Religious and Moral Education the connection between knowledge of foreign languages and international
commerce.^31 The Mısırlı family, who like the other main Karakaş families
were heavily involved in the textile trade, were descendants of Jewish cloth
merchants in Spain.^32 After Abdurrahman Zeki’s death, his son Mustafa
Tevfik, clerk in the office of the governor, established the school. Among
the members of the first council or board were the international trad-
ers Mustafa Cezar, Karakaş Mehmet, and İpekçi İsmail.^33 İpekçi İsmail
(b. 1853 ) served on the board from 1885 to 1932 and was head of the board
until his death in 1936.^34 Without neglecting their international and im-
perial connections, these Dönme businessmen and government officials
found time to help run a private school to educate members of their own
ethno-religious group.
Both schools chose names that suited their similar aims. Just as the
revolutionary Committee of Union and Progress (İttihad ve Terakki
Cemiyeti) chose the word terakki, pregnant with meaning, to represent
its aims and principles, claiming in its program that the CUP came to-
gether “in order to warn our Muslim and Christian countrymen against
the system of government of the present regime, which violates such
human rights as justice, equality, and freedom, which holds all Ottomans
back from progress,”^35 so the founders of the Kapancı Terakki school in-
tended to promote a new type of school that would foster a new type
of Ottoman citizen. In these new schools, teachers as well as students
were trained to be modern individuals. Teachers were not only respon-
sible for their lessons but had to discipline students and administer the
school as well. The mind and the body were both educated: from the
beginning, Swedish-style gymnastics were part of the curriculum.^36 Sports
were promoted as a means of disciplining and managing the students.
According to a 1909 regulation, one hour each day was set aside for the
“education of the body.” The school also employed a doctor to monitor
the health of the students. Timetables and schedules were produced and
adhered to, and teachers kept registers of student names and detailed lists
of student performance and attendance. Photographs of students show
them wearing fezzes, frock coats, trousers, and ties.^37 In order to raise a
new generation of Dönme youth able to expand the group’s international
economic links, the Terraki school emphasized commerce, bookkeeping,
accounting, and French, in addition to Turkish. The school fed students
to the best schools in Istanbul and placed its graduates in positions in
commerce, finance, and the railway in Salonika.^38