The series of Ottoman legal and administrative reforms called the Tanzimat (reorganization), which were implemented between 1839 and 1876, were conceived by a small and influential segment of the imperial bureaucratic elite.Footnote ¹ They were closely related to foreign diplomatic pressure regarding issues of right to life, liberty, and property of mainly non-Muslim subjects. Yet the reforms had a multiplier effect, bringing about several other developments in the long term. As Maurus Reinowski explains, different notions of “order” were at the heart of Tanzimat state ideology and political idioms.Footnote ² The terms asayiş (public order, public tranquility) and emniyet (safety, security, the police, the law) were central to these notions. In line with the traditional circle of equity, security was granted in return for subjects’ obedience. Especially from the 1860s onward, the new notion of order involved not only obedience but also conceptions of civilization (medeniyet) and discipline (inzibat). Within this framework, any form of disobedience or dissolution of order would be corrected with terbiye and tedib, which no longer simply meant chastisement or punishment but assumed the larger sense of “disciplining and education.” The state's objective was more ambitious than it had been previously: all that was improper or disobedient (including both people and places) should succumb completely to reform (ıslah) and discipline (inzibat).

This paper discusses the establishment of a new educational and disciplinary institution, ıslahhane, targeting vagrants, orphan, destitute, and poor children in the cities, as Ottoman administrative discourse and practice started to enact the belief that a modern state should both protect children from danger and protect society from dangerous children. Although Ottoman terminology in relation to ıslahhanes does not hint specifically at gender—the terms “child” (çocuk), “orphan” (yetim), “destitute” (bikes) are gender neutral—the reformers mostly, but not exclusively, targeted boys. I argue that the opening of ıslahhanes was closely related to the new conceptualization of order and discipline in the urban space, which was redefining the borders of obedience and disobedience, security and danger, progress and decline. The first such institution was established in the early 1860s in the vilayet of Danube. In 1867, the central government ordered other provincial governments to open ıslahhanes in order to collect, protect, and educate vagrant orphans and destitute children (başıboş gezmekte olan yetim ve bikes çocuklar) between the ages of five and thirteen. Within two years, seventeen of them were opened in different parts of the empire. The 1871 Regulation on Public Administration of Vilayets initiated a new wave of orphanages in the early 1870s, when eleven ıslahhanes were opened. The proliferation of this institutional structure deserves to be treated as a serious accomplishment of the Ottoman reform era, especially when it is compared to the rather slow and difficult spread of other civil educational establishments in the provinces.

Islahhanes have previously been interpreted as institutions for juvenile delinquents.Footnote ³ I argue that this is a misinterpretation, because the main objective of the institution was repeatedly formulated as “the betterment of the conditions and education of Ottoman orphans” (yetime-yi şahanenin ıslah-ı ahvali ve terbiyeleri).Footnote ⁴ Although the 1871 regulation specified that those under thirteen who were accused of committing a crime (irtikab-ı töhmet ve cinayetle) that legally necessitated a prison sentence of “one year or longer” would be put into ıslahhanes,Footnote ⁵ these were not simply “reformatories” in the English-language sense of the word, which suggests imprisonment and rehabilitation of convicted minors. Their regulations, curriculum, and functions, as well as their targeted student body, made these the first modern orphanages of the Ottoman administrative authority spanning the central and provincial levels. Yet the 19th-century institutional world of children was not defined by rigid boundaries and, thus, many non-orphans were sheltered in these establishments. Islahhanes were also a form of free boarding schools, providing temporary or permanent care for children whose parents were in distress.

Midhat Paşa recounts in his memoirs that “since this was a brand new institution, with no precedent in the country,” he found the name only after long consideration and finally through inspiration from a Qurʾanic verse, which specified that the best approach to orphans is to improve and reform them (salah ve ıslah).Footnote ⁶ Although the explanation highlights a typical traditional source of legitimation, research in the Prime Ministry's Ottoman Archives, Ottoman laws and regulations, contemporary newspapers and journals, and Ottoman educational and provincial yearbooks shows that the idea of “reform” (ıslah) inherent in the term ıslahhane was enmeshed in the Tanzimat worldview and targeted more than just the inmates of the new institutions. The other daring objective was to reform and discipline the outer space of the ıslahhane—both its specific urban surroundings and the larger Ottoman public space. The opening of ıslahhanes was linked to immediate considerations such as the beautification and sterilization of urban centers—by removing unattended children and youth from the streets—and to the longer-term aim of urban economic progress—by turning idle and wandering children into skilled and productive laborers. Moreover, it is necessary to think of the institution in the more abstract context of “Ottoman reform,” centralization, and the dissemination of Ottomanist ideals. On a local level, ıslahhanes were thus at the intersection of the process of disciplining urban spaces and the goal of economic progress in urban manufacturing and industrial activity; on the imperial and more abstract level, they were instrumental in linking the central with the provincial, and local communities with Ottoman identity.

URBAN ORDER AND SECURITY: REFUGEE CRISES, BEGGING, VAGRANCY

In the 19th century, the “dangerous child” began to occupy a significant place in European public opinion, and street urchins, abandoned children, and underage beggars became central concerns of elite discourse.Footnote ⁷ There was public anxiety about poor children occupying newly expanding urban public spaces, when according to middle-class opinion they should have been in school, at the family home, on the farm, in the factory, or in the workshop. In considering why and how the street came to be conceived as antichild in the Ottoman Empire, it is necessary to consider this overall orientation of “urban reform” as it voiced concern about vagrant boys in urban areas and underlined the exclusion of an increasing body of unattended children from public spaces.

A series of refugee flows to major Balkan and Anatolian cities, starting in the 1850s and 1860s, motivated systematic and institutional initiatives to take care of orphans, the destitute, and the children of the poor. Refugee crises resulting from the Crimean War (1853–56) and the Russo–Ottoman War (1878–88) in particular had a definite impact on the opening of vocational orphanages.Footnote ⁸ Along with expressing concern and pity for their misery, urban professional elites saw refugees (muhacir) as the chief source of crime and pauperism in the cities. In responding with the establishment of orphanages, Ottoman authorities did not much care whether vagrant children in the streets had deceased fathers and/or parents; they were potential targets regardless. Though the yearbooks do not contain exact information on the origins of the orphanage population, both bureaucratic correspondence with the provinces and fundraising campaigns for the enterprise put special stress on refugee children. In the first three vocational orphanages opened in the governorship of Danube in 1864 and 1865, Tatar and Circassian refugee children formed a majority.Footnote ⁹ In the opening of the girls’ orphanage of Ruse in 1872, refugee children of mostly Abkhasian origin constituted the majority.Footnote ¹⁰ The refugee crisis led to the opening in 1864 of the orphanage of Trabzon, where the governorship collected and sheltered refugee orphans and destitute children in a rented building.Footnote ¹¹ The ıslahhane of Edirne was opened for the province's orphans and destitute children in 1873, but after 1878 it began to specifically serve those who had lost parents during the Russo–Ottoman War.Footnote ¹² According to the Supreme Council of Judicial Ordinances (Meclis-i Vâlâ-yı Ahkâm-ı Adliye) in 1868, the main objective (maksad-ı asli) behind the opening of vocational orphanages in the Danube (Niš, Ruse, Sofia) was to collect destitute refugee children and orphans who wandered in the streets and performed the “ugly act of begging” (zell-i sual) along with other “disgraceful behavior” (sû-i efali irtikab).Footnote ¹³ By choosing the words zell and irtikab, the council implied that the acts of these children were almost criminal, although none of them had been charged with a specific offense.

After the war, the issue of destitute refugee children, especially in Istanbul, became more prominent in government policymaking. In February and March 1878, the security forces collected quite a few destitute children from the streets of Istanbul and attempted to shelter them in such places as boarding schools, ıslahhanes, and the Imperial Arsenal or Docks (Tophane ve Tersane-i Amire Sanayi Alayları).Footnote ¹⁴ In 1881, in his report to the sultan, Saffet Paşa asserted that hundreds of Rumelian refugee orphans who arrived in Istanbul as a result of the war “altogether pursued a life of begging” (cümleten tesaül yolunu tutmuş).Footnote ¹⁵ He claimed that before the Russian attack it was impossible to encounter a single beggar from Rumelia in Dersaadet. If these children, he continued, “who have lost their motherland and their relatives” (yurd ve akrabalarını kaybetmiş), got used to this sort of livelihood, it would be impossible in the future to “lead them into any craft or skill” (kar ve zanaata süluk etmek). So he considered it necessary to guide them into a proper livelihood as quickly as possible, before their age became an impediment.Footnote ¹⁶ Following Saffet Paşa's report, the sultan issued orders on 8 and 12 December 1881 to collect refugee orphans begging in the streets of Istanbul.Footnote ¹⁷ In the following week, “child gathering” intensified. With the help of the superintendents and the sergeants of the municipality, authorities collected 222 child beggars, 34 of whom were put into the ıslahhane of Istanbul while the rest (188) were handed over to the Imperial Arsenal.Footnote ¹⁸ This rather effective “collection” and placement effort, and the immediate response of the government in collaboration with the city's municipal services, points to an intensification of the discourse positing unattended children as a danger to urban spaces.

The marginalization of beggars and vagrants in urban areas was novel; begging had once been a recognized “occupation” that even had its own guild.Footnote ¹⁹ The perception of “child beggars” as a problem mostly derived from the new Tanzimat drive for order and security in urban areas and from its conception of modern governance. Behavior seen as requiring effective policing if public order were to be maintained, such as vagrancy and begging, started to draw the attention of authorities, although these activities were not criminalized until the 1890s.Footnote ²⁰ The concern was not only related to begging but also to the fact that these children were seen as not part of any community and as not integrated into the social fabric. In this way, it was connected to the Ottoman authorities’ fear of the growth of unruly and unpredictable urban “crowds,” which were associated with “undesired migration.”Footnote ²¹ Because refugee families were forced to stay in urban environments despite their peasant backgrounds, it was believed, legal guardians and/or mothers in financial distress pushed children into begging. In the late 1880s, the government was alarmed by the fact that poor parents from the Anatolian and European provinces of the empire were migrating to the capital and forcing their children into begging in the streets and marketplaces. The Ministry of the Interior thus sent orders to the provinces to prohibit the migration of needy and poor inhabitants of these areas to other places.Footnote ²²

The discourse against vagrancy was also related to the increasing circulation of commercial goods in and around cities and was linked to a new conception of modern governance in urban areas. The municipality and police assumed, under pressure from local notables, the protection of emerging communities of commerce. Professional groups in the major urban centers (especially port cities) started to promote an urban reform agenda in the press and in local clubs, while municipalities demanded and implemented stricter government control over city space. In this discourse, seasonal migrants, newcomers, and vagabonds—all thought of as male—were interpreted as threats to urban security and economy. Part of the solution was to remove or relocate single immigrant men and vagrant boys in the name of modernity and progress.Footnote ²³ Concerns over vagrant children in urban areas were also introduced and disseminated by new administrative cadres, many of whom had worked as diplomatic representatives of the empire in European capitals during the first half of the 19th century.Footnote ²⁴

Throughout the 1880s and as late as the early 1900s, the Istanbul municipality and security forces continued to collect beggars, vagrants, and destitute boys (serseri ve sefil olarak dolaşan çocuklar) from the streets with compulsory methods (bilicbar). Although the ideal solution would be to enroll them in ıslahhanes, boarding schools, or vocational institutes, lack of sufficient places and the state's incapacity to open enough new ones meant that most of these boys were transferred to artillery units (Tophane Sanayii Alayları) or to imperial docks (Tersane-i Âmire).Footnote ²⁵ Although authorities have often treated the military as an ideal place for reforming male youth, the immediate transfer of children to any suitable place with vacancies suggests that reformers did not have a well-developed scheme for children's rehabilitation or reform. Yet their stance regarding the security, sanitation, and beauty of the urban space was quite clear: a modern city meant the exclusion and incarceration of unattended children.

The reorganization of the police force was also part of the new urban policies targeting unattended children in public spaces. The most intriguing aspect of this project was the restructuring of the duties of police officers (zaptiye). Some of the zaptiyes in the province of Danube, particularly in its larger cities, were retrained as enforcers of the new reform policies and regulations. Renamed “inspection officials” (umur-i teftişiye memurları), these policemen were given broad powers to monitor citizens’ compliance with numerous new policies in the fields of city sanitation and beautification. Police could also now impose fines on minors on the spot for small infractions, with more serious deviations referred to the city council or to the local criminal court if necessary. Inspectors were given the authority to arrest and “remove” undesirable children, namely, vagrants and beggars, from city streets and place them in ıslahhanes.Footnote ²⁶

The new discourses often suggested that children engaged in almost any activity on the streets were potential delinquents and could be treated as such. Idle and vagrant poor boys could easily find themselves in ıslahhanes; gangs of boys were especially vulnerable. In Aleppo, the governor general complained that orphan boys, unschooled, were “strolling in the streets as vagrants” (sokaklarda haylaz gezmekte) and begging. The ones who reached puberty were joining the ranks of those infamous vagabonds of the city (Haleb'in meşhur haşeratı cümlesi).Footnote ²⁷ The governorship of Danube prohibited children—in practice, mostly boys—from playing games in the streets, shouting, whistling, throwing snowballs, sliding on wet grass or ice, and disturbing passersby on weekdays and during school hours. They were most commonly apprehended by the newly appointed police “inspectors.”Footnote ²⁸ On the first violation, the child and his legal guardians would be punished by an official reprimand (tekdir) by the city council; the second offense was punishable by “incarcerating” the child's father (presumably for a short term); and after the third offense the child would be put into the ıslahhane.Footnote ²⁹ As apparent from the harshness of these rules, the belief that a modern state should both protect children from danger and protect society from dangerous children was becoming established in Ottoman administrative discourse and practice. Wandering, begging, and vagrant children on the streets were suspected of unrest and crime and were condemned in the name of maintaining order, even if they were not charged with any offense.

Vagrant girls were considered less of a threat. Most descriptions of quasi-criminal bands of children on city streets refer specifically to boys. The institutions were primarily opened to educate boys; only one-tenth of them were for girls or, in rare cases, mixed. Yet girls were seen as more vulnerable to other forms of “moral danger.” The major concern was undoubtedly sexuality. Lower-class girls were seen as targets of sexual predators, a danger that became more pronounced when the girls occupied public spaces (spaces outside of the home, school, or factory). To protect unattended girls from sexual abuse and the presumed attractions of a life of prostitution, the state considered orphanages for girls a necessity, putting the issue of refugee orphan girls in Istanbul on the agenda of the municipality and the government in 1883. Since state officials already collected orphan boys from the streets and put them into institutions, it was argued that they should make similar provisions for refugee girls.Footnote ³⁰ If these girls were deprived of decent instruction and discipline, Istanbul would suffer from the emergence of “certain unacceptable activities” (bir takım ef'al-i gayr-ı marziyat). The orphanage had the duty to “save these girls from certain demeanors and to discipline them” (kızları bir takım halatdan muhafaza ile zabt u rabt). It is obvious that the report refers to the girls’ possible engagement in prostitution. Yet, interestingly, opening a girls’ orphanage was legitimized by tying it to the morality, order, and safety of the urban space rather than evoking pity or sympathy for the girls. Girls were in danger because of their sexuality, while that same sexuality posed a corrupting threat to society in general.Footnote ³¹

Ottoman notions of children and childhood were changing in this period. Children who professed to have no home or whose parents had turned them out and did not take care of them were now against the “norm” and thus suspect. The “reform” that ıslahhanes aimed at was also a reform of how society treated its children, in other words, a reform of its mentality toward children and childhood.

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND THE REJUVENATION OF THE URBAN ECONOMY

The new regulations and institutions of the 19th century assigned significant roles in the economy to orphans and destitute children from different class backgrounds. With the creation of the Authority for the Direction of Orphans’ Property (Emval-i Eytam Nezareti) in 1851, the sums wealthy orphans inherited could be used as capital for domestic producers and merchants in the localities. This new state authority was involved with every aspect of orphans’ property, from the death of the parent to the time the orphan reached the age of majority. It supervised the management of property and money that orphans inherited and became an important moneylender to members of the provincial middle class, bureaucrats, and even the treasury.Footnote ³² At the same time, destitute and needy orphans were to acquire skills in vocational orphanages that would enable their employment in new factories and industrial complexes. Islahhanes were seen as instrumental in developing the urban economy and reforming local industries. They were a means through which reformers hoped to combat the empire's foreign debt and its dependence on imported goods.

In the face of changes in the urban economic regime, including the decline of the guilds, ıslahhanes would raise new generations of talented and skilled workers and ensure the rejuvenation of certain traditional urban arts and crafts.Footnote ³³ In other words, they would play a corrective role for the rehabilitation of the domestic economy. The decline of artisanal production, especially in the traditionally strong industries, was a very real concern for the administrative and intellectual elite of the empire. Namık Kemal, a well-known author and reformer, bemoaned the closure of workshops all over the empire: “previously, we were self-sufficient, not only in agriculture but also in industry. We used to possess many workshops to respond to all sorts of our needs. Within twenty to thirty years, all of them were ruined.”Footnote ³⁴ The mourning of the decline of local industries was a common impetus behind the opening of orphanages in the provinces. For instance, it was hoped that the orphanage of Diyarbekir would “revitalize various industries” (sanayi-i müteaddidenin ihyası) and that “the benefits it accrue would not be limited to the province of Diyarbekir and would expand to several other provinces” (iktitaf olunacak semerat-ı nafıanın Diyarbekir vilayetinde mahsur kalmayarak vilayat-ı mütecavizeye dahi şümulü).Footnote ³⁵

As part of the effort to prevent the ongoing decline of local production, contribute to the “reforming/improvement of trades” (ıslah-ı sanat), and raise the value of commerce, the government established the Commission for the Reformation of Industry (Islah-ı Sanayi Komisyonu) in 1864.Footnote ³⁶ One of the commission's first ventures was to open an ıslahhane, Islah-ı Sanayi Mektebi (School for the Reformation of Industry), in Istanbul in 1869.Footnote ³⁷ The appearance of the same objective of “reformation of industry” (ıslah-ı sanayi) in both the commission and the school's name reflects the organic link between reform houses and economic aspirations. The main objective of the school was to train a skilled artisan class to help the Ottoman economy catch up with European techniques and goods in the marketplace (Avrupa ehl-i sanatına kıyasen gerek usul ve gerek masnuatca geride kalmakta olduğu meşhud olan hirfet ve sanatlar).Footnote ³⁸ According to Midhat's account, the government established the entire network of reform houses after realizing the success of the ıslahhanes in the province of Danube not only in protecting and educating destitute children and orphans (aceze ve bikes eytamın muhafaza ve terbiyesi) but also in “rejuvenating domestic economy and augmenting skilled artisans” (dahili sanayiin ve ehl-i sanat ve hirfetin teksiri).Footnote ³⁹

The reorganization of local industries and the formation of a new class of skilled laborers were two of the main aims of ıslahhanes; reform houses were to transform vagrant boys into responsible and dependable workers. One of the central ways of legitimizing the orphanages in official correspondence was to argue that they would fight the idleness of children and turn them into productive workers (hirfet ve sanayii devama alışdırılarak).Footnote ⁴⁰ The administrators in Niš criticized the ignorance of the local community for leaving its children unemployed.Footnote ⁴¹ Together with a manifest objective of “saving the children,” reformers insistently underlined the need to make these children useful as skillful and talented artisans (hassa-mend şeref ve meziyet olmaları).Footnote ⁴² The inmates of these institutions thus were not only disciplined and educated but were also recruited as employees of the vilayets. According to the regulation of the ıslahhanes, the students were entitled to a daily wage (yevmiye), which was kept in the government lending agency (emniyet sandığı) until their graduation. The sum would purportedly serve as financial assistance so that graduates could start their own businesses. However, the government was often reluctant to release these funds.Footnote ⁴³ As a result, the inmates effectively served as unpaid labor in most of these establishments.

In line with the preoccupation with raising hard-working, responsible laborers, the curriculum of the institutions emphasized trades rather than formal schooling. The formal education was limited to two hours a day of basic education in reading, writing, and arithmetic.Footnote ⁴⁴ The school day started in the morning with primary-school education (sübyan dersi), followed by training in arts and crafts (at least six hours per day in the ateliers).Footnote ⁴⁵ The institutions had proper workshops for trades with an apprenticeship structure of teaching, whereby more advanced students taught less advanced ones. According to the regulation, orphans who had completed the necessary instruction were used as journeymen (kalfa) while they were still officially students. The teachers would first train them, and then each kalfa would instruct eight to ten children.Footnote ⁴⁶ There is also evidence that skilled students in the orphanages were rotated among provinces. Two students of Mekteb-i Sanayi of Istanbul were sent to Salonika to be employed as masters of shoemaking and carpentry workshops.Footnote ⁴⁷ Similarly, a number of students who “acquired proficiency” (meleke peyda eden) were assigned to Izmir to teach tailoring and shoemaking.Footnote ⁴⁸

Despite minor adjustments based on the particularities of the vilayets in terms of raw material availability and production methods, the same set of trades (tailoring, shoe making, rug weaving, cabinet making, and printing) were taught all over the empire.Footnote ⁴⁹ As a typical example, the boys in Izmir were taught tailoring, shoe making, rug weaving, cabinet making, and printing.Footnote ⁵⁰ In Aleppo, boys were trained only in tailoring and shoe making, in order to manufacture the uniforms and the shoes of the municipal police.Footnote ⁵¹ It was also common to send boys and girls to ateliers or factories in the cities to be trained in specific trades. For example, boys in the subdivision of printing in Niš orphanage learned it at the vilayet press; leather-working students of Istanbul were sent to the mills of Kazlıçeşme and Beykoz.Footnote ⁵²

Many ıslahhanes became important local producers, meeting vital needs of governments and municipalities—mostly for military uniforms, shoes, and woolen cloth. Only three months after its opening in 1869, the ıslahhane of Diyarbekir was able to produce the shoes for the local gendarmerie together with a part of their uniforms.Footnote ⁵³ In later years, the orphanage provided for the needs of several governmental institutions and the local community.Footnote ⁵⁴ The orphanage of Kosovo produced shoes and uniforms for provincial officers and civil servants.Footnote ⁵⁵ The ıslahhane of Bursa, which specialized in weaving, produced the fabric for the uniforms of the gendarmerie.Footnote ⁵⁶ As part of the struggle of domestic production against imports, the workshops of the ıslahhane of Aleppo manufactured uniforms and shoes for the municipal police officers.Footnote ⁵⁷ Although the provincial government had previously worked with subcontractors through a mechanism of underbidding (münakasa), the governor transferred uniform and shoe production to the orphanage in 1869 because the uniforms and shoes manufactured in the orphanage were of “very good quality and cheap” (pek muntazam ve fiyatı ehven). In this way, the province was relieved of the corruption (dürlü dürlü fesadlar) of the subcontractors, and the treasury benefited from the decrease in costs. The case highlights the actual role of vocational orphanages in the development of local production and the achievement of the goal of self-sufficiency.

The orphanages were also conceived of as veritable factories for workers at many of the new public or semipublic businesses. Some of the ıslahhanes were specifically founded to supply laborers for large industrial complexes and factories. In other words, despite the declared objective of educating the children as skilled artisans, they were also used as unskilled (factory/industrial) labor based on the immediate needs of the provinces. The links of Midhat Paşa's industrial policies with the ıslahhanes in Niš, Ruse, Sofia, Baghdad, and Damascus—each sheltering 150 to 250 orphans—were remarkable. The boys in Ruse were trained to become blacksmiths and cart makers for the provincial coach company, technicians for the new naval repair yard, sailors for the provincial steamship company, typesetters for the printing presses, and railroad employees on the Ruse–Varna line. The girls in Ruse worked for the cloth factory, producing fabric for the army. The broadcloth factory adjacent to the Sofia orphanage was also a profitable enterprise for the governorship, manufacturing 30,000 meters of broadcloth in one year.Footnote ⁵⁸ The girls’ orphanage of Istanbul was opened adjacent to the Yedikule weaving factory in 1870, providing girls to it as laborers.Footnote ⁵⁹ It seems that girls mostly worked in weaving and textiles.

Islahhanes, though formally opened as orphanages with a special focus on vocational education, thus effectively operated as workshops in which children were not only students but also the labor force. Those who successfully finished their five years of study were given the chance to be employed in the orphanage either with a daily wage (yevmiye) or long-term contract (müddet).Footnote ⁶⁰ In the ıslahhane of Izmir, former students were employed as masters for the instruction of smaller children. From among the former students of the school, Eşref Efendi later became the master of a sock-making workshop, and Bedros Efendi became the journeyman in a carpentry workshop.Footnote ⁶¹

The 1869 Ordinance of General Education (Maarif-i Umumiye Nizamnamesi) attempted to establish a modern educational infrastructure. In parallel with recent developments in educating and employing orphans and destitute children in arts and crafts, the ordinance stressed the necessity of vocational training for the development and modernization of the country.Footnote ⁶² It was not a coincidence that the most pioneering educational reforms of the Tanzimat era were in areas of technical–vocational, professional, and informal public education.Footnote ⁶³ In this context, ıslahhanes and their inmates were expected to “reaffirm the eminence of industry and to reinforce the wealth of the nation and the country” (sanayi-i mebhusenin itibar-ı alisinin iadesiyle servet-i millet ve memleketin ikmali) as the governor of the province of Aleppo, Naşid Rüşdü Bey, put it in his report to the grand vizier.Footnote ⁶⁴

ETHNO-RELIGIOUS MIXED EDUCATION AND THE REALIZATION OF OTTOMANIST IDEALS

Ottomanism originated in the recognition of the notion of citizenship as part of the Tanzimat reforms. Its proponents believed that it could solve the political and social challenges the empire faced. Influenced by the French Revolution and such thinkers as Montesquieu and Rousseau, Ottomanist ideology promoted equality among the millets. Political elites used Ottomanism to encourage consensus among different ethnic and religious communities and foster political and social unity. In terms of policy development, Ottomanist thought promoted the equality of Muslims and non-Muslims, and a series of laws were instituted to put this notion into effect. Non-Muslims were admitted to the secular schools and allowed to serve in the state bureaucracy after graduation. Moreover, many new institutions were created in which all the elements of the empire served alike.Footnote ⁶⁵ The Regulation of General Education of 1869 had certain articles supporting the mixed education of Muslims and non-Muslims in idadi (high) schools, female teacher-training colleges (darülmuallimat), and rüşdiyye (middle) schools.Footnote ⁶⁶ With their religiously mixed character, the ıslahhanes were part of this Ottomanist trend in educational policy during the Tanzimat era. Similarly, the opening of the first ıslahhanes in the vilayet of Danube may have been related to the efforts of the Sublime Porte to counter the influence of Russia in educating Bulgarian children and the emergence of separatist ideas among the Bulgarians.Footnote ⁶⁷ Children without families or with families of precarious means were among the first to be included within the new citizenship paradigm. Ironically, these fragile subjects of the empire were thought to be strong candidates for the new “Ottoman citizenship.”

The first article of the 1871 regulation of the ıslahhanes underlined that these institutions were opened for Muslims and Christians alike under rules of equality (İslam ve Hıristiyan her ne olur ise müsavaten). The directors of the orphanage were expected to treat Muslim and non-Muslim children without exception as their own children (İslam ve Hıristiyan etfalinden her ferdini bila istisna kendi evladı hükmünde tutarak) (Art. 24). The articles outlining the daily routine specified that after waking up and making their beds, Muslim children should perform ablution and go to the morning prayer. Though non-Muslims were exempt from Muslim prayer, they were expected to worship according to their belief (Hıristiyan çocukları dahi ayin ve mezhebleri üzere ibadet edecektir) (Art. 32). The curriculum underlined that the two hours of formal education would be done separately in different classrooms (tahsis olunan mekteb odaları) (Art. 9) and with different teachers (çocuk İslam ise İslam hocasından Hıristiyan ise Hıristiyan hocasından) (Art. 8). Since this part of formal education mainly comprised reading and writing, teachers were called “language teachers” (lisan hocası) in the regulation (Art. 12). Non-Muslim children who could speak Turkish would be instructed together with Muslims (Art. 35).

In line with the general regulation, non-Muslim teachers were hired for formal, that is, language, courses. A Bulgarian instructor was hired for non-Muslim children in the Niš orphanage.Footnote ⁶⁸ There was also a “teacher for Bulgarian children” (Bulgar etfal muallimi), Raskal Nikola Efendi, in the boys’ orphanage of Ruse.Footnote ⁶⁹ The yearbook for the province of Aydın for 1901 to 1902 notes a certain İvan Keşişoğlu as the teacher of Greek students.Footnote ⁷⁰ In some cases, teachers were recruited based on the demand and financial support of the communities. For instance, in Edirne, the Jewish community agreed to pay for the salary of a Jewish instructor so that Jewish refugee orphans (mülteci) would be admitted to the orphanage and educated.Footnote ⁷¹ The materials printed on the orphanages’ presses bear witness to multiple-language education. The printing presses of Izmir orphanage, for example, undertook publications in both Ottoman Turkish and Greek.Footnote ⁷² The official newspaper of the vilayet of Danube, Tuna, published within the ıslahhane, was half in Turkish and half in Bulgarian.Footnote ⁷³

Although it is common for actual practices to diverge from rules and regulations, it can reasonably be argued that the ıslahhanes were among the first examples of mixed education in the empire. The orphanage in Niš had an orphan population of 150 Muslim and Christian boys.Footnote ⁷⁴ The ıslahhane of Diyarbekir sheltered sixty Muslim and Christian boys right after its opening in 1869.Footnote ⁷⁵ The Girls’ Orphanage of Ruse also had a mixed group, with thirty Muslims and twenty-one Christians in 1872.Footnote ⁷⁶ The student body of the Izmir boys’ orphanage was also religiously heterogeneous (Greeks and one or two Armenians and Jews), although the majority was Muslim.Footnote ⁷⁷ The orphanage of Damascus, which had opened in 1869 but was discontinued for lack of funds, was reinitiated after the appointment of Midhat Paşa in 1878 with the collection of 200 Muslim and non-Muslim orphan boys.Footnote ⁷⁸ The student population of the boys’ ıslahhane of Istanbul was also always mixed.

These institutions were early cases of mixed education, in relation to which there were interesting discussions on education in multilingual and multi-religious schools. Although the religiously mixed body of the orphanages was based on centrally dictated regulations, there were cases of negotiation and bargaining regarding the institution's policy toward inmates. In Aleppo, the governor claimed that, despite the official regulations stipulating mixed education on a boarding basis, the admittance of children affiliated with different religious communities (Muslims, Christians, and Jews) as boarding students would create very serious problems in the province. In his report to the grand vizier, he wrote that boarding (beytûtet) the children of different communities in the institution seemed impossible, since it would be “in contradiction with the prevalence of fanaticism among the millets” (milletler beynlerinde cari taassubata münafi).Footnote ⁷⁹ Although the children of the three religions were admitted, the governor of Aleppo was reluctant to board them together, arguing that “religious leaders of the communities would create several crises” (rüesa-yı ruhaniye dürlü dürlü davalar çıkaracak) and even alienate children from the orphanage.Footnote ⁸⁰ Therefore, it was decided that there would be “no reference to religions” (edyandan bahs açtırmamak) and the common language of the school would be Turkish (Türkçe tekellüm edüb okumak). Yet, the governor was hopeful that in the future “their jaundice and antagonism would wither away” (haset ve zıddiyetleri zail) and that “a real friendship would develop among them” (birbirlerine ülfetleri hasıl olacağı), at which time the school administration might reinstitute the article on the boarding of children. This was the single ıslahhane that was established on a nonboarding basis.

“OTTOMAN REFORM” IN THE CENTER AND PROVINCES

The rich and complex institutional history of ıslahhanes embodies such concepts as modernity, the modern state, and “Ottoman reform.”Footnote ⁸¹ Vocational orphanages were significant educational and economic apparatuses of the nascent modern state in the provinces and were conceived as part of a series of reforms to change urban space and local economic relations throughout the empire and to solidify central governmental authority.Footnote ⁸² Though the relation between the center and the provinces was usually smooth and coordinated in the case of the ıslahhanes, there was still continuous negotiation based on the specific needs of the localities. Both provincial governments and the central authority had certain powers of jurisdiction and spheres of influence regarding the administration of the institution. It is therefore possible to treat vocational orphanages as both a product of central planning and a provincial enterprise.

Examining “Ottoman reform” in the “pilot” vilayet of Danube situates the orphanages within this larger context. The vilayet of Danube was created in 1864 as a proving ground for empire-wide administrative, legal, and fiscal reorganization.Footnote ⁸³ From 1864 to 1868, under its first governor, Midhat Paşa, the province experienced a period of “modernization” in the fields of legal and institutional reform, infrastructure, communications, economic development, medical care, hygiene, and urban development.Footnote ⁸⁴ The province, in fact, fulfilled its role as a “model” reasonably well. Not only was the Danube provincial charter used as a template by new vilayets all over the empire but also it became the basis for the comprehensive new provincial law (also known as the Law of the Vilayets) in 1867. The long-term goal was to use the experience of the Danube province as the basis of future empire-wide policies. Some “trial” beginnings in the Danube province under Midhat were implemented more broadly. It was during his governorship in Niš that the first ıslahhane was opened in 1861 for orphans and “problem children.”

Although the opening of orphanages was a centrally enforced order, the provincial ties of these institutions remained strong. A common statute for prospective ıslahhanes was based on the one prepared by Midhat Paşa for ıslahhanes in the province of Danube.Footnote ⁸⁵ This regulation, which was sent to the other provinces on 21 June 1867, ordered the establishment of an ıslahhane for vagrant orphans and destitute children in each province. The almost simultaneous appearance of the institution throughout the empire and the compliance with the regulation prepared as a “universal” document demonstrate the enforcement of the central order in the provinces. In 1873 and 1874, a new wave was initiated by the 1871 Regulation on Public Administration of Provinces, in compliance with an article again enforcing the opening of ıslahhanes.Footnote ⁸⁶ The penetration of the institution into many different localities in the empire needs to be evaluated as a real and exceptional success, given the difficulty of establishing educational institutions in the provinces.Footnote ⁸⁷

The ıslahhanes in the provinces not only owed their existence and legal justification to central planning; their operations also implied ongoing dialogue with the “center.” Here it is necessary to underline that the concept of “center” is somewhat misleading. It is apparent that, at the beginning, the vilayet of Danube was the center of the idea and supplied the know-how for its actual application. However, the “center” of the institutional structure was reappropriated at the “core” of the empire, shortly after the opening of the mekteb-i sanayi of Istanbul in 1868. This top-down relationship included taking the uniforms prepared for Istanbul as a model for other institutions,Footnote ⁸⁸ the publication and transfer of curricular books and other educational material (Qurʾans, tracts, maps, etc.) to the provinces free of charge,Footnote ⁸⁹ the assignment of competent students from the Istanbul orphanage as masters in the provinces,Footnote ⁹⁰ and the sending of the student registers of institutions (including names, physical descriptions, entry dates, and specializations of each student) to Istanbul.Footnote ⁹¹

Moreover, as a part of the efforts to evaluate “the dissemination of recent progress in eminent arts and crafts in the provinces” (ezcümle sanayiice olan terakkiyat-ı asriyyenin bu taraflarda intişarı), a sample inventory (Numunehane) was organized in the Istanbul orphanage in the early 1870s.Footnote ⁹² The idea was to compare the yearly progress or decline of the quality of products of these institutions in different corners of the empire. The inventory was meticulously organized with separate sections for different sorts of products, divided into years and provinces.Footnote ⁹³ The first such samples were sent to Istanbul from the Danubian orphanages in 1873.Footnote ⁹⁴ This initiative was important in reinforcing the central planning of the rejuvenation of the economy. It is apparent from the language of the documents that the central authorities scrutinized the overall situation and progress of these institutions despite their obviously local character.

Notwithstanding their strong links to the Ministry of Education and the Mekteb-i Sanayi of Istanbul, the ıslahhanes were deeply rooted in their provincial settings. Orphanages were repeatedly asserted to be “under the authority of the provincial governments” (vilayet-i celilenin taht-ı nezaret ve idaresinde),Footnote ⁹⁵ such that when the central government was approached with applications for the registry of orphans, the petitions were forwarded to the provincial authorities, “since they were in charge of the ıslahhanes” (ıslahhaneler vilayetler tarafından idare edildiği için).Footnote ⁹⁶ As a natural outcome of this understanding, the personnel of the orphanages were dependent on the local governments for their recruitment and compensation.Footnote ⁹⁷ The relative autonomy of the provinces is also apparent from their exceptional regulations, such as the case of Kastamonu, where boys and girls were coeducated.Footnote ⁹⁸

Aside from administrative independence, the most obvious proof of the orphanages’ local character was the organization and sources of their finances. The ıslahhanes, in most cases, were opened with the “benevolent contributions” (iane) of the local notables. These were defined as “men of means” (erbab-ı şürut), “possessors of wealth and riches” (eshab-ı servet ve yesar), “charitable persons” (zevat-ı kiram), or generally “philanthropists” (eshab-ı hayr ve hamiyyet, eshab-ı hayrat ve hasenat).Footnote ⁹⁹ The local population, together with the governors, contributed donations of buildings, grounds, or rent revenues. The 1869 register, which includes the names of the contributors to the orphanage of Diyarbekir, reaffirms the importance of officials: the largest sum was donated by the governor of the province. Yet the contribution of local notables cannot be disregarded.Footnote ¹⁰⁰

One might question whether these were genuinely voluntary donations or quasi-tax contributions, as in the case of nine tribal sheikhs from the district of Amara, who donated a total of 6,000 kuruş, or Nasreddin Shah, who donated 2,000 lira to the ıslahhane of Baghdad in 1869.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Actually it is very likely that the officials compelled the population to contribute to the budget of the orphanage. At least part of the revenues of the avarız (an extraordinary tax that was collected for certain purposes) was spent on these institutions.Footnote ¹⁰²

In other cases, vakıf land or property (müsakkafat-ı mevkufe) was transferred to the orphanages. For the construction of the orphanage of Edirne, a large and expensive plot of land close to the imperial mosque of Selimiye was donated by a certain Ayşe Sıdıka Hanım, who was the trustee of the vakıf owning that territory.Footnote ¹⁰³ When the orphanage was finally opened in 1873, the state expropriated many houses and plots around the land to enlarge the area. Although the act is presented as one of benevolence, it is also apparent that in some cases trustees of vakıfs did this in order to be relieved of the accumulated tax debts of their properties. In Damascus, for instance, the rent-yielding property was transferred to the orphanage in exchange for a pledge that the former debts of the original owner would be cleared.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ In other words, the benevolence of the notables was understandably closely related to their immediate economic interests. Still, there is reason to assume that the local population embraced these institutions as a valuable part of urban life. Their promise to offer skilled labor for the enterprises initiated by affluent members of the towns might have been influential. In fact, awareness of the benefits of a reformed urban infrastructure was growing quickly among the population, and this contributed to the increased interest in ıslahhanes.

Next to the contributions of the notables, the largest part of the orphanages’ income came from the central budget of the vilayet. Some rent and tax revenues (mahsulat, varidat, öşriyye, aşar, akar, etc.) were transferred to the orphanage as the institution's permanent income. In order to cover the operational expenses of the ıslahhane of Kastamonu, the rent revenues of twenty-five shops, khans, and coffeehouses were dedicated to the orphanage, as were the revenues of the boat that carried rough rice (çeltik) on the Kızılırmak.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ The governorship of Izmir allocated the revenues of the thermal spring of Balçova and the bath of Karantina district to the orphanage, and a decree promulgated in 1893 transferred 2 percent of the tithe of the surrounding districts to the institution.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ In Bursa, several shops were built on state-owned land (emlak-ı miriyeden) of the road house (menzilhane), and the rents were granted to the orphanage.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ In Salonika, the grounds on which the orphanage was built were on a main street (Hamidiye Caddesi) and were donated by the municipality to bring rent revenue to the institution.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

The sale of student handiwork provided the bulk of the daily operating expenses of the ıslahhanes, and through the labor of their inmates orphanages largely could pay for their own costs. The 1867 Regulation for Provinces mentioned that the annual revenues of the first two ıslahhanes in Ruse and Niš were around 250,000 kuruş, 70–80,000 of which were covered by the volume of production in the orphanage.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ In some instances, a shop selling the goods produced in the orphanage was connected to the school.Footnote ¹¹⁰ As discussed previously, most of the ıslahhanes manufactured products for local or central governments, such as shoes and uniforms for military officers and civil servants. The idea was to ensure that these institutions had a permanent income from their contracts with local or central state institutions. The same type of relationship also appears to be the case for provincial printing presses and newspapers. Not only were these presses organically linked to orphanages in terms of physical location and labor force but also the revenues of local newspapers were frequently part of the budget of ıslahhanes.Footnote ¹¹¹