American Missionary School.--Visit to the School.--Mr. Hill and the
Male Department.--Mrs. Hill and the Female Department.--Maid of
Athens.--Letter from Mr. Hill.--Revival of Athens.--Citizens of
the World.
THE first thing we did in Athens was to visit the American missionary
school. Among the extraordinary changes of an ever-changing world, it is
not the least that the young America is at this moment paying back the
debt which the world owes to the mother of science, and the citizen of a
country which the wisest of the Greeks never dreamed of, is teaching the
descendants of Plato and Aristotle the elements of their own tongue. I
did not expect among the ruins of Athens to find anything that would
particularly touch my national feelings, but it was a subject of deep
and interesting reflection that, in the city which surpassed all the
world in learning, where Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle taught, and
Cicero went to study, the only door of instruction was that opened by
the hands of American citizens, and an American missionary was the only
schoolmaster; and I am ashamed to say that I was not aware of the
existence of such an institution until advised of it by my friend Dr. W.
In eighteen hundred and thirty the Rev. Messrs. Hill and Robinson, with
their families, sailed from this city (New-York) as the agents of the
Episcopal missionary society, to found schools in Greece. They first
established themselves in the Island of Tenos; but, finding that it was
not the right field for their labours, employed themselves in acquiring
a knowledge of the language, and of the character and habits of the
modern Greeks. Their attention was directed to Athens, and in the spring
of eighteen hundred and thirty-one they made a visit to that city, and
were so confirmed in their impressions, that they purchased a lot of
ground on which to erect edifices for a permanent establishment, and, in
the mean time, rented a house for the immediate commencement of a
school. They returned to Tenos for their families and effects, and again
arrived at Athens about the end of June following. From the deep
interest taken in their struggle for liberty, and the timely help
furnished them in their hour of need, the Greeks were warmly
prepossessed in favour of our countrymen; and the conduct of the
missionaries themselves was so judicious, that they were received with
the greatest respect and the warmest welcome by the public authorities
and the whole population of Athens. Their furniture, printing-presses,
and other effects were admitted free of duties; and it is but justice to
them to say that, since that time, they have moved with such discretion
among an excitable and suspicious people, that, while they have advanced
in the great objects of their mission, they have grown in the esteem and
good-will of the best and most influential inhabitants of Greece; and so
great was Mr. Hill's confidence in their affections, that, though there
was at that time a great political agitation, and it was apprehended
that Athens might again become the scene of violence and bloodshed, he
told me he had no fears, and felt perfectly sure that, in any
outbreaking of popular fury, himself and family, and the property of the
mission, would be respected.[1]
In the middle of the summer of their arrival at Athens, Mrs. Hill
opened a school for girls in the magazine or cellar of the house in
which they resided; the first day she had twenty pupils, and in two
months one hundred and sixty-seven. Of the first ninety-six, not more
than six could read at all, and that very imperfectly; and not more than
ten or twelve knew a letter. At the time of our visit the school
numbered nearly five hundred; and when we entered the large room, and
the scholars all rose in a body to greet us as Americans, I felt a deep
sense of regret that, personally, I had no hand in such a work, and
almost envied the feelings of my companion, one of its patrons and
founders. Besides teaching them gratitude to those from whose country
they derived the privileges they enjoyed, Mr. Hill had wisely
endeavoured to impress upon their minds a respect for the constituted
authorities, particularly important in that agitated and unsettled
community; and on one end of the wall, directly fronting the seats of
the scholars, was printed, in large Greek characters, the text of
Scripture, "Fear God, honour the king."
It was all important for the missionaries not to offend the strong
prejudices of the Greeks by any attempt to withdraw the children from
the religion of their fathers; and the school purports to be, and is
intended for, the diffusion of elementary education only; but it is
opened in the morning with prayer, concluding with the Lord's Prayer as
read in our churches, which is repeated by the whole school aloud; and
on Sundays, besides the prayers, the creed, and sometimes the Ten
Commandments, are recited, and a chapter from the Gospels is read aloud
by one of the scholars, the missionaries deeming this more expedient
than to conduct the exercises themselves. The lesson for the day is
always the portion appointed for the gospel of the day in their own
church; and they close by singing a hymn. The room is thrown open to the
public, and is frequently resorted to by the parents of the children and
strangers; some coming, perhaps, says Mr. Hill, to "hear what these
babblers will say," and "other some" from a suspicion that "we are
setters forth of strange gods."
The boys' school is divided into three departments, the lowest under
charge of a Greek qualified on the Lancasterian system. They were of all
ages, from three to eighteen; and, as Mr. Hill told me, most of them had
been half-clad, dirty, ragged little urchins, who, before they were put
to their A, B, C, or, rather, their Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, had to be
thoroughly washed, rubbed, scrubbed, doctored, and dressed, and, but for
the school, would now, perhaps, be prowling vagabonds in the streets of
Athens, or training for robbery in the mountains. They were a body of
fine-looking boys, possessing, as Mr. Hill told me, in an extraordinary
degree, all that liveliness of imagination, that curiosity and eagerness
after knowledge, which distinguished the Greeks of old, retaining, under
centuries of dreadful oppression, the recollection of the greatness of
their fathers, and, what was particularly interesting, many of them
bearing the great names so familiar in Grecian history; I shook hands
with a little Miltiades, Leonidas, Aristides, &c., in features and
apparent intelligence worthy descendants of the immortal men whose names
they bear. And there was one who startled me, he was the son of the
Maid of Athens! To me the Maid of Athens was almost an imaginary being,
something fanciful, a creation of the brain, and not a corporeal
substance, to have a little urchin of a boy. But so it was. The Maid of
Athens is married. She had a right to marry, no doubt; and it is said
that there is poetry in married life, and, doubtless, she is a much more
interesting person now than the Maid of Athens at thirty-six could be;
but the Maid of Athens is married to a Scotchman! the Maid of Athens is
now Mrs. Black! wife of George Black. Comment is unnecessary.
But the principal and most interesting part of this missionary school
was the female department, under the direction of Mrs. Hill, the first,
and, except at Syra, the only school for females in all Greece, and
particularly interesting to me from the fact that it owed its existence
to the active benevolence of my own country-women. At the close of the
Greek revolution, female education was a thing entirely unknown in
Greece, and the women of all classes were in a most deplorable state of
ignorance. When the strong feeling that ran through our country in
favour of this struggling people had subsided, and Greece was freed from
the yoke of the Mussulman, an association of ladies in the little town
of Troy, perhaps instigated somewhat by an inherent love of power and
extended rule, and knowing the influence of their sex in a cultivated
state of society, formed the project of establishing at Athens a school
exclusively for the education of females; and, humble and unpretending
as was its commencement, it is becoming a more powerful instrument in
the civilization and moral and religious improvement of Greece, than all
that European diplomacy has ever done for her. The girls were
distributed in different classes, according to their age and
advancement; they had clean faces and hands, a rare thing with Greek
children, and were neatly dressed, many of them wearing frocks made by
ladies at home (probably at some of our sewing societies); and some of
them had attained such an age, and had such fine, dark, rolling eyes as
to make even a northern temperament feel the powerful influence they
would soon exercise over the rising, excitable generation of Greeks and
almost make him bless the hands that were directing that influence
aright.
Mr. and Mrs. Hill accompanied us through the whole establishment, and,
being Americans, we were everywhere looked upon and received by the
girls as patrons and fathers of the school, both which characters I
waived in favour of my friend; the one because he was really entitled to
it, and the other because some of the girls were so well grown that I
did not care to be regarded as standing in that venerable relationship.
The didaskalissas, or teachers, were of this description, and they spoke
English. Occasionally Mr. Hill called a little girl up to us, and told
us her history, generally a melancholy one, as, being reduced to the
extremity of want by the revolution; or an orphan, whose parents had
been murdered by the Turks; and I had a conversation with a little
Penelope, who, however, did not look as if she would play the faithful
wife of Ulysses, and, if I am a judge of physiognomy, would never endure
widowhood twenty years for any man.
Before we went away the whole school rose at once, and gave us a
glorious finale with a Greek hymn. In a short time these girls will grow
up into women and return to their several families; others will succeed
them, and again go out, and every year hundreds will distribute
themselves in the cities and among the fastnesses of the mountains, to
exercise over their fathers, and brothers, and lovers, the influence of
the education acquired here; instructed in all the arts of woman in
civilized domestic life, firmly grounded in the principles of morality,
and of religion purified from the follies, absurdities, and abominations
of the Greek faith. I have seen much of the missionary labours in the
East, but I do not know an institution which promises so surely the
happiest results. If the women are educated, the men cannot remain
ignorant; if the women are enlightened in religion, the men cannot
remain debased and degraded Christians.
The ex-secretary Rigos was greatly affected at the appearance of this
female school; and, after surveying it attentively for some moments,
pointed to the Parthenon on the summit of the Acropolis, and said to
Mrs. Hill, with deep emotion, "Lady, you are erecting in Athens a
monument more enduring and more noble than yonder temple;" and the king
was so deeply impressed with its value, that, a short time before my
arrival, he proposed to Mr. Hill to take into his house girls from
different districts and educate them as teachers, with the view of
sending them back to their districts, there to organize new schools, and
carry out the great work of female education. Mr. Hill acceded to the
proposal, and the American missionary school now stands as the nucleus
of a large and growing system of education in Greece; and, very
opportunely for my purpose, within a few days I have received a letter
from Mr. Hill, in which, in relation to the school, he says, "Our
missionary establishment is much increased since you saw it; our labours
are greatly increased, and I think I may say we have now reached the
summit of what we had proposed to ourselves. We do not think it possible
that it can be extended farther without much larger means and more
personal aid. We do not wish or intend to ask for either. We have now
nearly forty persons residing with us, of whom thirty-five are Greeks,
all of whom are brought within the influence of the gospel; the greater
part of them are young girls from different parts of Greece, and even
from Egypt and Turkey (Greeks, however), whom we are preparing to become
instructresses of youth hereafter in their various districts. We have
five hundred, besides, under daily instruction in the different schools
under our care, and we employ under us in the schools twelve native
teachers, who have themselves been instructed by us. We have provided
for three of our dear pupils (all of whom were living with us when you
were here), who are honourably and usefully settled in life. One is
married to a person every way suited to her, and both husband and wife
are in our missionary service. One has charge of the government female
school at the Piraeus, and supports her father and mother and a large
family by her salary; and the third has gone with our missionaries to
Crete, to take charge of the female schools there. We have removed into
our new house" (of which the foundation was just laid at the time of my
visit), "and, large as it is, it is not half large enough. We are trying
to raise ways and means to enlarge it considerably, that we may take
more boarders under our own roof, which we look up to as the most
important means of making sure of our labour; for every one who comes to
reside with us is taken away from the corrupt example exhibited at home,
and brought within a wholesome influence. Lady Byron has just sent us
one hundred pounds toward enlarging our house with this view, and we
have commenced the erection of three additional dormitories with the
money."
Athens is again the capital of a kingdom. Enthusiasts see in her present
condition the promise of a restoration to her ancient greatness; but
reason and observation assure us that the world is too much changed for
her ever to be what she has been. In one respect, her condition
resembles that of her best days; for, as her fame then attracted
strangers from every quarter of the world to study in her schools, so
now the capital of King Otho has become a great gathering-place of
wandering spirits from many near and distant regions. For ages difficult
and dangerous of access, the ancient capital of the arts lay shrouded in
darkness, and almost cut off from the civilized world. At long
intervals, a few solitary travellers only found their way to it; but,
since the revolution, it has again become a place of frequent resort and
intercourse. It is true that the ancient halls of learning are still
solitary and deserted, but strangers from every nation now turn hither;
the scholar to roam over her classic soil, the artist to study her
ancient monuments, and the adventurer to carve his way to fortune.
The first day I dined at the hotel I had an opportunity of seeing the
variety of material congregated in the reviving city. We had a long
table, capable of accommodating about twenty persons. The manner of
living was a la carte, each guest dining when he pleased; but, by tacit
consent, at about six o'clock all assembled at the table. We presented a
curious medley. No two were from the same country. Our discourse was in
English, French, Italian, German, Greek, Russian, Polish, and I know not
what else, as if we were the very people stricken with confusion of
tongues at the Tower of Babel. Dinner over, all fell into French, and
the conversation became general. Every man present was, in the fullest
sense of the term, a citizen of the world. It had been the fortune of
each, whether good or bad, to break the little circle in which so many
are born, revolve, and die; and the habitual mingling with people of
various nations had broken down all narrow prejudices, and given to
every one freedom of mind and force of character. All had seen much, had
much to communicate, and felt that they had much yet to learn. By some
accident, moreover, all seemed to have become particularly interested in
the East. They travelled over the whole range of Eastern politics, and,
to a certain extent, considered themselves identified with Eastern
interests. Most of the company were or had been soldiers, and several
wore uniforms and stars, or decorations of some description. They spoke
of the different campaigns in Greece in which some of them had served;
of the science of war; of Marlborough, Eugene, and more modern captains;
and I remember that they startled my feelings of classical reverence by
talking of Leonidas at Thermopylae and Miltiades at Marathon in the same
tone as of Napoleon at Leipsic and Wellington at Waterloo. One of them
constructed on the table, with the knives and forks and spoons, a map of
Marathon, and with a sheathed yataghan pointed out the position of the
Greeks and Persians, and showed where Miltiades, as a general, was
wrong. They were not blinded by the dust of antiquity. They had been
knocked about till all enthusiasm and all reverence for the past were
shaken out of them, and they had learned to give things their right
names. A French engineer showed us the skeleton of a map of Greece,
which was then preparing under the direction of the French Geographical
Society, exhibiting an excess of mountains and deficiency of plain which
surprised even those who had travelled over every part of the kingdom.
One had just come from Constantinople, where he had seen the sultan
going to mosque; another had escaped from an attack of the plague in
Egypt; a third gave the dimensions of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbeck;
and a fourth had been at Babylon, and seen the ruins of the Tower of
Babel. In short, every man had seen something which the others had not
seen, and all their knowledge was thrown into a common stock. I found
myself at once among a new class of men; and I turned from him who
sneered at Miltiades to him who had seen the sultan, or to him who had
been at Bagdad, and listened with interest, somewhat qualified by
consciousness of my own inferiority. I was lying in wait, however, and
took advantage of an opportunity to throw in something about America;
and, at the sound, all turned to me with an eagerness of curiosity that
I had not anticipated.
In Europe, and even in England, I had often found extreme ignorance of
my own country; but here I was astonished to find, among men so familiar
with all parts of the Old World, such total lack of information about
the New. A gentleman opposite me, wearing the uniform of the King of
Bavaria, asked me if I had ever been in America. I told him that I was
born, and, as they say in Kentucky, raised there. He begged my pardon,
but doubtfully _suggested_, "You are not black?" and I was obliged to
explain to him that in our section of America the Indian had almost
entirely disappeared, and that his place was occupied by the descendants
of the Gaul and the Briton. I was forthwith received into the
fraternity, for my home was farther away than any of them had ever been;
my friend opposite considered me a bijou, asked me innumerable
questions, and seemed to be constantly watching for the breaking out of
the cannibal spirit, as if expecting to see me bite my neighbour. At
first I had felt myself rather a small affair but, before separating,
_l'Americain_, or _le sauvage_, or finally, _le cannibal_ found himself
something of a lion.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Since my return home I have seen in a newspaper an account of a
popular commotion at Syra, in which the printing-presses and books at
the missionaries were destroyed, and Mr. Robinson was threatened with
personal violence.