Royal Lions
Brotherhood on the Bosporus
Two Yalemen, sons of a missionary named Dwight, had the idea first. They interested a rich New York merchant named Christopher Rhinelander Robert, who in turn interested an oldtime U. S.' missionary in Turkey named Cyrus Hamlin. Merchant & missionary failed, however, to interest His Imperial Majesty Sultan Abdul Aziz of Turkey. Then one fine day an imposing U. S. man-of-war steamed up the Bosporus with Admiral David Farragut aboard, for a courtesy call on the Sultan. His Imperial Majesty hastily reversed himself, handed the U. S. Legation a gracious irade (permit) to build. Hence it happened that in 1869 there began to rise on the Bosporus bluffs five miles from Istanbul and 5,000 miles from Boston an amazing phenomenon--a New England preparatory school & college founded on the notion that mutually hateful young Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, Syrians, Persians could be gathered in Christian harmony, given a sound New England schooling.
Incredibly, Robert College survived and flourished. It found rich U. S. patrons, notably the late Cleveland H. Dodge. Other U. S. educational ventures sprang up in the Near East--Istanbul Woman's College, International College at Izamir, American University of Beirut, American College of Sofia, Athens College. Slowly Near Easterners overcame their fixed idea that all foreign ventures in their lands were for purposes of political or commercial advantage. In time the U. S. colleges, independent but banded together since 1919 in the Near East College Association, were acclaimed as brilliant beacons in the Near East march toward Western enlightenment. Said the late Alumnus Stephan Panaretoff, when he was Bulgarian Minister to the U. S.: "A single graduate of Robert College in his native town or community means more by the influence he exerts than ten college graduates here in America."
Robert's tuition and board fee of $450 per year is a sum which only fairly rich Turks can afford. Hence the college draws its Turkish clientele largely from the prosperous middleclass, which wants its sons trained for business or engineering. The Turkish upper crust may send its daughters to Istanbul Woman's College for culture but in general it sends its sons to Istanbul's ancient native university, Galata Serai. Bulgarians, on the other hand, who have drawn a Premier, two front-rank diplomats and many another leader from the college's alumni, regard Robert as an immensely aristocratic institution.
About one-third of Robert's 54 faculty members are U. S. citizens. Officially they lead a drab, secluded life. Penalty for drinking is instant dismissal. Though Robert is non-sectarian and officially nonproselytizing, the ruling element in the faculty is composed of oldsters rooted in the missionary tradition. But younger facultymen, adventurous college graduates, mostly from the West and Midwest, go out on three-year contracts to see Life. Istanbul has a gay foreign colony and night life.
Last week Robert's sprightlier spirits gained a friend when Walter Livingston ("Livy") Wright Jr. accepted the joint presidency of Robert and Istanbul Woman's Colleges. Simultaneously Princeton lost one of its best-liked, most scholarly professors, raised its list of alumni heading Near East educational institutions to six.
At 35 History Professor Wright looks like Charley Chase, lectures like Floyd Gibbons, plays practical jokes like Joe Cook. Son of the vice president of Lincoln University (for Negroes) at Oxford, Pa., he worked his way through Princeton in the class of 1921 by waiting table, went out to the American University of Beirut to teach history for four years. Scouring the hinterland during vacations, he held off menacing Turks by cleaning his finger nails with a huge dagger. After three years and a Ph. D. at Princeton, he went to Turkey on a graduate fellowship, returned to a Princeton assistant professorship in 1930, specializing in Turkish history. He has an attractive wife, two small sons, never misses his Sunday hike.
No sinecure is President-elect Wright's new job. Robert needs money badly. Depression has shrunk its $6,000,000 endowment, dropped its enrollment from a high of 770 to 450 this year, topped these misfortunes with the 59-c- Roosevelt dollar. President Wright's other problem will be Turkey's Dictator Kamal Ataturk (the onetime Mustafa Kemal Pasha). Ataturk, who periodically adopts his officers' orphaned daughters, has sent several of them to Istanbul Woman's College. But though his Ministry of Education keeps a firm thumb on Robert and Woman's, the idea of foreign-supported, Christian-minded colleges does not sit well with the nationalistic Dictator. As a non-cleric, known for his stout defense of Turkey in the Press, "Livy" Wright, however, should find the going not too hard.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.