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WINTER
2012
In 1891, Reverend Alexander MacLachlan
and his newlywed wife, Rose, decided to
open a school for boys in Smyrna. With only
a $500 budget, the couple opened the doors to
five students.
The student body grew quickly and its repu-
tation for excellence spread far and wide.
Rosalind MacLachlan entered the world
on December 17, 1891 - just two months
after her parents, Alexander and Rose, had
worked around the clock since their arrival
from Tarsus to establish the American
School for Boys in Smyrna. Rosalind would
soon be followed by Bruce, Grant and Ian.
The family had settled well in Smyrna.
Reverend Alexander MacLachlan’s main
concern remained the now thriving
American School for Boys. What used to
be a five year program became an eight-
year rigorous curriculum made up of four
preparatory and four collegiate grades.
The reputation of the school began attract-
ing Greek students (previously only Arme-
nians attended), not only from Smyrna but
also from Greece proper and Macedonia.
To accommodate them, MacLachlan
opened a dormitory wing in the three-
story stone and brick school building.
The Armenian preparatory occupied the
ground floor, the Greek preparatory was
on the first floor and boarding students
were housed on the third floor.
MacLachlan knew that a large part of the
school’s success relied on bringing in na-
tive English speakers – preferably Ameri-
cans seeing as it’s an American school.
But bringing in Cambridge graduates
from the UK proved to be far less expen-
sive than paying the travel expenses of
teachers from the US. (In fact it would be
five or six years before American teachers
were hired).
Primary grades were eventually dropped
and replaced with secondary level courses.
The school’s name was aptly changed to
“The American High School for Boys.”
By 1892 - just a year after the school’s
opening - the school boasted 286 students.
The first class graduated in 1895 – made
up of three Armenians and one English-
man. Among the graduates was no other
than Hadji Nourian, a Turk (the law
forbade Turkish students to attend foreign
schools) whose parents disguised his
Turkish origins by shrewdly adding the
patronymic ‘ian’ to his surname of Nouri.
But MacLachlan wasn’t satisfied. Some-
thing was missing. And then it hit him:
athletics. He loved sports as a youngster -
especially tennis and soccer. He wanted to
The Adventures of
Alexander MacLachlan: