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.
XII
EDUCATION AND ART
It was very easy to assist my friends in the investigation they wanted
to conduct for their own private information on Turkish schools and
the educational system of Turkey. My father had been twice Minister of
Public Education and he was in a position to give all the information
desired. My first step was, therefore, to take our friends to him and
have him explain the present educational system in our country.
Contrary to what is generally believed in foreign countries education
is obligatory in Turkey and there are fewer illiterates among the Turks
than, for instance, among Russians and other Near Eastern people.
This is principally due to the fact that all Muslims have considered
it their duty ever since the time of the Prophet Mahomed to learn how
to read the Koran. Unfortunately, however, this religious principle
was taken too literally by the average Muslim who, for centuries was
satisfied to learn just the alphabet, as he imagined that as long as he
could read the Holy Book he was accomplishing his religious duty. In
the course of time, therefore, when other nations besides the Arabs
embraced the Muslim faith, the people who did not know Arabic were
also perfectly contented to be able to read the Koran even if they did
not understand its meaning. All Muslim countries having adopted the
Arabic alphabet this very elementary education placed even the greatest
majority of non-Arab Muslims in a position to read their own language.
But it was only a very restricted higher class which took the trouble
of studying its grammar. Thus for centuries only a limited number of
Turks--as was the case with the Muslims of other nations--were learned
enough to read and write fluently their own languages, although the
greatest majority knew enough of the alphabet to be able to read the
Koran and to sign their names.
Of course this restricted knowledge of reading cannot count as
education, but when it is considered that the science of reading was
so neglected among the nations of the West that practically up to
the period of Louis XIV very few of the Western nobles knew even how
to sign their names or to decipher the simplest document, it will
be admitted that anyhow the rudimentary knowledge of the East was
preferable to the almost total ignorance of the West.
However, as in everything else, Turkey made very little progress
in this matter of education during the nineteenth century with the
result that while the percentage of people who had acquired a high
school education had increased in a very large proportion in the West,
the past generation in Turkey had still only the same proportion of
educated people as it had a century ago. The number of people who
knew the elementary principals of the alphabet was as considerable
as before, and was proportionately much larger than the number of
people who had this elementary knowledge in Western countries. But
the percentage of really educated people was proportionately much
smaller in Turkey than in the progressive Western countries. In other
words, although complete illiteracy was almost nonexistent in Turkey,
education was the property of a comparatively small number of people.
The educational level of the people at large was, and still is, much
lower than the educational level of the people of Western European
nations.
This explains the reason why one can see even to-day in the streets
of Constantinople, generally in the courtyard of the mosques, public
secretaries taking letters from old men and women of the lower classes,
poor people who do not know grammar enough to write their own letters
but who nevertheless are able to spell their names or to laboriously
decipher a printed document and it is no wonder that foreigners are
generally sceptical when told that the number of total illiterates is
very small in Turkey.
Much has been done, however, during the last generation to spread
education in Turkey and a new system of schools has been grafted
upon the old system which consisted almost exclusively in small
public schools--“Mahalle Mektebi” or District Schools as they are
called--where small children are taught the rudimentary principles of
the alphabet.
These District Schools exist by the millions all over Turkey, in cities
as well as in the country. Each mosque--and there are millions of
them--has its own private District School where the imam or clergyman
teaches the children of his district, boys and girls, how to read the
Koran. The classes, if they might be called by that name, are mostly
held in summer in the courtyard of the mosques and in winter in a room
which, for lack of a better name, we will describe as the vestry. It
is obligatory for every family living in the district and it has been
obligatory for centuries, to send their children to these schools if
they cannot afford to give them a private education. Needless to say
that these schools are absolutely gratis.
The District Schools of Turkey are a sort of primitive community
Kindergarten from which games and plays are strictly banned. Their
purpose is to teach children how to read the Koran, and reading the
Koran is a very serious matter. So, for two hours every day except
Fridays little boys and little girls from five to about eight years old
go to the mosque of their district where the classes are held. Sitting
on the ground in summer and in winter on straw mats, they form a circle
around their teacher, the imam of the district, who teaches them in a
monotonous chant the secrets of the alphabet They squat on their knees,
these little boys and girls, and repeat the chant of their teacher,
keeping time with their little bodies which they swing slowly backwards
and forwards and beware of a mistake! The little pupil who makes one,
who indulges in a childish prank or who does not behave according
to the severe discipline which must be respected by everyone who is
learning how to read the Koran or who is in the exhalted presence of an
imam, is reminded of his misdeed by the swift application of a long,
willowy stick on his hands or on some other part of his anatomy. The
teacher keeps this stick right next to him, right under his hand, and
is very quick to use it.
The alphabet is first memorized, each letter being accurately
described. Of course the Turkish alphabet is different from the Latin
alphabet, but the system could be applied to the Latin alphabet more
or less as follows: “A is a triangle with a bar in the middle”--“B is
a vertical bar with two circles on the right”--“C is a crescent facing
to the right.” Thus the whole alphabet is described in a monotonous
chant for days and months until the pupils can visualize it thoroughly.
Then the sounds of syllables are memorized according to the same
system and it is only after this has been done thoroughly that the
children are permitted to apply the knowledge they have thus acquired
by memory. They are each furnished with a Koran and they are taught
to read it aloud. Of course, as the understanding of the text of the
Koran requires a thorough knowledge of Arabic, they do not understand
what they read and those who desire to acquire this knowledge have to
go to the Medressé or theological schools, of which we will talk later.
The purpose of the district schools is exclusively to teach them how
to read, and when this is done the course of the district school is
finished.
In the old days obligatory education only extended as far as the
district school. This is not so any more. During the past twenty-five
or thirty years the Government has created high schools in the
principal cities and towns of the country where modern education is
imparted as well as the restricted means of the impoverished nation
allows. The courses of these high schools are also free and their
program is meant to prepare the pupils for college studies. They are
obligatory only for boys. The system is good enough, but for lack of
funds and for lack of peace the Government has not been able to apply
it thoroughly and to extend it as much as it was originally expected.
The study of foreign languages is only optional and very theoretic
in these schools where only the elements of arithmetic, grammar,
literature and history are taught.
The next grade is the college which corresponds to the French Lycée
and which is an absolute adaptation to Turkey of the French program.
The first college of this kind in Turkey was Galata Serai which was
organized nearly half a century ago and has ever since kept pace
with the French Lycées. As its diploma is recognized by the French
Government as equivalent to that of any Governmental French College
this institution is a sort of joint Turco-French enterprise and is
used as pattern by the other Turkish Colleges. Upon the invitation
of the Turkish Government the French Ministry of Public Education
organized Galata Serai and the French cooperation in this non-sectarian
and exclusively educational institution has continued ever since its
formation, regardless of wars or political entanglements. The French
language is of course obligatory and the study of another foreign
language is encouraged. The principal courses are given during the
first three years in Turkish and during the last two years before
graduation in French. An institution of this kind, but with the
cooperation of America and where American teachers and principals
should take the place of French teachers and principals, would do more
for the spreading of modern education on practical lines, for the
advancement of civilization by bringing up future Turkish generations
capable of rationally adapting to the Near East the principles of
democracy as conceived by the Americans than many missionary schools.
The other Turkish Colleges are modelled after Galata Serai, with
the difference that while French or one other foreign language is
obligatory all courses are given in Turkish, and their teachers and
principals are Turks. Although these institutions are not free the
tuition fees are so nominal that the Government is obliged to subzidize
them. At present the fees for the yearly courses are equivalent to
about a hundred and fifty dollars, including lodging and food, and
for the purpose of making it easier to the very much impoverished
population the Government consents to a substantial discount on these
fees to the children and relatives of Government employees.
Here also lack of funds has greatly hampered the organization of these
colleges throughout Turkey. While it was the original program to
open one such college in every city, the Government has been able to
organize and maintain only about five of them throughout the country,
and as only three are for boys and two for girls it can readily be seen
that they do not suffice for the requirements of Turkey.
In addition to these schools and colleges there are in Turkey many
academies and universities where college graduates are able to
specialize in the different branches they have selected. Most of
these academies and universities are in Constantinople, and while the
greatest majority are supported by the Government some of them owe
their existence to private endowments.
In late years, that is up to the Armistice, the Government had
given special attention principally to two institutions: the Naval
Academy and the Medical Academy. The signing of the Armistice with
the consequent dismantling of the Turkish navy brought, of course, a
great setback to the Naval Academy which is now fighting for its life
against tremendous odds. Naturally the navy of Turkey being reduced to
practically nothing very few families desire to send their children
to the Academy. In addition the foreigners who control Constantinople
do not look with a very favourable eye upon the maintenance of this
Academy for fear of its keeping alive a militaristic spirit. They do
their utmost to encourage its closing. This is the more regrettable
that in the last fifteen years the Academy had been reorganized so
thoroughly that it was in all points comparable to any of the best
high-grade educational institutions of the world. As its manager told
me once, the purpose of the Academy was to form real men so that the
cadets who had graduated would be in a position to enter into any
branch of modern activity in case they decided, after their graduation,
to quit the navy. The best proof that the Academy has most efficiently
lived up to this principle is that after the Armistice and when the
fleet was dismantled all the naval officers who were obliged to leave
the navy succeeded in making a living, and many of them have been most
successful in their new activities as business men. It would be a
shame if an institution which had so markedly succeeded in forming a
generation of real men was obliged to close its doors. An institution
for forming generations of real men should not be allowed to die just
because of the dismantlement of the fleet.
The Medical Academy is another institution which has done a most
efficient work of civilization in Modern Turkey. It can be said that
the Turkish “intelligentsia” consists mostly of doctors and medical
students. The generation of Turkish physicians which the Medical
Academy has formed has taken a lead among European medical circles
and many are the Turkish doctors whose knowledge, activities and
discoveries in medical science have earned them professorships in
France and Germany. The Medical Academy, which is situated in a large
modern building near the station of Haidar Pasha, the headline of the
Bagdad Railroad, is completely equipped with all the requirements of
modern science. It also maintains special courses for nurses, which are
now very popular among Turkish women.
It would be tedious to talk at length of all the industrial schools
that have been organized in the past ten or fifteen years in Turkey.
Suffice it to say that quite a number of them are in existence.
But a special mention should be made of the two universities of
Constantinople as they are up to date in every respect. One of these
universities is exclusively for women, the other is open to both sexes,
and any one who has seen a mixed course where young Turkish women, in
their becoming tcharshaf, sit on the same benches and study side by
side with men students can only wonder how the legend of the seclusion
of Turkish women can still receive credence in foreign countries.
In concluding His rapid outline of Turkish schools and the Turkish
educational system, my father mentioned the different art schools which
are now prospering in Turkey as well as the medressés or theological
schools where the Muslim religion is taught. I could see that our
American friends were especially interested in these two subjects and
as we were leaving my father's house I was not surprised to have my
impression confirmed. They wanted to know more about Turkish art and
they wanted to learn something about the Muslim religion. Of course I
cannot say that this surprised me.
Whenever the word “art” is pronounced in connection with Turkey, it
awakens in the mind of the westerners, especially the Americans, only
carpets, embroideries and laces, and dark-skinned, thick-eyebrowed
Armenian merchants trying to sell at exorbitant prices these dainty art
works of the Orient--purchased by them for a song generally from some
poor women who have used their eyes, their health and their time for
the ultimate purpose of bringing some soothing touch of colour into
the modern homes of Europe and America, and many many dollars, pound
sterlings, or napoleons, as the case may be, into the bank accounts
of the dark-skinned, thick-eyebrowed merchants. Even to an American
or a westerner who has been in Turkey as a tourist the word “Turkish
art” does not convey much more. In addition to carpets, embroideries
and laces he may visualize some musty copper brazero, some delicate
handwritings with painted arabesques of flowers, some richly painted
porcelains or embossed leather bindings. All things which spell old
age. In modern art he would only visualize some Oriental jewels--made
in Germany! Few are the foreigners who think of Turkish art in the
light of regular paintings, architecture or music and when they hear of
art schools their curiosity is excited.
As far as the Muslim religion is concerned westerners are, as a rule,
even more ignorant on this subject than on that of art. They think of
the Muslims as unbelievers, as pagans who deny God and the Christ, as
fatalists who calmly await the fulfilment of the prophecies without
having enough sense to get out of the rain even when it pours. The
only activities they give the Muslims credit for are massacres and
atrocities. They believe that theirs alone is a religion of love and
mercy while that of the Muslim is one of fire and blood. I remember
that an American from Pittsburg, upon hearing that I was a Muslim,
asked me what god I adored, and absolutely refused to believe that I
adored the One Almighty God. He had heard that we prayed to Allah. Say
what I would I could not at first explain to him that “Allah” in Arabic
means God in English, and he was only half convinced when I told him
that at that rate the French were also unbelievers as they prayed to
“Dieu.”
But the request of our American friends was not one that could be
immediately satisfied as I had to make the necessary arrangements to
visit the art schools and medressés and I had to await an opportunity
to put them in contact with people who could tell them more of Turkish
art and of the Muslim religion than I could. It was therefore only a
few days later that I could arrange to take them to the Academy of Art
of Constantinople, the principal school of its kind in the Near East,
where no other city--not even Athens, which is still considered as the
cradle of art--can boast of as complete and progressive an art academy.
The academy is located in the Park of the Old Seraglio, right next to
the Imperial Museum. They are both under the same management, and as
we arrived on the large plaza, shaded by old trees, we were received
by the secretary of the manager, a cousin of mine, whom I had asked to
show us through the place so as to give all available information to
our friends.
He took us through the building where different classes for drawing,
painting and modelling were being held in different rooms. The
class-rooms are large, all whitewashed and lighted by skylights and
big windows. The whole place is kept immaculately clean. The students
are quite numerous and our American friends were surprised to see
that there were as many Turkish girls studying art as men. “We always
thought of Turkish women as hot-house flowers,” they said, “and we were
very much surprised to see when we arrived here how many of them take
an active part in business and in the every-day life of the community.
We imagined that those who were thus active were doing it out of
necessity because they had to earn a living. We could not conceive that
Turkish women would work of their own choice, and especially would
spend time in studying art which, after all, is a luxury.”
Kadry Bey, the secretary of the manager, smiled and said: “Woman is the
materialization of art: is it surprising that, now that Turkish women
have acquired their entire emancipation, they should desire to study a
science the knowledge of which gives a better appreciation of their
own attribute, beauty? As soon as these classes were opened to Turkish
women only a few years ago, they flocked in great number to take full
advantage of the opportunity and you can judge for yourself how hard
they are working. Some of them have already acquired a certain renown,
and one of them, a former pupil of this academy, Moukbile Hanoum, has
just written us from Switzerland where she is visiting, that one of her
pictures had been awarded a medal at an international exhibition in
Berne.”