The colleges represented at the conference and a large number of secondary schools in Turkey have all been founded, and are administered, as definitely Christian institutions. The donors whose generosity has made possible their equipment, support, and endowment, have been actuated by the desire to offer to the youth of the Levant opportunities for Christian education. The founders and the leaders, as a rule, have been officially connected with the missions of the American board. The colleges are all organized on the same general plan, and offer preparatory and college courses leading to the bachelor's degree in eight or nine years. Robert College is now also offering graduate instruction in a well-equipped and strongly manned graduate school of engineering. The Syrian Protestant College has long had a number of professional schools, medicine, dentistry, commerce, pharmacy, and nursing. The necessity of the student's giving a disproportionate amount of his time to language studies makes the satisfactory arrangement of the curriculum a difficult task. In the first place, every student must gain a mastery of English, the one common language, and the medium of instruction. French, perhaps still the most widely used European language in the Levant, though the use of English is on the increase, is also deemed necessary by most students. Then every student must have thorough training in both the modern and the classical forms of his native language, be it Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Arabic, or Bulgarian. Engineering students need German; those preparing for certain European and American universities must have Latin. In general, thorough proficiency in at least three languages is required of all candidates for graduation. In addition to the languages, instruction is offered in the usual secondary and college subjects: Mathematics, history, literature, natural sciences, political science, and philosophy. Increasingly the standards are approaching those of American colleges, and graduates of the colleges have frequently proved their right to graduate standing in the best American universities. In all of the colleges a large percentage, and in some a large majority, of the students are boarders. General dormitories, with beds for 15 to 35 students are the rule, rather than private rooms or suites, as in the colleges in America. Experience has proved that a much greater degree of surveillance is necessary for students in Turkey than in America. Some of the colleges have gymnasiums equal to those of American colleges, with athletic work in charge of trained directors. The American colleges have done much to introduce athletics into native schools. For many years there were few Moslem Turks in the American colleges. Since the constitution of 1908, however, a considerable number have enrolled, and their proportion is steadily increasing. The future of the American colleges in Turkey would seem to be assured. Fifty years ago, when Robert and Syrian Protestant Colleges began their work, they were confessedly experiments. But the increase in the number of colleges and their enlarging constituency indicate that they are filling a real need in the Turkish Empire. Robert College, with permanent endowment funds approximating a million and three quarters dollars and real estate valued at nearly a million more, is as strong as many well-known colleges in America. Syrian Protestant College has a large plant and a substantial endowment. Constantinople and International Colleges, although without endowments, have demonstrated their ability to find friends able to supply them with splendid equipment and enlarged facilities, and their permanence seemed assured. The four colleges of the interior have small endowments but strong friends, who are determined that their work shall go on. Five of the colleges receive annual grants from the D. Willis James Fund for Higher Educational Work Abroad, administered by the American board, and all depend largely upon the tuitions paid by their students. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS. In 1913-14 Robert College, the oldest and the most renowned of the group, took possession of Anderson Hall and Henrietta Washburn Hall, the latest of the additions to its equipment, which were provided for by the extension scheme, involving half a million dollar, undertaken in 1910. Constantinople College, the American college for girls, has moved from Scutari to the heights of Arnaoutkey, just below Robert College, where a splendid group of buildings costing approximately three quarters of a million dollars has been erected. The International College at Smyrna celebrated on January 15, 1914, the formal inauguration of its new campus and buildings located at the suburb of Paradise, just south of the city of Smyrna. Originally the institution was located in the Basmahane quarter of Smyrna, where it reached the maximum size possible in such limited quarters. As a result of large gifts received in 1910-11 it was transferred to the new location, where it occupies three large buildings and nearly a dozen smaller buildings. The amount already expended by the college for new grounds and buildings exceeds $150,000. Syrian Protestant College, at Beirut, has opened West Hall, a great social-center building modeled after the association type in the United States. Anatolia College, at Marsovan, boasts a new library building, and other interior colleges reported less extensive additions to their material equipment. The expenditure for new buildings of nearly a million and a half dollars within a few years in a small group of American colleges in a foreign country is in itself a significant fact. But in addition to the material equipment which has been placed at the disposal of these colleges, each one has considerably increased its faculty and strengthened its work in view of the new conditions brought about by the political changes in the Turkish Empire. According to advices received as this matter goes to press, Robert College and Constantinople College have continued their operations throughout the current year, notwithstanding the war. The following table shows in detail the distribution of students in the eight American colleges, by departments, and their status in respect to boarding and nationalities: Students of the American colleges in the Turkish Empire 1913–14. 1 When two dates are given, one represents incorporation and the other when instruction began. 2 Medical, 182; commerce, 57; pharmacy, 32; nurses, 20; dentistry, 17. 8 Includes Syrians, 519; Egyptians, 160; Persians, 29, etc. 4 Training class for nurses. CHAPTER XXXV. MODERN EDUCATION IN BRITISH INDIA AND CHINA. BRITISH INDIA. The series of annual reports on education in India, which was started in 1914, as noted in the last annual Report of the Commissioner of Education, has been continued by the publication of the second number of the series, issued from the central education office at Delhi during the current year. In the introduction to this report, which has been received as this matter goes to press, attention is called to the fact that it deals with the year in which the effects of the European war were already felt on education in India. Financial stringency interrupted the imperial grants for education, measures for repressing the alien influences in the Empire became necessary, and the ranks of those engaged in educational work were depleted. Notwithstanding these difficulties, progress is reported in respect to nearly every department of education, which is largely due to the increased activity of the provincial governments. Among particulars of special interest brought out in this record is the increase in the number of girls attending public institutions; the establishment of a college for women in Madras, the third institution of that kind in the Presidency; the provision of a residence for women students attending King George's Medical College at Lucknow, in the United Provinces; and the increase in schools for instruction in domestic and feminine arts, especially in Burma. The Victoria School for Girls, in the Punjab, an outcome of private efforts, has been taken over by the Government and turned into a model institution in which the teaching of the lower classes is to proceed entirely on kindergarten and Montessori methods. The seven years closing with March 31, 1914, were marked by an increase of 1,343,000 pupils in public primary schools for boys. During the current year the increase continued, though at a diminished rate. In the province of secondary education the scheme of medical inspection of schools sanctioned for Bombay has been maintained. In Burma schools and pupils have been brought under the inspection |