SPEECH DELIVERED BY MR SEROPIAN
ON THE OCCASION OF THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE
OF "MELKONIAN'S ESTABLISHMENTS”
on Friday the 15th February, 1924,

 On this rocky hill, this moment is one of the happiest in my life. And if happiness is proportional to the griefs and miseries which one suffers, the happiness felt by us here is and remains incomparable.
It is the corner stone of the reorganization of a homeless and exiled people that is being laid today on this bill and under the British flag by His Excellency Sir

Malcolm Stevenson, the representative of His Britannic Majesty. Thus this hill will become tomorrow the hospitable fatherland of the Armenian orphans who will be assembled for education in the Melkonian Establishments.

Rocks surround our Establishments, but what matters it to us if we are found in a narrow circle. Education, which will be conveyed to our next generation, has neither a fatherland nor geographical boundaries. And he who, by means of Anglo-Saxon training, tempers his national character, is destined to remain ever above geographical bounds, rocks and hills.

The Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople and our great benefactor Mr Garabed  Melkonian, share with me the unmingled joy felt by us at this moment, being thoroughly convinced that the spirit of the industriousness, perseverance, and skillfulness of the Armenian race will here unite with the clear-sightedness and the discreet and practical mind of the great British nation, with a view to preparing a generation which will have appropriated the best parts of the character and heart of these two nations. Our task will be an easy one considering firstly the benevolent disposition towards us of the British Government in general and of the Cyprus officials in particular, and secondly because the tradionist spirit of the two nations has already created spiritual similarities between us.

The moral value of an individual or a people consists of their desires and aspirations, but their social value consists of their deeds.
Unfortunately the two values are not concurrent and immense sacrifices oft become abortive ere they are converted into deeds.

It has been the character of the Oriental people to constantly confuse the desires with the possibilities of reality. This palpable fault is, on the one hand, the result of the miseries undergone since centuries and of the necessity felt for liberty and, on the other hand, of the frivolous and abstractive education which a part of Europe has served to the East. Mr G. Melkonian, as a man of a practical mind, penetrated into the causes of these faults and, from the very first day, felt the necessity of emphasizing that the education of the orphans adopted by him should be based on the fundaments of Anglo-Saxon training.

Cyprus is that peaceful corner where it will be possible to realize his wishes since the distance between these establishments in Cyprus and the universities in England will have been smoothed thanks to the methods of education to be employed and to the enterprising, circumspect, undaunted and industrious spirit inspired to them.
On this solemn occasion of the foundation of the Melkonian Establishments I feel it incumbent on me to express my warmest thanks to His Excellency Sir Malcolm Stevenson, High Commissioner of Cyprus, as well as to all the English officials who, from the very first day, unreservedly placed at our disposal their moral  support and assistance to enable us the sooner to realize this our national and educational project.

The kind acceptance by His Excellency Sir Malcolm Stevenson to lay the foundation stone of this Establishment is already in itself an eloquent proof of the benevolence which we are sure we will enjoy to the end. Having offered my thanks I solemnly declare that we will do our best to be always worthy of that sympathy and to prove during our activities here that we deserve the noble hospitality accorded to us and to assure them that they have not backed the wrong horse.

I am sure that tomorrow the edifying hands of our little orphans will embellish this  hill and will give us the right to call it the "Flowerhill”, on the heights of which the Armenian orphans will sing, with their national songs, the hymns for the glory and success of Great Britain.
 

LONG LIVE the British Nation and the British Government.

LONG LIVE Sir Malcolm Stevenson and his colleagues.

LET the buildings of the MELKONIAN ESTABLISHMENTS rise on these hills throughout the centuries in order to give to the nation, to the British Government and to humanity