Howard S. Bliss (1860–1920)
Second President of the Syrian Protestant College
Howard S. Bliss 2nd President of SPC (1860-1920) Born in Souk el-Gharb, Lebanon, on December 6, 1860, was deeply connected to the land of his birth and its people. Growing up on the campus of the Syrian Protestant College, he became bilingual in Arabic and English and was shaped by the institution’s intellectual and moral environment. After studying at Amherst College, Union Theological Seminary, and later at Oxford, Berlin, and Göttingen, he served as a minister in New Jersey before succeeding his father, Daniel Bliss, as president of the College in 1903.
When Howard Bliss arrived to Beirut, in 1903, he was accompanied by his wife, Amy Blatchford (1862-1941), and their children—Mary Williams (1890-1982), Margarete Blatchford (1893-1987), Alice Wood (1894-1992), Daniel II (1898-2001) and welcomed Howard Huntington Bliss (1903-2003) in Beirut.
The Howard Bliss family resided in the distinguished Marquand House, a spacious and elegant home that embodied the College’s growing permanence in Ras Beirut. At the same time, President Emeritus Daniel Bliss moved to Dorman House on Bliss Street, maintaining a presence within the wider neighborhood while still engaging in College activities. These residences exemplified the establishment of a settled Anglo-American community within a district that was transitioning from semi-rural orchards and fields into a developing foreign community.
Although the Bliss children were cared for by a British governess who took care of their education, they were nevertheless exposed to local culture through carefully crafted objects, such as hand-made Levantine cloth dolls. Their surroundings offered a measured engagement with the city’s environment: swimming in the Mediterranean and observing the rhythms of daily life from the perspective of a sheltered household. Through these experiences, the Bliss children’s upbringing reflected a blend of Anglo-American domestic life and the cultural textures of early twentieth-century Beirut.
Renowned for his integrity, humility, and diplomatic skill, Bliss skillfully guided the College through the hardships of World War I, maintaining good relations with Ottoman authorities and keeping the institution open for all but fifteen days. His leadership made the College a place of refuge during the war. He died on May 2, 1920, at age fifty-nine, in the United States.