367.1164 Brusa School Trial/5
The Ambassador in Turkey ( Grew ) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 17.]
Sir: With reference to my telegram No. 8 of January 31, 3 p.m., I have the honor to report the facts concerning the closing of the American Mission School at Brussa so far as it has been possible to gather them. My information comes from Mr. Goodsell, Field Secretary of the Turkish Mission for the American Board, Mr. Hare, Vice Consul,49 and Miss King, correspondent of the Associated Press, Mr. Hare and Miss Ring having proceeded to Brussa and therefore having had an opportunity to investigate the situation on the spot.
The charge against the school by the Turkish educational authorities is that religious propaganda had been carried on which had resulted in the conversion of at least three of the Moslem girl students to Christianity. Whatever the method employed, there seems to be no doubt that the charge of proselytizing has been sustained. It appears that the happy nature and serenity of Miss Edith Saunderson [Sanderson], one of the teachers, had led these students to inquire of her how she came by these desirable qualities and that this had led to informal conferences in which Miss Saunderson had described the spiritual forces of Christianity so effectively that the girls had become actively interested in the subject. This much Miss Saunderson acknowledges freely and accepts full responsibility for her actions. It is difficult, however, to determine the actual extent to which this informal instruction was carried on. Mr. Goodsell is under the impression that Miss Saunderson confined herself merely to answering the girls’ questions. Miss Ring informs me, however, [Page 967] that Bibles were given to them and that they were frequently found reading the Bibles in a small group. She reports the statement of an American who visited the school last year to whom Miss Saunderson pointed out a group of Moslem students reading under the trees and said to him: “What do you think they are doing? They are studying the Bible, but don’t let anyone know about it.” While these conversions do not appear to have led to actual baptism, nevertheless there seems to be no doubt that whatever the method employed and however informal the means, the charge of proselytizing cannot be denied.
The matter appears to have come to a head in the following way. The girls in question had been accustomed to record in their diaries their talks with Miss Saunderson. Some two months ago these diaries were stolen from under their pillows and were sent to the Turkish educational authorities who had the pertinent passages translated into Turkish and forwarded to the Ministry of Public Instruction in Angora. The theft of the diaries appears to have been carried out by certain students who are hostilely inclined either to the school or to the owners of the diaries, in possible co-operation with a Turkish teacher who had been dismissed on account of her undesirable influence in the school and who may have taken this method of giving effect to her resentment. Under instructions from the Ministry of Public Instruction, Bedjet Bey, Director of Public Instruction in Constantinople, proceeded to Brussa and made an investigation in co-operation with the local representative of the Ministry. It was on the basis of this report that the Ministry’s decision to close the school and to institute legal action was taken.
The Turkish press, from which I enclose clippings with translations,50 has been inflammatory and has called upon Turkish parents to take their children away from these mission schools lest they be contaminated by foreign influence. A resolution to this effect is reported also to have been passed by a group of students in Angora and I understand that a number of girls were withdrawn from the school at Brussa before the decision to close the school had been announced. There was anxiety at one time that the Ministry might proceed to close all of the American mission schools but this is today announced not to be the case. Certain newspapers have made it clear that the American Colleges are entirely separate from the missionary organization and should therefore not suffer as a result of the Brussa incident. Nevertheless, the authorities of Robert College and the Constantinople Woman’s College deplore the incident owing to its possible ultimate effect on all American educational institutions in the eye of public opinion.
[Page 968]Mr. Goodsell has not asked for intervention by the Embassy and up to the announcement of the closing of the school he was of the opinion that representations by the Embassy to the Turkish authorities would do more harm than good in that they would be resented in Angora, with which I agreed. Hussein Bey who has recently returned from Angora and who, as the Department is aware, is a friend of American educational activities in Turkey, tells me that Ismet Pasha and other members of the Cabinet are much stirred up over the incident and were determined from the first to close the school if the reports of religious propaganda should be confirmed. I therefore feel, and so reported to the Department in my telegram No. 8, January 31, 3 p.m., that intervention by the Embassy at present would be useless and unwise as such action would merely cause resentment without altering the decision of the authorities. I realize that American public opinion may expect action on the part of the Embassy but am hopeful that the nature of the press reports from Turkey will have made it abundantly clear that the school at Brussa has broken faith with the Turkish Government and that therefore while its closing is to be deplored, the action of the Turkish authorities cannot properly be resented.
In examining the legal basis for the Government’s action, I can find no applicable provisions of law except possibly Articles 266 and 272 of the Turkish Civil Code providing that the parents shall dispose of the religious education of minor children and that if the parents themselves do not fulfill their duty in the matter, the judge shall take the necessary measures for the protection of the child. Mr. Goodsell tells me furthermore that while he knows of no law specifically forbidding religious propaganda in the schools, nevertheless the head mistress or director of each school has been obliged by the Ministry of Public Instruction to sign an undertaking to that effect and he presumes that Miss Jillson,51 the head mistress of the school at Brussa, did sign such an undertaking on behalf of that institution, although he does not possess a copy. Although the Ministry of Public Instruction has announced that legal action would be taken against those responsible for the alleged proselytizing, it is not yet clear what form this action, if any, will take.
A slight complication has been interjected into the situation by the discovery by the Turkish authorities that Miss Jillson, head mistress of the school at Brussa, had an official American Consular Agency shield displayed on the wall of her house although not in a prominent place. On this fact appearing in the press, I immediately requested Mr. Allen52 to send Mr. Hare, Vice Consul, to Brussa to take possession of the shield and to investigate the reasons for its possession by Miss Jillson. Mr. Hare, who has returned to Constantinople with the [Page 969] shield, reports that when the Consular Agency was closed in 1917, Mr. Erwin F. Lange, then Consular Agent, turned over some of the consular effects, including the shield, to the American School for safekeeping. Miss Jillson states that while aware that she was not officially the Consular Agent, nevertheless she had from time to time undertaken work in Brussa for the American High Commission which had approved of her retaining the shield. She surrendered it with considerable reluctance.
I cannot avoid the feeling that the incident at Brussa is only one step in the ultimate closing of most of the American and other mission schools in this country, an opinion which I find is largely shared by Americans and foreigners in Constantinople. The Minister of Public Instruction is, I believe, opposed to their existence as they are continually under suspicion of conducting the very activities which have occurred at Brussa and which even under a secular Government are held to be opposed to Turkish nationalism. Information which has reached me from a number of sources, particularly from Mr. Belin,53 Professor von der Osten and others, who have been in touch with the American schools in Anatolia, have indicated that however conscientious the American Board may be in complying scrupulously with the Turkish regulations, the atmosphere in these schools is inevitably a religious one and that the teachers cannot abstain from taking advantage of such opportunities for imparting instruction in Christianity as occurred in the case of Miss Saunderson at Brussa. I have discussed the subject frankly with Mr. Goodsell who sees the situation clearly and who is already taking steps to conform to suggestions from the Ministry of Public Instruction that more technical and fewer academic subjects be adopted in their curricula. I believe also that much would be gained if the older teachers who were here under the capitulations could gradually be replaced by younger teachers possessing a more modern attitude towards the whole question of American education in Turky.
I have [etc.]