The gymnasium and playground are considered of unusual importance, as the faculty encourage athletics not only for physical, but for moral and social culture. Football, cricket, baseball and other athletic sports are the most effective equalizers that can be adopted. The students of the college come from all ranks, castes and from every social stratum, but social distinctions are not recognized at Robert College any more than at our institutions at home, and there is always more or less difficulty in reconciling the representatives of the favored classes to the doctrine of human equality. The football field, however, is a pure democracy, where all meet on the same level and the best man wins the greatest degree of respect and exercises the greatest influence.
Robert College is not a missionary institution, nor is it sectarian in any respect. Its object is to afford the young men of Turkey and the surrounding countries facilities for acquiring such an education as will best fit them for professional and business life. It aims to combine the highest moral training with the most complete mental discipline. The purpose of the faculty is to adapt it to the needs of the people and develop Christian manliness among the students without attempting to teach them theology. The plan of discipline and instruction is the same as in the ordinary colleges in America. The recitations and lectures are all in English. American text-books only are used. Students are required to attend chapel daily and religious services on Sunday. No exceptions are made either for Jews or Gentiles, Roman Catholics or Mohammedans. They study the evidences of Christianity just as they study moral philosophy, political economy and geology. The course of study has been selected with a view to the practical application of learning, as well as intellectual development. The regular collegiate department occupies five full years. The tuition fees, including board and lodging, are $200 a year. Tuition without board is $40 a year, and tuition and luncheon daily $65 a year. There are several scholarships which are utilized to the assistance of worthy young men upon the recommendation of the faculty.
The board of trustees has its office in New York. The president is John S. Kennedy, the secretary Edward B. Coe and the treasurer Frederick A. Booth. John Sloane, Cleveland H. Dodge, William T. Booth, William C. Sturgis, Robert W. de Forrest and William Church Osborn constitute the board. The faculty is mixed, a majority of them being natives of the East—Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Roumanians and Turks—all graduates of the institution and members of the Protestant faith. Dr. George Washburn is the president; and his father-in-law, Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, was the actual founder of the institution. In 1860 Christopher R. Robert, having visited Constantinople, was deeply impressed with the necessity for an institution of higher learning there, and invited Dr. Hamlin to join him in founding an institution which should offer to young men, without distinction of race or creed, a thorough American education. Dr. Hamlin opened the college in a rented house in Bebek in 1863. Mr. Robert furnished all the funds to sustain the institution until his death, in 1878, when he bequeathed to the college one-fifth of his estate, amounting to about $400,000. Articles of incorporation were secured in New York in 1864, and in 1869 the Sultan of Turkey was persuaded by the American minister at Constantinople to issue an irade conferring upon the institution all the advantages bestowed by the imperial government upon schools in Turkey. On July 4, 1869, the corner-stone of the first building was laid by E. J. Morris, the American minister, and it was completed in 1871. It still stands as the principal building of the college, and is known as Hamlin Hall.
Other buildings have been erected since with funds contributed by friends of the college in America, and since the death of Mr. Robert the endowment fund has been increased by generous contributions from other American citizens. The college is almost self-supporting. The receipts from tuition fees cover the salaries of the professors, leaving a balance to be paid from the income of the endowment fund which is greater or less according to circumstances. The total annual expenses are within $50,000 a year, which is a very small average for three hundred and eleven students, of whom one hundred and eighty-two sleep and board in the college.
The students come from all parts of Asia Minor, Turkey in Europe, Greece and the Balkan States—the largest number from the immediate neighborhood of Constantinople; the next largest from Greece, Bulgaria and Roumania, but almost every nation is represented. The Greeks outnumber the rest, having had one hundred and twenty-seven representatives in 1902, the Armenians one hundred and eight and the Bulgarians fifty-one. Then came the Turks, Israelites, Roumanians, Austrians, French, Russians, English and Americans, Assyrians, Georgians, Persians and Levantines in order. The parents of the students belong to almost every religious faith represented in Constantinople, and are willing to sacrifice their religious scruples in order to obtain the educational advantages of the college.
The policy of the Turkish government makes it difficult and often impossible for Turks to attend the institution, and hence there are no professed Moslems among the students. It would be unsafe and it might be fatal for any student to declare himself a Moslem. It is suspected, however, that students belonging to that faith have enrolled themselves as members of others. Young men who have come from different parts of Turkey to enter the college are often arrested and imprisoned upon their arrival. Dr. Washburn says, however, that the minister of police is usually reasonable, and when satisfied that they have come in good faith he delivers them to the treasurer of the institution and holds him responsible for their behavior. In 1901 one of the students was detained in prison for two months on the charge of bringing seditious literature into the country. The police inspectors found in his luggage two pieces of music which can be bought at any music store in Constantinople, but for some reason or another the charge was pressed against him and it cost his father a large sum of money to obtain his release.
The graduates are found in high places throughout the East. Many of them occupy conspicuous positions under the governments of Bulgaria, Roumania and the neighboring countries. At one time four of the Robert College alumni were in the ministry of Bulgaria, including the late Mr. Stoiloff, who was recognized as the ablest statesman in that country after Stambouloff’s death, and was prime minister from 1894 to 1901.
Eleven different services are held in Protestant churches in Constantinople every Sunday in four different languages. Three by the Church of England—one in the chapel of the embassy, for the British ambassador has a chaplain and a physician furnished by his government, as well as a secretary; at St. Paul’s Church, which was erected fifty years ago as a memorial to the English soldiers who died in the Crimean war, and in a chapel in the suburbs at ancient Calcedon. At a chapel connected with the Dutch embassy, union services are held by the Presbyterians, Methodists and Dutch Reformed. There is also a chapel connected with the German embassy and a Lutheran chaplain. Besides these there are churches under the direction of the American Board of Foreign Missions, attended by Protestants at Robert College, at the American College for Girls at Scutari and at the American and English colony at Bebek on the Bosphorus. The Scotch Presbyterians and the Established Church of Scotland each has a house of worship, and the French Protestants residing in Galata and Pera have a very pretty church. Protestant missions to the natives are scattered all over the city and are conducted by British, German, Dutch and American societies. The American Board of Foreign Missions has one hundred and seventy-six missionaries in Turkey, including forty men and over one hundred unmarried women. The British and Dutch Reformed missionaries are almost as numerous. In all Turkey there are about 50,000 registered Protestants and 13,000 communicants in the various churches, being mostly Greeks and Armenians. As we were particularly interested in the work of the American missionaries only, I did not obtain the statistics of the others, but the American Board alone has one hundred and thirty organized native churches, twenty-five of which are self-supporting. In the city of Constantinople are two large congregations of Armenian and Greek Protestants, who have already purchased lots to erect houses of worship and have raised funds for that purpose, but are prohibited from doing so by the officials. They have made applications for building permits frequently from time to time during the last eight or ten years, which have always been denied them, and even the American minister cannot exert sufficient influence to secure that privilege. No Protestant church can be erected in Constantinople. No man dare sell a piece of land for the purpose. The churches already standing have been erected under the patronage of the different foreign legations and embassies.
A number of high standard colleges are maintained by the missionary boards in Turkey, as well as schools of all grades. The colleges are now educating a total of 3,000 students, and the pupils in the schools number over 20,000, most of these institutions being self-supporting. The students come chiefly from the mercantile class, and only about one-fourth of them are Protestants. The remainder represent all creeds and races, although the Mohammedan believers are few. More than three-fourths of the students pay full tuition, ranging from $40 to $250 a year, according to location and circumstances. There are scholarships for the benefit of poor students, but they are usually reserved for such young men and women as are studying for the mission work and for teaching in the mission schools.
From 1856 to 1876, from the Crimean war to the reign of Abdul Hamid II., the present Sultan, religious liberty prevailed throughout all Turkey, and, the government encouraging Mohammedans to enter the schools, they came in large numbers. But under the present Sultan the policy has been to restrict education and keep the people in ignorance, and no Moslem can attend a Protestant school without rendering himself and his family the objects of suspicion and persecution of all sorts. The father may be arrested upon false charges, sent to prison and his property confiscated, or the son may be accused of “discontent” (a crime which is very prevalent) and be sent to prison for months or years, or some member of the family may be charged with membership in the “Young Turkey” party, which is an offense punishable by death or banishment. Any of these things is likely to occur without the slightest justification, and they are intended as discipline to prevent proselyting by the Protestants among Mohammedans, and to make the Protestant schools unpopular. A Christianized Mohammedan cannot live in Turkey. He is compelled to leave the country, for as soon as the fact is known he is either assassinated or thrown into prison. Mohammedans who accept Christianity are very few. A somewhat notable case occurred recently—perhaps two. I have heard two versions with different names, but am confident they refer to the same person.