Ostrander, Leroy Farrington - Fifty Years in Bulgaria. Jubilee Publication of the Collegiate and Theological Institute of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Samokov, Bulgaria

S. l. By the author, 1911. First Edition. First edition; 9 1/4 x 6; pp. [2], 5-63; speckled gray wraps, printed in black; illustrated with numerous photographs, tables, and a map; sun-fading to margins of wraps and a faint mark to lower right corner (removed bookshop label [?]); small closed cut to fore-edge of front wrap; in very good condition. Present day American College of Sofia, regarded as the oldest American educational institution outside of the US, began its life as a school for boys in Philippopolis (Plovdiv) in 1860, while Bulgaria was still under Turkish occupation. Funded by the American Mission Boards of the Congregational Church, it was established by missionaries led by Dr. James F. Clarke. Three years later, they also founded a school for girls in Eski Zagra (Stara Zagora). Both would be remebered as the first boarding schools in the country. The schools were moved to Samokov in 1871, where they prospered until 1926, when the Mission Boards decided to close them and leave Bulgaria, but met with great discontent and protests - both institutions were transferred to the Sofia American Schools Organization and continued operating in Simeonovo (a suburb of Sofia). After WWII, the program was shut down and the property of the college was confiscated by the Party and used as quarters for the State Police. The college reopened in 1992. The booklet, published in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the school by its longtime principal Leroy Ostrander, gave a brief history of the political and religious situation in Bulgaria and the influence of the American school to it students, described the campus and the classes taught, and so on. Very good .

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