Mr. Hirsch to Mr.
Blaine.
Legation of
the United States,
Constantinople, January 22, 1892.
(Received February 8.)
No. 379.]Sir: I have the honor to inclose herewith a copy of
a note to the Sublime Porte, protesting against the provisions of a
ministerial order, a copy of which is also submitted, recently sent to the
provinces concerning the conditions for opening and maintaining schools
which are not in harmony with the law and usage until now observed.
In dispatch No. 276, of Mr. King to the Department, dated January 11, 1887,
the one hundred and twenty-ninth article of the Ottoman school law of 1869
is given, and the provisions of this law, viz, that the books used and the
system of instruction and the diplomas of the teachers should be submitted
to the inspection of a mixed council, have always been scrupulously observed
by the American missionaries as is pointed out in the inclosed note to the
Porte; it is owing to the failure of the authorities to cooperate if these
provisions have remained ineffective.
The pretension now advanced by the Porte, that a permit must be obtained for
each school is rejected by the legation; the admission of this claim would
clearly constitute an acknowledgment that these schools have until now
existed by toleration but without legal sanction, which we can not
admit.
I have, etc.,
[Page 532]
[Inclosure 1 in No. 379.]
Mr. Hirsch to the
Sublime Porte.
Legation of the United States,
Constantinople, January 21,
1892.
Mr. Minister: The provisions of the order
issued to the local and provincial authorities from the Sublime Porte,
under date of December 28,1307 (1891, O. S.), in which instructions are
given concerning the conditions for opening and maintaining schools,
having come to my notice, I am constrained to immediately point out to
your excellency what would seem to me the imperative necessity of
furnishing the same authorities with such explanatory instructions as
may make clear to them the status of the American schools in their
several districts, and thus forestall the erroneous interpretation of
the Sublime Porte’s intentions in issuing this order, which appears to
be imminent, and which, if acted upon, would undoubtedly occasion much
injustice and might disturb that harmony which it is the care of this
legation to solicitously foster between all American citizens under its
jurisdiction and the authorities of His Majesty’s Empire.
Your excellency will concede me that, since immemorial time, schools have
been free, and I am unaware of any restrictions governing them prior to
the hatti houmagoum of 1856, which may be
considered to have the force of an international agreement, and which,
in its fifteenth article, says: “Moreover, every community is authorized
to establish schools of science, arts, and industry; only the method of
instruction and the choice of professors in schools of this class shall
be under the control of a mixed council, whose members shall be named by
my sovereign will.”
These conditions, and the conditions of control demanded by the one
hundred and twenty-ninth article of the law of public instruction, based
upon the hatti houmagoum, have been long since
fulfilled by all the American schools; i. e., the
books in use, the system of instruction, and the diplomas of the
teachers, have always been freely offered for the approval of the local
authorities.
But while the local authorities should, upon such compliance with the
law, have then registered all these schools, the only result of these
efforts on the part of the American school boards to conform to the
Imperial order, was the official approval by the censorship of the books
used, the local authorities saying that they had no instructions or
powers qualifying them to certify to the programme of studies or the
teachers’ diplomas, as the law commanded, unless, indeed, I except that
most frequently the American diplomas thus presented were lost by the
officials or mislaid and never returned. Under these above-indicated
conditions, therefore, we claim and have exercised the right of opening
schools throughout the Empire, which are and have been always under the
protection of the United States legation.
I find nothing in the law requiring a formal application for a permit,
and such permit, if held to be convenient by the local authorities,
should be at once issued by them, upon the lawful conditions being
fulfilled.
I may here invite your excellency’s attention to the circular letter of
the minister of public instruction, dated December 16, 1302, and to the
vizerial circular that followed shortly afterwards, and by which the
local authorities were unequivocally instructed to permit these schools
to continue their work unmolested.
In offering these observations to your excellency I allow myself to
believe that a due consideration of their gravity may lead to the
adoption of measures that may effectually prevent any interference with
the scholastic work of foundations under the protection of my
Government.
I avail, etc.,
[Inclosure 2 in No.
379.—Translation.]
Ministerial order concerning schools.
The prohibition against founding or opening in the Ottoman Empire schools
or places of worship, without obtaining official permission, is
reiterated.
Moreover, peremptory instructions will be given to those concerned that
in respect to schools or places of worship that have been opened without
official permission it will be necessary for them, within a period fixed
according to the locality, to obtain by the usual method permits for
these also; and, further, that those schools and places of worship which
do not obtain permits within the specified time shall be closed. It must
be made known to them also that those who found schools or places of
worship without permission will be treated according to the provisions
of Article 129 of the law of public instruction and to the present
edict. The decision of the high council
[Page 533]
of ministers upon these points having received by
iradé the sanction of His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, the orders
necessary for its execution have been delivered to the ministry of the
interior, the ministry of foreign affairs, and communicated to the
ministry of public instruction.
December 28, 1307
(1891, O. S.)
