#42: Orphans and refugees (1924)
"About half of our students were homeless and alone in the
world. Several stayed during the summer vacation and served
with the skilled workmen who built our dormitory. Refugee
ships were still coming in so loaded that people could not
lie down even on the open deck without more or less lying
one on another. As a ship drew up to the wharf we could
sometimes see haggard exiles looking shoreward, nudging one
another, and then indicate some of us Americans, glad to feel
that they had some friends standing by them in the land of
their pilgrimage. Macedonian Turks filled the streets and
lanes of our city, anxious for their turn to go, since it
was "Kismet".
In September the attendance of boys at the Mission School
for Girls was discontinued, and thirty-six were added to
our boys at half tuition rates, that is, $20.00 each, for
the first year. The Girls School carried on with increased
efficiency for its real constituency. Of our 157 boys,
about half were boarders and about half were Armenians,
with about one-hundred applicants refused admission for
lack of adequate facilities. The Armenians realized a
condition of urgent need. Some other peoples and nations
were disappointed with the outcome of the great war, but
I do not think any would want to exchange places with
the Armenians at that time. They were left without an
independent country. In Greece and elsewhere they were
foreigners; really intruders. They had not a national
system of organized schools accessible and they appealed
to their old Anatolia friends. There were thirteen regular
teachers in our staff, including Mrs. Bertha Arnold, a
lady of experience as a teacher, who came over to the
Near East with her daughters and was available for some
of our special classes. Mr. Hadji Kyriakos, a graduate of
the International College at Smyrna, Mr. Samuel Arukian,
from the School of Religion in Athens, joined our staff, as
did others in due time whose names are included elsewhere
in that list of teachers. Every student had an English
lesson every day taught by a native English speaker.
During the summer, Mr. and Mrs. Compton had finished
their work in charge of the one Turkish orphanage, that
is, an orphanage for Turkish children, maintained by the
Near East Relief and they called to visit us on their
way home to America for a furlough, needed and earned.
Mr. Compton and I climbed the height of Kara Tepe
together and I felt like Abraham and Isaac as we viewed
the landscape and seascape o'er; with the city, the harbor,
the Aegean gulf with various fringes of bordering land,
and Mount Olympus on beyond. It was a thrilling spectacle
but Mr. Compton would give no indication what their decision
would be in regard to returning from America to the College
after their furlough. The next March told the next chapter
of the story."
NEXT: The final decision (1925)
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