The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-10
gUE WOMEN OF TURKEY.
!, interesting Address by DR.. Green
" on Their Mode Of Living.
u., and Mothers at Eleven Years-Their
Lives of Pitiable Ignorance and ServItude
What the Missionaries Have Done.

II.
=. smoke yesterday afternoon to meeting of
pOp a. the MayAower Congregational Church
'" n. said that when DR.. William Goodell,
s-.t Congregational missionary to that
y" .,rv reached Constantinople in 1881, with
-;fs and two children, he found a great city
oilliou of people. Half million of these
Mobammedan Turks. about 100 GEO Greeks,
..rne number of Armenians, 5O,O0OJews, so,
"a Europeans, besides people from
.L.- nations gathered there How
cot an introduction to this
Aid was his question. He had been at
Mia and Palestine. and in the years spent at
.h.ss nlsces he had been gaining knowledge of
a. Turkish language, and when he came to Con-
,.u.;ronle he had also learned the modern
- His first introduction was to a number
..craek gentlemen IN Constantinople. This in
..odnction led to the opening of a Greek school
=. bovs into which Dr. Goodel introduced the
American system of teaching. of which
:. mad told the Greek gentlemen.
Tba schools there previous to the
.oorinc Of this one had been in some dark. dis
vi room of a mosque, church or synagogue.
sitting on the floor each hoy, rocking backward
nd forward with q see-saw motion, howled his
LAGOON which consisted according to whether
.La school was Mohammedan, Jewish, Greek or
Armenian, in bowling passages from tue Koran,
I tba Bible or ancient verses or Scriptures. The
Ain was prodgous The teacher was there with
nod to rap the lads if they stopped their bowling
~ ceased their see saw. This is still they sys-
so,n in parts of Turkey to-day. DR.. Goodells
method was approved, and soon he was asked to
b svtend il to an Armenian boys school, and then
n a school of Turkish boys. Ahzim Bey, Turk
n yrbo had long been in England. said, respect ting
this new system: Hitherto everything that
has been learned in our schools has been
utterly valueless. The men have been
q donkeys. 1t is now becoming possible for our
Il donkevs 70 become men," To show how the
GOOD work spread. in one week DR.. Goodell Or
eanized twenty schools among the Greeks of
Constantinople alone. But these were not re-
ligious schools, though he had pleased the peo-
ne of all these natlOnalities in Constantinople
Then Dr. Dwight took the work in hand, and it
spread to Smyrna and other cities of the empire,
and then the missionaries had nothing further
TO do with them They had incurred no expense,
and they had not been introduced for any re-
n hgious object.
Turkish woman in the empire who knew how to
read 1t might be that the wife of some high
dignitary could read, but nobody knew of such
fact Dr. Goodell thought he would suggest to
these same Greek gentlemen to establish schools
N for girls So in 1882, school for Greek girls
was established, with twenty seven pupils. under
Dr. GOodelPs direction. When the Patriarch of
" the Greek Church heard of this school for girls,
N be called a meeting of the holy synod.
This composed of all the
leading bishops of the Greek Church,
and IN solemn conclave they concluded to sit
down upon this thing of girls schools. They
came to the conclusion that school for girls
was unnecessary; that their mothers and their
mothers mothers, and so on back into remote
antiquity, had learned how to work. and had not
learned to read and write. and had got on rea-
Unably we'll and that all that was required of a
woman were the two functions. to work and to
raise a family. Mind and so1l they made
no note Of They sad further, that
it was dangerous, for if girls could
write they would be indicting love-letters to
young men. Then they uttered an anathema
against any parents who should send their girls
10 school. That put stop to the girls schools
for thirteen long years In 1916 the parents of
girls holding evangelical views gave their
daughters, and another school was started, I'M
der Miss Lowell, the first lady missionary from
this country. The school afterward passed
into the hands of Miss Maria West, who has
published book called THE Romance of Mis-
sions7 From l845 to 1862 this school was
boarding school-was the first female school in
Turkey; and what great good 1t has &C
eompished. In the meatime young men were
being educated for teachers, preachers and
PASTORS AhtSe young men mlRnL take uneuucaLfu
urls for wives, but they would not be proper
hepmeets, and here the girls of the boarding
school came to take their proper places as
the wives Of these young men. Then
we had the complete missionary
T. was r sss was va great oti Ting e
girls for several reasons. Girls from ten years
OLD and upwards. even among other religiOnists
man mohammedans, do not associate with boys
ihey become wives at twelve and thirteen years
old
How can bring before your minds the case
81 glr In one of these native families? When
snes porn there are no congratulations. as
When boy Is born, but there is sorrow in the
household This is because of the general pow
erty OF the eountry-a boy born into the family
be burden. From her earliest years
she is a drudge. She is not taught to read and
Wrte or sing or pray. If wood water are
70 De brought, the boy is not sent to bring it,
ou' the girl. She is kept drudge until she be-
cones twelve years Old Then the supreme de-
sIe OF every family in that land is to marry her
Vt-get rid of her. There are women 60 be-
tWeens, match makers. and the go between is
employed to go about and find the parents of a
!Ouhg man who may need a wfe-to search for
husband for the girl And when such
parents are found there is much running to and
20 Tor the go-between in regard to the dover to
Oe paid by the parents of the girl The boys
parents want El00-$300 Too much say the
& girls parents: Zoo is all we afford: and per
haps at last they agree upon f75 Then the
money has to he borrowed at ~ per cent and
'he girls father puts himself under a burden
nat it may take many years to relieve
aim from. And that is burder
under which thousands of poor persons in rur
keY groan to-day Do you wonder they are no
peased when daughter is born2 And then the
poor girl goes to be a drudge in the husbands
ISmliy, to work for her husbands father anC
mother TO cook their victuals TO wait upon
.oen at their meals, and then to take her por
aoh The food they may leave. An answer to the
ghssllon why is it necessary TO have boarding
Sglloos is to take thu girls away from the in
AIshees of their homes
h ,ly vile took little Armenian girl to helm
TTH9gus the house. Her name was "Sushan." The
ny, She was only twelve years old, and she
60 ' oseh bride for one year. She had been "a
~ 4 , and learned to sing some songs, but not
psa %tl'e or read. She had married a good for
sbH1ahg young fellow. and he had beaten her-a
1l,a c.