The Constantinople Home in 1883

By the late 1880s the Home School conformed to this union of Protestant gospel and American culture. The College catalog, while
not discounting religion, emphasized the scholastic side of the institution. But in its early years, the Home School more closely and
overtly entwined its academic program with its evangelical goals. Some clues to the original style of education at the Constantinople
Home lie in a journal kept by a Bulgarian student who graduated in 1883. 38 The diary of Penka Racheva, one of the first Bulgarian
students enrolled at the Constantinople Home, depicts an concentrated Christianizing influence embodied in the routine of the
school. Penka received the diary, "beautifully bound" in "red leather and gold," and inscribed "with the love of M. M. Patrick and
C.H. Hamlin," as a Christmas present in 1882. This was Penka's senior year, during Katherine Pond Williams's tenure as principal
and seven years before the school achieved its college charter. Penka recorded in English events and thoughts from January 1883
until her return to Bulgaria in August, at which time her entries abruptly end.

The chronicle of Penka's last eight months at the Home provides a poignant demonstration of the ways that religious proselytization
still permeated the school in the early 1880s. Prayers, bible lessons, and sermons were daily events, and, for Penka at least, the
persistent advocacy of Protestant belief with the accompanying suppression of her Orthodox upbringing created feelings of personal
inadequacy and concern about her readjustment to home after graduation. At the same time, her affection for the teachers and the
school is manifest, as evidenced by her later service as chair of the Bulgarian branch of the College Alumni Association. 39 Penka's
diary reveals how thoroughly her love for individual teachers, her acquisition of English, and her study of academic subjects were
tied in with her adoption of the outward forms of Protestant evangelism and her evidently sincere desire to adhere to the Protestant
faith.

All Home students began to learn English as soon as they entered the school; privately, however, they usually conversed in their
native languages. As one of the first two Bulgarian students to enter the school, Penka must have felt linguistically isolated from the
other girls. Perhaps having only one Bulgarian-speaking companion advanced her acquisition of English; certainly she had no
community of compatriots, as did the Armenian and Greek girls, who made up most of the student body. That she chose to write
her diary in English seems remarkable. Perhaps she was less comfortable composing in her native language, reflecting the overall
low literacy rate in Bulgarian at that time. Her diary, however, mentions preparing written compositions in Bulgarian, so it may be
that her proficiency in that language developed at school rather than at home. Nothing in the diary hints that her teachers ever read
it, but her use of English suggests that she was writing with some self-consciousness for an audience other than herself. Certainly,
her lack of a linguistic cohort may have both accelerated her English skills and strengthened her emotional attachment to the
teachers.

Penka's conversion to the Protestant faith, like her ready acquisition of the English language, seems the act of a young mind isolated
and desperate to please. She was fortunate in finding kind, intelligent teachers. Her favorite, Clara Hamlin, the daughter of Cyrus
Hamlin (the president of Robert College), had learned Bulgarian in that country and recruited students for the school. 40 Another
influential teacher, Mary Mills Patrick would later be president of the institution and guide its academic ascent from a high school to
a college.

Penka must have been an exemplary student. Her English contains few errors and her desire to please her teachers is obvious. The
pious Sundays, however, were a struggle for Penka. The school maintained a full day of sermons and formal religious instruction at
which both attendance and appropriate enthusiasm were required. Male outsiders such as visiting preachers (who could only be
men, as the Board did not allow women to preach) from the ABCFM's Bible House and professors from Robert College came to
provide spiritual tuition. Penka writes plaintively, "How far I am from enjoying my Sundays." Later she says, " I am trying to enjoy
my Sundays" and dutifully, but not very convincingly, asserts, " it is so sweet to hear sermons and attend meetings."

Penka's regular reports on the religious lessons suggest that such events were at the center of school life. The male visitors tried to
construct their sermons to appeal to an audience of young girls. Professor Millingen of Robert College, for example, addressing an
audience of marriageable young women, said (according to Penka),"Some [of you] may . . . become rich and live gorgeously . . .
but it is people that are rich and respected and happy that feel . . . .dissatisfied and say: Well, why has God given us this things [sic]
to enjoy if after some time he will take them [?]." Seeking an analogy appropriate to his audience, Millingen continues (as reported
by Penka),

    What would you think of a friend, if she would give you a beautiful present and tell you: have it for some time and just
    as soon as you begin to enjoy it I will come and take it. Now God's children are not so. They know that this life is not
    everything. And when they are in sorrow, or in tribulations, they are comforted that it is for some time and that after
    death there is bliss for all eternity. We look up and see the sky covered with clouds, but we know that above them there
    is a home of purity where tears are [washed] away."

Similarly, H.G.O. Dwight appears in Penka's diary, visiting from the ABCFM's Western Turkey mission. He "read to us the
description of heaven" (although Penka does not give the source of this description). He reminded the girls that "every one of us
feels how much she wants to go to heaven," but they can only do so "under certain conditions" and "no girl who tells lies or steals
can go there." Then he spoke of "how it is the little acts every day that form the character." Penka, in her sheltered school life, was
reminded weekly, if not daily, to search her soul for flaws.

The missionaries' idea of sin affected Penka deeply. Her diary reflects her personal struggles with the transgressions identified in
sermons and lessons. The beauties of the afterlife were held up for her to endeavor towards, but she was constantly admonished
about sin and "knowing our weakest points." Penka wished over and over that she could "stand firm," and she agonized about her
spiritual future if she were to "please my friends and displease my father in Heaven." She wrote in distress, "O! I need to pray!" As
usual, she turned to Miss Hamlin for support: "She said just as I sit by her, so I may learn to sit by Jesus. O! Jesus help me. I am
weak." As she attempts to turn her thoughts heavenward, Penka repeatedly resorts to phrases redolent of missionary style, such as,
"How sweet to serve God," or "Oh, to have God's peace in my heart," or, when she chastises herself with "bitter, bitter vanity!"
Sermons and lessons are "sweet," and when she contemplates her "lasting" sin, she says, "I think it is idolatry," no doubt identified
by missionaries as the preeminent sin of Orthodox Christians.

Penka seemed to prefer the religious instruction provided by her female teachers to the sermons and lessons imparted by the male
visitors on Sunday. "Meetings" conducted by teachers at the school often focused on personal development. Principal Williams,
addressing the students' preoccupation with worldly matters, "spoke of dissatisfactions." "Nothing in this world can satisfy us,"
reports Penka, "every thing is vanity." Even the Emperor of Russia and the Ottoman Sultan are not happy because "they are afraid
of their lives." If these two gentlemen were to convert to Protestantism, Penka infers, perhaps their lives would be less fearful.

Penka worries that she cannot measure up to the standard of piety advocated by the teachers: "I [kneeled] down to pray but my
thoughts were wondering [sic]. Through the day, I did not feel Jesus near me. I call myself Christian, but how far I am from
showing that I am Christ's." But Penka improved. A month later, she "asked Jesus to help me to feel his presence through the day"
and "Jesus seemed just by my side hearing me. I was very happy." The burdens of good behavior were lightened by her kindly
teacher, Clara Hamlin. Finding a bright spot in the dull Sundays, Penka writes, "Last Sunday I had a most loving talk from dear
Miss Hamlin with my hand in hers and leaning on her most lovingly. She spoke about home."

The "home" Miss Hamlin referred to was Penka's birthplace in Bulgaria. Penka was worried, and so evidently were her teachers,
about what would happen to Penka's recently acquired religious faith once she was back among her family. Even though it is
probable that Penka had been drawn from a community that already contained some converts, she indicates that her Protestantism
was likely to be challenged back in Bulgaria. In her last months at school, Penka braced herself for her community's opposition.
The school stepped up pressure on her to "confess Jesus," but Penka was afraid she would "feel ashamed" to do so in her Orthodox
community at home. She wonders if she might lessen the problem by joining her family at church "on one Sunday and not next."
Could she "go to church and make crosses and kiss the images, but inwardly worship my true father[?]" Probably not, because
Miss Hamlin "said that it was not right showing to others that I am not changed and besides if I keep this blessed knowledge of
Jesus Christ . . . how would the Kingdom of Christ spread . . . . Besides, how can I help not telling others, if I love Christ from my
whole heart[?]"

The school had instilled in Penka a sense of responsibility to proselytize her new faith; however, fear of a hostile reception at home
to her religious change clearly preys on her mind. In March she "wrote a religious letter to my sister" and she prayed daily "that it
may greatly influence them at home, though it is very feeble." At a Sunday prayer meeting, Penka prayed that she might love Jesus
"from my whole heart" but she "really did feel the need of a new heart." But in stronger moments, when she "thought of home" she
"felt nothing nothing [not] ridicule nor scolding will be able to separate me from Christ." As Penka struggles to reconcile the facts
of her life-she is a young girl sent to be educated by foreigners with the understanding that when she returns home she will marry
and return to her community-the teachers remind her almost daily of the notions of human sin, the heavenly afterlife, and her duties
as an evangelical Christian.

Penka's diary suggests a close connection, and even some confusion, between her love for the Protestant Jesus and her affection for
Miss Hamlin. The latter is immediately available, kind, and friendly, while the former is remote, abstract, and unfamiliar. Miss
Hamlin seems to mean as much or more to Penka than Jesus himself; or perhaps she finds in Miss Hamlin a more accessible route
to Jesus than she experiences during the Sunday sermons: "No one can understand me as she does. She can enter into my heart.
How much I owe to her [for the] . . . help she has given me." Writing about God blends seamlessly into thoughts of Miss Hamlin:

    God is love. Love in the flowers, love in all the beauties of the world and love in all his grace to us. Oh! Live in the
    sunshine of God's love. I had a wonderful answer in prayer. I felt miserable and prayed that I may be cheerful and when
    I went to church, the sermon was just feeding my soul and I felt refreshed. Miss Hamlin sat by me."

Penka's attachment to Clara Hamlin, evident in almost every entry, drew her into the religious temper of the missionary circle, as
she endeavored to please her teacher by "showing that I am Christ's." On a Sunday in March, "Dr. Riggs preached and the sermon
was rather dry." Nonetheless, Penka had a " pleasant Sunday," perhaps because she pleased her teachers with a "well-learned"
Sunday School lesson. In the evening, she attended "our missionary society led by Miss Hamlin" who discussed American Board
work in the Fiji Islands." Just as in the "mite societies" in the U.S., where girls sent their pennies to foreign enterprises, the students
at the Home were encouraged to sponsor missionaries around the world by sending small donations. Perhaps the Fiji Islands
seemed no farther from Istanbul than they did from Congregational churches in Massachusetts; certainly enthusiasm for such
projects would be another way to please the teachers.

Penka's writing reflects the rhetoric of the Protestant imperative that structured her life. Indeed, on the opening page of her diary
she copies out, rather self-consciously, "some rules" worthy of an American Puritan: "Suppose every day to be a day of business;
for your whole life is a race and a battle, a manchandize and a journey." Perhaps daunted by this stirring admonition, Penka waited
two months to write again, commenting in a more natural tone in early March, "This is the way with school girls; I can not find a
minute to write." Her religious reflections, however, not only echo missionary idiom drummed into her during sermons, prayers,
and meetings; they also hint at a more aggressive approach to proselytizing than the school's public image suggests. The genuine
kindness and intelligence of attentive teachers like Miss Hamlin belie the most negative stereotypes of religious brainwashing, yet
the teacher's warmth clearly facilitated Penka's transition to evangelistic worship.

Penka worried terribly about her failings, expressing particular guiltiness, as well as a certain perspicuity, at loving Miss Hamlin too
much. Penka's near obsession with Miss Hamlin emerges in the recorded details of their encounters. She chronicled even slight
interactions, gestures that the teacher likely bestowed on all the girls. When Penka was ill, she noted happily "every night [Miss
Hamlin] would come in the sick room and see me. One night she asked me are you comfortable?" But Penka had been taught that
loving a human more than God is a sin for which she must beg forgiveness, so in her diary she reprimanded herself for the sin of
too much earthly affection: "I love someone too much," and later, "Vanity, vanity, vanity. Oh! To have God's peace in my heart!"
More frequently than she regretted her sin of earthly love, however, Penka contemplated her impending loss, turning almost as an
afterthought to thoughts of God to help her cope with the anticipated leave-taking from her teacher. She writes sadly, "Bitter
thought to be separated from one you so much love," and worries that

    every day brings me nearer the end of the year. Six weeks more and I shall have the last day, [the last] kiss, the last
    embrace, the last smile, the last comforting words from the one I love so much, the one who has been all to me in this
    school. I wonder why [we] have to be separated from those we love. All through this week I have felt so near christ
    [sic]."

Perhaps Penka hoped that the nearness of Jesus would replace the loss of Miss Hamlin after graduation, or perhaps the
long-established association of school life with the missionary message had blurred the two in her mind. Whichever was the case,
as she neared the end of the year the anticipation of separation became more poignant:

    I cry after Miss Hamlin says good-night to me . . . She is so sweet when she looks in my bed and says, "Good-night
    Penka" I can not help thinking that four weeks after I will not hear her voice. But I do really feel strength . . . then I long
    to be Christ's."

Penka's school life was clearly as intense an emotional experience as it was religious. The social development of this young girl was
shaped by her linguistic saturation in English, and her way of seeing the world fashioned by the rhetorical strategies of the
evangelistic community. Penka did not maintain her diary after her return to Bulgaria. Perhaps she stopped writing due to the loss
of an English-speaking audience--even though no evidence appears suggesting that anyone ever actually read the journal--or
perhaps she became too busy with her post-school life to continue. We know that she married another Bulgarian Protestant, and
produced at least one daughter, who graduated from the American College for Girls in 1912 and went on to earn degrees from
King's College, London and the London School of Economics. 41 In the legacy of Penka's family, it would appear that the
intellectual influence of the College matched or even outweighed the evangelistic one. Certainly it can be said that her intense
feelings for the Home and the totality of her immersion into Protestant missionary-school life shaped her post-marriage life.

Penka's diary illustrates an institution on the brink of change. At this stage of the school's existence, with its indefatigable emphasis
on prayer, sermons, and Bible study, the secular or "civilizing" nature of the establishment still took a back seat to religion.
Intellectual achievement, however, was gaining. Even though all the teachers were missionary appointees and Christian
proselytizing was still the primary focus, the academic purpose was intensifying. Both Hamlin and Patrick considered themselves
scholars as well as missionary teachers. Clearly they believed in the symbiosis between education and Protestant Christianity and
they expected their graduates to carry their lessons in modern Protestant womanhood with them into the wider world.

With the granting of the college charter in 1890, the institution further repudiated, at least publicly, a primary emphasis on the
Gospel and declared itself equivalent in intent and method to the women's colleges of the eastern United States. In one indicator of
how seriously the administration took its new charter, the College raised its academic standards and sought to hire faculty with
advanced university degrees. In some cases, the new professors were more interested (or soon became more interested) in their
academic areas than in missionary work, thus not only raising the intellectual level of the curriculum but also setting the stage for an
overall more secular academic environment. The eventual break with the Mission Board in 1908 was merely another step in a
broad-based trend to secularization that in fact was not out of line with events occurring elsewhere in the missionary movement.
The educational mission subsumed the proselytizing intent, but the Christianizing purpose did not disappear. Instead, the College's
seemingly more tolerant approach to religion became a way of approaching the same "civilizing" object by different means.

Such a well-publicized change in pedagogical approach and philosophy could not occur without a similar shift in teaching
personnel. The College claimed a smooth transition; however shake-ups in the faculty roster suggest underlying problems. Some
missionary appointees stayed through the change from high school to College; other faculty members were brought in to fulfill new
demands. The shift in religious tone and academic emphasis that occurred in the classrooms and residence halls of the College came
from the teachers themselves, and it is worth asking how far they had to travel intellectually and philosophically to make this
change. Did the diminished proselytization worry the teachers, or were they satisfied to promote western cultural values through
the education of young women? The change to College was not only an academic elevation, but also a step in the transition from
Christian to secular, eventually contributing to the split from the Missionary Board. To some American teachers "secular" merely
meant a way of expressing Protestant values that did not involve direct teaching of the Bible. For these, the abandonment of
religious teaching was simply a way to open up space for "real" education. For others, however, it was a threat to their
self-definition as Christian teachers.
...