Mr. Hirsch to Mr. Blaine.

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.,

Solomon Hirsch.
[Page 532]
[Inclosure 1 in No. 379.]

Mr. Hirsch to the Sublime Porte.

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.,

Solomon Hirsch.
[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.