Turkey - April 13th 1914
Though Isabel travelled extensively she rarely seemed to do so for pleasure.Her excursions always had a motive behind them. Her visit to France in 1912 was for the purpose of study, her visit to Belgium in 1920 was to visit and share knowledge with a reformatory school in Brussels, and during her multiple trips to Turkey she was preoccupied with the state of women’s education in the country.
In this extract from her visit to Constantinople in 1914 she describes her priorities as to what she will visit while staying there.She notes that the majority of her time will be taken by visiting schools and other educational institutions.She describes the visitation of the native shops (which would perhaps be more attractive to the typical tourist) as ‘almost useless’ and disregards these in favour of excursions which would further her agenda for women’s education.