Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/16

viii It is with these moneys chiefly that the National University of Athens, the Polytechnic School, the Observatory, the Sina Academy, the Arsakeion, orphan asylums, theological seminaries, national museum, and other public institutions were built. And while such progress was being made within the kingdom, Crete and the other islands were groaning under Turkish rule, Macedonia was overrun by Bulgarian emissaries and Roumanian agents to propagate Slav ideas, while in the other provinces of European Turkey and the eastern coast of Asia Minor thousands of Greeks were looking to Athens for protection from Turkish excesses.

Greece could not, cannot remain indifferent to these constant appeals of her children living without the kingdom. Many of these Greeks living abroad have their own kinsmen in Athens, men of importance, learning, and position. Their influence is felt by each successive government, which is thus obliged to protect those who are living in the Turkish dominions, deprived of the blessings of liberty; and this task imposes heavy burdens on the little kindgomkingdom [sic] out of all proportion to its limited resources, and it is chiefly to one of these circumstances that the recent disasters of Greece are due.