DESCRIBES CONDITION OF TURKEY SINCE WAR

This is the second of a series of articles on the American colleges in Turkey, by The Reverend John Ernest Merrill, President of the Central Turkey College, Aintab, Turkey. Dr. Merrill, who is one of the educational leaders of the Near East, recently spoke at the University, at the time of the conference on the Christian Ministry.

Our Ford was spinning rapidly over the smooth road from Kilis on Aintab. A few minutes before, we had passed the turn in the road and the stone bridge where Perry and Johnson, the American "Y" secretaries, were killed in 1920, and our chauffeur had pointed out near the road the grave of the Nationalist Turkish leader, Shahin Bey, who had deplored the deed committed by his men, and bad himself been killed almost at the game place, during the French advance.

"Now you'll see the college;" said our interpreter. And sure enough, as we rounded the shoulder of a low hill, we caught sight of a group of buildings in the distance before us, standing on high ground, surrounded by a high wall, and silhouetted against the sky. As we drew nearer, we could see signs of what the buildings had suffered, during the Turkish bombardment, when the French held the college as a fortress. The north wall of one building had a place as large as a room blown out of it. On another building the windows met, because the intervening wall had been shot away.

We drove on past the college to the hospital on the edge of the city, and put up there with Dr. Shepard is the son of the famous "Shepard of Aintab," who died here of typhus in 1915 to take his father's place. he has been in the city all through the fighting. He has counselled and helped besieged Armenians, has tried to make peace between Armenians and Turks, and has received French and Armenian, and now Turkish wounded to the American, hospital, of which he is the head. He is just back from a trip to Beirut, where he was decorated by the French general. This shows the esteem in which he and the work of the Americans are held.

25,000 Armenians Deported

We have visited the city, and seen the destruction there. About 25,000 Armenians were deported from Aintab in 1915, and before the return of the survivors about three thousand houses belonging to Armenians had been destroyed. This devastation has been made good in part and the Armenian quarter rehabilitated during the last two years. But the Turks quarter has been shot to pieces by the French, and is a wreck. Last May, the French were determined to avoid shelling the Turkish quarter so destructively, but they were compelled to it finally by the obstinate resistance of the Nationalists, who surrendered only when they had nothing left to eat. The Turks said that Aintab was their Verdun, and they were determined to defend it at all hazards.

When we were taken to the college, we rode the half mile from the Hospital in our Ford and entered the campus though the college age. But we were cold that people had not been able to do this for nearly a year, and were shown the trenches by which the college had communicated with the city all through the siege. The campus is marked off by walls and trenches, the surrounding wall is pierced for rifle and for machine gun fire, and big guns are still in their places on the top of the hill, pointing in all directions.

We saw the great breaches in the walls of the buildings, and where a Turkish shell had come down through the three stories of College Hall and burst in the basement among the French provisions. They showed us the Professor' residence, where a number of officers and soldiers had been killed or wounded by Turkish cannon fire from a mountain six miles to the north, and where a few minutes later members of a relieving party had met the same fate. We saw the president's house, where there is not a whole pane of glass left, where the long back veranda has been blown away, and where a shell went through one of the bed-romms, but where they say "no serious damage has been done."

College Closed Since 1915

The college has been closed, so far as college work is concerned, since 1915, when the Armenians were deported from Aintab. Several of the teachers were sent into exile, where some of them, died of typhus or were murdered. Three were sent to courtmartial on trumped-up charges, but were finally acquitted--a miracle in Turkey. Several are still living, and are in Turkey or abroad, waiting for the college to re-open. About one-third of the students died during the war. Over fifty of the alumni were murdered or died of disease due to war conditions. More than forty who are physicians were complied to serve in the Turkish army as military, doctors. The college premises were occupied by the Turkish military in 1917 and again in 1918, with the design of securing permanent control of them for the army. In December, 1918, they were occupied by the British (E. E. F.) and in November, 1919, by the French.

The college is unique in a number of ways, and has carried to a high degree of development the share of the native people in its instruction and in native people in its instruction and in management. The professors were almost all of them natives of the country and graduates of the college, with postgraduate training abroad in France of England or Germany of America. There was a Licen en Droit from Pairs, an M.A. from Yale, a Ph.D. From Columbia and there had been a C.E. from Yale--all natives.

Similar to American Colleges

The curriculum has been along the lines of our American colleges, with eleven years of grade and secondary work required for entrance to the Freshman class, and the Junior and Senior classes have been recognized by the Turkish government as of university grade, in the French sense of the term, for the Turkish government schools are organized on the French model.

Just before the war, the faculty were working on the problem of the development of student initiative and responsibility. Their student organizations, Y. M. C. A., Athletic Association and literary societies were genuine student organizations, managed by the students and not by the faculty, with faculty advisory committees. The last step had been the successful inauguration of Self--Government, which many had thought impossible.

Take the example of athletics. In 1899 they had their first Field Day, and all the work was done by an American director. In 1904, the same responsibility was carried by a native instructor, without assistance. In 1914, Field--Day was conducted under the auspices of the Students' Athletic Association.

The students must be great readers, Most of the people of the country are illiterate or read very little. The college has a library of about 7500 volumes, English, Armenian and Turkish. Students are encouraged to read and library work is a required part of the language courses, with the result that the number of books drawn per student during the year has averaged over fifty. Back here in the interior of Turkey, they have had sixty or seventy periodicals regularly on the shelves in the college reading room!

Site Given by Moslem

The fine site on which the college is built was given by a wealthy Moslem, back in the '70s, when the college was founded. His granddaughter's husband, by the way, has just been made governor of the city, under the French. But the Moslems have never been free to benefit from the college without restrictions. In the days of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, they were forbidden to attend, and under the Young Turks a government lycee was opened to keep them from attending. But there is bound to be a great change, when the college re-opens. Even now the Moslems of the city have appealed to the Americans to take charge of their common schools, something unheard of and without parallel in Turkey.

The Armenians had expected that Aintab would be included in Greater Armenia, but since that hope has vanished, they have accepted the situation and have shown a wonderful spirit in making up with and conciliating the Turks. Last February, they found themselves between the Turks and the French, when the former wanted to attack the latter, and were compelled to fight in self-defence, but after seventy days of fighting they were able to resume relations with the Turks. And now after the year of siege, when they find themselves on the side of the French who finally have conquered, instead of seeking revenge from the Turks for all that they have suffered, they have decided to do all in their power to help their Turkish fellow-citizens!

Armenians Resourceful

I have been amazed, not only at this, but at the courage, resiliency and recuperative power of these Armenians and at their resourcefulness. I have listened to story after story of the siege that is just over, telling of their pluck and ability and self-control. Their persistence and their religiousness, too, have impressed me.

Another thing that I must mention is the influence which these American residents, who know the language and the people, have out here with all races and classes. I have seen evidences of it myself, and have heard the stories of how Turks, Armenians and French, all fighting to the death, would stop hostilities to let the Americans rescue a hundred or two orphans or start on a journey that involved crossing the firing lines. America has a tremendous prestige as the disinterested friend of all who are in distress. It is something for us to live up to at home! We think these Americans have given up their lives and buried themselves, but we are mistaken. They are doing a work and wielding an influence that any man might desire and covet.