“Please do not say anything more,” said Dr. Seropain, “and do not make any comments upon the answer you receive.”
A few days later an imperial irade was received authorizing the erection of the necessary buildings for the college. Dr. Hamlin was almost paralyzed, but he soon learned that the Turkish government, putting one thing and another together, imagined that the Hartford had been sent over to enforce the demands of our government in behalf of the American college, and accepted the situation before it became serious.
The corner stone of the first building was laid on the Fourth of July, 1869, and on the Fourth of July, 1871, it was formally inaugurated in an address by William H. Seward, then on his journey around the world.
Mr. Robert continued to support the institution until his death, when he bequeathed it one fifth of his entire estate, making his benefactions altogether nearly a half million dollars. Since his death the college has had many generous benefactors, and the late John S. Kennedy, who had given a good deal of money before, left it a legacy of nearly $2,000,000 in his will.
There have been three presidents—Cyrus Hamlin, its founder; George Washburn, now president-emeritus, who is spending his well-earned vacation in the United States, and Caleb Frank Gates, D.D., LL.D., who was born in Chicago and is a son of the late Caleb F. Gates, a partner of E. W. Blatchford in the shot tower and lead works on North Side. Dr. Gates graduated at Beloit College in the class of ’77, and from the Chicago Theological Seminary in the class of ’81; went to Turkey as a missionary, where he engaged in educational work and was elected president of Euphrates College in 1894. He remained there until 1902, when he took a year’s vacation, and was elected president of Robert College in 1903.
The most distinguished member of the faculty is Professor Alexander van Milligen, a Scotchman from Edinburgh, where he was educated. He is perhaps the highest authority in archæology in the Levant, and has written several books on the Byzantine Empire, Turkey and Constantinople.
The commencement of 1910 at Robert College was of unusual interest and significance. It not only added another class of twenty-eight well-trained young men of ambition to the list of leaders of modern civilization in the East, but marked an epoch in the history of one of the most useful of all educational institutions. Robert College has been struggling along for half a century with limited resources, but, by reason of a legacy from the late John S. Kennedy of New York, the trustees will be able to increase its educational capacity threefold, add eight new chairs to the faculty, extend the campus, and thus enlarge its usefulness and influence.
“You will find the graduates of Robert College scattered pretty thoroughly over Turkey, Armenia, and the Balkan states,” said Dr. Caleb F. Gates, president of that institution, in reply to my inquiry. “You will find many physicians, attorneys, teachers, bankers, merchants, shipping agents, clerks in the Imperial Ottoman Bank, in the post-office service of Turkey, and in the counting-houses of Constantinople and other cities. Several of our students are merchants in New York. One of our graduates of the class of ’72, Dr. Zenos, is professor of theology in McCormick Seminary at Chicago. Dr. Mangasarian of the Chicago Society for Ethical Culture graduated in the class of ’76. Our first class, graduated in 1868, was composed of two men, both of whom have since become distinguished. One of them is Professor Hagopos Djedjizian, who occupies the chair of Armenian language and literature in Robert College, and the other is Petco Gorbanoff, who has occupied several prominent positions in the government of Bulgaria and is now vice-president of its parliament.
“Our graduates have played a most important part in the building up of Bulgaria. We have furnished at least two prime ministers, Constantine Stoiloff and Todor Ivantchoff; four ministers of foreign affairs, three secretaries to the king, one secretary to the Bulgarian cabinet, three attorney generals, two ministers of public works, a minister of commerce and agriculture, a minister of the interior, a minister of finance, a minister of posts and telegraphs, a director of the state railways, three ministers of justice, a commissary general for the Bulgarian army, the administrator of the Bulgarian national bank, the administrator of the state agricultural bank, no less than twenty-two members of the Bulgarian parliament, and ten or twelve members of the diplomatic service of that country.
“You will find among the list of our alumni the names of two members of the deputation which selected Prince Ferdinand to be the sovereign of Bulgaria and offered him the crown, and the names of both the commissioners to the St. Louis Exposition, Peter M. Mattheoff and Dimiter M. Stantcheff. We have furnished ten or twelve professors for the colleges of Bulgaria, numerous superintendents of schools, teachers, lawyers, doctors, dentists, and surgeons in the army.