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There is an American school there also, in charge of Dr. L.S. Crawford of North Adams, Mass., who is doing great work under the direction of the American Board of Foreign Missions by educating young Trebizonians. All the students obtain a good knowledge of English, and their advanced courses are taken through the medium of that language.

Trebizond was the first mission station occupied east of Constantinople on the Black Sea. Thomas P. Johnson, the first American missionary, took up his residence there in 1835. The nearest mission station is at Erzroom, six days’ journey to the south, over extensive ranges of mountains and on one of the upper branches of the Euphrates River. The territory directly connected with this important city has a population of about 800,000 Mohammedans, 120,000 Greeks, and 32,000 Armenians. The city itself has a population of only 56,000, being now nearly four times as large as it was seventy-five years ago.

No large educational institution or important medical work has been built up in Trebizond, not because of the want of need or opportunity, but because it has not been possible to find a force sufficient for the other missions. The work carried on by Doctor and Mrs. Crawford, in the city itself, has been largely among the Armenians, while Ordoun, a large city on the Black Sea, west of Trebizond, has been the headquarters of a mission for the Greeks. As Trebizond is so near the Russian border and so accessible by water for all that part of Russia, there has been a most urgent call during the last few years for institutions there to meet the demands of the Russian young men who are seeking a modern education, but have no facilities for it in their own country. Many Russians go to the mission high school in Trebizond and it is evident that if a strong educational institution could be started there, it would have a wide patronage from the Russian coast of the Black Sea and from the Caucasus.