Perhaps, with the single exception of Great Britain, there exists not in the world a more reading nation than Turkey. I have no doubt that this assertion will startle many individuals in Europe, who have been accustomed, and, indeed, led to believe, that the natives of the East are, as a people, plunged in the profoundest ignorance. It is, nevertheless, a fact that nearly every man throughout the Empire can read and write, and that there are at this moment upwards of eight thousand children scattered through the different schools of the capital. But the studies of the Osmanlis of both sexes have, with some few exceptions, hitherto been confined to the Koran, and to works of an inconsequent and useless description; the mere plaything of an idle hour, incapable of inspiring one novel idea, or of leaving upon the mind impressions calculated to exalt or to enlighten it. The object of such an Institution as a Public School was undoubtedly to widen the mental views, and to enlarge the tastes of the youth of Turkey. But, in order to effect this very desirable end, it was requisite that the soundest judgment should be exercised in the selection of the individuals to whom were committed its different departments of literature and science, and this was unfortunately far from being the case; the internal economy of the Establishment having been entrusted to persons so decidedly incompetent that, with every desire to do their duty, they have erred, from their utter ignorance of the extent of the task which they have undertaken, or which has been forced upon them. As far as the different Professors are capable of so doing, they have directed the studies and formed the tastes of the students; but the young and ardent mind, thirsting after knowledge, and earnest in its acquirement, demands assistance as progressive as its own advancement. The fresh and buoyant spirit requires external aid, at once able and judicious, to support its vigour, and to strengthen its yet unpractised wing. And where these fail, where the shadow is alone furnished, while the substance is wanting, what can be expected from the comparatively unassisted efforts of young and unformed intellects, that have not simply to struggle onward towards a goal to be attained only by their best energies; but also to contend against, and to cast from them, a crowd of early prejudices and associations—while they are destitute of the assistance of more experienced and mature talents, upon which to fall back, when they have themselves just acquired sufficient knowledge to feel their own deficiencies?