue to be so. He
did not know it, but he drank his tea out of a cup
that once belonged to his grandfather, then Louis
Philippe, King of France.
The question of beneficiaries became more press-
ing and more difficult during these years of political
241
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
troubles and financial distress. From the founda-
tion of the College this question had been discussed
more than any other. Mr. Robert never favored
our aiding as many students as we did, and was al-
ways cautioning us about it, while here the most try-
ing experience that we had was the constant refusal
of applications for aid of this kind. We were agreed
upon certain principles: no free students; no
promise of aid for more than one year; no benefi-
ciary to be continued whose scholarship and con-
duct were not of the best; no aid to any but those
whose parents were really unable to pay more than
one half. We were also agreed that the College
ought to do something for the poor as well as the
rich, and we rejoiced when Mr. Walter Wood of
Philadelphia and the children of Mrs. Newton and
occasionally others furnished funds for this pur-
pose ; but in general we had to face the fact that the
greater part of the aid which we gave had to come
out of the general funds of the College, which at best
were not sufficient to meet our expenses. Almost
every year we have voted to reduce the number re-
ceived, but we have seldom had less than fifty stu-
dents (the majority day scholars) who paid only one
half the regular charges. It is much easier to lay
down general principles than to apply them to all
special cases. So long as we had room for such ad-
ditional students and they did not necessitate addi-
tional teachers and they fulfilled our requirements,
there were always special and exceptional reasons
why this or that one should be received, so that we
generally had a few more than we intended to re-
ceive. I think that this liberality on our part has
242
REORGANIZATION OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES
been appreciated by the different nationalities in the
East and is one of the reasons why they support the
College, and it has always seemed to me that while
it is unwise to receive free students, who are not
likely to appreciate what costs them nothing, in aid-
ing a certain number we are simply carrying out the
purpose for which the College was founded. Some
of our most distinguished graduates were half-pay
students. Some have disappointed us, but on the
whole I see no reason to regret that, out of our pov-
erty, we have aided so many to secure the advan-
tages of an education in Robert College.
The Commencement exercises in 1895 and 1896
brought together great crowds as usual, with many
distinguished guests who were afterward enter-
tained at Kennedy Lodge. The government had
prohibited all such gatherings in the city, but they
treated our case as exceptional and made no objec-
tion to it, probably because the American minister
presided on these occasions and the English ambas-
sador and other ministers always attended. Still we
felt it necessary to take every precaution against
any appearance of anything like a political demon-
stration. We had no address by any of the guests,
and the orations were all in English or French. The
only really trying moment on these occasions was
when the band opened the exercises with the Hami-
die March, the Turkish national air, and the audi-
ence was expected to rise. If they had kept their
seats this would have been a political demonstration
beyond our control, which would have made trouble.
Happily they did not.
The number of graduates in 1895 was 15. Six
243
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
were Bulgarians, 5 Armenians, 3 Greeks, 1 was Eng-
lish. Of the Bulgarians 3 are teachers, 1 a judge, 1
in diplomatic service, 1 in business. Of the Arme-
nians 3 are merchants, 1 a civil engineer, 1 pastor
of a Protestant church in Constantinople. The 3
Greeks are in business, and the Englishman is the
agent of the Cunard Steamship Company in Con-
stantinople.
The number of graduates in 1896 was 6, of whom
5 are living. Three were Bulgarians, 2 Armenians,
1 a Greek. Of the Bulgarians 2 were lawyers, 1
a teacher. Of the Armenians 1 is in business, 1
a Protestant minister. The Greek is a musician.
244
CHAPTER XXII
THE GREAT CONSTANTINOPLE MASSACRE. 1896-1897
IN the summer of 1896 everything in Constanti-
nople seemed to be quiet, and most of the gentlemen
connected with the College went away for the vaca-
tion. Professor Panaretoff and I went to Austria to
the Saltzkammergut. We found nothing but rain
and floods there and started for the Carpathians;
but in Vienna Professor Panaretoff was ordered by
his doctor to go to Carlsbad. As I was left alone I
went to the Millennial Exhibition in Budapest for a
few days and returned to Constantinople on Satur-
day, August 22. The following Wednesday I went
up the Bosphorus to call at the English Embassy
and to lunch with Mr. Dimitroff at Buyukdere. I
returned about 4 o'clock, and, soon after, some one
came in great excitement to say that the Turkish
army had revolted, plundered the Ottoman Bank
and were slaughtering people in the streets. I at
once took all possible precautions for the protection
of the College and the families. It turned out that
the news which I had received was incorrect, but
that something equally terrible was going on in
town. It had been a beautiful day, and several of
our lady friends had been in town and found it very
difficult to get back through streets which were al-
ready running with blood.
What had happened was this. About noon a band
245
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
of Armenians, most of them from Russia, entered
the Ottoman Bank, with arms and dynamite, took
the employees prisoners and barricaded themselves
in the building, with the threat that, unless the am-
bassadors at once secured a pledge from the Sultan
of certain reforms, they would blow up the bank
with dynamite. To finish with this part of the story,
soldiers soon surrounded the bank, and negotiations
began with the captors which in the evening re-
sulted in their being permitted to leave the bank, go
on board the yacht of the chief manager and leave
the country unmolested.
Who originated this plot I do not know, but it is
certain that the Turkish government knew all about
it many days before, even to the exact time when the
bank was to be entered ; and the Minister of Police
had made elaborate arrangements, not to arrest
these men or prevent the attack on the bank, but to
facilitate it and make it the occasion of a massacre
of the Armenian population of the city. This was
to be the crown of all the massacres of the year, one
worthy of the capitol and the seat of the Sultan, a
final defiance to the Christian world. Not many
minutes after the attack on the bank the bands of
Turks, who had been organized by the Minister of
Police in Stamboul and Galata, commenced the
work of killing every Armenian they could find, pro-
tected by large bodies of troops, who in some cases
took part in the slaughter. Through Wednesday,
Wednesday night, Thursday and Thursday night
the massacre went on unchecked. An open tele-
gram was sent by the ambassadors to the Sultan
Thursday night, which perhaps influenced him to
246
THE GREAT CONSTANTINOPLE MASSACRE
give orders to stop the massacre, and not many were
murdered on Friday. I do not care to enter at all
into the horrible details of this massacre of some ten
thousand Armenians. Very few of them were able
to make any serious resistance. Very few women or
children were killed, and these only in certain quar-
ters where the houses were attacked and looted.
Many Turks looked upon the whole thing with
horror and protected the Armenians in their own
houses. An American negro sailor, stranded here,
whom the Turks took to be a Mohammedan, saved
one house full of refugees. We had a number of
Armenian servants in the College, and a few others
took refuge there. Thursday night there was a mas-
sacre of Armenians just below us at Bebec and
another opposite us at Candilli. The British gun-
boat came and took off the British residents and
offered to take us, which we declined. Ruffians
gathered at Hissar to massacre and plunder the Ar-
menians here, but the leading Turks drove them off
in the early evening. We had five Montenegrans at
the College, and about midnight I left them to patrol
and guard the grounds, with orders to wake me if
any attack was made on us. We had already buried
what we could of our valuables.
Not long after we retired, the gate-keeper came to
say that a company of Turkish soldiers was at the
gate and demanded admission, saying that they
were sent by order of the Sultan to protect us. It
seemed wise to assume that this was true and admit
them to the grounds, while the Montenegrans still
guarded Hamlin Hall, where all our Armenians had
taken refuge. The colonel who came with them
247
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
went away, and the captain left in command told
the gate-keeper that they had come because they
knew the College was full of Armenian revolution-
ists whom they expected to capture. Which of these
statements was true I do not know, but it was a very
anxious morning for us, as we and our Armenian
servants were at the mercy of these soldiers, of whose
real mission we were in doubt. The next day these
men were replaced by twenty other soldiers under
the charge of a captain whose family lived in Hissar.
The government claimed that they were necessary
for the protection of the College, and I furnished
them with quarters in the back part of the study
hall building. We were not expected to do anything
else for them. They were of the regular army, genu-
ine Turkish peasants from Asia Minor, quiet and
good natured; and the four months they remained
there was a continuous holiday for them, as the cap-
tain did not trouble himself to drill them. They
never made any disturbance or gave us any trouble
of any account; but after the College opened in
September they were a source of constant anxiety,
and we had to watch our students with untiring
vigilance to see that they did not get into conflict
with the soldiers, especially as we had a number
of new Turkish students along with some sixty
Armenians.
The massacre of the Armenians came to an end
on Friday, the day after the soldiers came to the Col-
lege; but the persecution of them which went on for
months was worse than the massacre. Their busi-
ness was destroyed, they were plundered and black-
mailed without mercy, they were hunted like wild
248
THE GREAT CONSTANTINOPLE MASSACRE
beasts, they were imprisoned, tortured, killed, de-
ported, fled the country, until the Armenian popula-
tion of the city was reduced by some seventy-five
thousand, mostly men, including those massacred.
They were replaced by Kurds and men of other wild
tribes. Since that time it is very difficult for an
Armenian to get permission to come to Constanti-
nople from the interior. The poverty and distress
of those left alive in Constantinople was often
heartrending, and many women and children died
of slow starvation. That this persecution still con-
tinues in a milder form is undoubtedly due to the
criminal agitation kept up by a few revolutionists in
Europe and the United States, whose chief business
is the blackmailing and murder of their own people.
Sir Michael Herbert, the British charge d'affaires,
and some of the ambassadors did what they could
to stop the massacre of the Armenians, and some
of the consuls aided the Armenians to escape from
the country after the massacres; but the "Concert
of Europe " did nothing. It accepted the situation.
The Emperor of Germany went farther. He sent a
special embassy to present to the Sultan a portrait
of his family as a token of his esteem.
Under all these circumstances, and in doubt as to
what worse calamities might be in store for us, it
was with much hesitation that we opened the Col-
lege as usual on the 15th of September, only eighteen
days after the massacre. Most of the Faculty was
absent, and the decision had to be made by the presi-
dent. It was a terrible responsibility to assume, but
it seemed to me that we must go on and trust in God
to protect us, as we had done at the time of the Bul-
249
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
garian troubles. We were surprised at the number
of students who appeared and at their assurance
that the College was a safe place. The whole num-
ber registered was 200, of whom 130 were boarders.
There were 77 Greeks, 61 Armenians, 38 Bulgari-
ans, 8 English and Americans, 9 Turks, 7 others,
about the same number of boarders that we had the
previous year. The head of our French Department
was prevented from returning by the fears of his
wife's family, but the newly engaged French tutor,
Mr. Reymond, came and has ever since been at
the head of the department. Mr. Pollock, a new
American tutor, broke down in health in the
middle of the year and returned to America. The
rest of us survived the terrible strain of months of
painful anxiety and sympathy with suffering which
we were powerless to prevent and could do little to
alleviate, but at the end of November my health
broke down so completely that I was forced to spend
three months in Egypt to recruit. As at other times,
Dr. Long took up the burden, and I was not missed.
On our return from Egypt Mrs. Washburn and I
improved the opportunity to stop at Beirut, with our
dear old friends of the Syrian Protestant College,
and rejoice with them in their prosperity. We
greatly enjoyed this visit and our stay in the new
Egypt of Lord Cromer, the renewal of our acquaint-
ance with the American missionaries there, and our
study of ancient Egypt. We felt sometimes that we
never wished to see the blood-stained streets of Con-
stantinople again.
We came back to new and unexpected troubles
and greater anxieties than ever. War broke out with
950
THE GREAT CONSTANTINOPLE MASSACRE
Greece, followed by an order for the expulsion of
all Greek subjects from the empire, and the fanati-
cism of the Turks was roused to a higher pitch
than at the time of the massacres. Constantinople
was like a powder magazine which might be
exploded by a chance spark. Our students were
intensely excited, all of them, and we felt that the
dreaded spark might be kindled in the College at
any moment. That it was not was due chiefly to
the untiring efforts of the professors and tutors of
the different nationalities to quiet and restrain the
students. Five of the Greeks ran away to enlist in
the Greek army, but the Turkish government was
considerate enough not to molest our Greek stu-
dents or servants.
This war was an act of supreme folly on the part
of the Greeks. The government was driven into it
by popular clamor against its own judgment. It
was hardly less a folly for the Turks. It is generally
believed that the final decision to declare war was
due to German influence, exercised chiefly through
the distinguished German officers who had reor-
ganized the Turkish army, and that the popular
demonstrations here were not spontaneous. The
Greeks had no army to meet the Turks, who would
have been in Athens in a few days if the Powers had
not intervened. The Turks had no fleet which they
dared to send outside the Dardanelles, and in the
end they lost Crete. The Greeks might have had
an alliance with Bulgaria and been supported by an
insurrection in Macedonia, but here also it was the
mob which decided the government to reject this
alliance. It was well for Bulgaria that they did.
251
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
There was no reason why they should go to war with
Turkey at that time.
Our interest in the Greeks naturally led us to sym-
pathize with them, but we could not sympathize
with the spurious patriotism which had forced the
government into war, and which has so often
brought them into trouble. The Christian world
owes so much to ancient Greece that it naturally in-
terests itself in modern Greece and in every effort
of the kingdom of Greece to improve its position. It
welcomes every advance in the prosperity and en-
lightenment of the nation; but sometimes its en-
thusiasm is cooled by evidence that the same spirit
of revolt against reason which ruined ancient Athens
is still prevalent. The seventy-two Greeks in the
College who did not run away and go to the war
were not less patriotic and were much wiser than
those who went.
When the end of the year came and found us all
alive, in relative peace and quiet, after the long
months of terror, war, massacre, and the rage of
the wildest passions about us, we felt like making
our Commencement a day of thanksgiving; but
the city was still full of misery and distress, and the
political horizon still dark, so that we felt the need
of unusual caution in arranging our programme.
We gave special importance to the music and had
one of the principal musicians of the palace to take
a prominent part. Mr. Riddle, the American
charge d'affaires, presided, the audience was as large
as ever and everything passed off happily.
The number of graduates was 14, of whom 13
are living. Five were Bulgarians, 4 Armenians, 4
252
THE GREAT CONSTANTINOPLE MASSACRE
Greeks, 1 a German from Russia. Of the Bulgarians
1 was a teacher, 1 a judge, 2 in civil service, 1 died
while studying medicine. Of the Armenians 2 are
merchants, 1 an architect in New York, 1 a teacher
in Robert College. Of the Greeks 2 are merchants,
1 a lawyer in Roumania, 1 a physician. The Ger-
man is in Russia.
253
CHAPTER XXIII
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE. 1897-1899
THE reorganized Board of Trustees did not dis-
appoint us. When the reorganization took place
it seemed almost too much to hope that a new day
had really dawned upon us, that we were no longer
to bear alone the burden which we had carried
for so many years. The old Board was sympathetic,
gave us its blessing and looked after our funds care-
fully, but it was so constituted that it could do
little more. I remember Dr. David B. Coe, Mr. W.
A. Booth and Mr. William C. Sturges with grati-
tude and affection. They were real friends of the
College, and when I was in America they were al-
ways ready to listen to me and do what they could.
The fact that they were so well known and uni-
versally respected was a guarantee of the standing
of the College which I fully appreciated; but the
new Board assumed a responsibility for the College
which was an unspeakable relief to us. The Con-
stitution was modified and the Board enlarged. At
this time it consisted of Mr. John S. Kennedy, Presi-
dent, Rev. Dr. E. B. Coe, Secretary, Mr. Frederick
A. Booth, Treasurer, Mr. John Sloane, Mr. Robert
W. De Forest and Mr. William C. Osborn. The
Board not only listened to our wants and appre-
ciated our needs, but undertook to supply them
as far and as soon as possible. This could not be
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
done in a day, but the work of enlarging and
strengthening the College began in this period,
and it has been going on ever since. They were
undoubtedly encouraged by a happy event which
occurred in the summer of 1898. We had long felt
the pressing need of a new building for our Prepara-
tory Department, which we could not dispense with,
but which could not be managed satisfactorily
while it was under the same roof with the College.
I went to America that summer with the special pur-
pose of trying to interest Miss Stokes of New York
in this need. I hardly know why I had thought
particularly of her, although she had visited Con-
stantinople and interested herself in the education
of two Bulgarian students here, but I was very
hopeful. When I reached America, to my great
disappointment I found that she was not in the
country, and I came back with a heavy heart.
When I reached Kennedy Lodge and met Mrs.
Washburn her first words were that she had a
letter for me that would interest me. It proved
to be a letter from Miss Stokes in which she said
that she had been thinking of the wants of the
College and would be very glad to put up a build-
ing for the Preparatory Department. I could
hardly believe my eyes. It seemed to me almost
like a miracle, and when the building was finished I
sympathized most heartily with Miss Stokes' re-
quest that it be called Theodorus Hall, the gift of
God. The trustees were also encouraged by two
legacies left to the College, five thousand dollars
by Mr. W. H. Stickney of Baltimore and ten thou-
sand dollars by Mr. Charles F. Wilder of Boston,
255
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
and they made arrangements for the appointment
of a Professor of Mathematics, which had long
been a crying need of the College.
For the thirty-fifth year, 1897-1898, the number
of students registered was 250, of whom 145 were
boarders. There were 88 Greeks, 87 Armenians, 49
Bulgarians, 10 Turks, 7 English and Americans, 9
others.
For the thirty-sixth year, 1898-1899, the number
registered was 292, of whom 173 were boarders.
There were 108 Greeks, 105 Armenians, 45 Bul-
garians, 10 English and Americans, 14 Turks, 10
others.
The increase of Greek and Armenian students
after the massacres and the war was altogether un-
expected, and we had to refuse a number of appli-
cants in the fall of 1898. We could not accommodate
more.
One of the pleasantest experiences of this period
was the coming here of President Angell of Michi-
gan University as American minister, who was not
only a college president, but a scholar and a states-
man. He and Mrs. Angell were the most delightful
of friends. We rejoiced in them and were proud of
them as representatives of our country, which he
had already represented in China. We were dis-
appointed but not surprised that he found Michigan
University more attractive than the Sublime Porte
and resigned his place here after a year of fruitless
negotiations, which, as he had been in China, had
not even the interest of novelty. In fact he found
that the Sublime Porte surpassed the Yamen in the
style of diplomacy common to both.
256
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
On his departure our old friend Mr. Straus re-
turned to the post which he had occupied under
President Cleveland, an appointment which was
supposed to be agreeable to the Sultan.
There was also a change in the British Embassy.
Nearly all the ambassadors who had been here
during the massacres were recalled and among
them Sir Philip Currie, who was replaced by Sir
Nicholas O'Conor, an experienced diplomatist, a
kind-hearted and agreeable gentleman, who has
been most friendly to the College, who has carried
out his instructions to keep peace between England
and the Porte, and who has given the Sultan end-
less good advice which has seldom been followed.
Since the massacres we have lived here through an
era of German influence which seems now (1907) to
be waning. It was in the autumn of 1898 that the
Emperor William II made his pilgrimage to the
Holy Land and visited Constantinople. It is be-
lieved here that this visit cost the Sultan more than
ten million dollars, and the Turks say that all he
got in return was a marble bust of the Emperor and
of his grandfather. He was not welcomed by the
people here, either Turks or Christians, but he
cemented an alliance with the Sultan which freed
Turkey from all fear of the "Concert of Europe "
and in return opened a wide field for German enter-
prise in Turkey and for the development of German
influence in Asia Minor. German influence here
has been as strongly anti-American as it has been
anti-English.
In 1898, in the time of the Spanish War, we had
all Europe, except England, against us and had to
257
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
listen to much that was unpleasant here in Con-
stantinople, where in diplomatic circles it was uni-
versally believed that we should be ignominiously
defeated. Curiously enough the Turks were on our
side, and rejoiced over the defeat of Spain as a
divine punishment for her treatment of the Moors
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was
said that prayers were offered in our behalf in some
of the mosques.
I am tempted to quote here from a letter of one
of the most distinguished statesmen in England,
which I find among my papers, written in Sep-
tember, 1898, apropos of the feeling in America*
"The change of sentiment in regard to foreign
possessions in the U. S. A. is not more sudden than
surprising to us. Whatever benefit there may be in
it for Britain, it seems tome full of trouble for Amer-
ica. Your constitution and government were not
framed for the sort of work which oceanic Powers
ruling half-savage tropical dependencies have to do,
but I see that good men in America believe that, be-
cause it has come in the dispensation of Providence,
Congress will be endowed with the necessary wis-
dom for it and it will even lead to an improvement
in political methods and public life. England, as
you will see, views it with sympathy."
For ourselves, we regretted the war, but we re-
joiced in its victories and hoped, as this gentleman
says, that Congress might be endowed with wisdom
to manage our new possessions. We are still hoping.
But our Congress is not, thus far, made up of men
whose knowledge or interests fit them to legislate for
a world-power such as we have become. They
258
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
are chiefly local politicians with little interest in the
welfare of the country as a whole, and ignorant of
foreign politics. There is no choice for any nation
now but to be a world-power knowing how to de-
fend its own interests, or to be dominated by the
Great Powers of Europe and exploited in their
interests. In 1896 we could not send a gunboat to
Constantinople to protect the lives of American
citizens because Russia and Germany did not wish
it. Our trade with Turkey has been limited for
years in the same way. From the standpoint of
Constantinople it seems that the great need of
America is more international statesmen.
To go back to the College, it was in 1897 that we
had our first public field day for athletics. An ath-
letic club had been organized the previous year by
Mr. Ostrander, then a tutor in the College. We had
never ignored our responsibility for the physical
culture of our students. As far as our means al-
lowed we had provided gymnastic apparatus, and
had exercised our students in some system of light
gymnastics ; but our chief dependence had been in
encouraging all sorts of out-of-door games cricket,
baseball, football, etc. The Athletic Club had
rather a precarious existence for several years, but
it has grown stronger every year, and its annual field
days have attracted much attention in the city and
developed the interest of the students in athletics.
Some of our students have distinguished themselves
by breaking world records and winning interna-
tional prizes. For myself I rejoice that the interest
in athletics has not yet reached a point where it over-
shadows the proper work of the College, and I hope
359
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
that it never will. I believe that systematic work in
the gymnasium is a far more important means of
cultivating the physical powers, and that out-of-door
games, if not confined to a chosen few, are equally
important. Our games have never degenerated
into gladiatorial shows. We have sometimes been
troubled by international rivalries in athletics, but
our own neutral position has generally enabled us
to restore harmony, and on the whole the conduct of
our students in these contests has been praise-
worthy.
Our chief source of anxiety in 1898-1899 was in re-
gard to our water supply. We talked about it every
day and dreamed about it every night. At times we
had not a two days' supply in sight simply for cook-
ing and drinking. We had a well one hundred and
eighty feet below the College which furnished water
for other purposes, but one horse pumped this dry
every morning in two hours. We had several large
cisterns and had always depended upon rain-water
caught on our roofs for our supply. We had been in
trouble before, but this year, with a greater number
of students than ever before, we had to face a
drought which had continued for two or three years
with an annual rainfall of only twelve to fifteen inches.
The first part of the year we sent our students to
the Turkish bath in Hissar, but in the early spring
this burned down. Then the well threatened to
give out, and we saw the bottom of our cisterns. I
arranged to have water brought on horses, in barrels,
from a spring two miles away. The evening before
this water was to begin to come a storm came down
from the Black Sea with a deluge of rain, and that
260
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THEE COLLEGE
was the end of the drought. But this was an ex-
perience which it was not safe to repeat, and Mr.
Kennedy came to our rescue and furnished the
means to put in a steam pump aud connect us with
the city water supply in a building which we erected
for this purpose. Our supply is now unlimited, but
we still depend on our cisterns for drinking and
cooking purposes.
Professor Anderson's health broke down in 1898
under the strain of life in Hamlin Hall, where he had
lived with his family since a similar experience had
forced me to withdraw to Kennedy Lodge. Since
that time no family has lived in Hamlin Hall. The
family rooms are now used as the college hospital
and Miss Hart's apartments. There are also twelve
teachers living in the building. The president's
house is only a stone's throw from Hamlin Hall.
After a year's absence, Professor Anderson returned
to the College.
Mr. Hagopian returned to the College in Novem-
ber, 1898, and like other Armenians returning to
the city, although his papers were in perfect order,
he spent twenty-four hours in the city prison, when
by our intervention he was set at liberty. The neg-
lect of a friend of his in London to post a letter to
me prevented our meeting him on his arrival. If I
had known of his coming on that day, I could have
saved him this trying experience, through the inter-
vention of the American consul.
In March, 1899, Lord Rosebery came to Con-
stantinople, and Mrs. Washburn and I lunched with
him at the British Embassy. I had never met him
before, although when he was Foreign Minister I
61
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
was in correspondence with him. I had a long talk
with him on Eastern affairs and English policy. I
found him quite as interesting a man as Lord Salis-
bury, though of a different type, and less inclined to
express decided opinions. He related to me one or
two most interesting incidents of his experience
when Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The number of graduates in 1898 was 14. There
were 6 Bulgarians, 4 Greeks, 2 Armenians, 1 Eng-
lish, 1 Italian. Of the Bulgarians 2 are in busi-
ness, 1 a judge, 1 a lawyer, 1 a teacher, 1 in diplo-
matic service. Of the Greeks 2 are in business,
1 a lawyer, 1 an engineer. Of the Armenians 1 is
a mining engineer in Mexico, 1 a physician in
America. The Englishman is a merchant; the
Italian, unknown.
The number of graduates in 1899 was 13. There
were 5 Greeks, 4 Armenians, 3 Bulgarians, 1 He-
brew. Of the Greeks 2 are in business, 2 have
studied medicine and 1 is in the treasurer's office
in Robert College. Of the Armenians 3 are in
business, 1 has studied law in America. Of the
Bulgarians 2 have studied law, 1 is in diplo-
matic service. The Hebrew is an assistant in the
physico-chemical laboratory of the University of
Leipsic.
We had our usual crowded and distinguished au-
dience on both the Commencement days, and an
admirable address from Mr. Straus, who presided
in 1899. The subjects treated by the graduates in
their orations were the following: The Russian
Woman, The Temptations of Poverty, The Social
Problem, Life a Conflict, The East and the West,
262
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLEGE
The Value of Self-reliance, La Dette de TOccident,
La Puissance de la Volont, Les Progres des Sciences
et la Misere Sociale.
I suppose that few foreigners have had a better
opportunity to acquaint themselves with the people
of Asia Minor than Sir William Ramsay, and I quote
here what he says in his "Impressions of Turkey"
of our graduates: "I have come in contact with
men educated in Robert College, in widely separated
parts of the country, men of diverse races and differ-
ent forms of religion, Greek, Armenian and Protes-
tant, and have everywhere been struck with the mar-
velous way in which a certain uniform type, direct,
simple, honest and lofty in tone, has been impressed
upon them. Some had more of it, some less ; but all
had it to a certain degree; and it is diametrically
opposite to the type produced by growth under the
ordinary conditions of Turkish life."
263
CHAPTER XXIV
DEATH OF DR. HAMLIN. 189&-1901
THERE was nothing in the history of the College
in Constantinople the thirty-seventh year which de-
mands special attention. Everything was quiet and
peaceful in the city. The Sultan completed the
twenty-fifth year of his reign and the six hundredth
of the Ottoman dynasty, and all Europe united to
congratulate him.
The prosperity of the College continued un-
abated. The number of students registered was
297, of whom 176 were boarders. One hundred and
twelve were Greeks, 108 Armenians, 39 Bulgarians,
14 Turks, 13 English and Americans, 11 others.
For the thirty-eighth year the number of students
registered was 311, of whom 182 were boarders.
One hundred and twenty-seven were Greeks, 108
Armenians, 34 Bulgarians, 14 Turks, 12 English and
American, 16 others.
The number of students for these two years repre-
sented the extreme limit to which it was possible for
for us to go in receiving students. We were over-
crowded in the buildings which we had at that time.
In the spring of 1900 the trustees of the College
requested me to go to America and consult with
them as to what measures should be taken to meet
the immediate needs of the College and secure its
future development. This was the most important
264
DEATH OF DR. HAMLIN
step ever taken by the trustees and was the begin-
ning of the development which is still in progress.
It Was a recognition of responsibility on their part
which the Faculty welcomed with enthusiasm and
new hopes for the future. At their suggestion I
started in season to attend the Ecumenical Mission-
ary Conference, which was held in New York that
year, where it was thought advisable to have Robert
College represented. The importance of the College
and its world-wide influence were fully recognized.
I presided at one of the great meetings in Carnegie
Hall and spoke on different occasions, and had
many opportunities for consultation with those en-
gaged in similar ^ork in other parts of the world,
most of whom realized that it was the founding and
the success of Robert College which had changed
the policy of American missionary societies and led
to the establishment of colleges in so many mission-
ary fields. I found these personal conferences very
profitable, and greatly enjoyed meeting so many
great and good men of various nationalities from all
parts of the world. It was natural to compare this
meeting with the Parliament of Religions at Chicago,
in which I had taken a prominent part, and I did so
in the brief address which I made at the last meeting.
They were not antagonistic in spirit or purpose, but
the more definite aim of the practical workers of the
Missionary Conference was certainly more inspiring
and seemed to promise more immediate results.
Soon after the Conference the trustees met in-
formally at dinner af Mr. Kennedy's, where I had
an opportunity to present to them the views of the
Faculty as to the present conditions the needs
265
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
and the prospects of the College. What was gener-
ally agreed to there was afterwards adopted at a
formal meeting of the Board. They resolved to
c^iny out as far as possible the recommendations
submitted by the Faculty. They resolved "to do
everything that was necessary for the development
of the College on the model of the best colleges in
America, to make it thoroughly up to date in its
material equipment and in its curriculum, personnel
and spirit." Professor Lybyer had already been
appointed professor of mathematics; and it was
agreed to appoint, in addition, a principal of the
Preparatory Department, a professor in the Scientific
Department who should also be a physician, and a
college treasurer who should also be a professor in
the Commercial Department. It was also decided to
erect a new building for study halls and recitation
rooms, a gymnasium and three houses for professors,
to supply new chemical and physical apparatus, and
to increase the library, also to purchase adjacent
land. As all this would increase the running ex-
pense of the College, it was resolved to take imme-
diate steps to raise two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars to increase the endowment. A building for
the Preparatory Department had already been pro-
vided for by Miss Stokes, and Mr. Cleveland H.
Dodge, at the meeting, promised to put up a gym-
nasium. Mr. Kennedy promised to put up the pro-
fessors' houses.
It should be noted that this action of the trustees
was not the result of any special appeal made by us,
but was the result of their own investigations and of
their own purpose to make the College worthy of
266
DEATH OF DR. HAMLIN
the position which it occupied in the East, and the
reputation which it had attained in the world. No
one, outside the Faculty, can fully appreciate what
this meant to us who were on the ground, who knew
what the College had done and might do, who had
had a part in all its trials and triumphs.
This was not the only evidence which we had of
the interest which was taken in the College in edu-
cational circles in America. I received most cordial
invitations to visit colleges and universities. Prince-
ton and Michigan Universities, Amherst College,
and later the University of Pennsylvania, honored
Robert College by conferring on its president the
degree of Doctor of Laws. I took special pleasure
in my visit to President Angell of Michigan Uni-
versity, who had so greatly endeared himself to us
when he was United States minister here, and to
Williams College, whose president had long been a
faithful friend of ours and had done no little work in
finding tutors for us, and to Amherst, my own Alma
Mater.
In August we arranged for a gathering at my
son's summer home at Manchester-by-the-Sea of all
who could be got together of the Hamlin family.
Dr. Hamlin, then nearly ninety years old, was there
in good spirits and apparently good health. He was
much pleased to hear of what the trustees had done
and promised to do for Robert College and rejoiced
in its present prosperity. The next morning, August
8, he went with Mrs. Hamlin to Portland to assist
in the celebration of "Home Week" there. That
evening, on his return from a public meeting, where
he had spoken, he complained of feeling ill and soon
267
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
died. His funeral took place &t Lexington, near
Boston, which had been his home for some years.
His body was carried to the grave by Armenian
friends, who afterward erected a monument over it,
in memory of what he had done for the Armenian
people in Turkey. After our return to Constan-
tinople and the opening of the College we had a
memorial service for him in the college hall, con-
ducted by Dr. Long, with most interesting and ap-
preciative addresses. There was a large audience
of his old friends and of the college students. It
was twenty-seven years since he had been in Turkey,
but his memory was fresh in the minds of those who
had known him. No one who had been a student
under him in the Bebec Seminary or Robert College
could possibly forget him, and the tradition of him
still lingers in the city among those who had not
known him personally. His name, attached to Ham-
lin Hall, is familiar to all our students, and his por-
trait hangs in the college chapel. Of his work as
one of the founders of the College I have written in
the earlier chapters of this book. Those who would
know him as a man should read his autobiography,
"My Life and Times." It was an interesting fact
that, though Dr. Hamlin was a typical New Eng-
lander, he, like Mr. Robert, was of French Hugue-
not stock.
On our return to Constantinople we stopped for
a few days in Paris as the guests of Mr. Dimitroff ,
who was the Bulgarian Commissioner at the Paris
Exposition. For us who had known Bulgaria as a
Turkish province, chiefly inhabited by peasants
who were practically serfs, a country with no sign or
268
DEATH OF DR. HAMLIN
promise of modern progress, the Bulgarian exhibit
was the most wonderful thing that we saw. It com-
pared favorably with the exhibits of the smaller
states, even in the department of art, and showed
that the progress of the country in twenty years of
freedom had been unexampled. We could not but
feel that something of this progress was due to Rob-
ert College.
The Commencement exercises in 1900 were un-
usual. The plague had broken out in Egypt, and it
was believed that cases had occurred in Constanti-
nople. We were in daily expectation that we should
be shut in by quarantines, which would make it
very difficult for our students to reach their homes.
We closed the College a week earlier than usual and
excused the Seniors from delivering orations. Pro-
fessor van Millingen and Mr. Lloyd C. Griscom,
the American charge d'affaires, made addresses
which were highly appreciated by a crowded and
distinguished audience. Mr. Griscom represented
the United States here as charge d'affaires for about
a year, and won golden opinions, not only from all
Americans, but from the representatives of foreign
Powers, and was specially honored by the Sultan. It
was he who finally arranged for a settlement of
American claims for indemnity for losses during the
massacres. We do not wonder at the successive
and rapid promotions which have made him Amer-
ican ambassador at Rome. He was followed here by
Mr. John G. A. Leishman, who was raised to the
rank of ambassador in 1906 and still holds this po-
sition.
One of the curious incidents of the thirty-seventh
269
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
year was the arrest of one of our Greek students and
his imprisonment for two months in the common
prison along with those charged with being incen-
diaries, burglars and murderers. The only charge
against him was that when he arrived by steamer
in Constantinople he had in his pocket a patriotic
Greek song, with music, which could be bought in
any music store in Pera. We begged the Minister
of Police not to imprison him on such a charge, and
he sent him to the College; but some of the officials
knew that his father was rich, and after some weeks
made a formal charge against him of bringing in-
cendiary documents into the country, the penalty
of which is three years' imprisonment. His father
had to come and bargain with the judges to acquit
him when he was tried. The trial was really a farce,
but it cost the father a round sum. Mrs. Wash-
burn and Miss Hart went to see him several times
in prison and became so much interested in the piti-
ful condition of the prisoners that on our Thanks-
giving Day, with the consent of the officials, they
gave them a good Thanksgiving dinner. This was
after the release of our student.
The thirty-eighth college year, 1900-1901, was one
of continued prosperity in the number of our stu-
dents and the work done by them. We had one
addition to our Faculty, Mr. Lybyer, who came to
take charge of the Mathematical Department. The
one cloud that rested upon the College was the fail-
ing health of Dr. Long, and it was arranged that he
should take a year's vacation in America with full
salary. In the spring of 1901 we had the pleasure of
a visit from the president of the Board of Trustees with
870
DEATH OF DR. HAMLIN
Mrs. Kennedy. Nothing could have been more
grateful to us or more profitable for the College,
and I am sure that Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy not only
enjoyed their visit and appreciated the unsurpassed
beauty of the site of Kennedy Lodge, but carried
away with them a stronger impression of the impor-
tance and worth of the College, as well as its needs.
The work on the new building for the Prepara-
tory Department was begun in the autumn of 1900,
although, through the rascality or enmity of some
officials at the palace, the irade which was issued
had been lost, and the new one obtained after much
delay was so ambiguous as to be worthless. None
of the accredited authorities of the Porte or the city
dared to take the responsibility of giving us permis-
sion to go on, but they were all friendly and had no
desire to stop the work, and we went on unmolested.
After the building was finished we got the proper
official irade to erect it. We also commenced the
improvements in Hamlin Hall and bought in Paris
and Vienna more than a thousand dollars* worth of
physical apparatus. The most remarkable event of
the year was the completion of the sewer from the
college grounds to the Bosphorus, after thirty years
of negotiation with the Turkish authorities, which
enabled us, for the first time, to complete our sani-
tary arrangements on scientific principles. This
also was accomplished through our friendly rela-
tions with the local officials, and the work was thor-
oughly done, not only to our advantage, but equally
to that of our Turkish neighbors, as we built up and
covered in what had been an open sewer through
the old castle to the sea.
871
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
The most interesting events at the Commence-
ment in 1901 were the gathering of the alumni and
a letter received from the Greek Patriarch. For the
first time we had an alumni dinner, at which more
than sixty were present, a large number considering
that our alumni are scattered over the world and
that the obstacles put in the way of travel prevent
those from abroad coming to Constantinople. Two
of our most distinguished alumni had died during
the year, both of the class of 1871. Mr. Slaveikoff
was Minister of Public Instruction in Bulgaria at
the time of his death. Mr. Stoiloff had been inti-
mately connected with the whole history of the prin-
cipality, was the most widely known of Bulgarians,
had held the highest offices of state, was a patriot
and an honest man.
We had no speeches at our Commencement, and
the next day I received the following letter, which
was also published in the official organ of the
church by the Patriarch :
To THE MOST NOBLE AND MOST LEARNED
DIRECTOR OF ROBERT COLLEGE.
MOST NOBLE SIR : The following is an address
which his Holiness directed me to deliver yesterday
on my visit to your College, which I now have the
pleasure to transmit to you.
"Having come among you, Honorable Gentle-
men, by order of his Holiness, my most venerable
Master, it gives me great pleasure to say that his
Holiness has always followed with great interest
the work of your most important and most noble
872
DEATH OF DR. HAMLIN
institution. His Holiness duly appreciates your
labors and cares that the education which you give
shall make good citizens and moral men, who will
act in society as worthy and honest members of it,
loving their neighbors, not rendering evil for evil,
but good for evil.
"But the appreciation of his Holiness surpasses
this limit, for he admires and praises you for working
in harmony with the teaching of the Apostle; doing
good without any afterthought, which might bring
forth scandals, you respect the teaching of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who said, ' Woe unto him through
whom scandal comes/ Your enviable mission, as
is proved by facts, is the mission of making good
men, not of corrupting consciences : to make good
Christians, not perverts from the church. For these
reasons his Holiness gave me the fatherly order to
express to you his thanks and praise for your work,
inasmuch as our nation on account of unhappy
circumstances has not been able to found such an
institution as Robert College." Transmitting to you
word by word this fatherly message of his Holiness,
I take the opportunity to sign myself, with great
respect and brotherly love for you,
THE GRAND VICAR CHRYSOSTOME.
There were 18 graduates in 1900, of whom 8
were Armenians, 5 Greeks, 3 English, 2 Bulga-
rians. Of the Armenians 7 are in business, 1 a civil
engineer. Of the Greeks 3 are in business, 1 an
engineer, 1 a teacher in Robert College. Of the
English 1 is a teacher, 2 are in business. The
two Bulgarians are lawyers.
273
FIFTY YEARS[IN CONSTANTINOPLE
There were 11 graduates in 1901. Five were
Greeks, 4 were Bulgarians, 1 was Armenian, 1 was
French. The Greeks are all in business. Of the
Bulgarians 2 are in business, 1 is a lawyer, 1 a
librarian. The Frenchman is in business in Central
Asia. The Armenian is in business.
274
CHAPTER XXV
NEW PROFESSOBS AND NEW BUILDINGS. 1901-1002
THESE recollections of Robert College I am writ-
ing in what was, for many years, Dr. Long's study, in
the college house in Roumeli Hissar, and I feel it
to be a more sacred place than any other about the
College. He left us with his family in June, 1901,
for a year of rest in America. He had been failing
in health for several months, but his physician be-
lieved that a sea voyage would revive him. We took
him in a chair down to the landing stage, where the
people of the quarter gathered to give him their
parting blessing. The American minister had sent
his steam launch to convey him to the steamship
which was to take him to Liverpool. It was a sad
parting on the deck of the steamer, and our worst
fears were realized. He reached Liverpool only to
die there in a hospital July 28, 1901, and there he is
buried. He had been a professor in the College for
twenty-nine years and acting president whenever I
was absent, twice for two years at a time when I
was in America raising money. He was born in
December, 1832, graduated at Alleghany College,
taught two years and came to Turkey as a mission-
ary of the Methodist Episcopal Church to the Bul-
garians. It was through his influence that the first
Bulgarian students came to Robert College, and no
foreigner has ever been more trusted and beloved
275
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
by the Bulgarian people than he. He came to Con-
stantinople to join Dr. Riggs in the revision of the
Bulgarian Bible, and when this work was done he
was persuaded to accept a professorship in Robert
College. No man ever had a wiser, more loyal and
loving associate than I found in him, and much of
the reputation of the College as a seat of learning
was due to his broad scholarship. His religious
influence was that of a man filled with the spirit
of Christ. Even his Mohammedan neighbors re-
garded him as a holy man. Robert College was
never the same to me after he left it. Mrs. Long
died, in December, 1901, at Enfield, N. H., a few
months after her return to America, leaving two
daughters who still reside in that town.
The number of students registered the thirty-
ninth year was 308, of whom 181 were boarders.
There were 131 Greeks, 98 Armenians, 29 Bulga-
rians, 15 Turks, 14 English and Americans, 21
others of 11 different races.
So far as the College was concerned, the year in
Constantinople was a quiet and peaceful one, al-
though if we had chosen to interest ourselves in
political affairs we might have occupied ourselves
with much that was exciting and much that was
trying to the people of the country. German in-
fluence was dominant at the palace and the reign of
the Camarilla unchanged. The Armenians were
suffering from all sorts of oppressions and the Turks
still more from the terrible system of espionage
which left them no peace or sense of security day or
night. The storm centre was in Macedonia, and
incidentally it became a matter of interest to us and
276
NEW PROFESSORS AND NEW BUILDINGS
to all Americans, through the capture of Miss Stone,
an American missionary, by a band of revolution-
ists. The treaty of Berlin, Art. 23, had provided
for a reformed government in Macedonia; but
nothing had been done to carry this decision into
execution, and the condition of the Christian popu-
lation was worse than ever. Large numbers of the
young men had fled into Bulgaria, and a revolution-
ary organization had been formed there. A similar
organization on a vast scale was formed in Mace-
donia, with its headquarters at Salonica. The in-
surrection broke out in 1901, and Miss Stone was
captured in Macedonia by a band connected with
this organization in the autumn of this year, when
traveling on what was supposed to be a perfectly
safe road and not far from a Turkish guard house.
She was held for ransom. This is not the place to
enter into the details of this unfortunate affair or to
criticise the management of it. I believe that it is
universally acknowledged that it was sadly mis-
managed up to the time that Mr. Gargiulo, Mr.
Peet and Mr. House went to Macedonia in Decem-
ber and finally secured her release in February, 1902.
It was not until things had come to a deadlock in
December that it was possible for me to do anything.
I then went privately to Sofia, saw the Bulgarian
ministers, four of whom happened to be graduates
of the College, and the military officers who knew
what was going on along the frontier, also graduates,
and the chief of the revolutionary committee, who
had never been in Robert College, but whom I
found to be an educated gentleman who had studied
in Paris. I saw others also and satisfied myself as to
277
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
what needed to be done. I returned to Constanti-
nople, made my report, which was telegraphed to
Washington, and my recommendations were carried
out. It is my belief that she might have been set at
liberty within a few days after her capture and for a
small sum of money if the affair had been settled
quietly at the outset. But whatever mistakes may
have been made here, it was the American news-
papers and the public there which was chiefly re-
sponsible for the long delay and the large sum paid
for her ransom. The telegraph kept the revolution-
ists informed every day of what was going on in
America and of the sums raised for her ransom.
No finer work has ever been done in Turkey than
that of Mr. Gargiulo, the first dragoman of the Le-
gation, and his associates, in securing her release,
in the midst of difficulties which seemed to be in-
surmountable. The brigands got the money contrib-
uted in America, and it is generally believed that it
went to pay for the arms which were used against
the Turks the following summer.
The college year had hardly opened when we
were shocked by the news of the assassination of
President McKinley at Buffalo. At the request of
Mr. Leishman a public service was held in the col-
lege chapel on the day of his funeral, which was at-
tended by all the American officials, by the staff of
the French Embassy and the American colony. A
formal service had been held in the morning of the
same day in the chapel of the British Embassy at
Therapia. This was the third time since the found-
ing of Robert College that we had been called to
mourn the death of a President of the United States
278
NEW PROFESSORS AND NEW BUILDINGS
by assassination. What could we say to our stu-
dents in view of such crimes, we who had come out
here professing to represent a higher Christian
civilization and the blessings of a free government
a government of the people by the people ? We told
them that the people repudiated and condemned
these crimes, that they did not disturb the stability
of the government, that they were the work of indi-
viduals such as were to be found in every country ;
but in our hearts we knew that the principles which
we represent here had been dishonored in the
minds of the people of this country and our influence
in some measure diminished. These great crimes
have confirmed the belief of Europeans in the pic-
ture of American society, which they get from their
newspapers, which represents us as worshipers of
the almighty dollar, given over to lawlessness and
regardless of human life, with little real respect for
God or man. They make this impression, not by
inventions of their own, but by quotations from New
York newspapers. Robert College is a standing
protest against this conception of our country, and
we defend its honor as best we can, without conceal-
ing the fact that the conflict between good and evil
is as fierce there as in other parts of the world.
We sometimes have visitors at the College from
America who impress on our students the idea that
America is after all a Christian state founded on
the same principles which we are inculcating upon
them. Such a company visited us one Sunday in
March, 1902, two hundred and fifty of them, and we
had three admirable addresses from Dr. Josiah
Strong of New York, Dr. Barton of Chicago and
79
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Dr. Foote of Brooklyn, in place of our usual Sunday
service. In general the crowds who come in excur-
sion steamers every spring have but a day or two
in Constantinople and find the bazaars more inter-
esting than the College, although we exchange
friendly salutes when they pass up the Bosphorus,
and the evening of their arrival they often hear
an address from Professor van Millingen, on Con-
stantinople.
The year 1901-1902 was a very important one in
the internal development of the College. The
professorship of mathematics had already been
filled by the appointment of Professor Lybyer. At
the beginning of this year three additional professors
were added to the Faculty, Professor William S.
Murray as principal of the Preparatory Department,
Dr. Charles W. Ottley as resident physician and Pro-
fessor of Biology, Professor George S. Murray as
treasurer and to take charge of the commercial
studies. Before the close of the year Professor George
L. Manning, Ph. D., was appointed Professor of
Physics, and Rev. C. F. Gates, D. D., LL. D., was
appointed Vice-President, with the understanding
that he should come to the College after a year and
take my place whenever I might resign, as I had in-
formed the trustees that I should at the end of the
year, after I had reached the age of seventy.
In making these appointments the trustees were
simply carrying out their purpose "to make the
College thoroughly up to date in its material equip-
ment, in its curriculum, personnel and spirit/* a
model college, not necessarily exactly like an Amer-
ican college, but adapted to its environment. It is
280
NEW PROFESSORS AND NEW BUILDINGS
needless to add that Professor van Millingen and I,
the old stagers, looked upon this as the realization of
the hopes which we had cherished through long years
of effort to make the most of such means as we had,
to keep the lead in the educational development of
this part of the world. The other members of the
Faculty American and native welcomed the
dawn of the new day with equal enthusiasm, and
our alumni were encouraged to believe that they
would never have reason to be ashamed of their
Alma Mater.
We were equally fortunate in finding men for our
Turkish and German departments, for which we had
never before been able to provide in a manner satis-
factory to us or to our students. Tevfik Fikret Bey,
who has since been at the head of the Turkish De-
partment, is a man of high character and one of the
most distinguished scholars in Constantinople, of
whom we can be proud as an associate.
We were indebted to the Moravian Brethren at
Herrnhut in Saxony for a German teacher who is
in hearty sympathy with the spirit of the College,
Mr. Friedrich W. Kunick, the first satisfactory
German teacher that we have ever found. I once
wrote to a professor in the Berlin University to find
a man for us, explaining to him what sort of a man
we wanted ; and he replied that there was a great de-
mand for just such men in Germany, but that the
supply was very small.
Our whole staff of teachers at this time, thirty-
five in all including the professors, was worthy of
the high ideal which the trustees had in view for the
College, many of them among the most promising
281
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
graduates of the College, representing many nation-
alities but working together in harmony and mutual
goodwill.
Theodorus Hall was ready for occupation at the
close of the year, and we had also applied to the
Government for permission to erect a new study
hall, a gymnasium and three houses for professors.
We had also completed the purchase of about seven
acres of land just beyond the campus, for which
Mr. Kennedy had furnished the money when he
was here. Theodorus Hall was paid for, and Mr.
Dodge had promised to build the gymnasium, but
where the money was to come from for our greatly
increased current expenses and the proposed build-
ings we did not know; but the responsibility for the
steps taken in advance had been assumed by the
trustees, and it cost me no more anxious days and
wakeful nights such as I had known in former
years.
Much time was given during the year to a care-
ful revision of the course of study in both the Colle-
giate and the Preparatory departments. One year
was added to the preparatory course, and in the
Collegiate Department we arranged for a division
of the course from the beginning of the Sophomore
year one division leading up to the degree of A. B.
and the other to that of S.B., with a certain number
of electives in each. Except in the matter of com-
mercial studies, which may be chosen, there was no
departure from the general principles which had
guided us in former years, but we were able to give
new importance to physical culture and to such
studies as physics and biology. We introduced no
282
NEW PROFESSORS AND NEW BUILDINGS
university methods, but we did what we could to
adopt modern methods of study in the sciences.
The buildings which have been erected since have
enabled us to make still further progress in this
direction. We did not in any way relax our efforts
to make this a Christian college and to develop the
Christian character of our students. We believe
that the primary object of college education is dis-
ciplinary the forming of character, the educa-
tion of the moral powers, the heart and will, and this
in the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ and in accord-
ance with His teaching, the development of true
manhood. We put this first, while we would neglect
nothing in the way of essential physical and intellec-
tual culture to make not only good men, but strong
men.
The class which graduated in 1902 numbered 13,
of whom 6 were Armenians, 4 Greeks, 2 Bulgarians
and 1 Austrian. Of the Armenians 4 are in busi-
ness, 1 a teacher, 1 in journalism. Of the Greeks
3 are in business and 1 a teacher. The Austrian
is in business. The Bulgarians both continued
their studies.
CHAPTER XXVI
MY RESIGNATION OF THE PRESIDENCY. 1902-1903
I SPENT the summer vacation of 1902 in America,
and, at his request, I went to Washington to see
President Roosevelt. I had met him many years
before, at a club in Boston, when he was interested
in the reform of the government of New York City,
and consequently had formed some idea of him as a
young man. I went to see my old friend Secretary
Hay first, to talk over Turkish affairs with him, and
he arranged my interview with the President.
When I reached the White House I found about
fifty people in the reception room waiting to see
him Senators, Representatives and petitioners for
all sorts of favors together with some who seemed
to have come as they would have to a zoological
garden to see the elephant. The scene was not new
to me, but I was more than ever impressed with the
absurdity of it. It seemed to be a relic of the old
idea that the Caliph should sit in the door of his
house or tent every day and personally deal with
every case that any one chose to present to him.
Even the Sultan has given up this, although the
shadow of it remains in the Friday Salaamlik. In
America it is a traditional symbol of a republi-
can form of government; but it is not an evidence
of republican good sense to make such demands
upon the time and strength of the President. On
284
MY RESIGNATION OF THE PRESIDENCY
this occasion President Roosevelt appeared sud-
denly in the room and disposed of the whole crowd
in less than half an hour, listening and speaking to
each one in a voice loud enough to be heard by all.
After this I had a long talk with him in his private
office on our relations with the Turkish government.
He talked with a freedom which astonished me at
first, but it was soon clear enough that I was ex-
pected to distinguish between what he said as
Theodore Roosevelt and what he said as Presi-
dent of the United States, and that he took it for
granted that what he said would not be made public
by me. It was four years later when I saw him
again and afterward lunched with him at the White
House, with much the same experience. Theo-
dore Roosevelt is certainly one of the most interest-
ing men whom I have ever met; and President
Roosevelt, from my point of view, which is European,
is one of the greatest statesmen in the world. I
know of no statesman in Europe who ranks above
him.
The college year opened in September, and the
number of students registered was 318, of whom
190 were boarders. There were 145 Greeks, 101
Armenians, 28 Bulgarians, 9 English and Ameri-
cans, 17 Turks, 18 others.
The relations of our government with Turkey
were strained at this time on account of concessions
made to the French government as a result of its
naval demonstration and occupation of the island of
Mytilene. These concessions granted certain privi-
leges to schools, hospitals and other institutions
under Turkish protection which were denied to
285
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Americans, although, after having been granted to
the French, they had been extended to English,
German and Russian institutions, by special irades.
It was our right to enjoy the same privileges. The
Turkish government did not deny this, but would
not issue the irade necessary to enable us to profit
by the right as they had done for the other Powers.
Mr. Leishman pressed this question as vigorously
as he could, but it was not finally settled until 1907.
Robert College was not directly interested in it, as
our position was established by our original charter
given by Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz; but the prestige of
the United States in Turkey was at stake, and most
of the American institutions, including the Beirut
College, were directly interested in securing these
rights. It was not a question to go to war about,
and there were occult influences at the palace,
probably of foreign origin, which led the Sultan to
resist all Mr. Leishman's demands, until the tables
were turned and he had something to ask of the
United States. Great credit is due to Mr. Leishman
for the skill with which he took advantage of this
opportunity, not only to settle this question, but to
establish our position here as entitled to the same
rights as the European Powers. The year 1903
was marked by the outbreak of the revolution
planned by the Macedonian committee, not only in
Macedonia, but in the province of Adrianople. The
insurgents were Macedonian Bulgarians, but were
not supported by the government of free Bulgaria,
or by any European Power, and they failed, al-
though they demanded nothing more than the
execution of the treaty of Berlin. Russia and Aus-
286
MY RESIGNATION OF THE PRESIDENCY
tria intervened, but neither of the Powers wished to
have the Macedonian question settled until they
could settle it in their own interest. They inter-
vened to maintain the status quo. This is not the
place to tell the story of the horrors of that year or
those that have followed, or to discuss the Mace-
donian question. It need only be said here that one
result of the troubles there has been to stir up a
bitter enmity between the Greeks and Bulgarians,
not only in Macedonia, where their bands have
rivaled the Turks in barbarity, but wherever they
meet, even in Robert College. This conflict be-
tween them is as foolish as it is unchristian. It has
been playing into the hands of their worst enemies,
Austria and Russia. It has been a source of con-
stant anxiety to us in the College; but happily, and
to the credit of our students, it has not led to any
serious disturbance up to the present time (1907).
The College is a perpetual peace conference be-
tween all the nationalities and religions of this
part of the world.
While I am writing (1907) I learn that the two
representatives of Bulgaria at the Hague Confer-
ence are General Vinaroff and Judge Karandjuloff,
both graduates of Robert College, of the classes of
1876 and 1879.
Theodorus Hall was opened for students in
September, 1902, and proved to be admirably
adapted to its purpose, and up to date in all its
equipment. It accomplished what we had long felt
to be essential the entire separation of the younger
boys in the Preparatory Department from the
college students. Professor William Murray went
287
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
to live in the building with the boys, and he and Mrs.
Murray were tireless in their devotion to them.
Mr. Hagopian had been appointed adjunct pro-
fessor and assistant principal ; and he assisted in the
opening of the school, but was so unfortunate as to
break his leg on New Year's Day, and after seven
months in the hospital came back too feeble to do
much work for a year. Two American tutors and
several other teachers lived in the building and
assisted in the care of the boys.
We commenced work on the gymnasium in the
summer of 1903, although no progress had been
made in securing an irade. The government never
interfered with the work, and it was completed and
occupied the following year. Like our other build-
ings, it is of blue limestone. It has been a great
boon to the College, and there is nothing of the kind
in Constantinople to compare with it. We call it
the Dodge Gymnasium, as it was the gift of Mr.
William E. Dodge and his son, Cleveland H. Dodge,
one of our trustees.
In May, 1903, we welcomed Dr. Coe here as a
representative of the trustees, and he brought Dr.
Gates with him from Switzerland, where he was
spending a year before taking up his work in the
College. The visit was prompted by some criticisms
which some of the new professors had made upon
the administration of the College, and was a new
proof of the desire of the trustees to meet their re-
sponsibilities here with a full understanding of the
condition and the needs of the College. Dr. Coe
and Dr. Gates spent three weeks in Kennedy Lodge,
had meetings with the Faculty and private confer-
288
MY RESIGNATION OF THE PRESIDENCY
ences with the professors, teachers and others
interested in the College. For all of us it was not
only a great pleasure to have them with us, but
most profitable to us as individuals and as a Faculty,
in the opportunity which it gave us to hear their
views on many important questions and to discuss
them with the secretary of the Board of Trustees.
So far as I know there was no exception to the
general satisfaction of all concerned, in the results
of this visit. It was a happy introduction of Dr.
Gates to the position which he was about to assume
as president of the College.
We received some gifts about this time which are
worth recording the first from a Greek gentle-
man, Nicolaki Bey, a judge of the Court of Appeals
in Constantinople. He gave us his house in Pera,
which we have since sold, and the income of the
fund goes to the aid of beneficiaries. Mr. S. M.
Minassian also gave us a house in Pera, but we
have not yet been able to obtain possession of it.
Both these gentlemen had been students of Dr.
Hamlin in the old Bebec Seminary.
We were also indebted to Mrs. Frederick F.
Thomson of New York for a fine pipe organ for our
college chapel, which has added new interest to our
public services, and to the British government, the
British Museum and the Clarendon Press for very
valuable additions to our library, secured through
the influence of Professor van Millingen.
The Commencement exercises were held two
weeks before the close of the college year an
experiment which proved so satisfactory that this
arrangement has been continued ever since. Mr.
289
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Leishman, the American minister, presided, and we
had the usual crowd with the usual distinguished
guests. The most interesting event of the day was
the Turkish oration, delivered by our first Turkish
graduate, Houloussi Hussein Effendi. In form, sub-
stance and delivery it was the best oration of the day.
We have had many Turkish students during these
forty years, but only this one has gone farther than
the Sophomore class.
The whole number of graduates was 19. There
were 7 Bulgarians, 6 Armenians, 5 Greeks, 1 Turk.
Of the Bulgarians 2 went to Germany to study, 2
are in business, 1 is in the American consulate at
Batoum, Russia, 1 in the diplomatic service. Of
the Armenians all are in business. Of the Greeks
4 are in business and 1 in the service of the British
government in Macedonia. The Turk is a teacher
in Robert College.
March 1, 1903, I completed my seventieth year,
and I had long before determined that it would be
my duty at that time to resign my place as presi-
dent to a younger and better man. I had informed
the trustees of my intention, and happily they had
found the right man in Dr. Gates. It was at my
earnest solicitation that he consented to allow me to
suggest his name to the trustees. I knew of no other
man who could fill the place so well, and after full
consideration the trustees came to the same con-
clusion. At the request of Dr. Gates and the trus-
tees I retained my position in the College as profes-
sor and continued my work until the close of the
following year, when I bade farewell to Constanti-
nople, as I believed for the last time, and spent the
290
MY RESIGNATION OF THE PRESIDENCY
next two years in work for the College in the United
States. In 1906, at the earnest request of the Fac-
ulty, I returned to the College, and have since been
teaching my old classes here, feeling much more at
home than I did in America. The generous con-
tributions made by Mr. Kennedy and Mrs. William
E. Dodge while I was in America have given new
life to the College, transformed the appearance of
the grounds, renovated Hamlin Hall, and given us
the beautiful building known, at Mrs. Dodge's re-
quest, as Washburn Hall, with two new houses for
professors; and the number of students has risen
to more than four hundred.
But these recollections properly end with the close
of the fortieth year, when I resigned; and what my
feelings were at that time will best appear from an
extract from my last report to the trustees in 1903.
" I look back upon these thirty-four years in Rob-
ert College with the deepest gratitude to the trustees
in New York and to my associates in Constantinople.
The trustees have given me their unvaried and abso-
lute confidence and support, and no man ever had
associates more loyal and true. We have all been of
one heart and mind as to what the College ought to
be, what the chief end which we had in view in our
work, and each one has been wholly consecrated to
it. This has been true, not only of the professors, but
also of most of the instructors and tutors, many of
whom have done as good work as any done in the
College. This has been the secret of our success.
Of my personal affection for these men, here and in
America, the living and the dead, it is impossible
for me to write. We have worked together, with all
291
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
our hearts, for what we believed to be the good of
the people of this part of the world, have helped
them in every way in our power and have sought to
inspire them with the true Christian ideal. We have
made no secret of our own opinions, but we treated
theirs with respect and have done our best to enter
into sympathy with their life and their habits of
thought. In return our students and the various
communities which they represent have trusted us,
believed in us and given us their sympathy and affec-
tion. I count this the most precious reward that
they could give us for all the work that we have done.
To all these dear friends in the East and to those in
America, England and elsewhere who have given us
their sympathy and support I owe a debt of grati-
tude which I can never repay.
"I hope that my wife will pardon me for men-
tioning her in this report, but every one who has
known the inner life of the College for the past thirty-
four years knows that no small part of my success
and the success of the College has been due to her
untiring devotion to all its interests, her intimate
knowledge of the people of different races, her power
of winning the hearts of our students and all our
neighbors, and, not least, her deep sympathy with
the spiritual aims of the College."
292
CHAPTER XXVII
THE WORK OF FORTY YEARS. 1863-1903
I CANNOT say that I or my associates were ever
satisfied with the work that we were doing in Robert
College, or that at any time we ever realized our
ideal of what it ought to be. But I feel no inclination
now to complain of our poverty or of other circum-
stances beyond our control which hindered our
progress, for circumstances equally beyond our
control have given the College an influence in the
world far beyond anything that its founders could
have hoped for. Those who have read the preced-
ing chapters of this book will understand something
both of the adverse and the favorable conditions
under which we have worked.
At the end of forty years we had done some-
thing for the education of more than 2500 young
men of many nationalities. The average length
of time spent in the College by these students was
about three years; 435 of them had graduated
with honor, after from four to seven years in the
College. Of these 144 were Armenians, 195 Bul-
garians, 76 Greeks, 14 English and Americans, 3
Germans, 2 Hebrews, 1 Turk. 1
In the early history of the College these boys came
1 In the Appendix will be found tables giving the details for
every year of the number of students, the amount received from
them and the amount of the current expenses of the College.
293
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
to us as very raw material so far as school training
was concerned, and even at the present time this is
of a very miscellaneous character, generally not
including any knowledge of the English language.
We were forced to have a Preparatory Department,
even for those who were otherwise advanced enough
for college studies. So far as home training was
concerned they generally came with habits of obedi-
ence and respect for their elders which fitted them to
submit readily to school discipline. On the whole I
think that our students have been less difficult to
control, less unruly than American boys, and no
hazing traditions such as disgrace our American
colleges have been established here, although we
have had occasional examples of similar brutality.
I have been more and more impressed every year
with the feeling that boys are by nature very much
the same everywhere that while different environ-
ments and varied conventionalities modify them ex-
ternally, boys of different races are at the bottom
essentially the same. I am often asked which of the
nationalities in the College is the most intelligent
and how they compare with Americans. As to
the different nationalities it is a question to which
there is no answer. None could be given from refer-
ence to our records for forty years. Our best schol-
ars have sometimes been of one nationality, some-
times of another. In comparison with American
students, most of our students come to us with less
of that unconscious education which every American
boy has acquired outside the school, but when it
comes to his work in the College the student here is
equal to any American.
294
( OLLFdK
THE WORK OF FORTY YEARS
The question what Robert College has done for
these students can best be answered by the extraor-
dinary reputation which the College has gained in
this part of the world. We are known by the charac-
ter of our students and especially of our alumni.
We have been sadly disappointed in a few of them,
but the great majority have done honor to the Col-
lege, wherever they have gone, in the universities of
Europe as scholars and in active life as men.
Our theory of college education is not new. In
substance it is as old as Plato and Aristotle. Its chief
end is the highest possible development of character.
The principal work of the College is disciplinary. It
also does something in the way of storing up in the
mind of the scholar a certain amount of useful
knowledge, but much of this is soon forgotten and
the greater part of the knowledge which we use in
practical life is not learned in college, not from the
teachers at any rate. The greatest scholars are often
the most unpractical and helpless of men.
The most important work of the College is to
train and develop the physical, intellectual and
moral powers of the student. These powers exist in
him. They are the gift of God. The work of the
teacher is to draw them out, to cultivate them, to
bring them into harmony, to develop them sym-
metrically so that the lower shall be under the higher,
so that the will shall habitually choose the higher
rather than the lower motive. It is a well-known
fact that most of our actions are determined by in-
stinct or by habit. Youth is the time when instincts
may be modified or brought under control and when
habits are formed which generally go with us
295
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
through life. When we say, then, that education is
disciplinary and designed to develop and mould the
character, we have in view the formation of those
habits which will determine the actions of after life.
This discipline may be directed specially to the
physical powers, as where athletics stand first in the
eyes of the student. It may be and often is confined
to the intellectual faculties, to forming habits of
study, of investigation, of reasoning, which will de-
velop mental powers. Neither of these things should
be neglected. Habits which will secure good health,
with strong minds, capable of comprehending and
mastering the problems of life, are precious acquire-
ments. But when we speak of character we mean
something more than these things and something
far more important. We are thinking of the affec-
tions and the will. These dominate the life, con-
stitute the character and fix the destiny of the man.
The discipline of these powers, the training of the
will, the formation of habits which will bring the life
into harmony with the will of God, this is the highest
and best work of the College. Such is our theory,
and we have done our best to live up to it. We have
been so far successful that our students are recog-
nized everywhere as representing a different type
of manhood from that commonly seen in the East,
and some of our alumni are striking and illustrious
examples of this type. This is the real work of the
College, and by this we are to be judged; but uncon-
sciously and incidentally the College has exerted an
influence in this part of the world and in other lands
which is worthy of notice.
It has revolutionized the policy of missionary
296
THE WORE OF FORTY YEARS
societies in America in regard to education and led
to the establishment of scores of similar institutions
in different parts of the world. In Turkey alone
there are now six American colleges and many more
high schools. It has led to the founding of a large
number of government and national schools in
Turkey. This development of education was the
direct result of what it was believed that Robert Col-
lege had done for Bulgaria, and the progress made
has been marvelous. These government schools
are not what we might wish them to be, for the
moral training is wanting, and the mental discipline
is unsatisfactory; but they have their value in the
enlightenment of the people. The schools of the
Christian nationalities have felt the influence of the
moral and religious training in Robert College and
have greatly improved in this respect. 'This view of
education has been much discussed in the kingdom
of Greece during the past few years, its importance
recognized and Robert College held up as a model.
The Greek newspapers have been full of eulogies on
our principles and our work. In Austrian Croatia
and even in Russia there have been evidences of our
influence. The fact that the heads of the Oriental
churches in Turkey have long been warm friends of
Robert College is an evidence that we have had an
influence with them in removing their prejudices
and leading them to realize the importance of a
spiritual training for their young men.
We have also had some influence, not so much as
I could wish, in bringing about a less hostile state of
feeling between the different races in the East. At
least they meet together on equal terms in the College
297
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
and develop a certain amount of mutual respect,
in some cases of warm personal friendship. They
learn that it is possible to work together for a com-
mon end, and they find a common bond of sympathy
in their relations to us. We have had some remark-
able illustrations of sacrifices made by students of
one race to help those of another.
We have certainly had great success in winning
the confidence of our Mohammedan neighbors, re-
moving their prejudices, securing their respect and
friendship and giving them new conceptions of Chris-
tianity, as well as of America.
The Germans think that this and the other Amer-
ican colleges in Turkey have a great influence in
directing the commerce of the country to America
and England. There is no doubt some truth in this.
The trade of Turkey with America has greatly in-
creased of late years, and the spread of the English
language is an advantage both to England and
America, but we have never presented this as one of
our claims to support.
The College is best known in Europe for the in-
fluence that it had in building up a free state in the
Balkan Peninsula. Fifty years ago, except to a few
students of history, the Bulgarians were a forgotten
race in America and western Europe. We did not
exactly discover them, but we played an important
part in making them known to the Western world
at a time when they most needed help. Years be*
fore this they had discovered us, and through the
young men who studied in the College they had come
to have faith in our wisdom and goodwill. The
most important thing that we ever did for them was
298
THE WORK OF FORTY YEARS
the educating of their young men to become leaders
of their people at a time when there were very few
Bulgarians who knew anything of civil government in
a free state.
This was our legitimate work and naturally and
inevitably led to our doing what we could for them
after they left the College, to give them the advice
which they sought in their new work, and to de-
fend their interests where we had influence in
Europe. That, in this way, we had an important
part in the building up of this new state is a fact
known to all the world and best of all by the Bul-
garians themselves, who have never failed to recog-
nize their obligation to the College and to manifest
their affection for us as individuals.
We have done what we could for the other na-
tionalities of the College, and they understand that
we take a deep interest in everything which con-
cerns their prosperity and progress. They have not
had the opportunity to distinguish themselves in
statecraft, but they have won honor and success in
other fields of labor, both in the East and in other
parts of the world. We have had relatively few
Turkish students, only one who has graduated, as
it has been the policy of the Sultan to forbid Turk-
ish students attending any but government schools.
Notwithstanding this prohibition, we now have
(1907) more than twenty Turks in the College, and
its reputation among enlightened Turks is quite as
high as with other nationalities.
The burden of the work during these forty years
was to make the College worthy of its reputation
and to meet the ever increasing demand for a higher
299
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
education. As I have explained in the earlier chap-
ters of this book, the College, at the outset, was a
very primitive institution, better than any other in
the Turkish Empire, but lacking in most of the ap-
pliances which a college is supposed to possess. It
was a long step in advance when we moved into
Hamlin Hall in 1871, but many years passed after
that before we were able to improve our material
conditions to any extent. We devoted these years
to what is really more important than buildings or
apparatus, to the inner development of the College,
to the development of our Faculty and staff of
teachers, and the adaptation of our course of in-
struction to our environment. Such men as Dr.
Long and Professor van MiUingen were worth
more than new buildings. But the time came when
these also were essential to our work and to our
reputation. We had already been forced after Mr.
Robert's death to seek for new friends in America
to enable us to meet our current expenses. In the
two years which I spent in America on this errand, in
1880-1882, such friends were found; and in 1889-
1891 we had to appeal to them again, or to find others
who would lend a hand to save the College. It was
twenty years after the erection of Hamlin Hall be-
fore we were able to put up the Albert Long Hall, at
the same time that Mr. Kennedy erected Kennedy
Lodge for the president's house. We made other
improvements at this time which made our grounds
and buildings attractive. It was a turning point in
our history so far as our influence here was con-
cerned. A still more important event came five years
later in the reorganization of the Board of Trustees
300
2
T
Of
W
ts
E
W
H
Q
THE WORK OF FORTY YEARS
in New York, which may be regarded as the begin-
ning of a new era. After Mr. Robert's death the
responsibility for the management, the support,
the life of the College, rested upon the Faculty here.
It was a burden too heavy for us to bear and not a
desirable arrangement for the College; but we put
our whole lives into the work and have no reason to
be ashamed of the result. I am proud of my asso-
ciates here, both Americans, natives and Europeans,
whenever I think of it of their self-sacrifice, their
tireless devotion to all the interests of the students
and the general interests of the College, their wis-
dom and their faith. To work with such men in
such a cause was a life worth living.
The reorganization of the Board of Trustees has
given new life to the College and been followed by
the erection of Theodorus Hall for the Preparatory
Department, the Dodge Gymnasium, Washburn
Hall, the renovation of Ilamlin Hall, the erection of
five professors' houses, and many other important
improvements. Equally important has been the
inner development of the College, made possible by
the appointment of five new professors, additional
instructors, with new appliances and a revision of
the course of study. All this work was not com-
pleted in 1903, the close of the period of forty years,
but it was all initiated in that period and has been
most happily carried to completion under the wise
administration of my successor, Dr. Gates, and the
Board of Trustees organized in 1895.
The demand for progress and development will
be as inevitable in the future as in the past, and this
will mean more money and more strong, conse-
301
FIFTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
crated men to devote their lives to the work. No
doubt there will be new trials and difficulties to en-
counter as well. But Robert College has been a
work of faith from the beginning. It is now and
it will be in the future. The motto on our college
seal is
PER DEUM OMNIA
302
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
A. NUMBER AND NATIONALITY op STUDENTS AND GRADUATES
EACH YEAR
REGISTERED STUDENTS
GRADUATES
j
1
!
Armenians
Bulgarian*
1
1
Graduates
Armenians
Bulgarians
i
o
1
1
20
16
2
18
2
28
25
1
1
4
22
3
51
44
20
9
6
16
4
96
76
19
13
18
39
5
102
79
14
16
33
34
2
1
1
6
95
73
11
41
17
23
6
5
1
7
96
66
35
38
22
25
1
1
8
143
98
35
41
33
34
5
5
9
218
164
80
40
34
64
8
6
1
1
10
257
189
98
38
48
73
1
1
11
237
172
87
43
43
64
5
5
12
208
163
55
45
48
60
11
3
7
1
13
191
152
54
33
39
65
15
7
7
1
14
135
98
43
42
14
38
14
6
5
2
1
15
128
93
35
50
11
32
8
3
3
1
1
16
162
111
50
54
32
26
11
5
6
17
209
149
74
77
27
31
7
3
4
18
232
158
85
89
28
23
12
2
9
1
19
259
173
94
105
24
37
9
4
5
20
243
165
83
110
26
24
10
4
5
1
21
215
142
82
91
29
13
22
7
14
1
22
173
115
63
71
28
11
15
4
9
1
1
23
182
120
64
71
37
10
20
8
12
24
182
130
53
70
36
23
26
10
13
3
305
APPENDIX
NUMBER AND NATIONALITY OP STUDENTS AND GRADUATES
Continued
REGISTERED STUDENTS
GRADUATES
i
ri
Boarders
|
Bulganans
!
o
Others
Graduates
j
!
i
O
1
25
170
113
55
60
33
22
28
12
15
1
26
158
104
43
52
33
30
11
3
3
4
1
27
162
104
47
45
41
31
8
4
3
1
28
159
104
59
41
39
20
5
4
1
29
194
130
70
52
47
25
8
4
3
1
30
203
143
73
60
46
24
13
3
6
3
1
31
200
123
68
44
65
23
21
8
6
4
3
32
205
116
63
36
80
26
15
5
6
3
1
33
221
132
69
37
92
23
6
2
3
1
34
200
130
61
38
77
24
14
4
5
4
1
35
250
145
87
49
88
26
14
2
6
4
2
36
292
173
105
45
108
34
13
4
3
5
1
37
297
176
108
39
112
38
18
8
2
5
3
38
311
182
108
34
127
42
11
1
4
5
1
39
308
181
98
29
131
61
13
6
2
4
1
40
318
190
101
28
145
45
19
6
7
5
1
41
320
188
94
23
168
35
17
6
1
9
1
42
342
222
97
34
171
40
10
5
1
4
43
373
257
88
37
195
53
12
6
6
306
APPENDIX
B. RECEIPTS PBOM STUDENTS, AND EXPENSES AT CONSTANTI-
NOPLE, EACH YEAR
YEAH
RECEIVED FROM STUDENTS
EXPENSES AT CONSTANTINOPLE
Not including Building, Improve-
ment!, or Apparatus
1
$2,578
$5,181
2
3,845
5,630
3
5,808
6,107
4
7,858
9,111
'6
7
10,300
11,052
8
14,869
13,939
9
26,906
22,308
10
31,548
27,874
11
26,364
28,380
12
24,697
26,778
13
20,014
24,648
14
14,780
20,490
15
14,511
18,981
16
16,746
21,890
17
23,720
25,647
18
25,280
28,350
19
29,493
32,371
20
29,020
34,185
21
24,535
32,792
22
19,144
26,131
28
17,384
25,694
24
20,552
28,164
25
18,889
29,488
26
16,227
28,987
27
15,891
26,004
28
16,033
26,998
29
20,227
30,088
30
22,426
30,728
1 The accounts of these two years cannot be found in Constantinople.
307
APPENDIX
RECEIPTS AND EXPENSES Continued
YBAB
RECEIVED FBOM STUDENTS
EXPENSES AT CONSTANTINOPLE
Not including Building, Improve-
ments, or Apparatus
31
$19,919
$36,169
32
20,845
31,442
33
24,987
36,753
34
24,070
35,640
35
28,300
36,682
36
33,117
40,731
37
32,577
42,539
38
34,636
43,670
39
34,295
48,302
40
37,028
59,006
41
37,434
59,457
42
45,320
60,031
43
50,782
68,189
C. THE FACULTY OF THE COLLEGE, FORTY-FIFTH YEAR,
1907-1908
President, Caleb Frank Gates, D. D , LL. D., appointed 1903.
George Washburn, D. D., LL. D., appointed 1869.
Hagopos H. Djedjizian, A. M., appointed 1872.
Stephan Panaretoff, A. M., appointed 1877.
Alexander van Millingen, D. D., appointed 1878.
Charles Anderson, D. D., appointed 1888.
Louisos Eliou, Ph. D., appointed 1890.
William T. Ormiston, A. M., appointed 1892.
Ion E. Dwyer, A. M., appointed 1904.
Bertram V. Post, M. D., appointed 1904.
George L. Manning, Ph. D., appointed 1905.
Abraham D. Hagopian, A. M., appointed 1905.
George H. Huntington, A. M., appointed 1907.
(One vacancy.)
SOS
APPENDIX
PERMANENT INSTEUCTORS
Peter Voicoff, A. M., appointed 1883
Constas Constantinou, Ph. D., appointed 1895.
Henri Auguste Reymond, appointed 1896.
Tevfik Fikret Bey, appointed 1900.
Stavros S. Emmanuel, A. M., appointed 1893.
Caspar H. Tuysizian, A. B., appointed 1897.
Friedrich W. Kunick, appointed 1902.
(14 other teachers.)
D. FORMER MEMBERS OP THE FACUMT
* Cyrus Hamlin, D. D., LL. D., President, 1863-1877.
* George A. Perkins, A. M., 1863-1865.
* Henry A. Schauffler, D. D., 1863-1865.
John A. Paine, Ph. D., 1867-1869.
* Albert L. Long, D D., 1872-1901.
Edwin A. Grosvenor, LL. D., 1872-1890.
George S. Murray, A. M., 1901-1904.
* Charles W. Ottley, M. D., 1901-1904.
A. H. Lybyer, A. M., Ph. D., 1900-1907.
William S. Murray, M. S , 1901-1907.
E. FORMER AMERICAN TUTORS
Harry H. Barnum, University of Chicago.
Ward M. Beckwith, M. D., Westmoreland, N. Y.
Philip M. Brown, U. S. Embassy, Constantinople,
Alvey M. Carter, Art Museum, Boston, Mass.
Rev. W. V. W. Davis, D. D., Pittsfield, Mass.
Prof Frank L. Duley, Mount Hermon, Mass.
Charles H. Durfee, Deceased.
George E. Eddy, Rochester, N. Y.
Handford W. Edson, Indianapolis, Ind.
Judge W. T. Forbes, Worcester, Mass.
Francis E. Garlough, Boston, Mass.
* Deceased.
309
APPENDIX
Miles T. Hand,
John H. Haynes,
Frederick M. Herrick, Esq.,
Winthrop H. Hopkins,
Prof. Arthur S. Hoyt, D. D.,
Rev. Charles S. Hoyt, D. D.,
Rev. George . Ladd,
Rev. Clement C. Martin,
Rev. Eneas McLean,
Rev. D. S. Muzzy,
Prof. Charles Nash, D D ,
Rev. Luther A. Ostrander, D. D.,
Rev. Leroy F. Ostrander,
Prof. George E. Pollock,
Lansing L. Porter,
Rev Lewis T. Reed,
Rev. Orville Reed,
Rev. C. S. Richardson, D. D.,
Rev. Charles T Riggs,
Rev. James Rodger,
Albert H. Rodgers, M. D.,
Rev. C. A. Savage, D. D.,
Rev. H. K. Sanborne,
Rev. Carl W. Scovel,
Prof. Robert L. Taylor,
Judge C. S. Truax,
President E M. Vittum, D. D.,
Paul T. B. Ward,
Ernest B. Watson,
Rev. Lewis B Webber,
Rev. Hezekiah Webster,
Prof. E. W Wetmore,
Prof. S. D. Wilcox,
Prof. L. D. Woodbridge, M. D.,
George G. Wright,
Rev. George B. Young,
Honesdale, Penn.
North Adams, Mass.
New York, N. Y.
Auburn, N. Y.
Auburn Theological Seminary!
New York.
Deceased.
Red Oaks, Iowa.
Fostoria, Ohio.
Deceased.
Yonkers, N. Y.
Oakland, Cal.
Lyons, N. Y.
Samokov, Bulgaria.
Deceased.
Evanston, 111.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Montclair, N. J.
Little Falls, N.Y.
Constantinople
Farmington, Minn.
Corning, N. Y.
Deceased.
Oakland, Cal.
Newark, N. J.
Hanover, N. H.
Deceased.
Fargo College, N D.
Boston, Mass.
Hanover, N. H.
Brockport, N Y.
Deceased.
Albany, N. Y.
Deceased.
Deceased.
Boston, Mass.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
810
APPENDIX
F. MB. ROBERT'S REQUIREMENTS FOR TUTORS
The candidate should be a man twenty-two to twenty-six years of
age, of fervent, symmetrical piety, combined with a missionary spirit,
a willingness to do hard work, the ability to work harmoniously with
others and one who is not unyielding, stiff, or one who would be con-
scientiously obstinate, one who is ready to do anything which the good
of the College requires, even to teaching the alphabet, though he may
be vers d in the most abstruse parts of the Calculus ; in short a man
who wants to live a Christian life and do a Christian teacher's work,
desiring to do good to the souls of his pupils as well as to improve
their understanding.
II
A good mind in a sound body, with a large share of common sense,
a firm but mild temper, a warm heart readily sympathizing with those
under him, keenness of perception and a cool, unbiased judgment,
governing himself well and able to govern others so far as practical
by love rather than force. Possessing gentlemanly habits and feelings.
in
A man of great breadth of mind, who can take broad and proper
views of education, not wedded to any system, comprehending the
purpose of education, knowing a great deal more than he is expected
to teach
IV
A thorough and systematic scholar, not a man who has barely "got
through " college or who has been little above the average of his class,
but one who has been among the very first, a real enthusiast in learn-
ing, never satisfied with present attainments but always pressing on
to farther acquisitions.
v
Apt to teach, with ability and tact to impart what he knows. An
enthusiast in his work, determined to make better scholars than any
other teacher has ever done and inspiring them with a love of learn-
ing. Not a man in feeble health who wishes to "lay off."
311
APPENDIX
VI
A man who can impress himself on his pupils, who can influence
them for good, whose wishes as well as his words shall be law to them,
one who by his own habits of punctuality, promptness, system and
neatness shall teach as well by his exemplary practice in all these re-
spects as by precept.
VII
A mercenary person, or one who would go to make money, is not
wanted.
G. SUMMARY OP THE REPORT op THE TREASURER OP ROBERT
COLLEGE FOR 1909
ENDOWMENT FUNDS INVESTED IN NEW TORK
General Endowment Fund ....
C. R. Robert Endowment Fund .
Scholarship Fund .....
Lois Newton Fund
Museum Fund ......
Real estate and other property in Constantinople
The College has no indebtedness.
134,080.18
8,000.00
11,302.50
5,997.50
$402,782.40
892,629.03
$795,411.43
312
INDEX
INDEX
Aali Pasha, 11, 45.
Abd-ul-Aziz, Sultan, 10, 105.
Abd-ul-Hamid, Sultan, 106, 115, ISO,
153, 170, 246.
Abd-ul-Medjid, Sultan, 10.
Achmet Vefik Pasha, 7, 11, 55, 74,
118, 130.
Alexander, Prince of Bulgaria, 148,
183, 189.
Alumni, 207, 263. 293.
Anderson, Professor Charles, 40, 199.
Angell, James B , American Minis-
ter, 256
Armenians, 70, 76, 152, 200, 219, 237,
245.
Arnold, Matthew, 144.
Assassination of Presidents, 278.
Athletics, 259.
Bancroft, George, 74.
Bayard, Thomas F., 95.
Bebec, 14.
Beneficiaries, 22, 216, 241.
Blame, James G , 95, 211.
Booth, William A., 9
Brooks, Rev Arthur, 194
Bryce, James, 168
Buildings, 27, 47, 68, 216, 224
Bulgaria, 39, 52, 69, 89, 103, 122, 126,
147, 160, 173, 218
Bulwer, Sir Henry, 11.
Censorship, 218
Cholera, 18, 53, 231.
Civil War in United States, 9, 20.
Coe, David B , 6, 112.
Oe, Edward B., 235, 288.
College for Girls. SO.
Commencements, 26, 40, 48, 62, 08
125, 157, 225, 243, 289.
Conference of Constantinople, 116.
Conflagrations, 19, 42.
Constitution, Turkish, 117.
Cox, Samuel S., 187.
Cncket match. 73.
Curne, Sir Philip, 220.
Development, 64, 67, 96, 141, 254,
265, 282
Dimitroff, Peter, 63, 151, 181, 268
Discipline, 25, 36, 46, 57, 70
Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), 109,
145
Djedjizian, Professor Hagopos, 26,
66.
Dodge, Cleveland II , 266, 288
Dodge, Mr and Mrs William E ,
241, 288, 291
Dufferin, Lord. 164, 171.
Dwight, James and William, 3, 4
Dwyer, Professor John E , 308
Earthquakes, 135, 231
Eastern Roumeha, 148, 152, 180
Egypt, 160, 169, 250
Elective Courses, 97, 223
Ehou, Professor Louisos, 125, 178
Elliott, Sir Henry, 89, 104, 108,
117.
Endowment, 29, 59, 135, 164, 208
England, 11, 89, 116, 132, 200, 220
Farragut, Admiral, 12.
Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria, 192,
241
Finances, 43, 61, 139, 231, 307.
812.
Founder's Day, 197
Forster, Sir William E., 143.
Frances, Sir Philip, 28.
815
INDEX
Gates, President Caleb Frank, 880, Midhat Pasha, 111, 117.
288,290.
Geological Survey, 61.
Germany, 257.
Gladstone. 110, 147, 158, 162.
Grant, General, 131.
Granville, Lord, 168.
Greece, 250.
Greek Patriarch, 272.
Greeks, 69, 124, 155, 2S6, 240.
Griscom, Lloyd C., 269.
Grosvenor, Professor Edwin A., 65,
124,204.
Gymnasium, 288.
Hamlin, President Cyrus, 6, 8, 14,
27, 28, 51, 59, 65, 135, 267.
Hamlin Hall, 28, 72, 174, 261.
Hanson, Charles S., 159.
Haritune, Steward, 154.
Hart, Miss Meredith, 229.
Harvard University, 8, 14.
Hay, John, 95.
Herbert, Sir Michael, 249.
Huntington, Professor George H.,
308.
Kennedy, John Stewart, 195, 235,
265, 291.
Kurds, 202.
Land, 7, 54, 94.
Layard, Sir Henry, 121, ISO, 153.
Leishman, John G. A., 269, 286.
Library, 14.
Local Board, 16.
Long, Professor Albert L., 65, 100,
122, 135, 147, 158, 179, 275.
Lookout Mountain, 21.
Lybyer, Professor Albert L., 270.
Lycee of Galata Serai, 24.
Lyons, Lord, 11, 33.
Macedonia, 276.
Manning, Professor George L., 280.
Massacres, 103, 238, 245.
Maynard, Horace, 95, 109, 149.
Millingen, Professor Alexander van,
140, 158, 228.
Missionary policy, 1, 7.
Morgan, George D., 12, 34.
Morris, . Joy, 28, S3.
Murray, Professor George S., 280.
Murray, Professor William S., 280.
Music, 228.
Nationalities, 69, 91, 305.
Naval officers and vessels, 112, 121,
149, 203.
O'Conor, Sir Nicholas, 257.
Organization of classes, 43.
Ormiston, Professor William T., 180,
205, 223.
Ottley, Dr. Charles W., 280.
Panaretoff, Professor Stephen, 49, 89,
110, 156, 196.
Parliament, First Turkish, 118, ISO.
Parliament of Religions, 222, 229
Pears, Sir Edwin, 104, 182.
Perkins, Professor George A , 14, 18.
Political situation, 100, 226
Post, Professor Bertram V., 308.
Potter, Bishop, 241.
Ramsay, Sir William, 263.
Religious principles, 16, 76, 85, 151,
295.
Revolutions, 104, 106, 183, 190.
Robert, Christopher R , 1, 5, 10, 27,
29, 43, 91, 137.
Robert College, 7, 9, 14, 15, 17, 47,
93, 107, 124, 168, 247, 293.
Roumeli Hissar, 7.
Rosebery, Lord, 186, 261.
Roosevelt, President, 284.
Russia, 10, 52, 89, 101, 149, 183, 240.
Russo-Turkish War, 120, 127.
Sabbath services, 16.
Salisbury, Lord, 117, 239.
Schauffler, Professor Henry A., 14, 18.
316
INDEX
Schools in Turkey, 3.
Schuyler, Eugene, 109, 147.
Seward, William H., 12, 47.
Sheridan, General, 45.
Sherman, General, 57.
Skobeleff, General, 128, 132.
Spanish War, 257.
Stambuloff, 52, 191.
Stoiloff, Constantino, 49, 151, 272.
Straus, Oscar S., 194, 257.
Syrian Protestant College, 24, 43.
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,
172.
Terrell, Alexander W., 226.
Theodorus Hall, 255, 271, 282.
Treaty of Berlin, 133.
Treaty of San Stefano, 131.
Trustees, 9, 139, 235, 264.
Turkey. 100, 142, 160, 193, 227, 232,
285.
Turkish neighbors, 71, 120, 134.
Turkish opinions of the College, 93,
227.
Tutors, 19, 309, 311.
Wallace, General Lew, 169.
Washburn, George, S3, 35, 50, 59,
290.
Washburn, Mrs. George, 73, 267,
292
Washburn Hall, 291.
White, Sir William, 186, 220.
Young Men's Christian Association,
221.
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