Advanced schooling “in the native style”:

An-derson wrote in his 1838 article “Missionary Schools.” Essential for training new pastors and teachers for the mission schools, such institutions could prepare the way for an independent Christian congregation.²⁰¹ Nevertheless, in 1860 there were only six seminaries in the approximately twenty-seven foreign missions of the ABCFM.²⁰² In 1837, the boys’ boarding school in Beirut (which had been founded two years earlier) was renamed a “mission seminary”; its purpose was to provide an English-language education for future preachers and missionaries.²⁰³ English

197 This was recorded in a statement about the necessity of native pastors and churches: Syria Mission, Fi Daruriyya Iqamat Khidmatin li-l-Injil, 11.

198 Anderson to the Syria Mission (Boston, July 11, 1851): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 8 (4).

199 ABCFM, Memorial Volume, 250.

200 Bonk, The Theory and Practice of Missionary Identification, 161: Interactions with native con-gregations changed in all areas of mission work in Europe and America at the end of the nine-teenth century. At a New York mission conference in 1900, there was agreement that mission-ary and native administrative bodies should work separately from one another. Native congre-gations could uphold their own cultural character if they were not influenced by the mission-aries’ otherness.

201 Anderson, “Missionary Schools,” 110.

202 Wortabet, Researches into the Religions of Syria, 358.

203 Yazigi, “American Presbyterian Mission Schools in Lebanon,” 32: The curriculum expanded to include Arabic, English, geography, astronomy, history and church history, mathematics, rheto-ric (“which in the Arab sense is a popular study”), philosophy, composition and translation, Bible study, and sacred music.

A “seminary” was an institution that provided professional training for preachers, but also in-struction in other subjects. To meet these diverse educational goals, cooperation with a board-ing school was essential. See Sabra, Truth and Service, 13–14.

missionaries established similar colleges in Jerusalem (1842) and on Malta (1846), but these did not last long.²⁰⁴ The Beirut seminary did not realize its goal of training new missionary talent, and it also had to close in August 1842.²⁰⁵ A report that was written on the occasion of Rufus Anderson’s visit in 1844 reflected on the reasons for this failure. Not only were the incoming students too young and inexperienced, but the school’s Western orientation – English was the language of instruction, and the missionaries held all authority – encouraged an affinity for all things Western and ignorance of the students’ own culture.

The changing political situation, and the growing demand for translators by European businessmen and military officers, increasingly lured away seminary stu-dents. Of the more than sixty original boarding school students, only twelve re-mained in 1842.²⁰⁶ Anderson’s visit to the Levant in 1843/44 led him to promote an additional mission strategy beyond the Three Self program: discouraging the “de-nationalization” of the Arab population.²⁰⁷ Although in its early years the ABCFM supported the anglicization of Native Americans (“they will more readily become assimilated in habits and manners to their white neighbors”),²⁰⁸ native languages were supposed to be used for preaching and teaching in its overseas missions. An-derson was devastated by the Westernization of the children and youth in the Syrian mission schools: “I found in Syria, that the pupils of the old mission seminary at Beirût were so anglified in their ideas and tastes that they became disgusted with their countrymen, and even with their noble Arabian tongue, and were unfitted in great measure for doing good to their people. …”²⁰⁹

The closing of the Beirut seminary was supposed to be temporary, only “to get it out of Beirut.”²¹⁰ The small town of ʿAbeih, half of which lay in the mountains south of Beirut, appeared well suited for this purpose. Van Dyck, Thomson, and Bustani were sent there to found a school in 1843. After the construction of a new building in 1846,²¹¹ this became the mission seminary.²¹² This institution, which resembled a high school,²¹³ was supposed to emphasize theological education more strongly than had been the case in Beirut.²¹⁴ As Anderson had advocated, “the educa tion was to be essentially Arabic, the clothing, boarding and lodging strictly in

204 Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 168: The Jerusalem college closed after the death of its director in 1845; the college on Malta probably closed for financial reasons.

205 W. M. Thomson, “The Committee in the results of the Seminary submit[s] the following report”

(April 6, 1844): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 1 (23).

206 Ibid.

207 Anderson, Foreign Missions, 99.

208 “Minutes of the Seventh Annual Meeting” (1816), in: ABCFM (1834), 136.

209 Anderson to the Sandwich Islands mission (July 19, 1845): ABC 2.1.1., Vol. 8.

210 Van Dyck, “Reminiscences of the Syrian Mission,” 12.

211 Also in 1846, the Jesuits opened their seminary in Ghazir, north of Beirut. In addition to train-ing new clerics, the seminary also educated laypeople, allowtrain-ing it largely to finance itself. See Verdeil, “Between Rome and France,” 26. In 1875, the seminary moved to Beirut, becoming the Université Saint-Joseph that still exists today. See Hourani, Syria and Lebanon, 36.

212 MH 40 (1844), in: ROS 3, 388–89; Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 107.

213 ABCFM, Annual Report 1868, 50.

214 MH 43 (1847), in: ROS 4, 2–4.

the native style, and the students were to be kept as far as possible in sympathy with their own people.”²¹⁵ Only basic instruction was given in English. Conveniently, this kept students from reading the works of European authors like Engels, Marx, and Darwin, which the missionaries associated with the spread of destructive and anarchic ideologies.²¹⁶ The loss of students to outside influences – as had occurred in Beirut – was to be avoided at all costs.

In contrast to the mission schools, stricter attention was paid to the seminary students’ evangelization; festivals and days of fasting from other religions were not observed. The intent was to accept only those applicants who had renounced their own churches,²¹⁷ although this could not be consistently enforced. The duration of a course of studies at ʿAbeih was initially left open, to be settled over time.²¹⁸ Despite the language of instruction, the course plan adhered to the model of an elite American education at this time, beginning with the main subjects: systematic study of the Bible, grammar, arithmetic, and geography.²¹⁹ Van Dyck and Bustani initially divided teaching duties, with the latter responsible for Arabic grammar and arithmetic in the morning, and Van Dyck for Bible study and geography in the after-noon.²²⁰ The subjects of astronomy, trigonometry, rhetoric, and English were added later, and the study of poetry was introduced in grammar lessons.²²¹ As reported in the Missionary Herald, the seminary “is, we suppose, the only institution in Syria where the true principles of science are taught.”²²² The American Board was not concerned that religious instruction might lag behind the other fields of study: “The plain, simple theology of the Scriptures can be taught to youth, and even to heathen youth, in every stage of their education.”²²³ Nevertheless, in 1850 the course plan was reoriented to place a stronger emphasis on theology, with the other subjects more clearly subordinate to the main field of study.²²⁴ With respect to learning ma-terials, the seminary could hardly measure up to the American standard. At first, there were no schoolbooks except for works on Arabic grammar:

All instruction must be given orally, and the pupils make the books as they proceed, under the direction of the teacher, which takes more time than would otherwise be necessary during the time of instruction, and throws upon the teacher a great amount of study, to ensure the neces-sary accuracy in thus preparing text books for future use.²²⁵

215 Anderson, History of the Missions of the American Board, vol. 1, 273.

216 Juha, Darwin wa al-Azma 1882 bi l-Daʾira al-Tibbiyya, 148.

217 Yazigi, “American Presbyterian Mission Schools in Lebanon,” 36.

218 Five to ten years was suggested for the education of pastors, with additional private instruction from the missionaries after the completion of seminary training: MH 37 (1841), 187.

219 MH 43 (1847), in: ROS 4, 2.

220 Van Dyck to Anderson (ʿAbeih, November 9, 1846): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 5 (315); Yazigi, “Ameri-can Presbyterian Mission Schools in Lebanon,” 36.

221 MH 46 (1850), in: ROS 4, 111.

222 Ibid., 112–13.

223 Anderson, “Missionary Schools,” 110.

224 MH 46 (1850), in: ROS 4, 113.

225 MH 43 (1847), in: ROS 4, 3.

The school was directed by Cornelius Van Dyck from 1846 to 1849, and by his colleague Simeon H. Calhoun from 1849 to 1875.²²⁶ The numbers of incoming and outgoing students were documented regularly. There were fewer than ten students in the first class of instruction, but interest in advanced schooling grew with each year. In 1876, twenty-nine new students were added to the twenty who already re-sided at ʿAbeih. Students were between eleven and thirty years old, although even-tually no boys younger than fourteen were admitted. In 1847, Van Dyck reported there had unfortunately been no official case of conversion at the seminary. All of the students remained loyal to their previous confessions, despite strong interest in Biblical discussions and devotions.²²⁷ Despite the school’s pronounced theological orientation, in 1875 only twelve of twenty students identified as Protestant. Of the twenty-nine new students accepted the following year, there were likewise only twelve. The seminary was open to all confessions. Maronites, Druzes, and members of the Rum Orthodox church attended the school, as did Sunni and Shiʿa Muslims.

Class sizes seem to have fluctuated. The school’s annual records reveal that, par-ticularly after vacations, some students left ʿAbeih without providing a reason.²²⁸ The civil war-like hostilities that plagued Syria at this time, and family objections to a school of a different confession, may have played a role.

Of the ʿAbeih seminary’s 117 graduates between the 1850s and 1870s, around two-thirds pursued a career in teaching. Only a few of the graduates who were listed as teachers were also identified as preachers. Some graduates became printers.²²⁹ As Van Dyck summarized in 1868, “No institution which we have yet had has brought out these pastors and preachers.”²³⁰ (Figure 2)

By the end of the 1860s, the seminary’s fate appeared to be sealed. Sinking demand in the region’s Protestant congregations, which were financially insecure to begin with, meant fewer seminary candidates. With the founding of the Syrian Prot-estant College in 1866, the ʿAbeih seminary became one of the institutions that was supposed to prepare students for college study. After 1869, an independent school of theology with two paths of study, Biblical history and exegesis/church history, was established within the seminary.²³¹ Preachers and pastors were henceforth to receive the highest possible education – no longer just basic instruction – within three years.²³² After the first class graduated in 1872, there was again a shortage of new applicants. The seminary moved back to Beirut in 1873, in order to be closer to the SPC and possibly attract new candidates.²³³ At the end of the 1860s, the college

226 “Abeih Seminary Records” (1848–1878): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 8.

227 “State and Prospects of the Seminary”: MH 43 (1847), in: ROS 4, 26.

228 “Abeih Seminary Records” (1848–1878): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 8.

229 “Catalogue of the pupils who have entered the Seminary,” in: “Abeih Seminary Records”: ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 8.

230 Van Dyck to Clark (Beirut, April 29, 1868): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 7.2. (516).

231 “General Letter of the Syria Mission” (Beirut, January 20, 1869): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 6 (26);

Sabra, Truth and Service, 21.

232 Sabra, Truth and Service, 22.

233 Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 2, 812; Sabra, Truth and Service, 31. Thirteen of the candidates who were accepted at the SPC in 1872 came from ʿAbeih or the Scottish mission schools. See Bliss, Letters from a New Campus, 244 (no. 51).

wanted the seminary to become an official “preparatory department” for the SPC.

Responsibility for its financing, however, was to stay with the mission, which was reluctant to see the seminary incorporated within the college.²³⁴ In 1874, seminary director James S. Dennis finally recognized that the institution’s continued exist-ence depended upon its integration within the SPC.²³⁵ That same year, SPC presi-dent Daniel Bliss wrote that “the College is a power now – and the Mission will be glad yet to avail itself of our influence. If the Theological Seminary succeeds it will be because of the College.”²³⁶ The seminary was finally integrated within the SPC in 1881 and moved to its campus. The ongoing shortage of candidates for theo-logical study, and the failed attempt to merge the college and seminary as a single unit, led to the mission seminary’s closing in 1893, with only its school of theology continuing to exist in new form.²³⁷

234 Daniel Bliss to his wife Abby (Beirut, November 17, 1873), in: Bliss, Letters from a New Cam-pus, 122; Daniel Bliss to Abby Bliss (January 6, 1874), in: ibid., 166.

235 Daniel Bliss to Abby Bliss (Beirut, February 7, 1874), in: ibid., 191.

236 Daniel Bliss to Abby Bliss (Beirut, March 7, 1874), in: ibid., 216.

237 Sabra, Truth and Service, 34. It was later decided to reconstitute the seminary as a summer school for theology, once again outside Beirut. This seminary opened in Souq al-Gharb in 1894.

In 1905 the school moved back to Beirut, where it still is located today. See Lindsay, Nineteenth Century American Schools in the Levant, 166.

Figure 2: Mission seminary in ʿAbeih

5. “We are making history out here very fast”²³⁸: The Syrian Protestant College

On December 3, 1866, the institution with the greatest significance for the Syria Mission in Beirut²³⁹ celebrated its opening: the Syrian Protestant College (SPC, in Arabic: Madrasa al-Kulliya al-Suriyya al-Injiliyya). The institution, which was modeled after an American college, allowed young men who had been educated in mission schools to complete their studies in four or more years, preparing them for professions that their rapidly developing country urgently needed.²⁴⁰ Despite its Protestant name, from the very beginning the college was open to students of all confessions, as was typical of the other American schools.

The college will be conducted on strictly christian [sic] and evangelical principles, but it will not be sectarian in such a sense as to exclude from it pupils from any of the various sects of the country, christian, or non-christian, who will conform to its rules and regulations.²⁴¹

As the only religious book permitted at the college, the Bible was taught regularly.

In later years, SPC president Daniel Bliss was responsible for instruction in Biblical literature and religious discipline in accordance with Protestant guidelines.²⁴² Bible discussions and daily devotions were a permanent fixture of the college, and they were mandatory for all students, regardless of confession.²⁴³

Cornelius Van Dyck, William Thomson, and Daniel Bliss played a formative role in the founding of the SPC.²⁴⁴ A college of this kind had never been established within a foreign mission of the ABCFM. Rufus Anderson sharply criticized the missionaries’ plans:

The apparent necessity of such an institution at the present time was regarded as an evil … that an institution under the virtual control of the mission, which in its practical tendencies shall hinder you in laying the foundations of a simple, contended, independent, native pastorate all over your field, and of self-governed, self-contained churches, would be a still greater evil. …

238 Daniel Bliss to Abby Bliss (Beirut, December 5, 1873), in: D. Bliss, Letters from a New Cam-pus, 136.

239 Unlike the mission seminary in ʿAbeih, the college’s Beirut location was intentionally chosen for its worldly flair. Books and teaching materials were also easier to obtain. See ABCFM to the Syria Mission (1862): ABC 76 (HHL).

240 “Prospectus and Programme of the Syrian Protestant College Institute, Beirut”: ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 6 (110).

241 Ibid.

242 Ibid.

243 B. Anderson, The American University of Beirut, 59. For Jewish, Muslim, and Orthodox Chris-tian students, individual terms were negotiated so that they could be absent on certain holidays.

The college did not like to put such concessions in writing, however, since students were not entitled to these excused absences. See Scholz, Foreign Education and Indigenous Reaction, 131–32.

244 Sources often refer only to Daniel Bliss, and more generally to the missionaries in Syria, for furthering this idea. Van Dyck and Thomson, however, had long advocated for a school of higher learning. See Diab and Wåhlin, “The Geography of Education in Syria in 1882,” 116, citing Shahin Makarius, “al-Maʿarif fi Suriyya,” (Education in Syria), al-Muqtataf 7 (1882/83): 388.

should there be anything of this nature in your proposed institution, it will be a fruitful source of mischief.²⁴⁵

The Prudential Committee agreed to the missionaries’ proposal on the condition that the SPC would not belong to the American Board and the Syria Mission, and also that its administration would be composed of Protestants, with American mis-sionaries in the majority, who were fluent in Arabic.²⁴⁶ It was, however, at first un-clear whether the institution would be led by Americans or Syrians. In 1862, Jessup reported to John Wortabet in Aleppo that “immediate steps [are] taken to establish a large Protestant native institution in Beirut of a high order, with the coöperation of all the missions in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.”²⁴⁷

It was arranged that Butrus al-Bustani would accompany the missionary J. Ed-wards Ford to England in order to promote the institution. However, the possibility of Syrian-American collaboration was rejected because “a native school, founded and supported by natives, should be under native control. A foreign school, founded by foreign funds, should be under foreign control.”²⁴⁸ The college had to Euro pean-American, “in order that we may control it and that it may not work against us.”²⁴⁹ After Ford, Daniel Bliss traveled to the United States in 1862, and to England in 1864, in order to raise the necessary funds that would preclude Syrian aristocrats from holding an outsized influence.²⁵⁰ The state of New York granted the SPC its charter in 1863, and a Board of Trustees was established to govern the college’s finances, independent of the ABCFM.²⁵¹

The reasons for establishing an institution of higher education, which Daniel Bliss and his colleagues presented to the ABCFM in 1862 and later recorded in the college’s constitution, were not limited to securing the existence of a Protes-tant community in Syria.²⁵² Consequences for the entire society were also taken into consideration. Well-educated teachers, clerics, secretaries, translators, authors, interpreters, lawyers, judges, engineers, and doctors were needed throughout the land; students at the SPC could promote the well-being of their country and the Arab-speaking population.²⁵³ Professorships were established in Arabic language and literature, mathematics, astronomy, engineering, chemistry, botany, natural sciences, modern languages, medicine, and law.²⁵⁴

To facilitate access to education for all, studying at the college had to cost as little as possible. Foreign and domestic scholarships were to provide support for

245 Anderson to the Syria Mission (Boston, March 21, 1862): ABC 76 (HHL).

246 “Minutes of the Meeting on 18 March 1862”: ABC (“Records of the Prudential Committee”), Vol. 11, cited in: Tibawi, “The Genesis and Early History of the Syrian Protestant College,” 270.

247 Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 239.

248 Ibid., 240.

249 Bliss to Anderson (Souq al-Gharb, June 13, 1862): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 4.1.

250 Ibid.; Penrose, “That they may have life,” 13–17.

251 SPC annual report (April 2, 1863): ABC 16.8.2., Vol. 2; Penrose, “That they may have life,” 14.

In April 1863, the members of the Board of Trustees were William A. Booth (chair), William E.

Dodge, David Hoadley, Simeon B. Chittenden, Abner Kingman, and Joseph S. Ropes.

252 ABCFM to the Syria Mission (Boston, March 18, 1862): ABC 76 (HHL).

253 “Reasons for the establishment of a Syrian Protestant College”: ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 6.

254 “Prospectus and Programme”: ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 6 (110).

talen ted applicants, encouraging them to give back to their society.²⁵⁵ Philanthro-pists from Europe and America became interested in establishing a (Western) cul-ture of scholarship in the Near East, as Bliss reported in 1862: “There is manifested at the present time, an earnest desire on the part of many benevolent persons in England and elsewhere to see such an institution commenced, and willingness to aid in its endowment.”²⁵⁶

At the beginning, when Syrian-American collaboration was still under

At the beginning, when Syrian-American collaboration was still under

Im Dokument The Mission of the American Board in Syria (Seite 59-74)