I believe that this dispute does touch the very heart of the Eastern question, for it goes to the root of their social life; and the answer to it must depend, in great part, upon the future of their “peculiar institution”--the harem. For, alas the day! the harem is the place of education for Turkish boys of the upper classes. And how can it be helped? The boys must be with the women for the first years of their lives, and the women must be in the harems. We need not believe all the stories which are current about the abominations of these places. It is quite likely that the number of child-murders and other atrocities, which one hears of on all sides, may be exaggerated. But where there is a part of every rich man’s house into which the police cannot enter, which is to all intents beyond the reach of the law--in which the inmates, all of one sex, are confined, with no connection with the outer world, and no occupations or interests whatever except food and dress (they are not even allowed to attend mosque)--one can hardly be startled by anything which one may be told of what is done in them; and it is impossible to conceive a more utterly enervating and demoralising place for a boy to be brought up in. There is nothing in Turkey answering to the great schools, colleges, and universities of Western Europe. There is no healthy home life to substitute for them. The harem is the place of education, and, with very rare exception, the boys come out of its atmosphere utterly unfitted for any useful active life. This is the great difficulty of the Turks in Europe. If they could break the neck of it the others need not frighten them; and so the best of them feel, and are doing something towards meeting the difficulty. Many Turks are setting the example of taking only one wife, and of living with her in their own houses as the men of Christian nations do. A few have done away with the separate system, so far as they themselves are concerned, and their harems are so only in name. They encourage foreign ladies to call on their wives, and would gladly go further. Some of them have even tried taking their wives with them into public; but this has been premature. The nation will not stand it yet. The women themselves object. The few who feel the degradation of their present lives, and are anxious to help their husbands in getting rid of it, are looked upon with so much suspicion that they dare not move on so fast. Honest female conservatism has taken fright, and combines with vice, sloth, and jealousy, to keep things as they are. However, the women will come round fast enough if the men are only in earnest. They get all their outer-world notions from the men, and as soon as the men will say, “We wish you to live with us as the Giaours’ wives live with them,” the thing will be done.