ROBERT COLLEGE is situated at the most picturesque spot on the Bosphorus. It dominates the narrowest part of the waterway and its many buildings are on a hill, above the very place which was selected by the Turks nearly six centuries ago as the strategic spot to build their first fort for the conquest of Constantinople. The ruins of the old fort are still there.

Although the electric cars run from the city almost to the very door of the college, we took an automobile, both because we wanted to time our arrival and because we did not desire to climb through the park of the College up the hill where its principal buildings are. We left Stamboul with some American friends who had also been asked and, at times skirting the quays, at times taking the road behind the old palaces, we followed the winding contour of the Bosphorus. All the villages here constitute the real suburbs of Constantinople and follow each other almost uninterruptedly nearly to the shores of the Black Sea. One of the first things that attracted our attention soon after we had left the city proper were the buildings of the American Naval Base where are kept all the stores for the United States warships. The principal nations keep such stores at present in Constantinople, the harbour being used as a base for their warships engaged in the international control of the straits. America maintains only a few small craft in the Near East; therefore, its naval base is much smaller than those of the other nations but it is nevertheless quite an extensive organization where are stored canned products of all kind, fresh food, as well as deck and engine-room supplies. A few squares from the American Naval Base is the Imperial Palace of Dolma Baghtshe, the official residence of the Sultan.

It is an elaborate and large palace in stone and marble, within a beautiful garden surrounded with high walls and wrought-iron gates. I remember having entered it during the reign of the late Sultan. I was struck by the enormous size of its halls and rooms, by the luxury of its priceless carpets, rugs and hangings, and by its gallery of pictures which includes the most important collection of paintings of the famous Russian artist, Aivazowsky. It had been collected by Sultan Abdul Aziz and is now greedily coveted by many European museums, who will, however, have to be satisfied just to covet it as Turkey does not sell its national art possessions. Passing before the Imperial Palace I could not help comparing mentally its present appearance to the way it looked when I had previously visited it. At that time the place was full of life, the large gates were wide opened, and the gardens were crowded with military aides and chamberlains busily going and coming. Now the gates were closed, a lonely Turkish sentry was pacing up and down, guarding the empty palace, and through the wrought-iron bars I could get only glimpses of its forsaken gardens. My American friends asked me why the palace was now so tightly closed and easily understood the reason when I called their attention to the fact that most of the largest foreign warships had to be anchored in the Bosphorus right in front of the Palace as the inner harbour of Constantinople is too congested with trade to make it practical for battleships to stay there. No wonder, therefore, that the Sultan prefers to live temporarily in the summer palace of Yildiz Kiosk which is located outside the city, on a hill far away from the sight of foreign warships whose propinquity would be too vivid a reminder to the sovereign of the plight of his nation.

A little further on we passed before the gates of another old palace which has now been converted into an orphan asylum, where hundreds of Turkish war orphans are being cared for by the Committee of Turkish Ladies for the Relief of Orphans. Poor little boys, ranging from six to fourteen years and uniformly dressed in khaki tunics and long trousers, were pitifully standing and watching the passers-by. They did not even seem to have any desire to pass their few minutes of recreation in playing and running in the gardens, as all other children of their age do in all other countries. Truly Sherman was right in his definition of war, and he would have even forged a stronger word if he had seen the consequences of war in Turkey!

Finally we arrived at Bebek, with its pretty little public garden, its tiny harbour where small yachts and skiffs are peacefully lying covered with tarpaulin for their winter sleep. From here to the lower gate of Robert College is only a very short distance and within a few minutes our car swung through the gate and up the road winding its way to the top of the hill. The climb is pretty steep and I pity the day pupils who have to negotiate it every morning on foot. Of course the teachers claim that this is good exercise for the boys. There is a building at the foot of the hill, right near the entrance gate, which was originally meant as an abode for some of the teachers and principals of the college. It has perfectly splendid accommodations, but few of the teachers live here as they naturally prefer to live on top of the hill. Our hosts had their domicile in the hospital building which is right below the large terrace at the very summit. So before we reached this terrace our car swerved around and stopped at the door of the hospital.

We were directed to an apartment on the ground floor where our hosts received us and, after the usual greetings, served us tea and some delicious American homemade cakes. All the furniture in this apartment—as throughout the whole college—is imported from America, even to the window frames. Provided one does not look out of the windows one could easily believe oneself to be in an American home of the standardized “bourgeois” type. Everything, even to the mahogany-finished mantelpiece and the book-cases to match, speaks of America, the middle class America cut out of immovable patterns. The furniture itself is also American and reminds you of pictures you see in the anniversary sales periodically advertised in newspapers. The eternal rocking-chair is, of course there, and on the center-table the latest Ladies' Home Companion rests peacefully side by side with the latest Saturday Evening Post. Truly this is a little corner of America, possibly not a corner of the progressive America which leads the world in things artistic, intellectual, scientific and political—possibly not a corner of the good old consistent America, puritan in her tastes, but which has for generations given to the great Western Republic millions and millions of hard-working farmers, traders and navigators, Empire builders—but a corner of the average America which abides faithfully to standardized taste.

The general conversation started naturally by talking about America, the land of the free, and how everyone wished to be there; how much comfort one had in America and how little of it one had in Europe, especially in Constantinople; how the American colony in Constantinople had increased since the war, and what a blessing it was to have now so many Americans whom one could visit and whom one could talk to; how the American colony was sufficient to itself and how one could pleasantly and interestingly pass away the time by seeing only people of one's own kind with whom one could speak without the necessity of employing an interpreter or without being obliged to watch oneself continuously so as not to make a break. Of course this question of language is a serious consideration to the Americans; as most of them speak only English they have comparatively few people they can talk to in foreign countries. Our host, however, remarked that through the good work done by Robert College and the Constantinople College for Girls, who were both striving to spread education and the light of truth, the number of English-speaking “natives” had greatly increased. Our hostess pointed out how bright the young “native” children were and how easily they picked up language, education and religion. They suggested showing us through the college grounds and buildings and so we all got up.

Our tour started by stepping out of the French windows into the little terrace, where an old fashioned New England flower garden had been transplanted on these distant shores. The hedges were not high enough to completely mask the gorgeous Oriental view. Seeing we were so much interested in the panorama, our hosts suggested our going on the roof of the Hospital Building where we could see it without any obstruction. As we passed through the drawing-room our hostess pointed out to us the genuine Turkish and Persian carpets she had been lucky enough to purchase through the uncle of one of the pupils who had a shop in the Bazaar. She considered them as a real bargain and she proudly told us the price she had paid. Of course we did not say anything, but my conscience was only set at rest after I found, through skilful investigation, that the pupil whose uncle had a shop in the Bazaar was an Armenian “and one of the cleverest little fellows we have." Our hostess showed us also, hidden in a corner near the door and patiently awaiting the eventual return of its owners to America where it could be shown to friends from Michigan or Wisconsin as exhibit A of a quaint collection of Turkish antiques, a brass brazero, another bargain purchased from the Armenian uncle of the clever little pupil. It seemed that this man through his good services to our hosts had been recommended by them to many of their friends and had furnished to several of them similar bargains. No wonder that the family of the little boy prodigy could afford to send him to Robert College.

We climbed the stairs of the building and stopped on our way in the hospital room, a perfectly equipped place with all the comforts devised by modern science and kept immaculately clean and as we climbed one more flight we reached the door of the roof, a spacious flat place with an indented parapet built according to the best principles of American neo-mediaeval suburban architecture. Here we had the view, and words fail me to depict its gorgeousness. Imagine if you can a limitless horizon extending far into the transparent azure of a limpid Eastern sky, deep into the snow-covered mountains of Anatolia, which are, however, so far away that they almost seem at this distance to be below your level. All around in the country are little bouquets of trees which, with each slender minaret, represent the location of a small village. Nearer, but still on the Asiatic shores, are the green hills of the Bosphorus with their summer residences and their uninterrupted line of homes by the water, while below are the green hills of the European shore. With the blue water in between and the blue sky overhead, the picture is unforgettable. We admired it in silence while our hosts told us of their little country house in America, near a little pond whose waters are as blue as the waters of the Bosphorus.

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.

My next step was to go to Robert College where I was received by the then Dean, who very courteously showed me all around. I was most favourably impressed by the great attention given to athletics and sports as well as by the most modern and hygienic buildings, the working quarters and the living quarters. As for the program of studies it did not take me long to realize how much more practical it was than the French program, how boys graduated from an American College stepped into life better equipped to face all modern problems than those graduated from European Colleges. I therefore made up my mind and told the Dean that I would most forcibly advocate the sending of my younger brother to Robert College in preference to Galata Serai. As a last word, and so as to make everything clear, I asked the Dean if, seeing that there were no classes from Saturday noon to Monday morning, the College would object to allowing my brother to visit his family from Saturday to Sunday evening. The Dean replied that while he had no objection to my brother's visiting his family on Sunday afternoons it would not be possible for him to go home on Saturdays, as one of the few unbreakable rules of the College was that all pupils should be present at Sunday service. Despite all my arguments to the effect that my brother was a Muslim and that, to be fair, he should at least not be obliged to attend any religious functions until he had reached the age of reason and could then choose freely the creed he wanted to follow, the Dean informed me that he was very sorry but Muslim or no Muslim it was an unbreakable rule that all pupils should go to church on Sundays and he could not possibly make an exception in favour of any Muslim pupil.

This rule seemed to me so narrow-minded, and apparently such an unjustifiable attempt to try to force, to coerce young children into the fold of one church and one creed in preference to any other, that I was struck by its narrowness in comparison with the broadness of my own education. As a result my brother went to Galata Serai and hundreds, possibly thousands of other Turkish boys are sent yearly to Galata Serai in preference to Robert College for this very reason. Americans should not take the lack of participation of the Turks in the educational campaign they lead in Turkey as a reason to doubt of the desire of the Turks to acquire modern education or as a proof that they are not sincere when they claim that they want to be better known by the Americans and want to know them better. This lack of response on the part of the Turks should be rather attributed to the fact that all Turks like any civilized nation, resent the activities of foreign missionaries especially when these missionaries try to impose on their children a religion which is not their own, and try to mold young minds into accepting the dogma of an alien church.

When I explained the foregoing to our American friends they understood exactly the situation and they agreed with me that the greatest handicap for the spread of American interests in the Near East is the fact that all of the American educational enterprises are conducted by missionaries, who, under the guise of offering modern education, endeavour to convert people to their own denominations. The Constantinople College for Girls is conducted on identical lines, as far as religion is concerned, with Robert College and there is no doubt that if instead of having Colleges for Girls and Boys conducted by missionaries the Americans maintained non-sectarian schools where modern science was taught and education imparted without consideration of religion they would render a far greater service to humanity and culture. Irrespective of religion, creed or denomination they would help in forming in the Near East new generations of modern men and women.

Unfortunately the Constantinople College for Girls has become, since the armistice, more unpopular among the Turks also for another reason, and that is that despite the fact that the United States was never at war with Turkey, despite the fact that the Turks had treated all American institutions most correctly and in a friendly manner during the war, all the teachers and American employees of the College did not hesitate to manifest openly their pleasure at the sight of the arrival of the Franco-British fleet in the harbour of Constantinople. Together with Greek and Armenian pupils they waved flags and handkerchiefs, they cheered from the windows of the College the battleships of the then enemies of Turkey without consideration of the feelings of their Turkish pupils. To all the Turkish girls the sight of the entrance of the Franco-British fleet in the Bosphorus meant the realization of the defeat of their country, and they still resent the fact that their teachers, whom they had until then considered as friendly Americans, cheered with joy in celebration of the defeat of Turkey, the country which had extended them a most courteous hospitality during the worst years of the war.

It is, of course, true that, fortunately for both countries, there are in Turkey quite a few Americans and American institutions or enterprises which are moved by truly American broadmindedness and are imbued with a true spirit of fair play. Those are the business and Governmental institutions, and it is most remarkable that all of the Americans who do not have to depend for their living on the continuance of an anti-Turkish campaign, are out and out friendly to the Turks and openly in their favour. The Turks see this and can discriminate between the two groups. They are duly grateful to those of their American guests who show rectitude and fairness in their judgment. They are especially grateful to the American High Commissioner and to his assistants who are more liked than any other foreigner in Turkey. The other Americans are also very much liked, even the missionaries, but it would unquestionably better serve the interests of America in the Near East, and civilization as a whole, if there were less missionary and more non-sectarian American enterprises.

I believe that the American friends who were with us and who had been in Constantinople on business for quite a while realized perfectly well what I meant when I said that in my opinion the most desirable thing in the interest of the two countries would be the appearance of an American Pierre Loti. It can be said that the indestructible friendship between France and Turkey, and especially the fact that it has survived the war, has been cemented by the work of this great French writer. He has taken the trouble to study the Turks, he has come and lived with them—not in Pera, but in Stamboul, in the heart of Turkey. He has lived as one of them for years and has learned thoroughly their qualities and their faults. He has knocked and has been admitted, he has opened his heart and all hearts have opened to him and after having thus equipped himself he has gone back to France and has endeavoured to impart his knowledge of the Turks to his countrymen by writing unbiased novels and books. He has, as all novelists, romanticized his message. As the real poet that he is, he has shown Turkey and the Turks through the coloured glasses of poetry. He has perhaps added a few things here and erased a few other things there. But he has made the heart of Turkey talk to the heart of France and they both have come to know and love each other, without prejudice, without religious thought.

A single American Pierre Loti, would render, in the long run, much greater service to the interests of his own country in the Near East and would more efficiently serve the cause of civilization than all the organizations at present engaged in trying to make converts and succeeding only in showing partiality in favour of the people of their own religion by helping and succouring Christians although thousands of destitute Turkish refugees might be dying at their very doors.

After all Pierre Loti has used his exceptional talents as a novelist and poet to bring about a personal touch between the French and the Turks. Is there not an American novelist or poet who is willing to render the same service to his own country? and if there is anyone whose talent is equal to that of Pierre Loti and who has the courage to publish his opinion as the French novelist has done, he can thoroughly count on all the help, assistance and gratitude of the whole Turkish race, much maligned in American literature. Pierre Loti has become immortal through his works on Turkey. The people of Constantinople have built a monument, a fountain, in his honour and have named one of the principal streets of the City after him. His name is cherished by millions of Turks who treat him as a friend, as a brother, when he comes to Turkey. What is most needed for the American propaganda in the Near East is an American Pierre Loti.

Not that the works undertaken and conducted by American enterprises in Turkey are not very laudable in themselves. But they are as insufficient to promote a good and thorough understanding between the two people as the activities of the French missionaries were before the advent of Pierre Loti. The French FrÈres and Sisters of Charity had many schools, many hospitals and orphans asylums where they were doing very good work for many generations. But it took a Pierre Loti to establish the personal bonds of friendship between the two people and to promote, by this fact alone, all French interests in Turkey. He has made the masses of his countrymen at home know and appreciate the Turks at their true value. The work of an American Loti would be the crowning glory of all American enterprises in the Near East.

I explained to our friends that this was my personal opinion only, and that I knew that the Turks appreciated fully the work that American organizations were at present conducting in Turkey, and that my desire to see an American Pierre Loti was exclusively due to a very legitimate wish of seeing my country and my people better known in America, known more intimately and more thoroughly through the eyes of an impartial writer rather than through the eyes of people who might have certain interests in keeping alive the false reputation of the Turks.

Our American friends agreed implicitly with me and pointed out that what surprised them the most on their arrival in Constantinople was to find that all the Americans who were in business or in non-religious work and who had had an opportunity to know the Turks had become without exception real friends of this maligned race. They said that a careful investigation would establish the fact that all those who have written or spoken against the Turks had done so for an ulterior personal motive and they deplored with me the fact that no great American novelist had as yet come to Turkey and popularized in his own country the knowledge of the Turks as they really are.

Thus saying we arrived at the hotel where our friends were stopping and upon their expressing a desire to find out more about Turkish schools and Turkish educational institutions, I promised to arrange for them to visit some of the exclusively Turkish schools and colleges and to take them to call on people who would be able to tell them about modern Turkish education better than I could and we parted until the following week when I was able to keep my promise to them.