THEDeSe eee? +i t a i3 3 BSAA EUs ti tt eatin ft +2: ed ececics isla nedenees ts. By iS Sse fa tp Class B Book P27 International Mind Alcove Given by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ncourage a wider knowledge of international relations. ~ Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. University of Illinois Library 27214 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2021 with funding from University of Illinois Uroana-Champaign https://archive.org/details/educationalambasOOjenk AN EDUCATIONAL AMBASSADOR TO THE NEAR EAST i. os us ee a em | ee = s ac cer vs: Pipes > i b: - | 7 Z mf » iets = " x cys 7 7 ot re =. : SIO Fs a 7 4 YP! is ik ti ctw » », ve 4 a 1 a) » ae ; na 1 oa — - — F, Rady pitas 7 ea Sa v : i 2 a, @ @ a _ 7 y oy a i vy 219 @ eo AN Sn Te : ~ nae oe ve tihe - Sune a ® aed ne 27 % 4 — LIRRARY -UNIVERSIIy OF ILLINOIS URBANA An Educational Ambassador to the Near East The Story of Mary Mills Patrick and an American College in the Orient By HESTER DONALDSON JENKINS, Ph.D. Sometime Professor of History and English in Constantinople Woman’s College Author of “Behind Turkish Lattices,” “The Perfect Gentle Knight,”’ etc. New York CHICAGO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH Copyright, McmMxxv, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY Printed in the United States of America New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street Foreword NE of the most significant appreciations of the work of Mary Mills Patrick through Constantinople Woman’s College appeared in 1908 in a newspaper of Constantinople called Tanin, or Echo. The Revolution had just made a free press possible, and the latter gave a welcome to the first Turkish woman who was ready to write for publication. This woman was one of the most brilliant graduates of the College, Halideh Edib, pioneer, patriot, leader of the feminist movement of Turkey and novelist. An article on her Alma _» Mater was the second thing she ever published. A translation follows of the last paragraph of this N essay, which she called 3 TO OUR COLLEGE \.* “In the dark days when our country was cov- “ered by a dense cloud, in the midst of disaster and -despair, to you I lifted my eyes. With the finest “subtleties and the broadest realities of civilisation sand humanity, you extended knowledge to the “darkest horizon of Turkey, O Institution. And ‘you, honoured women, yea, you teachers, who left your own land and your own people to elevate and “enlighten the dark corner of this freedomless, por- 5 or, PY 4 ‘ find? OE 6 oO ae ‘ wht Py Ww wat Net at 6 FOREWORD tionless land, sacrificing your finest years in your piety; you have struggled to bring light to Ottoman soil, to Ottoman civilisation, fighting for learning and culture. This first opportunity to speak through the Ottoman press this day I consecrate to a greeting to you! The large ideas from which Turkey was shut out, the great feelings which were opened up to me in your class-rooms, the ideas to which I was led in your libraries, showing me that there was no difference in men for race, class, sect, or religion,—these ideas that made me live like a person, a civilised person, a humanity- loving person, that enabled me to live larger thoughts, generous thoughts, thoughts such as you were living; these ideals I owe to you, O women, and to each and all of you I essay to express my gratitude and to live according to the principles which I owe to your teaching alone. I love, love, love everything about the college! ” Constantinople. | ITI. IV. . Tue Vision oF Mary Mixzs Patrick . VI. VII. VIII. IX. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXIT. . A Fire AND A REMOVAL . XI. X IT: Contents . Tue OrreNtTAL GIRL AND THE AMERICAN Girt IN 1876 . Mary Miius Patrick eee FOR THE N EAR East A LitTtLE CANDLE ueaWe The ean SoME ARMENIAN SCHOOLGIRLS . THE GREEK STUDENTS Two ALBANIAN HEROINES . CoMING ‘DOWN FROM THE BALKANS. ADMINISTERING AN AMERICAN COLLECE IN THE ORIENT Tue TurkisH Girrs WHo DareEpD . How THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 OPENED THE Door To TuRKISsh WOMEN THE CouNTER-REVOLUTION . PROGRESS IN THE COLLEGE An IsLéE oF PEACE IN THE MipsT oF War Mary MILLs Patrick REALISES Her DrEAM. THE DEVELOPMENT OF COLLEGE COURSES THE COLLEGE AND THE GREAT War. A Serious CoLLece Crisis . IQIg TO 1924 y Mary Miiis Patrick Rao FEMINISM IN THE NEAR EAST IN 1924 . APPENDIX i INDEX Il 20 37 5! 63 - 100 J ¥16 p27 Ae 18 6 . 168 . 175 rape a 205 . 215 i230 ra . 261 » 275 - 297 - 306 hate i 1 j we te vain ie gat RHR el i Illustrations FACING PAGE Ue Pr ACTIC Rote ate alate aids dais Suda gis Title The Buildings in Scutari Crowning the Asiatic PITCH asia ett SAE Sear gan ie PUN Bs Sia, 26 Sevasti and Parashkevi Kyrias............. 78 The Bright-eyed, Up-to-date Bulgarian Stu- Y Relea TO REPRE eS UR ae asin eta ane aD e 100 Seven Turkish Girls Who Blazed the Trail for Other Moslem Students. ........5.-.5008 148 Mary Mills Patrick’s Dream Realized in Stone 206 Stately Armenian Maidens Presenting Their TR CIEHEAALON ula erat tstaes ae ie sie criy eels 212 PALOPRLOVEINESS iNew ayia wie we eel es fue Mg 212 The Queen is Dead. Long Live the Queen!.. 280 Acknowledgments CKNOWLEDGMENTS are due to Editors of magazines who have allowed the use of articles appearing in their pages here repro- duced in modified form. These are the Editors of Asia, The National Geographic Magazine, The Outlook and The Open Court. Warm acknowledgment is also made to the un- published memoirs of the late Caroline Borden, for many years a trustee of Constantinople Woman’s College. 10 I THE ORIENTAL GIRL AND THE AMERICAN GIRL IN 1876 N the screen of memory, the women of the Orient pass before me. Strong young peasants in long homespun gowns and gay embroideries, their honest faces turned towards the West; pretty, aimless, secluded wives in the harem, and their daughters, eagerly pushing back their veils and scanning with timid hope the far horizon; the resolute young pioneers in the fields of medicine and literature; the rich and over- dressed ladies of fashion; the shameless gipsies in bloomers and brilliant floating scarves; the pitiful, begging children; the wise, old women with hair dyed scarlet, who nod their heads and know; the faithful, careless and kindly servants; eternally feminine, yet constantly changing and aspiring; primitive and yet pushing onward; above all, hopeful. The modern opinion of women is turning to the sage dictum of the sharp Mrs. Poyser, that “‘ God Almighty made ’em to match the men.” In other words, that fundamentally men and women are about on an equality. But history has had much 11 12 AN EDUCATIONAL AMBASSADOR to say in the matter, and the characteristics that women have displayed in the past have been largely the result of their environment. Everyone would grant that the environment of America has been much more favourable to woman’s development than the environment of the Near East. But one who knows the Oriental women and has seen them respond to education and Western influence will not be slow to acknowl- edge the latent power of this slowly developing womanhood. Given anywhere near the same chance, the “‘ new woman ” of Turkey proves that she and American women are “sisters under the skin.” This is the story of an American woman who had faith in her Eastern sisters, and of an institu- tion that has done an immense deal to develop the womanhood of the Near East. The woman is Mary Mills Patrick, and the institution is Constan- tinople Woman’s College. The story is an impor- tant part of the general story of the awakening of woman in Turkey and the Balkan States. The scene of the story is that most fascinating and personal of cities, Constantinople, of which a modern Turkish poet wrote: “O glorious setting for tragedy’s rage Thou of greatness and pomp at once cradle and grave; | Queen, eternally luring, the Orient thy slave; * * x * * THE ORIENTAL GIRL 13 Old Byzance, still thou keepest immune to all harm After husbands a thousand thy fresh, virgin charm.” (Tewfik Fikret Bey, Translated by H, D. Jenkins.) The story begins in the last quarter of the nine- teenth century. A good date to name as point of departure is the year 1876. To people in the United States, that means Cen- tennial year, the one hundredth anniversary of the launching of the Ship of State. To Turkey, it records the accession of Abdul Hamid II. to the throne of the Ottoman sultans. It would be interesting to compare the position and prospects of American and Oriental women in 1876. In America, woman has always been man’s mate, the pioneer woman being conspicuously sturdy, resourceful, enduring and energetic, cer- tainly “‘ matching ” the men of that heroic Western movement. From Priscilla Alden to Anna Howard Shaw, the pioneer woman won her glorious spurs. Then came the period of prosperity and ease when woman was gently pushed back into her “ sphere,’ the home, and the chivalrous American husband and father tried to “spoil” her. But another style of pioneer sprang up, the pioneer of political and economic equality. The struggle for political “rights” was well 14 AN EDUCATIONAL AMBASSADOR under way in 1876, but had been set back by the Civil War. Susan B. Anthony, aided by able lieu- tenants, was fighting a noble campaign for her sex. Her paper, The Revolution, with its stirring motto, “Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less,” had just been merged in The Woman’s Journal, established in Boston in 1870. The struggle for equal suffrage and for legal justice was to be waged sharply later, before it attained its triumph, and in its wake came the opening of higher education to women, their entrance into the professional, industrial and the business world, and their training in the qualities that had always been considered to belong solely to men. In 1876, the ‘female seminary” and the ‘“‘young ladies’ academy ” were the forerunners of the woman’s college of today, Mount Holyoke Seminary and Wheaton Seminary being two out- standing illustrations. But in 1864 Vassar Col- lege, and in 1875 Wellesley College started the splendid list of real colleges for women. In 1872 Cornell University established Sage College, thus beginning the coeducation movement which was to spread so quickly to state universities, and develop the “ Annex ” at Harvard and Columbia, where a few hardy women studied with or near the men. One of the first professional schools for women was the Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia. At the great Centennial Exposition, the women THE ORIENTAL GIRL 15 of the country, amid vast enthusiasm, financed and erected a $30,000 building to display ‘“‘ Woman’s Work.” That the building was modest according to the standards of today and the display still more so, was only natural, but it was a promise of the place that woman was rapidly winning for herself. Although legally woman’s position in the various states left a great deal to be desired, yet socially no women have ever had more freedom, been accorded more opportunities for self-development and service, than have American women in the last half-century. It was from such women that sym- pathetic help went forth to the women of Turkey. In 1876, the once great and powerful Ottoman Empire was greatly reduced and_ enfeebled. Although it retained rule over a vast area in Asia, Africa and Asia Minor, it was steadily losing terri- tory in Europe. Province after province had been breaking away. In 1878, the Congress of Berlin, following the Russo-Turkish War, recognised Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania and Greece as inde- pendent states, and handed over Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austrian administration. But in Macedonia, north of Constantinople, and in the city itself, there remained a large population of Slavs and Albanians, while Greeks inhabited the cities of the Levant and the islands, and Armenians cultivated the highlands of Asia Minor and worked in the big cities, and Jews were scattered every- where. So, when we speak of the Oriental women 16 AN EDUCATIONAL AMBASSADOR in this book, we mean the Turkish women, the Christian and Jewish subjects of Turkey and the citizens of the neighbouring states, many of which were but recently emancipated from Turkish rule. We may make the general statement concerning these women and girls that they all lived very secluded lives, with a common sense of inferiority to the men, and very few advantages of education or travel. The general attitude towards women in 1876 was much the same, whether held by Turk, Greek or Slav. Woman as a free mate for man was not an Oriental conception. Of course there were differences of degree in the “ Oriental atti- tude,” and differences in the detail of women’s lives, but the general life was similar for all. Abdul Hamid II. came to the throne with a rooted fear of modernism and progress. He was keen enough to recognise that his throne was a medizval one and that he could keep it only by damming up progress. He feared the West, knock- ing at the door, and strove with all his puny might to keep it out. To him, women were merely toys. No woman ever influenced him,—neither mother nor wife nor daughter. Naturally he feared education, and for himself had never desired any. As a youth he dis- gusted his intelligent father by hating study, never learning to write or spell correctly nor even to speak refined Turkish. He was, however, skilled in accounts. Education throughout the empire was THE ORIENTAL GIRL 17 at a very low ebb. Schools were few and inade- quate, and students were seldom allowed to study in foreign institutions. No one was allowed to travel even a few miles by train or by boat without a special passport, which might be refused and was usually delayed. There was scarcely a decent road in the country and transportation by rail or boat was entirely inadequate. People still rode about in wagons drawn by horses or oxen, not unlike our ‘prairie schooners.” No Turkish subjects might leave the country to study or travel. Everything was censored. No books that men- tioned Turkey or Mohammedanism were allowed to enter the country, no physical apparatus was admitted to the schools. The press was muzzled and emasculated; few original books were allowed to be published, and towards the end of Abdul Hamid’s reign intercourse with Europeans was severely restricted. Once, at his suggestion, a European scholar planned a university for Constantinople and out- lined a course including history, philosophy and economics. But Abdul Hamid exclaimed, “ No, sir, such knowledge will be dangerous to my people; these subjects cannot be included in the program.” Steadily during his reign trade decreased and taxes increased. Modern machinery and the use of electricity were considered a menace by the Sultan. No Western methods were encouraged 18 AN EDUCATIONAL AMBASSADOR because of the general policy of obscurantism, a policy that held Moslem and Christian subject alike in the chains of ignorance. Great progress has been made in Turkey since then, but the reign of Abdul Hamid II. was a desert and a stagnation. Girls did, however, attend the primary mosque schools, and there was a so-called Normal School for women in Constantinople, while the Armenians and Greeks had a number of schools of their own. In the little countries that had just become free from Turkey, the same conditions prevailed at the start, but they quickly moved towards progress and enlightenment. In 1876, however, poverty, ignorance and recent oppression meant that there was very little education for either men or women. In the thirty years of the despot Abdul Hamid’s reign, there was no educational progress in Turkey. But in Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania and Greece an excellent start was made in national schooling. The strongest educational influence in these lands during the nineteenth century was exercised by the missionaries of the American Board, whose work began in Smyrna in 1820. The work of this Board and its missionaries was threefold—evangel- istic, medical and educational. The evangelistic work proved to have little effect on the Jews and Moslems, so was confined to the Eastern Chris- tians, but the medical and educational work grad- ually came to touch all the peoples of the Turkish empire. THE ORIENTAL GIRL 19 Besides many translations of the Bible into the various Oriental tongues, hymnbooks and religious writings, school books and books of general infor- mation were circulated, and several journals were edited, which were a liberal education in them- selves to those who read them. Later, mission schools began to shed their light over the towns of Asia Minor, Bulgaria, and Albania. Servia and Roumania were not entered, and the work for the Greeks was confined to Greek subjects of the Empire. When the mission schools were first started, they were conducted in the language of the pupils, Greek or Bulgarian or Armenian, but it was gener- ally necessary to translate textbooks for them. An American missionary at the head of the school would be assisted by native teachers. The es- pecial need seemed to be high schools or colleges for the boys and any sort of schools for the girls, who had no other opportunity for learning whatever. Here, then, was the country and these the con- ditions into which Mary Mills Patrick entered to achieve her great work. II MARY MILLS PATRICK STARTS FOR THE NEAR EAST ARY MILLS PATRICK was. born in M Canterbury, New Hampshire, March 10, 1850. Her parents were both from old New England families, but moved to Iowa soon after Mary’s birth. John Patrick, her father, was a farmer and pioneer, of strongly religious tenden- cies inherited from his father, who was an infiu- ential and beloved preacher in New Hampshire. At family prayers another interest was shown that came out very strongly later in Mary, namely, an aptitude for languages. It was the custom for the family of parents and four children to read verses from the Bible in turn in as many lan- guages as there were readers, sometimes six, including Greek, Latin, French and German. Whether the children each understood all six seems doubtful, but at least they early got the feeling for language. Mary’s thirst for knowledge came from her mother, Harriet White, who was very ambitious intellectually. Her sister, Frances White, was a professor in the Woman’s Medical College in 20 STARTS FOR THE NEAR EAST 21 Philadelphia, and both women were greatly inter- ested in the education of girls. Mary was sent to an Iowan seminary called, rather ambitiously, Lyons College, where she graduated with honours. She was offered a scholarship at Vassar College, but was too proud to accept a free education. Her remarkable mentality was already noticeable. She was also strikingly ambitious, independent, and conscientious, and very religious. ys The family life on a farm was happy and loving, as the sterner New England characteristics were mollified by laughter and joking and even some teasing. This ability to see the sunny side of hard- ships and to be easily amused and often very humourous has been one of the charming traits of Mary Patrick throughout her life, and is also very characteristic of her distinguished brother, Pro- fessor G. T. W. Patrick, of the University of Iowa. Both thoroughly enjoy an unexpected and whim- sical turn of thought, and are equally capable of relishing a joke on themselves. When Mary Mills Patrick was twenty, she was a little above the average height, with curly, brown hair, soft, black eyes, a nose smaller than one would expect in one of her force of character, a smiling mouth, very supple hands, that were useful in dressmaking, cooking and all the household arts as well as effective on the piano, and a manner at once shy and eager. She had scarcely been away from the farm on which she lived except to attend 22 AN EDUCATIONAL AMBASSADOR school, and her knowledge of the world was largely an aching void. Then came the offer of the American Mission Board to send her to Turkey as a missionary. To a religious young woman, for whom the little West- ern town held no opportunity, this seemed the leading of God, and who dare say it was not? To her parents it was a shock, for Turkey was half- way around the world, and the journey thither was so long and uncertain that the family that said good-bye to a missionary-member scarcely ex- pected to see her again in this life. It took real heroism to embark on this career. The father escorted her as far as Chicago, and when Mary saw the last of his sad face, she had much ado to control her emotion, but turned eagerly to some blueberries that were being sold on the train, and tried to absorb herself in their consumption. The journey from Chicago to New York took several days in 1870. At that point Mary was put in the charge of a group of missionaries who were travelling to Persia, and was carefully chaperoned all the way. They sailed on a small vessel called the Wisconsin, which was fairly comfortable during the nine days of fine weather that were spent on board. The meals greatly impressed the youthful traveler, for they were served by a long line of waiters, each bringing in one dish which they deposited on the big tables all at once, the soup, roast, etc., to the dessert, so that the board literally STARTS FOR THE NEAR EAST —— 23 groaned under their weight. This was attractive to Mary, who had the best of appetites all the way over. Then there was one wonderful day of sight- seeing in London and the long journey across the continent of Europe, in small shut-in compartments with no corridors as they have today, no “ diners,” and no “ sleepers.” One slept sitting upright, night after night, and rushed out at stations for one’s meals. At Varna the party took ship for Constantinople, with which city Mary was greatly impressed, little thinking that it was to be her home for much of her life. But this time the party went on, crossing the Black Sea, and then taking horses to the town of her destination, Erzeroum. From the port, Trebizond, one of the sultans had just laid an excellent road, so that for the first time travelers might ride into the interior without danger to life and limb. Mary had been on horseback just once before she had to undertake this long journey, but she had plenty of grit, and if her long European riding-skirt proved utterly inappropriate to Turk- ish traveling, why that was only one joke the more! The nights were spent in Oriental khans, whose hard beds on the floor, many fleas, and coarse, unleavened bread came as a shock to the fastidious American girl. But these things also she strove to regard as a joke. Thus, early in her new life, Mary had need to demonstrate that strain of iron beneath her pliable 24 AN EDUCATIONAL AMBASSADOR exterior that was to carry her through so many hardships and dangers in later life. It had hurt to leave her mother, who was unreconciled to her departure, and when, shortly after her arrival at Erzeroum, she learned of that mother’s death, she received a wound that left a permanent scar. But from that moment no other family or personal tie ever held her from complete devotion to her life-work. In Erzeroum, a straggling Armenian town, she was put into the girls’ school as a teacher. She had to learn the Armenian language, which she did with such quickness and perfection that she soon translated an English textbook into that tongue, and has never lost an easy mastery of the language. She spent four formative years in this hard, lonely work, and then, to her delight, was transferred to Constantinople to teach in the American High School. IIT A LITTLE CANDLE THROWS ITS GLEAM HE school to which Mary Mills Patrick was sent as a teacher was a new and interesting institution, the mother of the present Con- stantinople Woman’s College. It was started in this wise: Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel G. Clarke, in the inter- ests of American mission work, made a journey in the Turkish Empire in 1871-1872. There they saw a good many schools for boys, but they deeply felt the need for education for girls, to fit them for an enriched family and national life. On their return to the United States, they made zealous and successful efforts to stimulate interest in the work of education for the women of Turkey. Six women expressed their faith in this idea by contributing five hundred dollars each as a nest- egg for a suitable fund. One of these gifts was from Mrs. Richard Borden, of Boston, and her husband, wishing to associate his daughter Caro- line with this enterprise, added two hundred and fifty dollars in her name. Caroline Borden’s in- terest in the school, thus happily initiated, lasted until her death in 1922, and for many years she 25 26 AN EDUCATIONAL AMBASSADOR was an active member of its Board of Trustees. From her unpublished memoirs we get many inter- esting details of the history of the American High School, as it was called. To quote her words: ‘“‘ By Divine alchemy fifty-eight thousand dollars of contributed American gold were converted into the coinage which provided the home for the school.” The original plan was to found a three-fold in- stitution doing medical, community service and educational work; but only the school materialised in that place, and its buildings were generally spoken of in friendly style as ‘‘ The Home.” The first and temporary site was in Gedik Pasha, a suburb of Stamboul. But, in 1876, the school was pleasantly housed in a new building named after its donor, Bowker Building, situated in Scu- tari. That land could be purchased there by Americans was due to the fact that Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, the first President of Robert College, a rising American college for Oriental men, on the Bosphorus, had, in 1875, secured a treaty by which citizens of the United States were given the right to hold real estate in the Turkish Empire. Constantinople is a city of great extent, lying along both shores of the Bosphorus, and skirting the Sea of Marmora. It is divided naturally into three great sections: old Constantinople, or Turkish Stamboul, cradled between the Marmora and the Golden Horn, with the ancient walls to mark its third boundary,—Pera-Galata, across the Golden HOS OLLVISV AEE ONINMOUD TVLOOS Nie SONIC IMG