We descend from the terrace and we are taken to the principal buildings of the college through its splendid grounds. The park is beautiful and well kept and is crowned with an enormous terrace, facing East, from where we have another view totally different but fully as gorgeous as the one we had from the Hospital Building. That is the beauty of the Bosphorus: its aspect changes from any spot that you stand on, its every hill, its every house, its every nook and every corner has a different outlook, each one more beautiful than the other. It completely does away with the monotony that any panorama, no matter how beautiful, generally has.
Right behind the terrace are the playgrounds of the college, large lawns with special accommodations for all kinds of games: football, tennis, croquet, and of course basket-ball and baseball. Around these grounds and facing the Bosphorus in a semi-circle are the principal buildings of the College where the class-rooms, the dormitories, the dining-rooms, laboratories, gymnasiums, etc. are located. We go through some of them. They are all spacious, well-ventilated and bright rooms, and each is equipped according to the latest dictates of hygiene and science. It really is perfect in every detail and no modern college in the United States can muster any better accommodation
Our host is justly proud when we compliment him on the College. As they are taking us back to our motor he walks with me and expresses his personal disappointment in not having a larger number of Turkish pupils.
“We have pupils from all the nations of the Near East,” he says, “but the largest quota is provided by the Armenians. We have, however, quite a few Greeks, we have even Bulgarians and Roumanians who come here from their distant countries, we have Caucasians and Russians, but barely a few Turks. I do not understand why more Turkish families do not send their children to be educated and brought up by us. The Turks desire to acquire modern education, they are unquestionably good workers and progressive. Ours is, I believe, the best College in the Near East, we have excellent teachers and our courses are as complete as any of the American Colleges back home. Still the Turks don't seem to care to send us their children. They seem to admire the Americans, they desire to know us better, to make themselves better known to us. They seem to be sincere in their wish to understand us better and to have themselves better understood in America. Still only a very few of them send their sons to the only American College here and they prefer to send them to Galata Serai which is a college run by the French and where French education is imparted.”
On our way back in the car, I was thinking over these parting remarks of our host and as I noticed that the American friends who accompanied us had been impressed by them I decided to tell them of my own experience, when years ago I was called to choose between Robert College and Galata Serai as the educational institution to which to send my younger brother.
To appreciate the full meaning of my action at that time and of the reasons that induced me to act that way, I must first say that as my father was in the diplomatic service I have grown up in foreign countries and have myself received a foreign education. My childhood and early youth, I passed in Rome, where French, Italian and English teachers prepared me for taking my French degrees. I also had a Turkish teacher who taught me my own language. As far as religious education is concerned although I studied the Koran, being a Muslim born, I also studied the Bible and other Holy Books. My religious education was therefore most liberal and according to the true Muslim principles, which as I understand them and as they are interpreted by all broadminded Muslims, are all-inclusive of all other religions. And recognizing the one Almighty God and all His prophets, I never hesitated to go into any church of any denomination and therein raise my thoughts in prayer. In fact, having passed the greater part of my life in foreign countries I have more often prayed in churches than in mosques.
Well about fifteen years ago, and after I had finished my studies, I was engaged in business in Constantinople while my father was transferred from Rome to Vienna. My father was obliged to choose between either having my younger brother start again his studies, with German this time as a basis, or else sending him somewhere where he could continue his studies either in French or in English, both of which he knew. Naturally my father preferred this last course and decided to send my younger brother to Constantinople where he could follow either the course of Robert College or that of Galata Serai, and he asked me to investigate both colleges and to make arrangements with the one I recommended the most.
I went first to Galata Serai, the program of which I already knew, having myself taken the official French degrees. I knew that the education one received in French schools was somewhat too theoretical and I personally was not therefore in favour of my brother following it. But to have a clear conscience I visited the college and had a talk with the principal. Of course I found the class-rooms and dormitories good enough if not very modern, and, as I expected, I found that athletics and sports were much neglected. As for the program of studies I found it as cumbersome as the one I had taken.