Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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Several of the colleges administered by American missionaries in Turkey have passed out of the first period of their history, that of laying foundations, and have entered on a period of expansion. One hundred and thirteen high schools and boarding-schools which are the feeders for the colleges, have hitherto lacked the attention and the money necessary for their best development, but now that they are firmly established more attention is being given to the lower schools, without which the colleges cannot do their best work. Several of these high schools are the educational centres of territory larger in extent and containing a greater population than some of our American states.

The Sivas Normal School, located in the heart of Sivas, a city of 65,000 people, and the capital of the ancient Seljuks, is a good example, and until recently was unique in Turkey in the attention it gives to training teachers for the common schools.

More than twenty-five years ago, the American missionaries, because of the increasing need of more and better prepared teachers, decided to strengthen a common school which was being carried on under their direction and to raise the standard to that of a high school. The name Sivas Normal School was given to it at that time to represent the consciousness of the need and the purpose. Those who laid the foundations were Rev. Henry T. Perry, who is still connected with the school, and Rev. Albert W. Hubbard. Whatever has been accomplished since in making the school a more effective and wider agency for Christian education has been built on the foundation which they laid.