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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12062-0.txt b/12062-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..843a623 --- /dev/null +++ b/12062-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5022 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12062 *** + +[Illustration: Regina Thumboo +College, Lucknow +The First M.A. from Isabella Thoburu] + + +Lighted to Lighten + +The Hope of India + +A Study of Conditions +among Women in India + +By ALICE B. VAN DOREN + + +1922 + + + +FOREWORD + +The Central Committee sends out this book on Indian girlhood to meet +the young women of America with their high privilege of education, that +often unrealized and unacknowledged gift of Christ. + +Miss Van Doren has given emphasis in the book to the privileged young +woman of India; she shows the possibilities, and yet you will see in it +something of the black shadow cast by that religion which holds no place +for the redemption of woman. If you could see it in its hideousness +which the author can only hint at, you would say as two American college +girls said after a tour through India, "We cannot endure it. Don't take +us to another temple. We never dreamed that anything under the guise of +religion could be so vile." And somehow there has seemed to them since a +note of insincerity in poetic phrasings of Hindu writers who pass over +entirely gross forms of idolatrous faith to indulge in noble sentiments +which suggest plagiarism. A distinguished author said recently, "I can +never read Tagore again after seeing the women of India." From sacred +temple slums of South India to shambles of Kalighat it is revolting, +sickening, shameful. It is pleasanter to dwell on the beauties of +Hinduism and ignore the unprintable actualities, but if we are to help +we must feel how terrible and immediate the need is. No one can really +meet that need but the educated Indian Christian women whom God is +preparing in this day for service. They are the ones who are Lighted to +Lighten. They are the Hope of the future. Fifty years ago, after the +Civil war, the light began in the organization of Woman's Missionary +Societies. Through all the years women have gone, never very many, +sometimes not very strong, limited in various ways, but with one stern +determination, at any cost "to save some." + +Now at the close of your war, young women of America, a new era is +beginning in which you are called to take your part. You will not be the +pioneers. The trail is blazed. It has been proven that Indian girls can +be educated, their minds are keen and eager, they are Christian, many of +them, in a sense which girls of America cannot comprehend. Their task is +infinitely greater than yours. If they fail, the redemption of Indian +womanhood will not be realized, and so we see them taking as the college +emblem, not the beautiful, decorated brass lamp of the palace, but the +common, little clay lamp of the poorest home and going out with the +flickering flame to lighten the deep darkness of their land. College +girls in America sometimes wear their degree as a decoration. To these +girls it is equipment, armor, weapons, for the tearing down of +strongholds. These girls must be leaders. They cannot escape the +challenge. + +Until now the undertaking has seemed hopeless. What could a few foreign +women do among those millions? But the great, silent revolution has +begun Eastern women are seeking self-determination as nations seek it. +They are asserting rights to soul and mind and body. They refuse to be +chattels, and going out to release these millions come these little +groups of Christian college girls who are to furnish leadership. Have +we no part? Yes, as allies we are needed as never before. Unless from +the faculties of our colleges, as well as from our student volunteers +adequate aid is sent at once these little groups may fail. This is your +"moral equivalent of war." To go and help them in this Day which is +their Day of Decision requires vision, devotion, a glorious giving of +life which will count just in proportion as the need is immediate, the +battle in doubt, failure possible. Mission Boards must go haltingly for +lack of women and of funds until groups of women from colleges in +America hear the call of Christ and follow Him, for God Himself will not +do this work alone. He has chosen that it shall be done through you. +From our colleges and medical schools recruits and funds must be sent +until those who are in the new colleges over there are trained and ready +to win India for their Master. To bring them over here for training is +not altogether good. There are dangers in this our age of jazz. It is +not good to send out very young girls to a far country during the +formative years lest a strange language and customs and a new +civilization should unfit them to go back to their "Main Street" and +adjust themselves. The Indian Colleges are best for the undergraduate +Indian girl and are the only ones for the great majority. We must make +these the best possible, truly Christian in their teaching and +standards, in impressions on the lives of students as well as in their +mission to the people of India. + +This book is for study in our church societies of older girls and of +women, and very especially for girls in the colleges, who should +consider this as one of the greatest fields for service in the world +to-day. We preach internationalism. Let our churches and colleges +practice it. + +Mrs. HENRY W. PEABODY +Miss ALICE M. KYLE +Mrs. FRANK MASON NORTH +Miss GERTRUDE SCHULTZ +Miss O.H. LAWRENCE +MRS. A.V. POHLMAN +Miss EMILY TILLOTSON + + +NOTE: The Central Committee recommends Dr. Fleming's book, "Building +with India", for advanced study classes and groups who wish really to +_study_. For Women's societies wishing programs for meetings we think +Miss Van Doren's book better as it is less difficult and more concrete. + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + FOREWORD + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + PREFACE + INTRODUCTION + I YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY + II AT SCHOOL + A HIGH SCHOOL +III THE GARDEN OF HID TREASURE + LUCKNOW + IV AN INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE + V SENT FORTH TO HEAL + VI WOMEN WHO DO THINGS + INDEX + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +Regina Thuniboo +What Will Life Bring to Her? +Meenachi of Madura +Married to the God +Will Life Be Kind to Her? +A Temple in South India +The Sort of Home that Arul Knew +Priests of the Hindu Temple +Tamil Girls Preparing for College +The Village of the Seven Palms +Basketball at Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow +Biology Class at Lucknow College +A Social Service Group-Lucknow College +Village People +Girls of All Castes Meet on Common Ground +Shelomith Vincent +Street Scenes in Madras +Scenes at Madras College +At Work and Play +The New Dormitory at Madras College +The Old India +Contrasts +First Building at New Medical School, Vellore +Dr. Scudder and the Medical Students at Vellore +Where God is a Stone Image--Where God is Love +A Medical Student in Vellore +Better Babies +Freshman Class at Vellore-Latest Arrivals at Vellore +Dora Mohini Maya Das +Mrs. Paul Appasamy +Putting Spices in Baby's Milk +Baby on Scales +A Representative of India's Womanhood + + + +PREFACE + +These chapters are written with no claim to their being an accurate +representation of life in all India. That India is a continent rather +than a country is a statement so often repeated that it has become +trite. To understand the details of girl-life in all parts of this +continent would require a variety of experience which the present +writer cannot claim. This book is written frankly from the standpoint of +one who has spent fifteen years in the South, and known the North only +from brief tours and the acquaintance which reading can give. + +For help in advice and criticism thanks are due to friends too numerous +to name; especial mention, however, should be made of the kindness of +three Indian critics who have read the manuscript: Miss Maya Das of the +Y.W.C.A., Calcutta, Mr. Chandy of Bangalore, and Mr. Athiseshiah of +Voorhees College, Vellore. + + + +TO-MORROW + + +"If there were no Christian College in India, the foreshadowings of a +great To-morrow would demand its creation. It is needed: + +(1) for training native leadership in this age when all India is +demanding Indian leadership along all lines, and is impatient of foreign +control. + +(2) for developing Christian workers for the multitudes in India who are +turning to Christianity and need care and shepherding in schools and in +all phases of daily life. + +(3) for the education of those who will be the homemakers of their +country, that the stamp of Christianity may be upon the minds and lives +of mothers and wives in this New India. + +(4) for moralizing the social life in India which otherwise would have +the bias of an increasingly disproportionate educated male population. + +(5) for demonstrating the uplifting influence of Christ upon that sex +which has been so disastrously ignored and repressed in India, and for +proving that the best is none too good for Indian womanhood. 'Better +women' are the strongest factor in the development of a Better India. + +(6) for definitely distributing the ideals of Christian womanhood to all +parts of Southern Asia from which the College draws its students. +Personal witness to the value of Christian education for women is a real +Kingdom message. + +(7) for training women to take their part in the new national life of +awakened India. This training must be by contact with lives already +devoted to Christ, more than by precept, for 'character is caught, not +taught.' + +(8) for meeting the needs of the more educated classes of India, as the +evangelistic and other parts of mission work minister specifically to +the needs of the masses." + +(9) In furnishing pre-medical training for the hundreds of women who +must be educated to follow in the footsteps of the Great Physician. + + + +INTRODUCTION + +To say that the world is one is to-day's commonplace. What causes its +new solidarity? What but the countless hands that reach across its +shores and its Seven Seas, hands that devastate and hands that heal! +There are the long fingers of the cable and telegraph that pry through +earth's hidden places, gathering choice bits of international gossip and +handing them out to all the breakfast tables of the Great Neighborhood. +There are the swift fingers of transcontinental train and ocean liner, +pushing the dweller from the West into the Far East, the man from the +prairie into the desert. There are the devastating fingers of war that +first fashion and then carry infernal machines and spread them broadcast +over towns and ships and fertile fields. Thank God, there are also hands +of kindness that dispense healing medicines, that scatter schoolbooks +among untaught children and the Word of God in all parts of earth's +neighborhood. And, lastly, there are hands that seem never to leave the +house roof and the village street, yet gain the power of the long reach +and set thousands of candles alight across the world. + +"Why don't you let them alone? Their religion is good enough for them," +was the classic comment of the armchair critic of a generation ago. Time +has answered it. Nothing in to-day's world ever lets anything else +alone. We read the morning paper in terms of continents. To the League +of Nations China and Chile are concerns as intimate as Upper Silesia. To +the Third Internationale the obscure passes of Afghanistan are a near +frontier. Suffrage and prohibition are echoed in the streets of Poona +and in the councils of Delhi. Labor strikes in West Virginia and Wales +produce reactions in the cotton mills of Madras. And the American girl +in high school, in college, in business, in society, in a profession, +is producing her double under tropic suns, in far-off streets where +speech and dress and manners are strange, but the heart of life is one. +That time is past; we cannot let them alone; we can only choose what +shall be the shape and fashioning done by hands that reach across the +sea. + + + +CHAPTER ONE + + +YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY + + +"Once upon a Time." + +"Once upon a time,"[1] men and women dwelt in caves and cliffs and +fashioned curious implements from the stones of the earth and painted +crude pictures upon the walls of their rock dwellings. Archaeologists +find such traces in England and along the river valleys of France, among +the sands of Egyptian deserts and in India, where armor heads, ancient +pottery, and cromlechs mark the passing of a long forgotten race. Thus +India claims her place in the universal childhood of the world. + + +The Brown-skinned Tribes. + +"Once upon a time,"[2] when the Stone Men had passed, a strange, new +civilization is thought to have girdled the earth, passing probably in a +"brown belt" from Mediterranean lands across India to the Pacific world +and the Americas. Its sign was the curious symbol of the Swastika; its +passwords certain primitive customs common to all these lands. Its +probable Indian representatives are known to-day as Dravidians--the +brown-skinned people still dominating South Indian life, whose exact +place in the family of races puzzles every anthropologist. It was then +that civilization was first walking up and down the great river valleys +of the Old World. While the first pyramids[3] were a-building beside the +long green ribbon of the Nile and the star-gazers[4] of Mesopotamia were +reading future events from her towers of sun-dried bricks, Dravidian +tribes were cultivating the rich mud of the Ganges valley, a +slow-changing race. Did the lonely traveler, I wonder, troll the same +air then as now to ward away evil spirits from the star-lit road? Did +the Dravidian maiden do her sleek hair in the same knot at the nape of +her brown neck, and poise the earthen pot with the same grace on her +daily pilgrimage to the river? + + +The Aryan Brother. + +"Once upon a time" Abraham pitched his tent beneath the oaks of Mamre, +and Moses shepherded his father-in-law's flocks at "the back side of the +desert." It was then that down through the grim passes of the Himalayas, +where now the British regiments convoy caravans and guard the outposts +of Empire, a people of fair skin and strange speech migrated southward +to the Land of the Five Rivers and the fat plains of the Ganges. Aryan +even as we, the Brahman entered India, singing hymns to the sun and the +dawn, bringing with him the stately Sanskrit speech, new lore of priest +and shrine, new pride of race that was to cleave society into those +horizontal strata that persist to-day in the caste system. Thus through +successions of Stone-Age men, Dravidian tribes, and Aryan invaders, +India stretches her roots deep into the past. But while there were +transpiring these + + + "Old, unhappy, far-off things + And battles long ago," + + +where were we? The superior Anglo-Saxon who speaks complacently of "the +native" forgets that during that same "once upon a time" when +civilization was old in India, his ancestors, clad in deer skin and blue +paint, were stalking the forests of Europe for food. + + +Gifts to the West. + +Nor did these old civilizations forbear to reach hands across the sea +and share with the young and lusty West the fruits of their knowledge. +On a May morning, as skillful carriers swing you up to the heights of the +South India hills, there is a sudden sound reminiscent of the home +barnyard, a scurry of wings across the path, and a gleam of glossy +plumage; Mr. Jungle Cock has been disturbed in his morning meal. Did you +know that from his ancestors are descended in direct lineage all the +Plymouth Rocks and the White Leghorns of the poultry yard, all the Buff +Orpingtons that win gold medals at poultry shows? Other food stuffs +India originated and shared. Sugar and rice were delicacies from her +fields carried over Roman roads to please the palates of the Caesars.[5] + + +Traditions of Womanhood. + +Besides these contributions to the world's pantry, there were gifts of +the mind and spirit. To those days of long ago modern India looks back +as to a golden age, for she was then in the forefront of civilization, +passing out her gifts with a generous hand. Of that ancient heritage not +the least part is the tradition of womanhood,--a heritage trampled in +the dust of later ages, its restoration only now beginning through that +liberty in Christ which sets free the woman of the West and of the East. + +Much might be written on the place of the Indian woman in folk-lore epic +and drama. Helen of Troy and Dido of Carthage pale into common +adventuresses when placed beside the quiet courage and utter +self-abnegation of such Indian heroines as Sita and Damayanti. + +The story of Rama and Sita is the Odyssey of the East, crooned by +grandmothers over the evening fires; sung by wandering minstrels under +the shade of the mango grove; trolled by travelers jogging in bullock +carts along empty moonlit roads. Sita's devotion is a household word to +many a woman-child of India. Little Lakshmi follows the adventures of +the loved heroine as she shares Rama's unselfish renunciation of the +throne and exile to the forest with its alarms of wild beasts and wild +men. She thrills with fear at Sita's abduction by the hideous giant, +Ravana, and the wild journey through the air and across the sea to the +Ceylon castle. She weeps with Rama's despair, and again laughs with glee +at the antics of his monkey army from the south country, as they build +their bridge of stones across the Ceylon straits where now-a-days +British engineers have followed in their simian track and train and +ferry carry the casual traveler across the gaps jumped by the monkey +king and his tribe. Sita's sore temptations in the palace of her +conqueror and her steadfast loyalty until at last her husband comes +victorious--they are part of the heritage of a million Lakshmis all up +and down the length of India. + +[Illustration: WHAT WILL LIFE BRING TO HER?] + +Of the loves of Nala and Damayanti it is difficult to write in few +words. From the opening scene where the golden-winged swans carry Nala's +words of love to Damayanti in the garden, sporting at sunset with her +maidens, the old tale moves on with beauty and with pathos. The +Swayamvara, or Self Choice, harks back to the time when the Indian +princess might herself choose among her suitors. Gods and men compete +for Damayanti's hand among scenes as bright and stately as the lists of +King Arthur's Court, until the princess, choosing her human lover, +throws about his neck the garland that declares her choice. Happy years +follow, and the birth of children. Then the scene changes to exile and +desertion. Through it all moves the heroine, sharing her one garment +with her unworthy lord, "thin and pale and travel-stained, with hair +covered in dust," yet never faltering until her husband, sane and +repentant, is restored to home and children and throne. + +So the ancient folk-lore goes on, in epic and in drama, with the woman +ever the heroine of the tale. True it is that her virtues are limited; +obedience, chastity, and an unlimited capacity for suffering largely sum +them up. They would scarcely satisfy the ambitions of the new woman of +to-day; yet some among us might do well to pay them reverence. + +Those were the high days of Indian womanhood. Then, as the centuries +passed, there came slow eclipse. Lawgivers like Manu[6] proclaimed the +essential impurity of a woman's heart; codes and customs began to bind +her with chains easy to forge and hard to break. Later followed the +catastrophe that completed the change. The Himalayan gateways opened +once more and through them swarmed a new race of invaders, passing out +of those barren plains of Central Asia that have been ever the breeding +grounds of nations and swooping upon India's treasures. In one hand the +green flag of the Prophet, in the other the sword, these followers of +Muhammad sealed for a millennium the end of woman's high estate. + +All was not lost without a mighty struggle.[7] From those days come the +tales of Rajput chivalry--tales that might have been sung by the +troubadours of France. Rajput maidens of noble blood scorned the throne +of Muslim conquerors. Litters supposed to carry captive women poured out +warriors armed to the teeth. Men and women in saffron robes and bridal +garments mounted the great funeral pyre, and when the conquering +Allah-ud-din entered the silent city of Chitore he found no resistance +and no captives, for no one living was left from the great Sacrifice of +Honorable Death. + +After that came an end. Everywhere the Muhammadan conqueror desired many +wives; in a far and alien land his own womankind were few. Again and +again the ordinary Hindu householder, lacking the desperate courage of +the Rajput, stood by helpless, like the Armenian of to-day, while his +wife and daughter were carried off from before his eyes, to increase the +harem of his ruler. Small wonder that seclusion became the order of the +day--a woman would better spend her life behind the purdah of her own +home than be added to the zenana of her conqueror. Later when the throes +of conquest were over and Hindu women once more ventured forth to a +wedding or a festival, small wonder that they copied the manners of +their masters, and to escape familiarity and insult became as like as +possible to women of the conquering race. Thus the use of the veil +began. + +At that beginning we do not wonder; what makes us marvel is that a +repressing custom became so strong that, even after a century and a half +of British rule, all over North India and among some conservative +families of the South seclusion and the veil still persist. Walk the +streets of a great commercial town like Calcutta, and you find it a city +of men. An occasional Parsee lady, now and then an Indian Christian, +here and there women of the cooly class whose lowly station has saved +their freedom--otherwise womankind seems not to exist. + +The high hour of Indian womanhood had passed, not to return until +brought back by the power of Christ, in whose kingdom there is "neither +male nor female, but all are one." Yet as the afterglow flames up with a +transient glory after the swift sunset, so in the gathering darkness of +Muhammadan domination we see the brightness of two remarkable women. + +There was Nur Jahan, the "Light of the World," wife of the dissolute +Jahangir. Never forgetful, it would seem, of a childish adventure when +the little Nur Jahan in temper and pride set free his two pet doves, +twenty years later the Mughal Emperor won her from her soldier husband +by those same swift methods that David employed to gain the wife of +Uriah, the Hittite. + +And when Nur Jahan became queen she was ruler indeed, "the one +overmastering influence in his life."[8] From that time on we see her, +restraining her husband from his self-indulgent habits, improving his +administration, crossing flooded rivers and leading attacks on +elephants to save him from captivity; "a beautiful queen, beautifully +dressed, clever beyond compare, contriving and scheming, plotting, +planning, shielding and saving, doing all things for the man hidden in +the pampered, drink-sodden carcass of the king; the man who, for her at +any rate, always had a heart." Think of Nur Jahan's descendants, hidden +in the zenanas of India. When their powers, age-repressed, are set free +by Christian education, what will it mean for the future of their nation? + +[Illustration: MEENACHI OF MADURA +The Average Girl, a Bride at Twelve] + +Then there came the lady of the Taj, Mumtaz Mahal, beloved of Shah +Jahan, the Master Builder. We know less of her history, less of the +secret of her charm, only that she died in giving birth to her +thirteenth child, and that for all those years of married life she had +held her husband's adoration. For twenty-two succeeding years he spent +his leisure in collecting precious things from every part of his world +that there might be lacking no adornment to the most exquisite tomb ever +raised. And when it was finished--rare commentary on the contradiction +of Mughal character--the architect was blinded that he might never +produce its like again. + +All that was a part of yesterday--a story of rise and fall; of woman's +repression, with outbursts of greatness; of countless treasures of +talent and possibilities unrecognized and undeveloped, hidden behind the +doors of Indian zenanas. What of to-day? + + +TO-DAY: The Average Girl. + +Meenachi of Madura, if she could become articulate, might tell us +something of the life of the average girl to-day. Being average, she +belongs neither to the exclusive streets of the Brahman, nor to the +hovels of the untouchable outcastes, but to the area of the great middle +class which is in India as everywhere the backbone of society. +Meenachi's father is a weaver of the far-famed Madura muslins with their +gold thread border. Her earliest childhood memory is the quiet weavers' +street where the afternoon sun glints under the tamarind trees and, +striking the long looms set in the open air, brings out the blue and +mauve, the deep crimson and purple and gold of the weaving. + +There were rollicking babyhood days when Meenachi, clad only in the +olive of her satin skin with a silver fig leaf and a bead necklace for +adornment, wandered in and out the house and about the looms at will. +With added years came the burden of clothing, much resented by the +wearer, but accepted with philosophic submission, as harder things would +be later on. Toys are few and simple. The palmyra rattle is exchanged +for the stiff wooden doll, painted in gaudy colors, and the collection +of tiny vessels in which sand and stones and seeds provide the +equivalent of mud pies in repasts of imaginary rice and curry. Household +duties begin also. Meenachi at the age of six grasps her small bundle of +broom-grass and sweeps each morning her allotted section of verandah. +Soon she is helping to polish the brass cooking pots and to follow her +mother and older sisters, earthen waterpot on hip, on their morning and +evening pilgrimages to the river. + +Being only an average girl, Meenachi will never go to school. There are +ninety and nine of these "average" unschooled girls to the one "above +the average" to whom education offers its outlet for the questing +spirit. She looks with curiosity at the books her brother brings home +from high school, but the strange, black marks which cover their pages +mean nothing to her. Not for her the release into broad spaces that +comes only through the written word. For, mark you, to the illiterate +life means only those circumscribed experiences that come within the +range of one's own sight and touch and hearing. "What I have seen, what +I have heard, what I have felt"--there experience ends. From personal +unhappiness there is no escape into the world current. + +Meenachi is twelve and the freedom of the long street is hers no more. +Yellow chrysanthemums in her glossy hair, a special diet of milk and +curds and sweet cakes fried in ghee, and the outspoken congratulations +of relatives, male and female, mark her entrance into the estate of +womanhood. What the West hides, the East delights to reveal. + +Now follows the swift sequel of marriage. The husband, of just the right +degree of relationship, has long been chosen. The family exchequer is +drained to the dregs to provide the heavy dowry, the burdensome +expenditure for wedding feast and jewels, and the presentation of +numerous wedding garments to equally numerous and expectant relatives. +Meenachi is carried away by the splendor of new clothes and jewels and +processions, and the general _tamash_ of the occasion. Has she not the +handsomest bridegroom and the most expensive _trousseau,_ of this +marriage month? Is she not the envy of all her former playmates? Only +now and then comes a strange feeling of loneliness when she thinks of +leaving the dear, familiar roof the narrow street with its tamarind +trees and many colored looms. The mother-in-law's house is a hundred +miles away, and the mother-in-law's face is strange. + +Will Meenachi be sad or happy? The answer is complex and hard to find, +for it depends on many contingencies. The husband--what will he be? He +is not of Meenachi's choosing. Did she choose her father and mother, and +the house in which she was born? Were they not chosen for her, "written +upon her forehead" by her _Karma_, her inscrutable fate? Her husband has +been chosen; let her make the best of the choice. + +Will she be happy? The future years shall make answer by many things. +Will she bear sons to her husband? If so, will her young body have +strength for the pains of childbirth and the torturings of ignorant and +brutal midwives? Will her _Karma_ spare to her the life of husband and +children? In India sudden death is never far; pestilence walks in +darkness and destruction wastes at noon day. The fear of disease, the +fear of demons, the fear of death will be never far away; for these +fears there will be none to say, "Be not afraid." + +So Meenachi, the bride, passes out into the unknown of life, and later +into the greater unknown of death. No one has taught her to say in the +valley of the shadow, "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." The +terrors of life are with her, but its consolations are not hers. + +[Illustration: MARRIED TO THE GOD +A Little Temple Girl] + + +Widowhood. + +Of widowhood I shall say little. Since the ancient days of _suttee_ when +the wife mounted her husband's funeral pyre volumes have been written on +the lot of the Indian widow. To-day in some cases the power of +Christianity has awakened the spirit of social reform and the rigors of +widowhood are lessened. Among the majority the old remains. In general, +the higher you rise in the social scale, the sterner the conventions and +fashions of widowhood become. + +In Madras you may visit a Widow's Home, where through the wise efforts +of a large-hearted woman in the Educational Department of Government +more than a hundred Brahman girl-widows live the life of a normal +schoolgirl. No fastings, no shaven heads, no lack of pretty clothes or +jewels mark them off from the rest of womanhood. Schools and colleges +open their doors and professional life as teacher or doctor offers hope +of human contact and interest for these to whom husband and child and +home are forever forbidden. In all India you may find a very few such +institutions, but "what are these among so many?" The millions of +repressed child widows still go on. + + +Wives of the Idol. + +Worse is the fate of those whose _Karma_ condemns them to a life of +religious prostitution. Perhaps the first-born son of the family lies +near to death. The parents vow a frantic vow to the deity of the local +temple. "Save our son's life, O Govinda; our youngest daughter shall be +dedicated to thy service." The son recovers, the vow must be fulfilled, +and bright-eyed, laughing Lakshmi, aged eight, is led to the temple, put +through the mockery of a ceremony of marriage to the black and misshapen +image in the inmost shrine, and thenceforth trained to a religious +service of nameless infamy. + +The story of Hinduism holds the history of some devout seekers after +God, of sincere aspiration, in some cases of beautiful thought and life. +This deepest blot is acknowledged and condemned by its better members. +Yet in countless temples, under the brightness of the Indian sun, the +iniquity, protected by vested interests, goes on and no hand is lifted +to stay. Suppose each American church to shelter its own house of +prostitution, its forces recruited from the young girls of the +congregation, their services at the disposal of its worshippers. The +thought is too black for utterance; yet just so in the life of India has +the service of the gods been prostituted to the lusts of men. + + +Reform. + +The achievements of Christianity in India are not confined to the four +million who constitute the community that have followed the new Way. +Perhaps even greater has been the reaction it has excited in the ranks +of Hinduism among those who would repudiate the name of Christian. Chief +among the abuses of Hinduism to be attacked has been the traditional +attitude toward woman. Child marriage and compulsory widowhood are +condemned by every social reformer up and down the length of India. The +battle is fought not only for women, but by them also. Agitation for +the suffrage has been carried on in India's chief cities. In Poona not +long since the educated women of the city, Hindu, Muhammadan, and +Christian, joined in a procession with banners, demanding compulsory +education for girls. + +Of women not Christian, but freed from ancient bonds by this reflex +action of Christian thought, perhaps the most eminent example is Mrs. +Sarojini Naidu. Of Brahman birth, but English education, she dared to +resist the will of her family and the tradition of her caste and marry a +man of less than Brahman extraction. Now as a writer of distinction +second only to Tagore she is known to Europe as well as to India. In her +own country she is perhaps loved best for her intense patriotism, and is +the best known woman connected with the National Movement. + +Chiefly, however, it is among the Christian community that woman's +freedom has become a fact. Women such as Mrs. Naidu exist, but they are +few. Now and then one reads of a case of widow-remarriage successfully +achieved. Too often, however, the Hindu reformer, however well-meaning +and sincere, talks out his reformation in words rather than deeds. He +lacks the support of Christian public opinion; he lacks also the +vitalizing power of a personal Christian experience. It is easy to speak +in public on the evils of early marriage; he speaks and the audience +applauds. He knows too well that in the applauding audience there is not +a man whose son will marry his daughter if she passes the age of +twelve. So the ardent reformer talks on, with the abandon of the darky +preacher who exhorted his audience "Do as I say and not as I do"; and +hopes that in some future incarnation life will be kinder, and he may be +able to carry out the excellent practices he really desires. + +A Hindu girl of high family was allowed to go to college. There being +then no women's college in her part of India, she entered a Government +University in a large city, where there were a few other women students. +Western standards of freedom prevailed and were accepted by men and +women. Rukkubai shared in social as well as academic life. With a strong +arm and a steady eye, she distinguished herself at tennis and badminton, +and came even to play in mixed doubles, a mark of the most "advanced" +social views to be found in India. + +After college came marriage to a man connected with the family of a well +known rajah. The husband was not only the holder of a University degree +similar to her own, but a zealous social reformer, eloquent in his +advocacy of women's freedom. Life promised well for Rukkubai. A year or +two later a friend visited her behind the purdah, with the doors of the +world shut in her face. The zeal of the reforming husband could not +stand against the petty persecutions of the older women of the family. +"I wish," said Rukkubai, "that I had never known freedom. Now I have +known--and lost." + +[Illustration: WILL LIFE BE KIND TO HER?] + +Yet not all reformers are such. There are an increasing number whose +deeds keep pace with their words. Such may be found among the members of +The Servants of India Society, who spend part of the year in social +studies; the remainder in carrying to ignorant people the message they +have learned. + +Such is the heritage of the Hindu woman of ancient freedom; centuries +when traditions of repression have gripped with ever-tightening hold; +to-day a new ferment in the blood, a new striving toward purposes half +realized. + +Of to-morrow, who can say? The future is hidden, but the chapters that +follow may perhaps serve to bring us into touch with a few of the many +forces that are helping to shape the day that shall be. + +[Footnote 1: History of India, E.W. Thompson. Christian Literature +Society, London and Madras, pp. 11-12.] + +[Footnote 2: Outline of History, H.G. Wells. Vol. I, pp. 146-8.] + +[Footnote 3: Outline of History, H.G. Wells, Vol. I, pp. 196-199.] + +[Footnote 4: Outline of History, H.G. Wells, Vol. I, pp. 189-190.] + +[Footnote 5: Ancient Times, Breasted, pp. 658-9.] + +[Footnote 6: Code of Manu, Book 9, quoted Lux Christi, Mason, p. 14.] + +[Footnote 7: India through the Ages, Florence Annie Steele, Routledge, +pp. 95-104, 116-18.] + +[Footnote 8: India through the Ages, pp. 190-200] + + + +CHAPTER TWO + + +AT SCHOOL + + +Hindu or Christian. + +In the last chapter we have spoken of the Hindu girl as yet untouched by +Christianity, save as such influence may have filtered through into the +general life of the nation. We have had vague glimpses of her social +inheritance, with its traditions of an ancient and honorable estate of +womanhood; of the limitations of her life to-day; of her half-formed +aspirations for the future. + +Of education as such nothing has been said. As we turn now from home to +school life, we shall turn also from the Hindu community to the +Christian. This does not mean that none but Christian girls go to +school. In all the larger and more advanced cities and in some towns you +will find Government schools for Hindu girls as well as those carried on +by private enterprise, some of them of great efficiency. Yet this +deliberate turning to the school life of the Christian community is not +so arbitrary as it seems. + +In the first place, the proportion of literacy among Christian women is +far higher than among the Hindu and Muhammadan communities. Again, +because a large proportion of Christians have come from the depressed +classes, the "submerged tenth," ground for uncounted centuries under the +heel of the caste system, their education is also a study in social +uplift, one of the biggest sociological laboratory experiments to be +found anywhere on earth. And, lastly, it is through Christian schools +that the girls and women of America have reached out hands across the +sea and gripped their sisters of the East. + + +The School under the Palm Trees. + +"And the dawn comes up like thunder Outer China 'cross the Bay." Far +from China and far inland from the Bay is this South Indian village, but +the dawn flashes up with the same amazing swiftness. Life's daily +resurrection proceeds rapidly in the Village of the Seven Palms. Flocks +of crows are swarming in from their roosting place in the palmyra jungle +beside the dry sand river; the cattle are strolling out from behind +various enclosures where they share the family shelter; all around is +the whirr of bird and insect as the teeming life of the tropics wakes to +greet "my lord Sun." + +Under the thatch of each mud-walled hovel of the outcaste village there +is the same stir of the returning day. Sheeted corpses stretched on the +floor suddenly come to life and the babel of village gossip begins. + +In the house at the far end of the street, Arul is first on her feet, +first to rub the sleep from her eyes. There is no ceremony of dressing, +no privacy in which to conduct it if there were. Arul rises in the same +scant garment in which she slept, snatches up the pot of unglazed clay +that stands beside the door, poises it lightly on her hip, and runs +singing to the village well, where each house has its representative +waiting for the morning supply. There is the plash of dripping water, +the creak of wheel and straining rope, and the chatter of girl voices. + +[Illustration: A TEMPLE IN SOUTH INDIA] + +The well is also the place for making one's morning toilet. Arul dashes +the cold water over her face, hands, and feet. No soap is required, no +towel--the sun is shining and will soon dry everything in sight. Next +comes the tooth-brushing act, when a smooth stick takes the place of a +brush, and "Kolynos" or "Colgate" is replaced by a dab of powdered +charcoal. Arul combs her hair only for life's great events, such as a +wedding or a festival, and changes her clothes so seldom that it is +better form not to mention it. + +Breakfast is equally simple,--and the "simple life" at close range is +apt to lose many of its charms. In the corner of the one windowless +room that serves for all domestic purposes stands the earthen pot of +black gruel. It is made from the _ragi_, little, hard, round seeds that +resemble more than anything else the rape seed fed to a canary. It looks +a sufficiently unappetizing breakfast, but contentment abounds because +the pot is full, and that happens only when rains are abundant and +seasons prosperous. The Russian peasant and his black bread, the Indian +peasant and his black gruel--dark symbols these of the world's hunger +line. + +There is no sitting down to share even this simple meal, no conception +of eating as a social event, a family sacrament. The father, as lord and +master, must be served first; then the children seize the one or two +cups by turn, and last of all comes Mother. Arul gulps her breakfast +standing and then dashes into the street. She is one of the village herd +girls; the sun is up and shining hot, and the cattle and goats are +jostling one another in their impatience to be off for the day. + +The dry season is on and all the upland pastures are scorched and brown. +A mile away is the empty bed of the great tank. A South Indian tank in +our parlance would be an artificial lake. A strong earth wall, planted +with palmyras, encircles its lower slope. The upper lies open to receive +surface water, as well as the channel for the river that runs full +during the monsoon months. During the "rains" the country is full of +water, blue and sparkling. Now the water is gone, the crops are +ripening, and in the clay tank bottom the cattle spend their days +searching for the last blades of grass. + +"Watch the cows well, Little Brother," calls Arul, as she hurries back +on the narrow path that winds between boulders and thickets of prickly +pear cactus. Green parrots are screaming in the tamarind trees and +overhead a white-throated Brahmany kite wheels motionless in the vivid +blue. The sun is blazing now, but Arul runs unheeding. It is time for +school--she knows it by the sun-clock in the sky. "Female education," as +the Indian loves to call it, is not yet fashionable in the Village of +the Seven Palms. With twenty-five boys there are only three girls who +frequent its halls of learning. Of the three Arul is one. Her father, +lately baptized, knows but little of what Christ's religion means, but +the few facts he has grasped are written deeply in his simple mind and +show life-results. One of these ideas is that the way out and up is +through the gate of Christian education. And so it is that Arul comes to +school. She is but eight, yet with a mouth to feed and a body to clothe, +and the rice pot often empty, the halving of her daily wage means +self-denial to all the family. So it is that Arul, instead of herding +cattle all day, runs swiftly back to the one-roomed schoolhouse under +the cocoanuts and arrives not more than half an hour late. + +The schoolroom is so primitive that you would hardly recognize it as +such. Light and air and space are all too little. There are no desks or +even benches. A small, wooden blackboard and the teacher's table and +rickety chair are all that it can boast in the way of equipment. The +only interesting thing in sight is the children themselves, rows of them +on the floor, writing letters in the sand. Unwashed they are, uncombed +and almost unclothed, but with all the witchery of childhood in their +eyes. In that bare room lies the possibility of transforming the life of +the Village of the Seven Palms. + +But the teacher is innocent of the ways of modern pedagogy, and deep and +complicated are the snares of the Tamil alphabet with its two hundred +and sixteen elusive characters. Baffling, too, are the mysteries of +number combination. "If six mangoes cost three annas, how much will one +mango cost?" Arul never had an anna of her own, how should she know? The +teachers bamboo falls on her hard, little hand, and two hot tears run +down and drop on the cracked slate. The way to learning is long and +beset with as many thorns as the crooked path through the prickly pear +cactus. Bible stories are happier. Arul can tell you how the Shepherds +sang and all about the little boy who gave his own rice cakes and dried +fish, to help Jesus feed hungry people. She has been hungry so often +that that story seems real. + +The years pass over Arul's head, leaving her a little taller, a little +fleeter of foot as she hurries back from the pasture, a little wiser in +the ways of God and men. Still her father holds out against the +inducements of child labor. Arul shall go to school as long as there is +anything left for her to learn. And into Arul's eyes there has come the +gleam of a great ambition. She will leave the Village of the Seven Palms +and go into the wide world. The most spacious existence she knows of is +represented by the Girls' Boarding School in the town twenty miles away. +To enter that school, to study, to become a teacher perhaps--but beyond +that the wings of Arul's imagination have not yet learned to soar. The +meaning of service for Christ and India, the opportunity of educated +womanhood, such ideas have not yet entered Arul's vocabulary. She will +learn them in the days to come. + +Countless villages of the Seven Palms; countless schools badly equipped +and poorly taught; countless Aruls--feeling within them dim gropings, +half-formed ambitions. Somewhere in America there are girls trained in +rural education and longing for the chance for research and original +work in a big, untried field. What a chance for getting together the +girl and the task! + +[Illustration: THE SORT OF HOME THAT ARUL KNEW IN THE VILLAGE OF SEVEN +PALMS] + + + +A HIGH SCHOOL + + +Where the Girls Come from. + +If the girls of India could pass you in long procession, you would need +to count up to one hundred before you found one who had had Arul's +opportunity of learning just to read and write. Infinitely smaller is +the proportion of those who go into secondary schools. American women +have been responsible for founding, financing, and teaching many of the +Girls' High Schools that exist. They are of various sorts. Some have new +and up-to-date plants, modelled on satisfactory types of American +buildings. Others are muddling along with old-time, out-grown +schoolrooms, spilling over into thatched sheds, and longing for the day +when the spiritual structure they are erecting will be expressed in a +suitable material form. Schools vary also as to social standing, +discipline, and ideals; yet there are common features and problems, and +one may be more or less typical of all. Most include under one +organization everything from kindergarten to senior high school, so that +the school is really a big family of one or two or four hundred, as the +case may be. + +The girls come from many grades of Indian life. The great majority are +Christians, for few Hindu parents are yet sufficiently "advanced" to +desire a high school education for their daughters, and those who do +usually send their girls to a Government school where caste regulations +will be observed and where there will be no religious teaching. + +Some of the Christian girls come from origins as crude as that of Arul. +To such the simplest elements of hygiene are unknown, and cleanly and +decent living is the first and hardest lesson to be learned. Others are +orphans, waifs, and strays cast up from the currents of village life. +Uncared for, undernourished, with memories of a tragic childhood behind +them, it is sometimes an impossible task to turn these little, old women +back into normal children. But the largest number are children of +teachers and catechists, pastors, and even college professors, who come +from middle class homes, with a greater or less collection of Christian +habits and ideals. With all these is a small scattering of high caste +Hindu girls, the children of exceptionally liberal parents. The +resulting school community is a wonderful example of pure democracy. +Ignorant village girls learn more from the "public opinion" of their +better trained schoolmates than from any amount of formal discipline; +while daughters of educated families share their inheritance and come +to realize a little of the need of India's illiterate masses. So school +life becomes an experiment in Christian democracy, where a girl counts +only for what she can do and be; where each member contributes something +to the life of the group and receives something from it. + + +What the Girls Study. + +Schools are schools the world over, and the agonies of the three R's are +common to children in whatever tongue they learn. An Indian kindergarten +is not so different from an American, except for language and local +color. Equipment is far simpler and less expensive, but there is the +same spontaneity, the same joy of living; laughter and play have the +same sound in Tamil as in English. Besides, Indian kindergartens produce +some charming materials all their own--shiny black tamarind seeds, piles +of colored rice, and palm leaves that braid into baby rattles and fans. + +So, too, a high school course is much the same even in India. The +right-angled triangle still has an hypotenuse, and quadratics do not +simplify with distance, while Tamil classics throw Vergil and Cicero +into the shade. The fact that high school work is all carried on in +English is the biggest stumbling block in the Indian schoolgirl's road +to learning. What would the American girl think of going through a +history recitation in Russian, writing chemistry equations in French, +or demonstrating a geometry proposition in Spanish? Some day Indian +education may be conducted in its own vernaculars; to-day there are +neither the necessary text-books, nor the vocabulary to express +scientific thought. As yet, and probably for many years to come, the +English language is the key that unlocks the House of Learning to the +schoolgirl. Indian classics she has and they are well worth knowing; but +even Shakespeare and Milton would hardly console the American girl for +the loss of all her story books, from "Little Women" and "Pollyanna" +up--or down--to the modern novel. To understand English sufficiently to +write and speak and even think in it is the big job of the High School. +It is only the picked few who attain unto it; those few are possessed of +brains and perseverance enough to become the leaders of the next +generation. + + +School Life. + +It is not unusual for an Indian girl to spend ten or twelve years in +such a boarding school. An institution is a poor substitute for a home, +but in such cases it must do its best to combine the two. This means +that books are almost accessories; _school life_ is the most vital part +of education. + +To such efforts the Indian girl responds almost incredibly. Whatever her +faults--and she has many--she is never bored. Her own background is so +narrow that school opens to her a new world of surprise. "Isn't it +wonderful!" is the constant reaction to the commonplaces of science. No +less wonderful to her is the liberty of thinking and acting for herself +that self-government brings. + +Seeta loves her home, but before a month is over its close confinement +palls and she writes back, "I am living like a Muhammadan woman. I wish +it were the last day of vacation." Her father is shocked by her desire +to be up and doing. He calls on the school principal and complains, "I +don't know what to make of my daughter. Why is she not like her mother? +Are not cooking and sewing enough for any woman? Why has she these +strange ideas about doing all sorts of things that her mother never +wanted to do?" Then the principal tries to explain patiently that new +wine cannot be kept in old bottles, and that unless the daughter were to +he different from the mother it was hardly worth while to send her for +secondary education. So, when the long holiday is over, Seeta returns +with a fresh appreciation of what education means in her life; and we +know that when _her_ daughters come home for vacation, it will be to a +mother with sympathy and understanding. + +The girls' loyalty to their school is at times almost pathetic. An +American teacher writes, "One moonlight night when I was walking about +the grounds talking with some of the oldest girls, one of them caught my +hand, and turned me about toward the school, which, even under the magic +of the Indian moon, did not seem a particularly beautiful sight to me. +'Amma' (mother), she said, in a voice quivering with emotion, 'See how +beautiful our school is! When I stand out here at night and look at it +through the trees, it gives me such a feeling _here_,' and she pressed +her hand over her heart. + +"'Do you think it is only beautiful at night?' one of the other girls +asked indignantly, and all joined in enthusiastic affirmations of its +attractions even at high noon,--which all goes to show how relative the +matter is. I, with my background of Wellesley lawns and architecture, +find our school a hopelessly unsanitary makeshift to be endured +patiently for a few years longer, but to these girls with their +background of wretchedly poor village homes it is in its bare +cleanliness, as well as in its associations, a veritable place of +'sweetness and light.'" + + +Athletics. + +Organized play is one of the gifts that school life brings to India. It, +too, has to be learned, for the Indian girl has had no home training in +initiative. The family or the caste is the unit and she is a passive +member of the group, whose supreme duty is implicit obedience. One +Friday when school had just reopened after the Christmas vacation, one +of the teachers came to the principal and said, "May we stop all classes +this afternoon and let the children play? You see," as she saw +remonstrance forthcoming, "it's just _because_ it's been vacation. They +say they have been so long at home and there has been no chance to +play." Classes were stopped, and all the school played, from the +greatest unto the least, until the newly aroused instinct was satisfied. + +Basket ball had an interesting history in one school. At first the +players were very weak sisters, indeed. The center who was knocked down +wept as at a personal affront, and the defeated team also wept to prove +their penitence for their defeat. But gradually the team learned to play +fair, to take hard knocks, and to cheer the winners. They grew into such +"good sports" that when one day an invading cow, aggrieved at being hit +in the flank by a flying ball, turned and knocked the goal thrower flat +on the ground, the interruption lasted only a few minutes. The prostrate +goal-thrower recovered her breath, got over her fright, and, while +admiring friends chased the cow to a safe distance, the game went on to +the finish. + + +Dramatics. + +The dramatic instinct is strong and the school girl actress shines, +whether in the role of Ophelia or Ramayanti. In India among Hindus or +Christians, in school or church or village, musical dramas are +frequently composed and played and hold unwearied audiences far into the +night. Among Christians there is a great fondness for dramatizing Bible +narratives. Joseph, Daniel, and the Prodigal Son appear in wonderful +Indian settings, "adapted" sometimes almost beyond recognition. They +show interesting likeness to the miracle and mystery plays of the Middle +Ages. There is the same naive presentation; the same introduction of the +buffoon to offset tragedy with comedy; the same tendency to +overemphasize the comic parts until all sense of reverence is lost. In +some respects India and Mediaeval Europe are not so far apart. + +A high school class one night presented part of the old Tamil drama of +Harischandra. The heroine, an exiled queen, watches her child die before +her in the forest. Having no money to pay for cremation on the burning +ghat, she herself gathers firewood, builds a little pyre, and with such +tears and lamentations as befit an Oriental woman lays her child's body +on the funeral pile. Just as the fire is lighted and the corpse begins +to burn, the keeper of the burning ghat appears and, with anger at this +trespass, kicks over the pyre, puts the fire out, and throws the body +aside. Just at this moment Chandramathy sees in him the exiled king, her +husband and lord, and the father of her dead child. There are tearful +recognitions; together they gather again the scattered firewood, rebuild +the pyre, and share their common grief. + +The play was given in a dimly lighted court, with simple costumes and +the crudest stage properties. But one spectator will not soon forget the +schoolgirl heroine whose masses of black hair swept to her knees. She +lived again all the pathos, the anger and despair and reconciliation of +the old tale, and her audience thrilled with her as at the touch of a +tragedy queen. + + +Student Government. + +Co-operation in school government and discipline is one of the most +educational experiences that an Indian girl can pass through. To feel +the responsibility for her own actions and those of her schoolmates, to +form impersonal judgments that have no relation to one's likes and +dislikes, these are lessons found not between the covers of text-books, +but at the very heart of life-experience. Under such moral strain and +stress character develops, not as a hothouse growth of unreal dreams and +theories, but as the sturdy product of life situations. + +Some schools divide themselves into groups, each of which elects a +"queen" to represent and to rule. The queens with elected teachers and +the principal form the governing body, before which all questions of +discipline come for settlement. Great is the office of a queen. She is +usually well beloved, but also at times well hated, for the "Court" +occasionally dispenses punishments far heavier than the teachers alone +would dare to inflict and its members often realize the truth of +Shakespeare's statement, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." + +[Illustration: PRIESTS OF THE HINDU TEMPLE.] + +The "Court" is now in session and has two culprits before its bar. +Abundance has been found to have a cake of soap and a mirror, not her +own, shut up in her box. Lotus copied her best friend's composition and +handed it in as hers. What shall be done to the two? Discussion waxes +hot. The play hour passes. Shouts and laughter come in from the tennis +court and the basket ball field. Every one is having a good time save +the culprits and the four queens, who pay the penalty of greatness and +bear on their young shoulders the burdens of the world. Evidence is hard +to collect, for the witnesses disagree among themselves. Then there are +other complications. Abundance stole _things_ which you can see and +touch, while Lotus's theft was only one of intangible thoughts. +Furthermore, Abundance comes from a no-account family, quite "down and +out," while Lotus is a pastor's daughter and as such entitled to due +respect and deference. And still further, nobody likes Abundance, while +Lotus is very popular and counts one of the queens as her intimate +friend. Much time passes, the supper bell rings, and the players troop +noisily indoors, but the four burdened queens still struggle with their +dawning sense of justice. At last, as the swift darkness drops, the case +is closed and judgment pronounced. Much time has been consumed, but four +girls have learned a few of life's big lessons, not found in books, such +as: that thoughts are just as real as things; that likes and dislikes +have nothing to do with matters of discipline; that a girl of a "way up" +family should have more expected of her than one who is "down and out." +Perhaps that experience will count more than any "original" in geometry. + +Student Government also brings about a wonderful comradeship between +teachers and pupils. Out of it has grown such a sense of friendly +freedom as found expression in this letter written to its American +teacher by a Junior Class who were more familiar with the meter of +Evangeline than with the geometry lesson assigned. + +Dear Miss----: + +We are the Math. students who made you lose your temper this morning, +and we feel very sorry for that. We found that we are the girls who must +be blamed. We ought to have told you the matter beforehand, but we +didn't, so please excuse us for the fault which we committed and we +realize now. Our love to you. + +V Form Math. Girls. + +P.S. We would like to quote a poem which we are very much interested in +telling you: + + + "What is that that ye do, my children? + What madness has seized you this morning? + Seven days have I labored among you, + Not in word alone, but showing the figures on the + board. + Have you so soon forgotten all the definitions of _Loci_? + Is this the fruit of my teaching and laboring?" + + +Co-operative Housekeeping. + +Co-operation is needed not only in "being good," but also in eating and +drinking and keeping clean. There are school families in India where +every member from the "queen" to the most rollicking five-year-old has +her share in making things go. The queen takes her turn in getting up at +dawn to see that the "water set" is at the well on time; five-year-old +Tara wields her diminutive broom in her own small corner, and each is +proud of her share. There is in Indian life an unfortunate feud between +the head and the hand. To be "educated" means to be lifted above the +degradation of manual labor; to work with one's hands means something +lacking in one's brain. Not seldom does a schoolboy go home to his +village and sit idle while his father reaps the rice crop. Not seldom +does an "educated" girl spend her vacation in letter writing and crochet +work while her "uneducated" mother toils over the family cooking. + +Girls, however, who have spent hours over the theories of food values, +balanced meals, and the nutrition of children, and other hours over the +practical working out of the theories in the big school family, go home +with a changed attitude toward the work of the house. Siromony writes +back at Christmas time, "The first thing I did after reaching home was +to empty out the house and whitewash it." + +Ruth's letter in the summer vacation ends, "We have given our mother a +month's holiday. All she needs to do is to go to the bazaar and buy +supplies. My sister and I will do all the rest." + +On Christmas day, Miracle, who is spending her vacation at school, all +on her own initiative gets up at three in the morning to kill chickens +and start the curry for the orphans' dinner, so that the work may be +well out of the way before time for the Christmas tree and church. + +Golden Jewel begs the use of the sewing machine in the Mission bungalow. +All the days before Christmas her bare feet on the treadle keep the +wheels whirring. Morning and afternoon she is at it, for Jewel has a +quiver full of little brothers and sisters, and in India no one can go +to church on Christmas without a new and holiday-colored garment. One +after another they come from Jewel's deft fingers and lie on the floor +in a rainbow heap. When Christmas Eve comes all are finished--except her +own. On Christmas morning all the family are in church at that early +service dearest to the Indian Christian, with its decorations of palm +and asparagus creeper, its carols and rejoicings and new and shining +raiment. In the midst sits Jewel and her clothes to the most seem +shabby, but to those who know she is the best dressed girl in the whole +church, for she is wearing a new spiritual garment of unselfish service. + +[Illustration: Tamil Girls Preparing for College] + +[Illustration: The Village of the Seven Palms] + + +The Indian Girl's Religion. + +To the Indian schoolgirl religion is the natural atmosphere of life. She +discusses her faith with as little self-consciousness as if she were +choosing the ingredients for the next day's curry. She knows nothing of +those Western conventions that make it "good form" for us to hide all +our emotions, all our depth of feeling, under the mask of not caring at +all. She has none of that inverted hypocrisy which causes us to take +infinite pains to assure our world that we are vastly worse than we are. +What Lotus feels she expresses simply, naturally, be it her interest in +biology, her friendship for you, or her response to the love of the +All-Father. And that response is deep and genuine. There is a spiritual +quality, an answering vibration, which one seldom finds outside the +Orient. You lead morning prayers and to pray is easy, because in those +schoolgirl worshippers you feel the mystic quality of the East leaping +up in response. You teach a Bible class and the girls' eager questions +run ahead so fast that you lose your breath as you try to keep pace. + +The following letter was written by a girl just after her first +experience of a mountain climb with a vacation camp at the top. "Now we +are on Kylasa, enjoying our 'mountain top experience.' This morning +Miss ---- gave a beautiful and inspiring talk on visions. She showed us +that the climbing up Kylasa could be a parable of our journey through +this world. In places where it was steep and where we were tired, the +curiosity we had to see the full vision on the top kept us courageous to +go forward and not sit long in any place. She compared this with our +difficulties and dark times and this impressed me most, I think. + +"When we came up it was dark and I was supposed to come in the chair, +but I did not wait for it, because I was very curious to go up. When I +came to a place very dark, with bushes and trees very thick on both +sides, I had to give up and wait until the others came. When I was +waiting I saw the big, almost red moon coming, stealing its way through +the dark clouds little by little. It was really glorious. I thought of +this when Miss ---- talked to us, and it made it easier to understand her +feeling about that. + +"So much of that, and now I want to tell you about the steep rocks I am +climbing these days," and then follows the application to the big "Hill +Difficulty" that was blocking up her own life path. + + +God in Nature. + +Love of nature is not as spontaneous in the Indian girl as in the +Japanese. Yet with but a little training of the seeing eye and +understanding heart, there develops a deep love of beauty that includes +alike flowers and birds, sunsets and stars. A High School senior thus +expressed her thoughts about it at the final Y.W.C.A. meeting of the +year. + +"Nature stands before our eyes to make us feel God's presence. I feel +God's presence very close when I happen to see the glorious sunset and +bright moonlight night when everybody around me is sleeping. I think +Nature gives a much greater and more glorious impression about God than +any sermon. + +"Whenever I felt troubled or worried, I did not often read the Bible or +prayer book, but I wanted to go alone to some quiet place from where I +could see the broad, bright blue sky with all its mysteries and green +trees and gray mountains with fields and forests around them. + +"I think Nature is the best comforter and preacher of God. When we are +too tired to learn our lessons or to do our duty, we can go alone for a +safe distance where God waits for us to strengthen us. It is hard for me +to sit and think about God in the class room, where everybody is +speaking, and the class books and sums on the board attract my +attention, or make me feel useless because I was not able to do them as +nicely as others in my class. But, if we go away from all these, our +friend Nature jumps up and greets us with new greetings. The cool wind +and the pretty birds and wonderful little flowers and giant-like rocks +help us to feel the presence of God. We cannot appreciate all these when +we are walking with the crowd and talking and playing, but, if we are +left alone when we go out to see God, then even the stones and tiny +flowers which we often see look like a mystery to us. In thinking about +them we can feel the wisdom of God." + +Crude as the English may be, the spiritual perception is not so +different from that of the English lad who cried, + + + "My heart leaps up when I behold + A rainbow in the sky." + + +Religion Made Practical. + +Religious feeling and expression may be natural to the Indian mind, but +how about its transfer to the affairs of the common day? It is a hard +enough proposition for any of us, be we from the East or the West; to +make the difficulty even greater, the Indian girl is heir to a religious +system in which religion and morals may be kept in water-tight +compartments. Where the temples shelter "protected" prostitution and the +wandering "holy man" may break all the Ten Commandments with impunity, +it is hard to learn that the worship of God means right living. Harder +than irregular verbs or English idioms is the fundamental lesson that +the Bible class on Sunday has a vital connection with honest work in +arithmetic on Monday, the settling of a quarrel on Tuesday, and the +thorough sweeping of the schoolroom on Wednesday. Right here it is that +we see "the grace of God" at work in the hearts of big girls and +middle-sized girls and little children from the villages. When classes +can be left to take examinations unsupervised, a big step forward is +marked. When before Communion Sunday the "queens" of their own +initiative settle up the school quarrels and "make peace," one has the +glad feeling that a little bit of the Kingdom of God has come in one +small corner of the earth. + +[Illustration: BASKETBALL AT ISABELLA THOBURN COLLEGE, LUCKNOW] + + +"Among you as He that serveth." + +Religious emotion may find one of its normal outlets in personal +right-living. That is good as far as it goes, but yet not enough. It +must seek expression also in making life better for other people. The +Indian schoolgirl lives in the midst of a vast social laboratory, +surrounded by problems that are overwhelmingly intricate. What is her +education worth? Nothing, if it leads to a cloistered seclusion; +everything, if it brings her into vital healing touch with even one of +its needs. + +The spirit of Christian social service opens many doors. There are +Sunday afternoons to be spent with the shy pupils of the High Caste +Girls' Schools at the opposite end of town. In the outcaste village +beside the rice fields we may find the other end of the social +scale--twenty or thirty little barbarians whose opening exercises must +start off with a compulsory bath at the well. + +Vacation weeks at home are bristling with opportunity--the woman next +door whose forgotten art of reading may be revived; the bride in the +next street who longs to learn crochet work; the little troop of +neighbor children who crowd the house to learn the haunting strains of a +Christian lyric. A cholera epidemic breaks out, and, instead of blind +fear of a demon-goddess to be placated, there is practical knowledge as +to methods of guarding food and drinking water. The baby of the house is +ill and, instead of exorcisms and branding with hot irons, there is a +visit to the nearest hospital and enough knowledge of hygienic laws to +follow out the doctor's directions. + +Rebecca teaches a class of small boys in the outcaste Sunday school that +gives preliminary baths. On this particular Sunday, however, she starts +out armed not with the picture roll and lyric book, but with a motley +collection of soap and clean rags, cotton swabs and iodine and ointment. + +"Amma," says Rebecca, "in the little thatched house, the fourth beyond +the school, I saw a boy whose head is covered with sores. May Zipporah +teach my class to-day, while I go and treat the sores, as I have learned +to do in school?" So Rebecca, following in the steps of Him who sent out +His disciples not only to preach but also to heal, attacks one of the +little strongholds of dirt and disease and carries it by storm. No young +surgeon after his first successful major operation was ever prouder than +Rebecca when the next Sunday evening she rushes into the bungalow, eyes +shining, to report her cure complete. + +Is there somewhere an American girl who longs to "do things"? A little +plumbing--or its equivalent in a land where no plumbing is; a little +bossing of the carpenter, the mason, the builder; a great deal of "high +finance" in raising one dollar to the purchasing power of two; a deal of +administration with need for endless tact; the teaching of subjects +known and unknown,--largely the latter; a vast amount of mothering and a +proportionate return in the love of children; days bristling with +problems, and nights when one sinks into bed too tired to think or +feel--there you have it, with much more. More because it means +opportunity for creative work--creative as one helps to mould the new +education of new India; creative as one reverently helps to fashion some +of the lives that are to be new India itself. More too, as the rebound +comes back to one's self in a life too full for loneliness, too +obsessing for self-interest. Does it pay? Try it for yourself and see. + +One bright noon in North India, sixty years ago, a young missionary on +an evangelistic tour among the villages paused to rest by the wayside. +As he paced up and down beneath the tamarind trees, pondering the +problem of India's womanhood, shut in the zenanas beyond the reach of +the Gospel which he was bringing to the little villages, there fell at +his feet a feather from a vulture's wing. Picking it up, he whimsically +cut it into a quill. Thinking that his sister in far-away America might +like a letter from so strange a pen, he went into his tent and wrote to +her. He told her of the millions of girls shut up in those "citadels of +heathenism," the zenanas of India,--a problem which only Christian women +might hope to solve. Half playfully, half in earnest, he added, "Why +don't you come out and help?" As swift as wind and wave permitted was +Isabella Thoburn's answer, "I am coming as soon as the way opens!" + +Already a group of women, stirred to the depths by the words of Mrs. +Edwin W. Parker and Mrs. William Butler, returned missionaries from +India, were forming a Society to help the women and girls of Christless +lands. At the first public meeting of this Woman's Foreign Missionary +Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, though but twenty women were +present with but three hundred dollars in the treasury, when they +learned that Isabella Thoburn,--gifted, consecrated, wise,--was ready to +go to India, they exclaimed, "Shall we lose Miss Thoburn because we have +not the needed money in our hands to send her? No, rather let us walk +the streets of Boston in our calico dresses, and save the expense of +more costly apparel!" Thus was answered the letter written with the +feather from the vulture's wing by the wayside in India. In 1870, +Isabella Thoburn gathered six little waifs into her first school in +India, a one-roomed building in the noisy, dusty bazaar of Lucknow. From +this brave venture have grown the Middle School, the High School, and +finally in 1886 the first woman's Christian College in all Asia, housed +in the Ruby Garden, Lal Bagh. Here for thirty-one years Isabella Thoburn +lived and loved and labored for the girls of India. + + + +CHAPTER THREE + + +I. THE GARDEN OF HID TREASURE + + +Prelude: Why go to College? + +"Why should an Indian girl want a college education?" queried Mary +Smith, as she listened to her roommate's account of the "Lighting of the +Christmas Candles." "I can see why she would need to learn to read and +write, and even a high school course I wouldn't mind; but college seems +to me perfectly silly, and an awful waste of good money. Why, from our +own home high school there are only six of us at college." + +Mary Smith, fresh from "Main Street," may be less provincial than she +sounds. Her question puts up a real problem. When only one girl in one +hundred has a chance at the Three R's, is it right to "waste money" on +giving certain others the chance to delve into psychology and higher +mathematics? When there is not bread enough to go around, why should +some of the family have cake and pudding? + +Something less than a hundred years ago, similar questions were vexing +the American public. Those were the days when Mary Lyon fought her +winning battle against the champions of the slogan "The home is woman's +sphere," the days in which the pioneers of women's education +foregathered from the rocky farmslopes of New England, and Mt. Holyoke +came into being. Mary Smith, who is duly born, baptized, vaccinated, and +registered for Vassar, the last requiring no more volition on her part +than the first, realizes little of the ancient struggle that has made +her privilege a matter of course. + +They are much the same old arguments that must be gone over again to +justify college education for our sisters of the East. Rather say +argument, in the singular, for there is just one that holds, and that is +the possibilities for service that such education opens up. + +High schools there must be in India, but who will teach them? American +and English women have never yet gone out to India in such numbers as to +staff the schools they have founded, nor would there be funds to support +them if they did. Travel through India to-day and you will find girls' +schools staffed either with under-qualified women teachers, or else with +men whose academic qualifications are satisfactory, but who, being men, +cannot fill the place where a woman is obviously needed. What could be +more contradictory than to find a Christian girls' school, supported +largely by American money, but staffed by Hindu men, just because no +Christian women with necessary qualifications are available? + +Hospitals there must be, but where are the doctors to conduct them? Here +again, foreign doctors can fill the need of the merest fraction of +India's suffering womankind. But the American doctor can multiply +herself in just one way. Give her a Medical College, well equipped and +staffed, and a body of Indian girls with a sufficient background of +general education, and instead of one doctor and one hospital you will +find countless centres of healing springing up in city and small town +and along the roadside where the doctor passes by. + +Leadership there must be among the women of the New India. Where will it +be found but among those women whose powers of initiative have been +developed by the four years of life in a Christian college? Church +workers, pastors' wives, social workers, child welfare promoters, where +can you find them in India? Here and there, scattered in unlikely +places, where educated women, married and home-making, yet let their +surplus energy flow out into neighborhood betterment. + +Mothers of families there must be, and far be it from me to say that +non-college women fail in that high office. There comes before me one +mother of fourteen children who has never seen the inside of a college +classroom, yet whom it would be hard to excel in her qualities of +motherliness. But, other things being equal, it is to the Christian, +educated mothers that we turn to find the life of the ideal home, with +real comradeship between wife and husband, with intelligent +understanding of the children, and the coveting for them of the best +that education can give. + +One other question Mary Smith may rightly ask. What about the men's +colleges already existing? Will co-education not work in India? + +To a certain limited extent it has. Rukkubai, with her too brief years +of freedom, proved its possibility. Others there have been, pioneer +souls, who pushed their way into lecture halls crowded with men, took +notes in the dark and undesirable remnants of space allotted to them, +and by dint of perseverance and hard work passed the examinations of the +University and carried off the coveted degree. + +They were courageous women, deserving admiration. They won knowledge, +sometimes at heavy cost of health and nerve power. They helped to make +women's education possible. But what of the fairer side of college life +could they ever know? They were accepted always on sufferance; they +never "belonged." One such pioneer was a friend of mine. In many walks +and talks she told me of life in a men's college under the patronage of +the Maharajah of a native state. Loyal to her college, and proud of the +treasures of opportunity it had opened to her, she yet sighed for what +she had missed. "When I see the life of the girls in the Women's +Christian College at Madras," she said, "I feel that I have never been +to college." + +Three times the girls and women of America have reached out hands across +the sea and either founded or helped to found Christian schools of +higher education for the women of India, with the belief that they have +a right to the knowledge of the spiritual truth which has brought to +Christian women of America development in righteousness, freedom of +faith, a personal knowledge of God through Jesus Christ, and the blessed +hope of immortality. + +Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, 1886. + +The Women's Christian College, Madras, 1915. + +The Vellore Medical School, 1918. + +These three names and dates are red-lettered in the history of +international friendship, for through them the college women of America +and India are joined into one fellowship of knowledge and service. + +[Illustration: BIOLOGY CLASS AT LUCKNOW COLLEGE +Head of Class Leaning on Table, and Nine Students Dissecting Nine Rabbits] + + + +LUCKNOW + + +Lal Bagh. + +A dusty journey of a night and almost a day brings you from Calcutta +across the limitless Ganges plains to Lucknow, capital of the ancient +kingdom of Oudh. Every tourist visits it, making a pious pilgrimage +first to the Residency, where in the midst of green lawns and banyan +trees the scarred ruins tell of the unforgettable Mutiny days of '57; +and then to the nearby cemetery, where the dead sleep among the +jasmines. Then, if his hours are wisely chosen, the traveler drives back +to the town at sunset when palace towers and cupolas, mosque minarets +and domes are silhouetted against the blazing west in an unrivalled +skyline. + +The tourist returns to the bazaars and in the midst of them, amid the +dust and clatter of _ekkas_ and _tongas_, probably passes by a sight +more interesting than Residency ruins and abandoned palaces--inasmuch as +it deals with the living present rather than the dead past. It was in +Lal Bagh, the Ruby Garden of hid treasure, that the Nawab Iq +bal-ud-dowler, Lord Chamberlain to the first king of Oudh, hid, +according to report, great caskets of silver rupees, with a huge ruby +possessed of magic virtues, and left behind him a sheet of detailed +directions for finding the treasure, with, alas, a postscript to explain +that all the careful directions were quite wrong, being intended to +mislead the would-be discoverer. It was again in Lal Bagh that Isabella +Thoburn founded her school for Indian girls, and in 1886 opened the +classes of the first women's college for India to possess residence +accommodation and a staff of women teachers. The buried rupees and the +magic ruby have never been unearthed; instead these years of Lal Bagh +history have witnessed the discovery of richer treasure in the minds and +hearts of young women, set free from age-long repressions and sent out +to share their riches with a world in need. + +You enter Lal Bagh's gates and find yourself before a stretch of dull +red buildings whose wide-arched verandahs are built to keep out the +fierce suns of May In November the sun has lost its terrors, and you +rejoice in its warmth as it shines upon the gardens with their riot of +color--yellow and white chrysanthemums, roses, and masses of flaming +poinsettias, surely a fair setting for the girls who walk amid its +changing loveliness. + + +Cosmopolitan Atmosphere. + +As you leave the setting and for a few days merge yourself into the life +that is going on within, there are a few outstanding impressions that +fasten upon you and persistently mingle with Lal Bagh memories. Of +these, perhaps, the foremost is the cosmopolitan atmosphere. Here you +have on the one hand a group of American college women representing no +one locality, no narrow section of American life, but drawn from east +and west, north and south. On the other side, you see a body of nearly +sixty Indian students whose homes range all the way from Ceylon to the +Northwest frontier, from Singapore to Bombay. + +What of the result? It is an atmosphere where East and West meet, not in +conflict, but in a spirit of give and take, where each re-inforces the +other. It is probably due to this friendly clash of ideas that the +"typical" student at Isabella Thoburn strikes the observer as of no +"type" at all, but a person whose ideas are her own and who has a gift +for original thinking rare in one's experience of Indian girls. In the +class forums that were held during my visit the most striking element +was the difference of opinion, and its free expression. + +Scholarship. Lal Bagh is no longer satisfied with the production of mere +graduates. Her ambition is now reaching out to post-graduate study, made +possible by the gift of an American fellowship. The first to receive +this honor are two Indian members of the faculty, one of them Miss +Thillayampalam, Professor of Biology, whose home is in far-off Ceylon at +the other end of India's world. Henceforth, America may expect to find +each year one member of the Lal Bagh family enrolled in some school of +graduate work. Such work, however, is not to be confined to a +scholarship in a foreign land, for this year the college enrolls Regina +Thumboo, its first candidate for the degree of M.A. Her parents, +originally from the South, emigrated from Madras to Singapore. There +Regina was born, the youngest of five children. The father, a civil +engineer in the employ of a local rajah was ambitious for his +children, and, seeing in Regina a child of unusual promise, sent her +first to a Singapore school, then on the long journey across to Calcutta +and inland to Lucknow. At Lal Bagh she stands foremost in scholarship. +When she has completed her M.A. in history and had her year of advanced +work in some American university, she plans to return to the faculty of +her _Alma Mater_. + + +Social Questions. + +Scholarship at Isabella Thoburn College does not deal exclusively with +the dusty records of dead languages and bygone civilizations. It is +linked up with present questions, and is alive to the changing India of +to-day. Among the matters discussed during my visit were such as: the +substitution of a vernacular for English in the university course; the +possibility of a national language for all India; the advisability of +co-education; and the place of the unmarried woman in New India. To +report all that the girls said and wrote would require a book for +itself, but so far as space allows we will let the girls speak for +themselves. + + +Co-education. + +The Senior Class of eight discussed co-education with great interest, +and when the vote was taken five were in the affirmative and only three +in the negative. + +[Illustration] + +The following paper voices the objections to co-education as expressed +by one especially thoughtful student: + +"Co-education is an excellent thing, but it can only work successfully +in those highly civilized countries where intellectual and moral +strength and freedom of intercourse control the lives and thoughts of +the student bodies. Unfortunately these fundamental principles of +co-education are sadly lacking in India. + +"Although woman's education is being pushed forward with considerable +force, for many years to come the girls will still be a small minority +in comparison with the number of boys. Besides, in two or three cases +where Indian girls have had the privilege of studying with the boys, +they have told me that, in spite of immensely enjoying the competitive +spirit and broadminded behavior of the boys, they always felt a certain +strain and strangeness in their company. One student attended a history +class for full two years and yet she never got acquainted with one +single boy in her class. There is no social intercourse between the two +parties. If each side does not stand on its own dignity in constant fear +of overstepping the bounds of etiquette and courtesy, their reputation +is bound to be marred." + +The arguments for the other side are presented as well. The American +reader may be interested to see that the Indian college girl does not +consider Western ways perfect, but is quite ready to criticize the +manners and morals of her American cousin. + +"Co-education cannot burst upon India like lightning. It has to grow +gradually in society; and until there is a perfect understanding and +sympathy between the sexes, this system will not work. + +"Again, co-education should not begin from college. The girls come in +from high schools where they are locked up and have no contact with the +outside world; and if they come into such colleges when many of them are +immature, there will be not only a complete failure of the system, but +the result will be fatal in many cases. So the system should be +introduced from the primary department and worked up through the high +schools and colleges. + +"First, there is the question of chivalry, which is a problem that +Indian men should solve for themselves. But how are they to solve it? If +they study with women, chivalry would become natural to them. + +"On the other hand, a woman has to learn how to receive a man's +attention--how far to go in her behavior. The question now is, where can +she learn this? Isn't it by mixing and mingling in a place where she +feels that she is not inferior to man? It is in an educational +institution that this equality is most keenly felt. + +"Closely allied with chivalry is the question of modesty. It is commonly +said that Indian women have a poise, quietness, and reserve different to +that in Western women. + +"Boldness in women is another fact connected with the above. Indian men +and women should not try to follow Western manners. They have hereditary +manners which should not be deserted. Indian women can keep their +modesty and reserve even while mixing with men. If co-education is made +a slow development this difficulty will not appear. + +"Secondly, this system will give more facilities to woman for various +kinds of occupation. She will then realize that her education is not +confined to her home merely, but that she has a right to contribute to +humanity just as big a share as any man. With this realization there +will come efforts on her part to better the condition of her country by +doing her little share. How much a woman can do who has a firm +conviction that she is not inferior to any one in this life, but that +she is a contributor to her country, whichsoever vocation she follows in +life, in that she can do her share! + +"The third point is that early marriage and widowhood will be lessened +in a large degree. While education will teach men and women to reverence +their parents and always consult them, at the same time they will learn +to choose for themselves. By coming in contact with the opposite sex, +they will learn to decide their marriage themselves; and choosing does +not come at an early and immature age. Thus child widowhood, too, will +be decreased. Then, too, the widows will be able to work for their +livelihood if they don't wish to marry again." + + +Purdah. + +To the North India girl, perhaps the most vexing social question is that +of _purdah_. How can education reach women who live shut away from the +sky and the sun and the lives of men? On the other hand, if after the +seclusion of a thousand years freedom were suddenly thrust upon women +not even trained to desire it, who can measure the disaster that would +follow? Where can the vicious circle be broken, and how? + +Tiny arcs of its circumference have been broken already. Lal Bagh +includes in its family not only its majority of Christian girls, but +also a scattering of Hindus and Muhammadans who have made more or less +of a break with ancestral customs. + +One among these is a member of the Sophomore Class, Omiabala Chatterji +of Allahabad. Of Brahman parentage, she was fortunate in having a father +of liberal views, who was ambitious for his daughter's education. He +died when Omiabala was but three years old, but not before he had passed +on to his wife his hopes for the future of the little daughter. The +mother, with no experience of school life herself, but only the limited +opportunity of a little teaching in her own home, yet entered into the +father's ambitions. From childhood Omiabala was taught that hers was not +to be the ordinary life of the Brahman woman--she was set apart by her +father's wish, dedicated to the service of her people. So the years came +and went, and instead of wedding festivities the child was sent away on +the journey to Lucknow, to enter into a strange, new life. There +followed weeks of homesickness and longing, then gradual adjustment, +then glad acceptance of new opportunity. Omiabala now talks +enthusiastically of her future plans for work among her own +people--plans for the education of Brahman girls, and for marriage +reform such as shall make this possible. + +[Illustration: VILLAGE PEOPLE.] + +The Freshman Class had a spirited discussion as to the benefits and +evils of the purdah system. Opinions ranged all the way from that of the +zealous young reformer who wished it abolished at once and for all; +through advocates of slow changes lasting ten, twenty or even thirty +years; all the way to the young Hindu wife, who would never see it done +away with, "because women would become disobedient to their husbands." + +Here are some of the pros and cons. A Hindu student writes: + +"I maintain that the purdah system should not be done away with +altogether, for it will upset the whole foundation of the Hindu +principle of 'dharm' or how a woman should act and behave before she is +called a good and honorable woman. Sometimes, when a woman is given much +freedom and liberty and is allowed to go wherever she pleases, she +begins to take advantage of such opportunities and does those things +which might bring disgrace to the family. The question of education +should not be brought up in connection with the purdah, for even the +educated ladies are apt to fall in the same temptation as the uneducated +ones when the purdah system is removed altogether. The purdah system has +done much to maintain the honor and respect of the higher class ladies. +The low class women who are always abroad working among men and in the +midst of throngs of people are not educated at all and have as much +freedom as their men have. So we can conclude that the purdah system +only exists among higher classes of people and those who care much for +the honor and respect of their family. The higher a family is the more +it will be particular about this system." + +The following paragraph expresses the views of a Muhammadan Freshman: + +"Among us, that is the Muslims, purdah is very strict. Ladies need +purdah at present, for the men are not civilized enough. Besides, the +purdah system should be gradually abolished. If too much freedom is +given all at once, ladies won't know how to behave and they will be an +hindrance in further progress. Education is at the back of progress. +Girls should first be educated and given liberty gradually. Though we +Muslim girls have come to Christian colleges and don't observe purdah, +yet we are very careful of how we should make the best of it and show a +good example by our personality and behavior so that the people who +criticize us may not have anything to say. I think if all of us try hard +to abolish this system it will take us at least twenty years to do it. +No matter what happens I don't approve of ladies mixing _very_ much with +gentlemen. + +"There are certainly many disadvantages in the purdah system. For +instance, it makes ladies quite helpless and dependent. They cannot go +out to get any thing or travel even if they are in great necessity. They +do not know the streets and roads, so they cannot run away to save their +honor or life. Men seem to become their right hand and feet. They do not +know, often, what is going on outside their homes and do not enjoy the +beauty of nature, and live an uneventful life. This seems to make the +ladies lazy and they always keep planning marriages. This is the chief +reason of the early marriage of girls among the Muslims. The girl +herself has nothing to do, so they think it best for her to get +married." + +With these it is interesting to compare the views of a Christian +student, a young pastor's wife, who along with the care of home and +children is now receiving the higher education of which she was deprived +in her schoolgirl days. + +"The genius of the East will take some time to be taught the social +customs of the West. To an Indian it would be a horrible idea if his +sister or daughter or wife will go out to tea or supper or dance with a +young man who is neither related nor a close friend of the family. India +will fondly preserve its genius. + +"Indian leaders look with alarm at the possibility of a female India of +the type of the West. They would like the purdah system to be removed, +females to be educated, to get the franchise, and still for them to keep +their modesty. There are many who would like to break this barrier, but +it would be disastrous for India to arrive at such a state within +fifteen or twenty years when ninety-nine out of one hundred women are +illiterate. Education is essential and as long as Indian women, the +future mothers of India, do not realize their responsibility, it is much +better and wiser that they should remain behind the scene. + +"The help we can give in bringing about this great reform is to show by +our example. Freedom does not mean simply coming out of purdah and +taking undue advantage and misuse of liberty. We who have done away +with our purdah should not be stumbling blocks to others. Freedom guided +and governed by the Spirit of God is the only freedom and every true +citizen ought to help to bring it about." + + +Social Service. + +Lal Bagh students are interested not only in the theories of social +reform; they are taking a direct part in the application of these +theories through the means of social service, not put off for some +future "career," but carried on during the busy weeks of college life. +Nor is such service merely social; through it all the Christian motive +holds sway. We will let one of the students tell in her own words what +they are attempting. + +"'Cleanliness is next to godliness' is the first lesson we teach in our +social and Christian service fields. Both in our work in the city and in +our own servants' compound, we emphasize personal cleanliness and that +of the home, and have regular inspection of servants' homes. + +"Religious instruction is given to non-Christian children and women in +various sections of the city in separate classes. Side by side with +these, they are given tips about doctoring simple ailments, and taught +how to take precautions at the time of epidemics like cholera, typhoid, +etc. Lotions, fever mixtures, cough mixtures, quinine, etc., are given +to the poorer depressed classes, as also clothes and soap to the needy +ones. + +"In the servants' compound plots have been provided for gardening, and +provision made for the children's play, and pictures given to parents as +prizes for tidy homes. Soap and clothes and medicines are given here +also; a special series of lectures on diseases and the evils of drink +has been started. A lecture a week is given--cholera, malaria, typhoid +fever, dysentery have been touched on--lantern slides and charts and +pictures have been used for illustration. On Saturday nights the +Christian servants have song-service and prayer meeting, and on Sunday +noon a Bible class. Each of these is conducted by a teacher assisted by +girls of the College. + +"There is opportunity for service for people of all tastes--those who +prefer teaching how to read and write, for sewing, for care of the +health, care of the baby, avoiding sickness, nursing the sick ... but in +every case devotion, enthusiasm, and a sympathetic Christian spirit are +needed. Our motive both among our own Christian servants and those who +reside in the city and are non-Christians is to serve the least of our +needy fellowmen according to the wishes of our Master, and to enlighten +and uplift our less fortunate neighbors through the avenues of Christian +social service." + +An interesting practical suggestion is the following: + +"In our Social Service class, which is held every Thursday, there has +come up a suggestion about opening up a few Purdah Parks for Indian +ladies. It is very essential that Indian women should have some places, +where they can take recreation and have some social intercourse with one +another, also that the rich and poor may all meet and be brought into +sympathy with one another. + +"There is a Park right in front of our College, and we have suggested +that, if this particular Park is made into a Purdah Park once a week, +then we college girls interested in social service work can form a +committee and look after the different arrangements, such as the water +supply, games, playthings for children, etc. + +"We have drawn up a petition and this will be signed by the influential +ladies of this place, such as the wives of the Professors of our Lucknow +University, and then it will be presented to the Lucknow Improvement +Trust Committee. + +"We all hope that this petition will be granted, and our sisters will +have more of social life and hygienic advantages, to help make stronger +mothers and stronger children." + +Nor do the girls of Isabella Thoburn College forget all these interests +when vacation days come round. This tells something of holiday +opportunity. How do our summer vacations compare with it? "How apt one +is to slacken and get a little selfish in planning out a programme for a +holiday. One is not tied down to the usual duties and routine of school +work, and plans are made as to the best possible way of spending the +days for one's own pleasure and relaxation. The many little things that +one's heart longs for, and for which there is no time during the busy +days, are now looked forward to; a particular piece of needlework, a +favorite book, some excursions to places of interest; all these and +other things are likely to crowd out thoughts of our duties to others in +making life a little better and some one a little happier each day. + +"And yet a holiday is the time when one can more freely give oneself to +others, for opportunities of helpful service offer themselves in the +very holiday pursuits, if one has eyes for them. + +"Rooming in a home where many mothers have still many more children, one +would feel at first like escaping from the noise and commotion caused by +crying babies, and yet here are some opportunities of service. It is +never a wise plan to leave children to the entire care of ayahs. A very +profitable hour may be spent in directing games when the little people +build with their bricks gates and bridges, houses and castles, and the +older ones listen with interest to some story of adventure. An hour +spent in the open air under shady trees in this way would draw many a +grateful heart, for there would be less crying, fewer quarrels, and a +little more peace for all around. + +"In these days when strikes are so common, many opportunities for social +service offer themselves. It may be a postal strike. Now, not many of us +like to be kept waiting for our mail, and, if the postmen are not +bringing us our letters, we very soon contrive some means of getting +them. I grant it isn't a very enviable job to be standing outside a +delivery window awaiting the sorting of letters by a crew of girl guides +and boy scouts, who are not any too serious about their work. But once +the letters are secured and delivered at the neighboring homes of +friends and others, it is something done, besides the satisfaction of +being able to sit down and read your own letters as well as having the +grateful appreciation from others. + +"Again, a picnic has been planned to some far away hill. The party +arrives; tiffin baskets are placed in some shady spot. One of the party +wanders away to a little village not far off. She is soon surrounded by +a group of scrubby children, who watch her with eyes full of curiosity +and wonder. She dips her hand into the bag she has been carrying and +brings out a handful of nuts and oranges, and, before sharing them with +the children, she invites them to wash their scrubby, little hands and +faces in the sparkling stream of clear, crystal water that is flowing +through the valley. She gets to talking to them, and asks about their +homes, and one little child leads her to a meagre, little, grassy hut in +which her sick sister is lying. She hasn't any medicine with her, but +she opens wide the door of the hut and lets the bright sunlight in. She +strokes the little one's feverish brow, and sets to, and fixes up the +bed and soon gets the sickroom, such as it is, clean and tidy. The +mother is touched by the gentle kindliness of the stranger and confides +her sorrows to her. Other homes are visited. People expecting the kind +visitor brush up and tidy their huts. + +"So the picnic excursion ends leaving a cleaner and happier spot +nestling in among those mountainsides. Several visits are paid to the +little village. The stranger is no longer a stranger, for she is now +known and loved and is greeted by clean, happy, smiling children, and +blessed by grateful mothers. And so in the home and in the office and in +God's out-of-doors we can find opportunities for helping others." + +[Illustration: GIRLS OF ALL CASTES MEET ON COMMON GROUND IN THE +CHRISTIAN COLLEGE.] + +Eminent among the student body for maturity of thought and depth of +Christian purpose is Shelomith Vincent. Many of these characteristics +may be accounted for by her splendid inheritance. Her father was of the +military caste, the son of a Zemindar, or petty rajah. At the time of +the Mutiny he, a boy of ten years, ran away in the crowd and followed +the mutineers on their long march from Lucknow to Agra, where he was +rescued by a missionary and brought up in his family. Later, longing to +know his past, the young man returned to Lucknow, found his relatives, +weighed in the balance the claims of Hinduism and Christianity, and of +his own accord decided for the latter. Later we see him a Sanskrit +student in Benares, where he married his wife, a fifteen-year-old +Brahman convert. + +The Christian couple moved soon to the Central Provinces, where Mr. +Vincent entered upon his twenty-five years of service as a Christian +pastor, using his Sanskrit learning to interpret the message of +Christianity to his Hindu friends. Yet it was in lowlier ways that his +life was most telling. Settling in a peasant colony of a thousand +so-called converts, only half-Christianized, the story of his labors and +triumphs reads like that of Columba, or Boniface in early Europe. +Through perils of robbers and perils of famine he labored on, building +villages, digging wells, distributing American corn in famine days, +reproving, teaching, guiding. All this I am telling, because it +explains much of the daughter's quiet strength. One of ten children, +she has spent many years in earning money to educate the younger +brothers and sisters, and she is finishing her college course as a +mature woman. Miss Vincent hopes that the American fellowship may one +day be hers; and already her plans are developing as to the ways she +will contrive to pass on her opportunities to her fellow countrywomen. +Her heart is with those illiterate village women among whom her +childhood was passed; her longing is to share with them the truth, the +beauty, and the goodness with which Lal Bagh has filled her days. + +Has Lal Bagh been a paying investment? One wishes that every one whose +dollars have found expression in its walls might come to feel the +indefinable spirit that pervades them, filling cold brick and mortar +with life energy. For centuries philosophers searched for that +Philosopher's Stone that was to transmute base metals into gold. In the +world to-day there are those who have found a subtler magic that +transforms dead gold and silver into warm human purposes and the +Christ-spirit of service. That is the miracle one sees in daily process +at Lal Bagh. + + +IN THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE + +ELLEN LAKSHMI GOREH (_Lucknow College_) + + + In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide! + Oh, how precious are the lessons which I learn at Jesus' side! + Earthly cares can never vex me, neither trials lay me low; + For when Satan comes to tempt me, to the secret place I go. + + When my soul is faint and thirsty, 'neath the shadow of His + wing + There is cool and pleasant shelter, and a fresh and crystal + spring; + And my Saviour rests beside me, as we hold communion + sweet: + If I tried, I could not utter what He says when thus we meet. + + Only this I know: I tell Him all my doubts, my griefs and + fears; + Oh, how patiently He listens! and my drooping soul He + cheers: + Do you think He ne'er reproves me? What a false friend He + would be, + If He never, never told me of the sins which He must see. + + Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the + Lord? + Go and hide beneath His shadow: this shall then be your + reward; + And whene'er you leave the silence of that happy meeting + place, + You must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face. + + +[Illustration: SHELOMITH VINCENT] + +LAL BAGH ALUMNAE RECORDS SHOW THE FOLLOWING: + + +The first Kindergarten in India. + +The first college in India with full staff of women and residence +accommodation. + +The first Arya Samaj B.A. graduate. + +The F.Sc. graduate who became the second woman with the B.Sc. degree in +India. + +The F.Sc. graduate who later graduated at the foremost Medical College +in North India as the first Muhammadan woman doctor in India and +probably in the world. + +The first woman B.A. and the first Normal School graduate from +Rajputana. + +The first woman to receive her M.A. in North India. + +The first Muhammadan woman to take her F.A. examination from the Central +Provinces. + +Probably the first F.A. student to take her examination in purdah. + +The first Teachers Conference (held annually) in India. + +The first woman's college to offer the F.Sc. course. + +The first college to have on its staff an Indian lady. + +The first woman (Lilavati Singh) from the Orient to serve on a world's +Committee. + +The first woman dentist. + +The first woman agriculturist. + +The first woman in India to be in charge of a Boys' High School. + +A Lal Bagh graduate organized the Home Missionary Society which has +developed into an agency of great service to the neglected Anglo-Indian +community scattered throughout India. + +The Lal Bagh student who took an agricultural course in America and is +now helping convert wastes of the Himalaya regions into fruitful +valleys. + +Miss Phoebe Rowe, an Anglo-Indian who was associated with Lal Bagh in +Miss Thoburn's time, was a wonderful influence in the villages of North +India and carried the Christian message by her beautiful voice as well +as her consecrated personality. She traveled in America, endearing India +to many friends here. She is one--perhaps the most remarkable, +however--of many Lal Bagh daughters who are serving as evangelists in +faraway places. + + +FROM A STUDENT AT MADRAS WOMEN'S COLLEGE + +"Your letter was handed to me as I returned from my evening hour of +prayer, prayer for our school, special prayer for the problem God has +called us to tackle together. I believe that the solution for many of +our problems at school is to put things on a Christian foundation. We +want workers who are real Christians and who love the Master as +sincerely as they do themselves and serve Him for their love of Him. +This may not be easy work for us to do, but if God is transforming the +whole globe and moulding it from the 'new spiritual center,' +namely,--Jesus Christ, it is certainly not hard for Him to accomplish it +in this place. How He is going to do it I am blind to see. Let us put +our feet on the one step that we see with the faith expressed in 'One +step enough for me,' and the next step will flash before our eyes. One +question that used to trouble me is, how we are to do the work. The poem +by Edward Sill in 'The Manhood of the Master' cheers me up now as then +with the thought that a broken sword flung away by a craven as useless +was used by a king's son to win victory in the same battle. God will use +it and perform His work. We have dedicated ourselves for His duty which +is gripping our souls. He will use them according to His purpose." + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + + +AN INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE + + +Education and World Peace. + +While statesmen discuss disarmament and politicians and newspaper +editors foment race consciousness and mutual distrust, certain forces +that never figure in newspaper headlines, that come "not with +observation," are working with silent constructive power to bind nations +together in ties of peace and good will. Among these silent forces are +certain educational institutions. Columbia University has its +Cosmopolitan Club, at whose Sunday night suppers you may meet +representatives of forty to fifty nations, Occidental and Oriental. In +the Near East, amid the race hatred and strife that set every man's +hand against his fellow, the American Colleges at Constantinople and +Beirut have stood foremost among the forces that produce unification and +brotherhood. + +During the war-scarred days of 1915, while nation was rising up against +nation, there was founded in the city of Madras one of these +international ventures in co-operation. Known to the world of India as +the Women's Christian College of Madras, it might just as truthfully be +called a Triangular Alliance in Education, for in it Great Britain +including Canada, the United States, and India are joined together in +educational endeavor. America may well admire what Britain has been +doing during long years for India's educational advancement. Among +England's more recent contributions to education in India none has been +greater that the coming of Miss Eleanor McDougall from London University +to take the principalship of this international college for women. Under +her wise leadership British and American women have worked in one +harmonious unit, and international co-operation has been transformed +from theory to fact. + + +Where Missions Co-operate. + +The Women's Christian College is not only international, it is also +intermissionary. Supported by fourteen different Mission Boards, +including almost every shade of Protestant belief and every form of +church government, it stands not only for international friendship, but +also as an outstanding evidence of Christian unity. + +The staff and the student body are as varied as the supporting +constituency. In the former, along with British and American professors +are now two Indian women lecturers, Miss George, a Syrian Christian, who +teaches history, and Miss Janaki, a Hindu, who teaches botany. Both are +resident and a happy factor in the home life of the college. Among the +students nine Indian languages are represented, ranging all the way from +Burma to Ceylon, from Bengal to the Malabar Coast. From the last named +locality come Syrian Christians in great numbers. This interesting sect +loves to trace its history back to the days of the Apostle Thomas. Be +that historical fact or merely a pious tradition, this sect can +undoubtedly boast an indigenous form of Christianity that dates back to +the early centuries of the Christian era; and it stands to-day in a +place of honor in the Indian Christian community. + +[Illustration: A road near the College] + +[Illustration: The Potters' Shop + STREET SCENES IN MADRAS] + + +The Sunflower and the Lamp. + +Perhaps much of the success which the College at Madras has achieved on +the side of unity is due to the fact that her members are too busy to +think or talk about it because their time is all filled up with actually +doing things together. Expressing this spirit of active co-operation is +the college motto, "Lighted to lighten"; the emblem in the shield is a +tiny lamp such as may burn in the poorest homes in India. Below the lamp +is a sunflower, whose meaning has been discussed in the college magazine +by a new student. She says, "To-day the sunflower stands for very much +in my mind. It is symbolic of this our College, for, as our amateur +botanists tell us, the sunflower is not a flower, but a congregation of +them. The tiny buds in the centre are our budding intellects. To-day +they are in the making; to-morrow they will bloom like their sisters who +surround them. Nourished from the same source, their fruit will be even +likewise. + +"Around these are the golden rays--each a tongue of fire to protect and +inspire. There is none high or low amongst them, being all alike, and +these are our tutors, and the sunflower itself turns to the sun, the +great giver of life, for its inspiration, ever turning to him, never +losing sight of his face. A force inexplicable draws the flower to the +King of Day, even as our hearts are turned to Him at morn and at eve, be +we East or West." + + +In a Garden. + +It is fitting that the sunflower should bloom in a garden, and so it +does. This time it is not a walled garden like that of Lal Bagh; the +Women's College is situated out from the city in a green and spacious +suburb, where the little River Cooum wanders by its open spaces. The ten +acres have much the air of an American college campus,--the same sense +of academic quiet, of detachment from the work-a-day world. The whole +compound is dominated by the tall, white columns of the old main +building, which confer an air of distinction upon the whole place, as +well they may, for have they not guarded successively government +officials and Indian rajahs? + +Nearby is the new residence hall, as modern as the other is historic. +Three stories in height, its verandahs are in the form of a hollow +square, and look out upon a courtyard gay with the bright-hued foliage +of crotons and other tropical plants. Beyond is the garden itself, +filled not with the roses and chrysanthemums of winter Lucknow, but with +the perpetual summer foliage of spreading rain trees, palms, and long +fronded ferns, with fluffy maidenhair between. In their season the +purple masses of Bougainvillea, and the crimson of the Flamboya tree set +the garden afire. In the evening when the girls are sitting under the +trees or walking down the long vistas with the level sunbeams bringing +out the bright colors of their draped _saris_, it brings to mind nothing +so much as a scene from "The Princess" where among fair English gardens + + + "One walked reciting by herself, and one + In this hand held a volume as to read." + + + +Student Organizations. + +Yet life in the Women's College is not a cloistered retreat such as "The +Princess" tried to establish, nor are its activities confined to the +study of classics in a garden. Student organizations flourish here with +a variety almost as great as in the West. There is, first of all, the +College Committee, which corresponds roughly to our Scheme of Student +Government. Its members are chosen from the classes and in their turn +elect a President known as "Senior Student." She is the official +representative of the whole student body. Communications from faculty to +students pass through her, and she represents the College on state +occasions, such as visits from the Viceroy or other Government +officials. Various student committees are also elected to plan meetings +for the Literary and Debating Societies, to organize excursions for +"Seeing Madras," and to plan for athletic teams and contests. How well +the last named have succeeded is proved by the silver cup carried off as +a trophy by the College badminton team, which distinguished itself as +the winner in last year's intercollegiate sports. + +An unusual organization is the Star Club, which has been carried on for +several years, with programme meetings once a month and bi-weekly groups +for observation. No wonder that astrology and the beginnings of +astronomy came from the Orient, or that Wise Men from the East found a +Star as the sign to lead their journeying. Night after night the +constellations rise undimmed in the clear sky and fairly urge the +beholder to close acquaintance. A knowledge of them fills the sky with +friendly forms and gives the student a new and lasting "hobby" that may +be pursued anywhere, and kept through life. The Star Club has +popularized its celestial interests by presenting to the College a +pageant in three scenes, a "Dream of the Sun and Planets," in which the +Earth Dweller is transported to the regions of the sky and holds long +and intimate conversations with the various heavenly bodies. As the +final scene, the planets slant in their relative positions, and the +Signs of the Zodiac with shields take their places on each side of +Father Sun. + +The Natural history Club has interests ranging all the way from the +theory of evolution to the names and songs of the common birds of +Madras. + +The Art Club not only does out-door sketching, but has entered upon a +wide field in the study of Indian art and architecture. India is +reviving a partly forgotten interest in her ancient arts and crafts and +has much to offer the student, from the wonderful lines of the Taj Mahal +to the Ahmadabad stone windows with their lace-like traceries; from the +portraits of Moghal Emperors to the fine detail of South India temple +carvings. Study in the Art Club means a new appreciation of the beauty +found among one's own people. + +The Dramatic and Musical Societies unite now and then in public +entertainments, such as "Comus" which was given in honor of the women +graduates of the whole Presidency at the time of the University +Convocation. The Society repertoire of plays given during the last five +years includes a considerable variety--dramatists so far apart as +Shakespeare and Tagore; the old English moralities of "Everyman" and +"Eager Heart"; the old Indian epic-dramas of "Sakuntala" and "Savitri"; +together with Sheridan's "Rivals" and scenes from "Emma" and "Ivanhoe." +The Musical Club specializes on Christmas carols, with which the College +is wakened at four o'clock "on Christmas day in the morning." + +The History Club sounds like an organization of research workers; on the +contrary, its interests are bound up with the march of current events in +India and the world. At the time when India was stirred by the visit of +the Duke of Connaught and the launching of the Reform Government, this +Club took to itself the rights of suffrage, elected its members to the +first Madras Legislative Council, and after the elections were duly +confirmed sat in solemn assembly to settle the affairs of the Province. +They have also carried out equally dramatic representations of the +English House of Lords and even the League of Nations. + + +"Lighted to Lighten." + +The Young Women's Christian Association of the College among its many +activities includes Bible classes in the vernacular which bring together +students from the same language areas and after a week of purely English +study and English chapel service serve as a link with home life and home +conditions. Not only with home on the one side; on the other the +Association ties them up with wider interests, with conferences that +bring together students from all India, with activities that range all +the way from teaching servants' children to read and translating +Christian books into their own vernaculars to sending gifts of money to +a suffering student in Vienna. + +Social service is carried on along lines not very different from those +pursued in Lucknow. Sunday schools, visits to outcaste villages, and +lectures on health and cleanliness have their place. A new feature is +the dispensing of simple medical help, which not only relieves the +recipients, but teaches the students what they can do later when in +their own homes. Another distinctive venture is the "Little School" in +the college grounds, where volunteer workers take turns morning and +evening in teaching the neighborhood children, and thus get their first +taste of the joys and difficulties of the teacher's profession. + +An interested girl thus expresses her ideas on the subject of social +service. Her emphasis upon the positive side of life speaks well for her +future accomplishment: + +"Though the condition of the people is deplorable we need not despair of +making matters better for them. Instead of giving the mere negative +instructions that they should not drink, or be extravagant with their +money, or get into the clutches of money lenders, we can do something +positive. Some interesting diversions could be invented that would +prevent men from frequenting drinking houses. With regard to their +extravagance on certain occasions, we might suggest to them ways in +which they could lessen items of expenditure. To prevent their being at +the mercy of money lenders, co-operative societies may be started in +order to lend money at a lower rate of interest; or to supply them with +capital or with tools in order to start their work. + +"To remove the other evil of ignorance with regard to health, we may go +into the villages and give them practical lessons on cleanliness. We +could tell them of the value of fresh air and give them other needful +instructions. + +"In doing social work of this kind, there are many principles we ought +to have in mind. Instead of telling a poor man with no means of living +that he should not steal it would be better to see that he is somehow +placed beyond the reach of want. Another is that instead of merely +imparting morality in negative form, it would be better to point out to +them some positive way in which they could improve. More important than +any of these principles is that instead of thinking of 'bestowing good' +on the people, it would be more effective, if we co-operate with them +and enlist their initiative, thus enabling them by degrees to be fit to +manage their own affairs." + + +Applied Sociology. + +Certain parts of the curriculum also tie up closely with community life. +Economics and essay writing lead into fields of research. Essays and +contributions to the College magazine, "The Sunflower," bear such titles +as the "Social Needs of Kottayam District," which goes into the causes +of poverty and distress in the writer's own locality, or "The Religion +of the People of Kandy," written by a convert from Buddhism who knows +from her own childhood experience the beauties and defects of that great +religious system. + +An intercollegiate essay prize was won by a Christian college girl who +wrote on her own home town, "The Superstitions and Customs of the +Village of Namakal." She writes: + +"A set of villages would also be seen where the people are very much +like the insects under a buried stone, which run underground, unable to +see the light or to adapt themselves to the light. The moment the stone +is turned up, so much accustomed are they to live in the darkness of +superstition and unbelief that they think they would be better off to go +on so, and refuse to accept the light rays of science, education, and +civilization, which are willingly given them." + +The list of current omens and superstitions which she has unearthed may +prove of interest to Western readers who have little idea of the burden +of _taboo_ under which the average Hindu passes his days. The essayist +says: + +"An attempt to enumerate these superstitious beliefs would be useless, +but the following would illustrate the villagers' deep regard for them, +It is a good omen to hear a bell ring, an ass bray, or a Brahmini kite +cry, when starting out to see a married woman whose husband is alive. +They believe it to be an excellent omen to see a corpse, a bunch of +flowers, water, milk, a toddy pot, or a washerman with dirty clothes, +while setting out to give any present to her or her husband. No Hindu +man or woman would set out to visit a newly married couple if he or she +hears sneezing while starting, or proceed on the journey if he or she +hears the wailing of a beggar, or happens to see a Brahmin widow, a +snake, a full oil pot, or a cat." + +[Illustration: IN THE CLOISTER'S STUDIOUS SHADE] + +[Illustration: MISS JACKSON AND SOME SOCIAL SERVICE WORKERS] + + +The College Woman and India. + +Many of the students are full of ideas as to the various places which +women may fill in the economy of the India of the future. Among the +professions open to women, teaching is of course the favorite. Its +opportunities are shown in the following: + +"The University women who, more than any one else, have enjoyed the +fruits of education and the privileges of college life are naturally +very keen on imparting them to the million of their less graduate +sisters. Almost every student in a college is now filled with a greater +love and longing to help the uneducated women. Thus, most of them go out +as teachers. Some of them work in their own schools, or take up work +either in a mission school or a government school. Some of the graduates +are now in a position to establish schools of their own. The pay for +teachers is usually lower than that earned by women in other positions, +but the fact that so many women become teachers shows that they care +more for service than for salary, for surely this is the greatest +service that they as women can give to India." + +Another student has some ideas as to new methods to be used: + +"The present method of teaching in India is not quite suitable to the +modern stage of children. Now, children are very inquisitive and try to +learn by themselves. They cannot understand anything which is taught as +mere doctrines. The teacher has to draw her answers from the children +and thus build up her teaching on the base of their previous knowledge. +So the educated women have to train themselves in schools where they are +made fit to meet the present standard of children." + +Miss Cornelia Sorabji has shown by her career what a woman lawyer can +do for other women. A college girl writes as follows of the +opportunities for service that other students might find in the law: + +"I have seen many women in the villages, though not educated, showing +the capacities of a good lawyer. I think that women have a special +talent in performing this business, and hence would do much better than +men. Tenderness and mercy are qualities greatly required in a judge or +magistrate. Women are famous for these and so their judgments which will +be the products of justice tempered by mercy will be commendable. A man +cannot understand so fully a woman, the workings of her mind, her +thoughts and her views, as a woman can; so in order to plead the cause +of women there should be women lawyers who could understand and put +their cases in a very clear light." + +Another feels the need of women in politics: + +"According to the present system in India, the government is carried on +by men alone. Thus women are exclusively shut off from the +administration of the country. The good and bad results of the +government affect men and women alike. Therefore, it is only fair that +women also should have an active part in the government of the country. +Women should be given seats in the Legislative Council where they would +have an opportunity to listen to the problems of the country and try to +solve them. + +"From ordinary life we see that women are more economical than men. +Therefore, it would be better for the country if women could take a part +in economic matters. When the rate of tax is fixed men are likely to +decide it merely from a consideration of their income without thinking +about small expenses. Women are acquainted with every expense in detail. +If women could take part in economic affairs, the expenditure of a +country would be directed in a better and more careful way. + +"In national and international questions also women can take a part. +Women are more conservative, sympathetic, and kind than men. Great +changes and misery which are not foreseen at all are brought by wars +between different countries. Women, too, can consider about the affairs +of wars as well as men. Their sympathetic and conservative views will +help the people not to plunge into needless wars and political +complications. + +"Women know as well as, and perhaps more than men, the evils which +result from the illiteracy of people and their unsanitary conditions. +Men spend much of their time outside home, while women in their quiet +homes can see their surroundings and watch the needs of people around +them. So women can give good ideas in matters concerning education and +sanitation. In this way, women can influence the public opinion of a +place and the government of a country depends much on the nature of +public opinion." + +But with all these "new woman theories" the claims of home are not +forgotten: + +"Among the many possibilities opening out to women, we cannot fail to +mention _home life_, though it is nothing new. + +"According to the testimony of all history, the worth and blessing of +men and nations depend in large measure on the character and ordering of +family life. 'The family is the structural cell of the social organism. +In it lives the power of propagation and renewal of life. It is the +foundation of morality, the chief educational institution, and the +source of nearly all real contentment among men.' All other questions +sink into insignificance when the stability of the family is at stake. +In short, the family circle is a world in miniature, with its own +habits, its own interests, and its own ties, largely independent of the +great world that lies outside. When the family is of such great +importance, how much greater should be the responsibilities of women in +the ordering of that life? Is it not there in the home that we develop +most of our habits, our lines of thought and action? + +"Even while keeping home, woman can do other kinds of work. She can +help her husband in his varied activities by showing interest and +sympathy in all that he does; she can influence him in every possible +way. Then also she may do social and religious work, and even teaching, +though she has to manage a home. But _the_ work that needs her keenest +attention is in the home itself, in training up the children. Happiness +and cheerfulness in the home circle depend more or less on the radiant +face of the mother, as she performs her simple tasks, upon her +tenderness, on her unwearied willingness to surpass all boundaries in +love. She is the 'centre' of the family. The physical and moral training +of her children falls to her lot. + +"Now, the developing of character is no light task, nor is it the least +work that has to be done. The family exists to train individuals for +membership in a large group. In the little family circle attention can +be concentrated on a few who in turn can go out and influence others. +The family, therefore, is the nursery of all human virtues and powers. + +"In conclusion, expressing the same idea in stronger words, it is to be +noted that whether India shall maintain her self-government, when she +receives it, depends on how far the women are ready to fulfill the +obligations laid upon them. This is a great question and has to be +decided by the educated women of India." + +[Illustration: In the Laboratory, Madras] + +[Illustration: Tennis Champions with Cup AT WORK AND PLAY] + + +One Reformer and What She Achieved. + +Of the wealth of human interest that lies hidden in the life-stories of +the one hundred and ten students who make up the College, who has the +insight to speak? Coming from homes Hindu or Christian, conservative or +liberal, from the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the modern Indian city, or +the far side of the jungle villages, one might find in their home +histories, in their thoughts and ambitions and desires, a composite +picture of the South Indian young womanhood of to-day. Countries as well +as individuals pass through periods of adolescence, of stress and strain +and the pains of growth, when the old is merging in the new. The student +generation of India is passing through that phase to-day, and no one who +fails to grasp that fact can hope to understand the psychology of the +present day student. + +In Pushpam's story it is possible to see something of that clash of old +and new, of that standing "between two worlds" that makes India's life +to-day adventurous--too adventurous at times for the comfort of the +young discoverer. + +Pushpam's home was in the jungle--by which is meant not the luxuriant +forests of your imagination, but the primitive country unbroken by the +long ribbon of the railway, where traffic proceeds at the rate of the +lumbering, bamboo-roofed bullock cart, and the unseemliness of Western +haste is yet unknown. Twice a week the postbag comes in on the shoulders +of the loping _tappal_ runner. Otherwise news travels only through the +wireless telegraphy of bazaar gossip. The village struggles out toward +the irrigation tank and the white road, banyan-shaded, whose dusty +length ties its life loosely to that of the town thirty miles off to the +eastward. On the other side are palmyra-covered uplands, and then the +Hills. + +The Good News sometimes runs faster than railway and telegraph. Here it +is so, for the village has been solidly Christian for fifty years. Its +people are not outcastes, but substantial landowners, conservative in +their indigenous ways, yet sending out their sons and daughters to +school and college and professional life. + +Of that village Pushpam's father is the teacher-catechist, a gentle, +white-haired man, who long ago set up his rule of benevolent autocracy, +"for the good of the governed." + +"To this child God has given sense; he shall go to the high school in +the town." The catechist speaks with the conviction of a Scotch Dominie +who has discovered a child "of parts," and resistance on the part of the +parent is vain. The Dominie's own twelve are all children "of parts" and +all have left the thatched schoolhouse for the education of the city. + +Pushpam is the youngest. Term after term finds her leaving the village, +jogging the thirty miles of dust-white road to the town, spending the +night in the crowded discomfort of the third class compartment K marked +for "Indian females." Vacation after vacation finds her reversing the +order of journeying, plunging from the twentieth century life of +college into the village's mediaeval calm. There is no lack of +occupation--letters to write for the unlearned of the older generation +to their children far afield, clerks and writers and pastors in distant +parts; there are children to coach for coming examinations; there are +sore eyes to treat, and fevers to reduce. + +One Christmas Pushpam returns as usual, yet not as usual, for her +capable presence has lost its customary calm. She is "anxious and +troubled about many things," or is it about one? + +Social unrest has dominated college thinking this last term, focussing +its avenging eyes upon that Dowry System which works debt and eventual +ruin in many a South Indian home. Pushpam has seen the family struggles +that have accompanied the marriages of her older sisters; the "cares of +the world" that have pressed until all the joy of days that should have +been festal was lost in the counting out of rupees. In neighbor homes +she has seen rejoicing at the birth of a son, as the bringer of +prosperity, and grief, hardly concealed, at the adversity of a +daughter's advent. Unchristian? Yes; but not for the lack of the milk of +human kindness; rather from the incubus of an evil social system, +inherited from Hindu ancestors. + +Pushpam's father is growing old; lands and jewels have shrunk. Married +sons and daughters are already gathering and saving for the future of +their own young daughters. Three thousand rupees are demanded of Pushpam +in the marriage market. The thought of it is marring the peace of her +father's face and breaking his sleep of nights. But Pushpam has news to +impart, "Father, I have something to say. It will hurt you, but I must +speak. It is the first time that I, your daughter, have even disobeyed +your wishes, but this time it must be. + +"All this college term we girls have been thinking and talking of our +marriage system and its evils. Husbands are bought in the market, and in +these war years they, like everything else, are high. A man thinks not +of the girl who will make his home, but of the rupees she will bring to +his father's coffers. Marriage means not love, but money. My classmates +and I have talked and written and thought. Now three of us have made one +another a solemn promise. Our parents shall give no dowries for us. We +have no fear of remaining unmarried; we can earn our way as we go and +find our happiness in work. Or if there are men who care for us, and not +for the rupees we bring, let them ask for us; we will consider such +marriages, but no other. Do not protest, Father, for our minds are made +up." + +[Illustration: THE NEW DORMITORY AT MADRAS COLLEGE] + +The old man, for years autocrat of the village, bows to the will of his +youngest child, fearing the jeers of relatives, yet unable to withstand. + +No, Pushpam did not remain single. In men's colleges the same ferment is +going on, and when a suitor came he said, "I want you for yourself, not +for the gold that you might bring." He married Pushpam, and their joy of +Christian service is not shadowed by the financial distress brought upon +the father's house. + +Mary Smith asked to be shown the justification of college education for +Indian girls. Is it good? The College of the Sunflower has its home in +dignified and seemly buildings set in a tropical garden. Does its beauty +draw students away from the world of active life, or send them with +fresh strength to share its struggles. Pushpam has given one answer. +Another one may find in the college report of 1921 with its register of +graduates. Name after name rolls out its story of busy lives--married +women, who are housemakers and also servants of the public weal; +government inspectresses of schools, who tour around "the district," +bringing new ideas and encouragement to isolated schools; teachers and +teachers, and yet more teachers, in government and mission schools, and +schools under private management. Only six years of existence, and yet +the Sunflower has opened so wide, the Lamp has lighted so many candles +in dim corners. Will the Mary Smiths of America do their part that the +next six years may be bigger and better than the last? + +The spirit of Madras Students is shown in the following extracts from +personal letters written to former teachers: + + +FROM A GRADUATE OF MADRAS CHRISTIAN COLLEGE + +"Last week we had the special privilege of hearing Mr. and Mrs. Annett, +of India Sunday School Union. The last day Mr. Annett showed how we can +lead our children to Christ and make them accept Christ as their Master. +That is the aim of religious education. My heart thrilled within me when +I heard Mr. Annett in his last lecture confirm what I had thought out as +principles in teaching and training the young, and I found my eyes wet. +But the very faith which Jesus had in people and which triumphs over all +impossibilities I am trying to have. I have patiently turned to the +girls and am trying to help them in their lives. The Christ power in me +is revealing to me many things since I surrendered to Him my will. He is +showing me what mighty works one can do through intercessory prayer +which I try to do with many failings. + +"Politics have lately been very interesting to me. Rather I have been +forced to enter in. You will have read or heard of the new movement in +India that sprang up early in September. Gandhi is the leader. I have +some clippings to send you. It is not about that I wish to write, but +about the remarkable way India is repressing the movement. The Panjab, +the province for which sympathy is called for and the one which affords +the cause for non-co-operation, has thrown up Gandhi's scheme and her +sons are standing for council elections. No Indian can help being +thrilled over the nominations and elections for legislative councils +and councils of state, which are to assemble in January according to the +Reform Act. Our girls are taking a keen interest in the affairs of the +country and earnestly praying for her. + +"This is the week of prayer of the Y.W. and Y.M.C.A. I am sure you are +remembering us,--the young women of India and our girls who are to lay +out the future in India; also our young men and boys. + +"The Student Federation has its conference in P---- during Christmas, +and four of our college students are going. If only the men would be +open hearted and less prejudiced and brave enough to stand alone and +reform society. I think the time is coming. + +"Isn't it strange that you should also feel the thirst for Bible study +just as I am doing here. I never felt the lack of Scriptural knowledge +as now while I teach our girls." + + +EXTRACTS FROM A TEACHER'S JOURNAL IN MADRAS COLLEGE + +November 12, 1921. + +We had nine graduates to garland last night and should have had more if +Convocation had followed closely on their success in April. But now one +is at Somerville College, Oxford (we have five old students in England +now and one in America), one at her husband's home in Bengal, one +serving in Pundita Ramabai's Widows' Home at Mukti near Poona, and three +kept away by some duty in their families. Among our nine were two who +had been among our very earliest students; in fact, one bears the very +first name entered on our student roll in April, 1915, when we were +looking round in trembling hope to see whether any students at all +would entrust themselves to our inexperienced hands. These two, of +course, left some years ago, but have since taken the teachers' degree, +the Licentiate in Teaching, for which they have prepared themselves by +private study while serving in schools. + +This L.T. is a University degree open to graduates in Arts only, and a +B.A., L.T., is regarded as a teacher fully equipped for the highest +posts in schools. The preparation for it has been carried on hitherto +chiefly at a Government Teachers' College, where the few women students, +though very courteously treated, have naturally been at a great +disadvantage among more than a hundred men. Such of our graduates as +have spent the required year there have been considerably disappointed, +feeling that their work has been too easy and too theoretical. In any +case it is impossible that much practical work could be found for so +large a number of students, and the belief is growing that the ideal +training college is a small one. That it must be a Christian one is from +our point of view still more important. The women B.A., L.T.'s will hold +positions of greater influence than any other class in South India. They +will be Government Inspectresses, Heads of Middle Schools and High +Schools, lecturers in Training Colleges, in fact, the sources of the +inspiration which will permeate every region of women's education. +Before long the missions will be unable to keep pace with the rapid +increase of available pupils for girls' schools. Their success in +originating and fostering the idea of educating girls has now produced a +situation with which we cannot personally cope, but which we can +indirectly control by concentrating effort at the most vital spot, that +is the training of the highest rank of women teachers. These will set +the tone and, to a great extent, determine the quality of the women +teachers who have lower qualifications, and these will have in their +hands the training of ever-increasing numbers of girl pupils and will +hand on the ideals which they have themselves received. It was an honor +which we felt very deeply when the Missionary Educational Council of +South India entrusted to the council of our College the task of +inaugurating an L.T. College for Women, and we have been very busy about +it. + + +December 15, 1921. + +More than a month has passed since I began the Journal and I am now +sitting in the junior B.A. class-room watching over nineteen students +(the twentieth happens to be absent) who are writing their terminal +examination papers. I was a false weather-prophet; rain did not come, +and still keeps away. Instead there is a high cool wind, and every one +of these students is firmly holding down her paper with the left hand +while her fountain pen (they all have fountain pens) skims all too +rapidly over the page. The great principle of answering an examination +paper is never to waste a moment on thought. If you do not know what to +say next, repeat what you said before until a new idea strikes you. As +it is not necessary to dip the pen in ink it should never leave the +page. This method enables them to produce small pamphlets which they +hand in with a happy sense of achievement, but the examiner's heart +sinks as she gathers up the volumes of hasty manuscript. + +Sometimes, however, the answers err on the side of conciseness. "We +believe them because we cannot prove them," was the truthful reply of a +student in Physics to the question, "Why do we believe Newton's Laws of +Motion?" Or sometimes an essential transition is omitted; "At the period +of the Roman conquest the Greeks were politically hopeless, economically +bankrupt, and morally corrupt. They became teachers." But sometimes it +is the caprice of the English language which betrays them. "The events +of the 15th century which most affected philosophic thought were the +founding of America and the founding of the Universe." Occasionally they +administer an unconscious rebuke. I was just starting out to give an +address at a week-night evening service from the chancel steps of a +neighboring church, and having a minute or two to spare I took up one of +my 120 Scripture papers and read, "St. Paul's chief difficulty with the +Corinthians was that women insisted on speaking in church. It is wicked +for women to talk in church." + +The nineteen students before me are very representative of our student +body, which now numbers one hundred and thirty. Eleven are writing on +Constitutional History, two on Philosophy, four on Zoology and two (a +young Hindu married girl and a Syrian Christian) on Malayalam +literature. Ten of them speak Tamil, eight Malayalam, and one Telugu. +They vary in rank from high official circles to very low origins, but +most belong to what we should call the professional classes. All are +barefooted and wear the Indian dress, which in the case of the Syrians +is always white. + +Through the open door I look into the library where the fifty-three new +students of this year are writing an English paper. There are eight +Hindus and one European among them, also two students from Ceylon, two +from Hyderabad, and one, differing widely from the rest in dress and +facial type, from Burma. The lecturer in charge is Miss Chamberlain, the +daughter of our invaluable secretary in America. She arrived only three +weeks ago to take the place of Miss Sarber who has started on her +furlough and already the dignity of the philosopher and psychologist is +mingling with the gaiety which makes her table a favorite place for +students. + +The debate on the conscience clause[*] which took place in the new +Legislative Assembly in November shows that the party now in power, the +non-Brahmin middle-class, realizes the value to the country of Christian +education. Man after man rose to express his gratitude to the Christian +College and to point out that missionaries alone had brought education +to low-caste and out-caste people. The proposal was rejected by 61 votes +to 13, a most unexpected and happy event. + +One proposal, perfectly well meant, was made at the Government Committee +on Education which aroused great indignation among our students. It was +that various concessions should be made to the supposed weakness of +women students and that the pass mark in examinations should be lowered +for them. As the Principals of both the Women's Colleges opposed the +suggestion, it was withdrawn, but this little incident shows two things, +the sympathetic feeling of men toward the studies of women, and the +distance that women have travelled since the time when they would +themselves have requested such concessions. + +In the recent agitation in favor of Nationalism finding that the only +constructive advice given was to devote themselves to Indian music, to +the spinning wheel, which is Mr. Gandhi's great remedy for social and +political ills and to social service, I did all that I could to promote +these ends. I asked the Senior Student to collect the names of all who +wished to learn to play an Indian instrument, I presented the College +with a pound of raw cotton and spinning wheel of the type recommended by +Mr. Gandhi, and the social service begun some months before was +continued This last consists of our expedition led by Miss Jackson, +which twice a week visits an unpleasant little village not far from our +gates. The students wash the children, which is not at all a delightful +task, attend to sore eyes and matted hair and teach them games and +songs, and chat with the village women about household hygiene and how +to keep out of debt. One of our Sunday Schools is in this village, too, +so by this time the students are welcome visitors, and whether they do +much good or not, they learn a great deal of sobering truth. Of course, +only a few can go at a time, but others find some scope in the other +Sunday Schools and in the little Day School which Miss Brockway +instituted for the children of our servants. This last means real +self-denial, as the work must be done every day. Still, it remains one +of our greatest problems to find channels for the spirit of service +which we try to inspire, and without which the current of their +patriotism may become stagnant. + +But I am being disappointed about the music and the spinning wheel. Not +one student was willing to undergo the toilsome practice of learning an +instrument, and though the spinning wheel was received with enthusiasm +the pound of cotton has hardly diminished at all. Nor will they take the +trouble to read the newspapers regularly. So that they might not feel +that too British a view of events was presented to them they are +supplied with some papers of a very critical tone, but I need not have +feared the risk, the papers remain unread. They much prefer the medium +of speech, and are keenly interested in almost any topic on which we +invite an attractive speaker to give an address, but they do not follow +it up by reading. They are decidedly fonder of books than they were, and +use the library more, but their taste is for the better kind of domestic +fiction more than for anything else. There is one important exception, +they all love Shakespeare and there is no one whom they so delight to +act. Whenever they invite us to an entertainment, which they do on many +and various occasions, we are fairly sure of seeing a few scenes of +Shakespeare acted much better than I have ever seen English girls of +their age act. + +The students have been collecting a fund for our new Science building, a +great and beautiful enterprise, which, also, is still in its proper +stage. The drawing of plans so large and detailed has occupied many +months. We are looking to America for the generous gift which shall +bring these plans into actuality, but help from other sources is +welcome, too, and particularly help from the students. They have made +many efforts and reached a sum of more than Rs. 500. Their most +important undertaking was a performance of "Everyman" most solemnly and +beautifully carried out before an audience of our women friends, and +there was also a dramatic version written by one of the students of the +parable of the prodigal son and performed before the college only. This +last was remarkable in its adaptation of the story to Indian conditions +and for the characteristic introduction of a mother and a sister. + +[Illustration: THE OLD INDIA + No Chance--No Hope] + + + "If she have sent her servants in our pain, + If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword, + If she have given back our sick again + And to the breast the weakling lips restored, + Is it a little thing that she has wrought? + Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought." + + +_Kipling's "Song of the Women"_ + +The Medical School at Vellore is still without a permanent home and is +lodged in scattered buildings--without a permanent staff except for two +or three heroic figures who are performing each the work of +several--without a certainty of a regular income in any way equivalent +to its needs--but it has an enthusiastic band of students and it has Dr. +Ida Scudder, and so the balance is on the right side. + +[Footnote *: Opposing the study of the Bible in our schools.] + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + + +SENT FORTH TO HEAL + + +"THE Long Trail A-Winding." + +Who that has read "Kim" will ever forget Kipling's picture of the Grand +Trunk Road, with its endless panorama of beggars, Brahmans, Lamas, and +talkative old women on pilgrimage? Such roads cover India's plains with +a network of interlacing lines, for one of Britain's achievements on +India's behalf has been her system of metalled roads, defying alike the +dust of the dry season and the floods of the monsoon. + +One such road I have in mind, a road leading from the old fortress town +of Vellore through twenty-three miles of fertile plain, to Gudiyattam, +at the foot of the Eastern Ghats. It is just a South Indian "up country" +road, skirting miles of irrigated rice fields, gold-green in their +beginnings, gold-brown in the days of ripening and reaping. It winds +past patches of sugar cane and cocoanut palm; then half arid uplands, +where goats and lean cattle search for grass blades that their +predecessors have overlooked; then the _bizarre_ shapes of the ghats, +wide spaces open to the play of sun and wind and rain, of passing shadow +and sunset glory. They are among the breathing spaces of earth, which no +man hath tamed or can tame. + + +An Indian "Flivver." + +An ordinary road it is, and passing over it the ordinary +procession--heavy-wheeled carts drawn by humped, white bullocks; crowded +jutkas whose tough, little ponies disappear in a rattle of wheels and a +cloud of dust; weddings, funerals, and festivals with processions gay or +mournful as the case may be. One feature alone distinguishes this road +from others of its kind; once a week its dusty length is traversed by a +visitant from the West, a "Tin Lizzie," whose unoccupied spaces are +piled high with medicine chests and instrument cases. Once a week the +Doctor passes by, and the countryside turns out to meet her. + + +When the Doctor Passes by. + +Where do they come from, the pathetic groups that continually bring the +little Ford to a halt? For long stretches the road passes through +apparently uninhabited country, yet here they are, the lame, the halt, +and the blind, as though an unseen city were pouring out the dregs of +its slums. Back a mile from the road, among the tamarind trees, stands +one village; at the edge of the rice fields huddles another. The roofs +of thatch or earth-brown tiles seem an indistinguishable part of the +landscape, but they are there, each with its quota of child-birth pain, +its fever-burnings, its germ-borne epidemics where sanitation is +unknown, its final pangs of dissolution. But once a week the Doctor +passes by. + +What do she and her attendants treat? Sore eyes and scabies and all the +dirt-carried minor ailments that infect the village; malaria from the +mosquitoes that swarm among the rice fields; aching teeth to be pulled; +dreaded epidemics of cholera or typhoid, small pox or plague. Now and +then the back seat is cleared of its _impedimenta_ and turned into the +fraction of an ambulance to convey a groaning patient to a clean bed in +the hospital ward. Once at least a makeshift operating table has been +set up under the shade of a roadside banyan tree, and the Scriptural +injunction, "If thy foot offend thee, cut it off," carried out then and +there to the saving of a life. + +At dark the plucky little Ford plods gallantly back to the home base, +its occupants with faded garlands, whose make-up varies with the +seasons--yellow chrysanthemums with purple everlasting tassels at +Christmas time; in the dry, hot days of spring pink and white oleanders +from the water channels among the hills; during the rains the heavy +fragrance of jasmine. All the flowers do their brave best for the day +when the Doctor passes by. + + +Where no Doctor Passes by. + +But what of the roads on which the Doctor never passes? From Vellore's +fortress-crowned hills they stretch north and south, east and west, and +toward all the intermediate points of the compass. Every city of India +forms such a nucleus for the country around. Amid the wheat fields of +the Punjab, under the tamarinds of the Ganges plain, among the lotus +pools and bamboo clusters of the Bengal deltas, and on the black cotton +fields of the Deccan are the roads and the villages, the villages and +the roads. Some mathematically minded writer once computed that, if +Christ in the days of His flesh had started on a tour among the villages +of India, visiting one each day, to-day in the advancing years of the +twentieth century many would yet be waiting, unenlightened and +unvisited. Few have been visited by any modern follower of the Great +Physician. Who can compute their sum total of human misery, of +preventable disease, of undernourishment, of pain that might all too +easily he alleviated? + +[Illustration: Kamala (Lotus Flower), Winner of The Gold Medal in +Anatomy in Vellore Medical School] + +[Illustration: A Little Lost One--What Will Such Girls Do for India? + CONTRASTS] + + +A Problem In Multiplication. + +Was it, one wonders, the memory of the Gudiyattam road, and those like +it in nameless thousands, that burned deep into Dr. Ida Scudder's heart +and brain the desire to found a Medical School, where the American +Doctor might multiply herself and reproduce her life of skillful and +devoted service in the lives of hundreds of Indian women physicians? It +is the only way that the message of the Good Physician, His healing for +soul and body, may penetrate those village fastnesses of dirt, disease, +and ignorance. One hundred and sixty women doctors at present try to +minister to India's one hundred and sixty millions of women, shut out by +immemorial custom from men's hospitals and from physicians who are men. +"What are these among so many?" What can they ever be except as they may +multiply themselves in the persons of Indian messengers of healing? + + +Small Beginnings. + +And so, in July, 1918, the Vellore Medical School was opened, under the +fostering care of four contributing Mission Boards, and with the +approval and aid of the Government of Madras. "Go ahead if you can find +six students who have completed the High School Course," said the +interested Surgeon General. Instead of six, sixty-nine applied; +seventeen were accepted; and fourteen not only survived the inevitable +weeding out process, but brought to the school at the end of the first +year the unheard of distinction of one hundred per cent, of passes in +the Government examination. That famous first class is now in its Senior +Year, and by the time this book comes from the press will be scattering +itself among thirteen centres of help and health. + +And so, in rented buildings, the Medical School started life. If ever an +institution passed its first year in a hand-to-mouth existence, this one +has. Short of funds save as mercifully provided by private means; short +of doctors for the staff; short of buildings in which to house its +increasing student body, for it has grown from fourteen to sixty-seven; +short, in fine, of everything needed except faith and enthusiasm and +hard work on the part of its founders, it has yet gone on; the girls +have been housed, classes have been taught, examinations passed, and the +first class is ready to go out into the world of work. + +Just here perhaps one brief explanation should be made. These girls will +not be _doctors_ in the narrowly technical sense, for the Government of +India reserves the doctor's degree for such students as have first taken +a college diploma and then on top of it a still more demanding medical +course of five years. These students will receive the degree of Licensed +Medical Practitioner (L.M.P.) which authorizes them to practise medicine +and surgery and even to be in charge of a hospital. The full college +may come, we hope, not many years hence, when funds become available. +Meantime, this school will year by year be turning out its quota of +medical workers whose usefulness cannot be over-estimated. + +[Illustration: FIRST BUILDING AT NEW MEDICAL SCHOOL, VELLORE, WHICH IS +HOUSING OUR STUDENTS] + + +A Visit to Vellore. + +Let us pay a visit to the School and see it as it is in its present +state of makeshift. Since its beginning it has dwelt, like Paul the +prisoner, "in its own hired house," but Paul's epistles tell of no such +uncertainty in his tenure of his rented dwelling, as that which has +afflicted this institution. The housing shortage which has distressed +New York has reached even to Vellore. Two rented bungalows were lost, +and, as an emergency measure, the future Nurses' Home was erected in +great haste on the town site and at once utilized as a dormitory with +some rooms set aside for lectures as well. + + +Corpses--and Children. + +Let us first pay a visit to "Pentland," the one remaining "hired house," +in which the Freshmen have their home with Dr. Mary Samuel, the Indian +member of the staff, as their house mother. Just behind it is the +thatched shed, carefully walled in, which serves as the dissecting room. +To the uninitiated it is a place of gruesome smells and sights, for +cadavers, whole or in fragments, litter the tables. The casual visitor +sympathizes with the Hindu student who confides to you that during her +first days of work in the dissecting room she could only sleep when +firmly flanked by a friend on each side of her "to keep off the spirits +that walk by night." After a few weeks of experience, however, the +fascinating search for nerve and muscle, tendon, vein, and artery +becomes the dominating state of consciousness, and the scientific spirit +excludes all resentment at the disagreeable. + +Pentland Compound possesses another feature in pleasing contrast to the +dissecting shed. As you come away from a session there and close the +door of the enclosing wall, from the opposite end of the compound comes +the sound of children's voices in play. There in a comfortable Indian +cottage lives the jolly family of the Children's Home. They are a merry, +well-nourished collection of waifs and strays, of all ancestries, Hindu, +Muhammadan, and Christian, mostly gathered in through the wards of the +Mission Hospitals. Only an experienced social worker could estimate what +such a home means in the prevention of future disease, beggary, and +crime. It is good for the medical students to live in close +neighborliness with this bit of actual service. One student in writing +of her future plans mentions that, as an "avocation" in the chinks of +her hospital work, she plans to raise private funds and found a little +orphanage all her own! + + +Early Rising. + +Not far from Pentland are the new buildings of Voorhees College +belonging to the Arcot Mission of the Dutch Reformed Church. For the +resent, the Medical School has the loan of its lecture rooms and +laboratories in the early morning hours before the boys' classes begin. +That means seven o'clock classes, and previous to that for most of the +students a mile walk from the town dormitory. Here is the Chemistry +Laboratory. Freshmen toil over the puzzling behavior of atoms and +electrons, while in lecture rooms the ear of the uninstructed visitor is +puzzled by the technical vocabularies of the classes in anatomy and +surgery, and one wonders how the Indian student ever achieves this vast +amount of information through the difficult medium of a foreign tongue. + +[Illustration: DR. SCUDDER AND THE MEDICAL STUDENTS AT VELLORE.] + + +In Hospital Wards. + +Next in our path of visitation comes Schell Hospital, where the theories +learned in dissecting room, laboratory, and lecture are connected up +with actual relief of sick women and children. Here the students are +divided into small groups and many kinds of clinical demonstrations are +going on at once. In the compounding room you will see a lesson in +pill-making. That smiling young person working away on the floor in +front of the table is a West Coast Brahman, sent on a stipend from the +Hindu state of Travancore. It is her first experience away from home and +the zest and adventure of the new life have already fired her spirit. + +In this verandah another group are at work with bandaging. We watch them +while brown arms and legs, heads and bodies disappear under complicated +layers of white gauze. + +In the large ward Seniors, equipped with head mirrors and stethoscopes, +with chart and pen, are taking down patients' histories and suggesting +diagnoses. Soon it will be their work to do this unaided, and every bit +of supervised practice is laying up stores of experience for the future. + +On the next verandah Doctor Findlay is giving a lecture and +demonstration on the care and feeding of babies. Demonstration is not +difficult, for the hospital always provides an abundance of ailing +infants whose regulated diet and consequently improving health serve as +laboratory tests. + + + +The Ford in a New Capacity. + +Now we follow the shady verandah around three sides of the attractive +courtyard with its trees and flowering creepers. At the far end the +class in obstetrics is going on. And behold, the irrepressible Ford has +entered into a new province. This truly American product will probably +be found to-day in every continent and nearly every country in the +world, but one ventures to prophesy that Vellore is the only spot on the +habitable globe where its cast-off tires have been metamorphosed into +models of human organs! Every student not working over an actual mother +or baby is busy performing on these home-made rubber models the +operations she may some day be called to do upon a living patient. + +In the midst of these Dr. Griscom is interrupted by next ward that +didn't cry for a week? You know that this morning you slapped it and it +cried for the first time, and its mother was very happy. Now she wants +to hear it cry again, and says--"may she please beat it herself?" The +Doctor leaves her Ford tires, and runs to the ward to explain to the +overzealous mother the difference between _massage_ administered by a +physician and the ordinary manner of "beating" a baby. + +[Illustration: Interior of the Temple Where God is a Stone Image] + +[Illustration: Interior of the Hospital Where God is Love] + +Our next place of pilgrimage is the "town site" where the new Nurses' +Home affords temporary dormitory accommodation. Beside it is the +Doctor's bungalow, and in the open space next is to be built the big +dispensary. This is well called the "town site," for it is in the thick +of Vellore's population. Children, dogs, and donkeys swarm across its +precincts, and there is no fear of these students being separated from +the actualities of Indian life. The two-story buildings, however, give +abundant opportunity for the occupants to "lift up their eyes unto the +hills"; and the open air sleeping-rooms promise breezes in the hottest +nights. + + +"Mrs. Earth Thou-Art." + +Here, too, the Seniors have their lectures in obstetrics, and with the +beginning of that course a new difficulty arose. Equipment here, as in +practically every Mission institution, is pitifully limited by lack of +funds. For the proper teaching of obstetrics there is need of a pelvic +manikin, lifesize. There were no funds to spare for so expensive a piece +of apparatus, and, if there had been, there would have been a delay of +months in getting it out from England or America. But meantime +obstetrics must be taught, and a manikin must be had. "Necessity is the +mother of invention." Necessity got to work, and "Mrs. Earth-Thou-Art" +is the result. Dr. Griscom sent for the potter, who left his wheel in +the bazaar and came to this market for new wares. After long and +detailed instructions, he returned to his wheel, and set it to the +making of a shape never seen in the potter's vision of Jeremiah or +Robert Browning. The first attempt was a failure; the second and third +were equally useless; at last something was produced that approximated +the human size and form. The tires of the Ford were again requisitioned +and, by the miraculous aid of the blacksmith, nailed to the pottery +figure without wrecking the latter. "Mrs. Earth-Thou-Art" at last +reposed complete, one example of the triumph of the missionary teacher +over the handicaps of the situation. We hope that her brittle clay will +survive until such time as some friend from across the sea is moved to +provide for her a "store-made" successor. + + +"That which shall be." + +One more spot must be visited before our pilgrimage ends. No guest of +the Medical School is ever allowed to depart without a visit to "the +site," that pride of Dr. Ida Scudder and her staff. + +Three miles out from the dust and noise of the bazaars lies this tract +of fertile land, the near hills rising even within its boundaries, the +heights of Kylasa forming a mountain wall against the sunset. Here in +the midst of natural beauty, open to every wind of heaven, the +dormitories, lecture room, chapel, and new hospital will rise. It will +mean a healthful home, with the freedom of country life and endless +opportunity for games and walks. The motor ambulances will form the +daily connecting link with the practical work of dispensary and +emergency hospital. + + +"Who's Who." + +We have spoken much of buildings and courses of study, but little of the +girls themselves. Who are they? Where do they come from? Why are they +here? What are their future plans? + +They are girls of many shades of belief, from many classes of society. +The great majority are, of course, Protestant Christians, representing +the work of almost every Mission Board to be found in South India. There +are a few Roman Catholics, and about an equal number of members of the +indigenous Syrian Christian community. Nine are Hindus, including one +Brahman. They come from the remotest corners of the Madras Presidency, +and some from even beyond its borders. + +Why did they come? There are some who frankly admit that their entrance +into Medical School was due solely to the influence of parents and +relatives, and that their present vital interest in what they are doing +dates back not to any childhood desire for the doctor's profession, but +only to the stimulating experiences of the school itself. Others tell of +a life-long wish for what the school has made possible; still others of +"sudden conversion" to medicine, brought about by a realization of need, +or in one case to the chance advice of a school friend. Two speak of the +appalling need of their own home villages, where no medical help for +women has ever been known. Some of the students have expressed their +reasons in their own words:-- + +"Once I had a severe attack of influenza and was taken to the General +Hospital, Madras. I have heard people say that nurses and doctors are +not good to the patients. But, contrary to my idea, the English and +Eurasian nurses there were very good and kind to me, more than I +expected. I used to see the students of the Medical College of Madras +paying visits to all the patients, some of whom were waiting for +mornings when they should meet their medical friends. I saw all the +work that they did. The nurses were very busy helping patients and, +whatever trouble the patients gave, they never got cross with them. They +used to sing to some of them at night, give toys to little ones and thus +coax every one to make them take medicine. I admired the kindness and +goodness that all the medical workers with whom I came in contact +possessed. As medical work began to interest me, I used to read +magazines about medical work. Again, when I once went to Karimnagar, I +saw ever so many children and women, uncared for and not being loved by +high caste people. I wanted to help Indians very much. All these things +made me join the Medical School. + +"My father's desire was that one of his daughters should study medicine +and work in the hospital where he worked for twenty years, and so in +order to fulfill his desire I made up my mind to learn medicine. + +"Now my father is dead and the hospital in which he had worked is +closed, for there is no one to take his place. So all are very glad to +see that I am learning medicine. There are many men doctors in Ceylon, +but very few lady doctors and I think that God has given me a good +opportunity to work for Him. + +"For a long time I did not know much about the sufferings of my country +women without proper aid of medical women. One day I happened to attend +a meeting held by some Indian ladies and one European. They spoke about +the great need of women doctors in India and all about the sufferings of +my sisters. One fact struck me more than anything else. It was about an +untrained mid-wife who treated a woman very cruelly, but ignorantly. +From that time I made up my mind to study medicine with the aim of +becoming a loving doctor. My wish is now that all the women doctors +should be real Christian doctors with real love and sympathizing hearts +for the patients. + +"When I told my parents that I wanted to study medicine, they and my +relatives objected and scolded me, for they were afraid that I would not +marry if I would study medicine. In India they think meanly of a person, +especially a girl, who is not married at the proper age. I want now to +show my people that it is not mean to remain unmarried. This is my +second aim which came from the first." + +[Illustration: A MEDICAL STUDENT IN VELLORE] + +The following is written by a Hindu student:-- + +"Before entering into the subject, I should like to write a few words +about myself. I am the first member of our community to attain English +education. Almost all my relatives (I talk only about the female members +of our community) have learnt only to write and read our mother language +Telugu. + +"When I entered the high school course I had a poor ambition to study +medicine. I do not know whether it was due to the influence of my +brother-in-law who is a doctor, or whether it was due to our +environments. Near our house was a small hospital. It was doing +excellent work for the last five years. Now unfortunately the hospital +has been closed for want of stock and good doctors. From that hospital I +learnt many things. I was very intimate with the doctors. I admired the +work they were doing. + +"My father had a faithful friend. He was a Brahman. He realized from his +own experience the want of lady doctors. He had a daughter, his only +child, and she died for want of proper medical aid. Whenever my father's +friend used to see me he used to ask my father to send me to the Medical +College, for he was quite interested in me, like my own father. After +all, as soon as I passed the School Final Examination, it was decided +that I should take up medicine, but at that time my mother raised many +an objection, saying the caste rules forbid it. I left the idea with no +hope of renewing it and joined the Arts College. I studied one year in +the College. Then luckily for me my father and his friend tried for a +scholarship. + +"Luckily again, it was granted by the Travancore Government. + +"I am not going to close before I tell a few words of my short +experience in the College. As soon as I came here I thought I wouldn't +be able to learn all the things I saw here. I looked upon everything +with strange eyes and everything seemed strange to me, too. But, as the +days passed, I liked all that was going on in the College. The study--I +now long to hear more of it and study it. Now everything is going on +well with me and I hope to realize my ambition with the grace of the +Almighty, for the 'thoughts of wise men are Heaven-gleams.'" + +[Illustration: BETTER BABIES Throughout India. Feeding and Weighing] + +You ask, what of the future? What will these young doctors bring to +India's need? How much will they _do_? Might one dare to prophesy that +in years to come they will at least in their own localities make stories +like the following impossible? + +A woman still young, though mother of seven living children, is carried +into the maternity ward of the Woman's Hospital. At the hands of the +ignorant mid-wife she has suffered maltreatment whose details cannot be +put into print, followed by a journey in a springless cart over miles of +rutted country road. She is laid upon the operating table with the +blessed aid of anaesthetics at hand; there is still time to save the +baby. But what of the mother? Only one more case of "too late." +Pulseless, yet perfectly conscious, she hears the permission given to +the relatives to take her home, and knows all too well what those words +mean. The Hospital has saved her baby; her it cannot save. Clinging to +the doctor's hand she cries: + +"Oh, Amma, I am frightened. Why do you send me away? I must live. My +little children,--this is the eighth. I don't care for myself, but I +must live for them. Who will care for them if I am gone? Oh, let me +live!" + +And the doctor could only answer, "Too late." + +On that road where the doctor passes by, one day she saw a beautiful boy +of one year, "the only son of his mother." The eyelids were shut and +swollen. "His history?" the doctor asks. Ordinary country sore eyes that +someway refused to get well; a journey through dust and heat to a +distant shrine of healing; numberless circlings of the temple according +to orthodox Hindu rites; then a return home to order from the village +jeweller two solid silver eyeballs as offerings to the deity of the +shrine. Weeks are consumed by these doings, for in sickness as in +health the East moves slowly. Meantime the eyes are growing more +swollen, more painful. At last someone speaks of the weekly visit of +the doctor on the Gudiyattam Road. + +The doctor picked up the baby, pushed back the swollen eyelids, and +washed away the masses of pus, only to find both eyeballs utterly +destroyed. One more to be added to the army of India's blind! One more +case of "too late"! One more atom in the mass of India's unnecessary, +preventable suffering,--that suffering which moved to compassion the +heart of the Christ. How many more weary generations must pass before +we, His followers, make such incidents impossible? How many before +Indian women with pitying eyes and tender hands shall have carried the +gift of healing, the better gift of the health that outstrips disease, +through the roads and villages of India? + +[Illustration: Freshman Class at Vellore] + +[Illustration: Latest Arrivals at Vellore] + +The existence of the Medical School has been made possible by the gifts +of American women. Its continued existence and future growth depend upon +the same source. Gifts in this case mean not only money, but life. Where +are those American students who are to provide the future doctors and +nurses not only to "carry on" this school as it exists, but to build it +up into a great future? It is to the girls now in high school and +college that the challenge of the future comes. Among the conflicting +cries of the street and market place, comes the clear call of Him whom +we acknowledge as Master of life, re-iterating the simple words at the +Lake of Galilee, "What is that to thee? Follow thou me." + +Rupert Brooke has sung of the summons of the World War that cleansed the +heart from many pettinesses. His words apply equally well to this +service of human need which has been called "war's moral equivalent." + + + "Now, God be thanked, Who has matched us with His + hour, + And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, + With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened + power, + To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, + Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary." + + +AN EXAMPLE OF CHRISTIAN TREATMENT + +Volumes might be written on the atrocities and absurdities of wizards, +quack doctors, and the hideous usages of native midwifery. The ministry +of Christian physicians comes as a revelation to the tortured victims. + +The scene is a ward in a Christian Hospital for women in South India. +The patients in adjacent beds, convalescents, converse together. + +"What's the matter with you?" says Bed No. 1 contentedly. "My husband +became angry with me, because the meal wasn't ready when he came home +and he cut my face. The Doctor Miss Sahib has mended me, she has done +what my own mother would not do." Said another in reply to the question, +"The cow horned my arm, but until I got pneumonia I couldn't stop +milking or making bread for the father of my children, even if it was +broken. The hospital is my Mabap (mother-father)." + +"What care would you get at home?" chimed in another who had been +burning up with fever. "Oh! I would be out in the deserted part of the +woman's quarters. It would be a wonderful thing if any one would pass +me a cup of water," she replied. From another bed, a young wife of +sixteen spoke of having been ill with abscesses. "One broiling day," she +said, "I had fainted with thirst. The midwives had neglected me all +through the night, and, thinking I was dying, they threw me from the +cord-bed to the floor, and dragged me down the steep stone staircase to +the lowest cellar where I was lying, next to the evil-smelling dust-bin, +ready for removal by the carriers of the dead, when the Doctor Miss +Sahib found me and brought me here. She is my mother and I am her +child." + +An old woman in Bed No. 4 exhorts the patients around her to trust the +mission workers. "I was against them once," she tells them, "but now I +know what love means. Caste? What is caste? I believe in the goodness +they show. That is their caste." + +Words profoundly wise! + +On the slope of the desolate river among the tall grasses I asked her, +"Maiden, where do you go shading your lamp with your mantle? My house is +all dark and lonesome,--lend me your light!" She raised her dark eyes +for a moment and looked at my face through the dusk. "I have come to the +river," she said, "to float my lamp on the stream when the daylight +wanes in the west." I stood alone among tall grasses and watched the +timid flame of her lamp uselessly drifting in the tide. + +In the silence of the gathering night I asked her, "Maiden, your lights +are all lit--then where do you go with your lamp? My house is all dark +and lonesome,--lend me your light." She raised her dark eyes on my face +and stood for a moment doubtful. "I have come," she said at last, "to +dedicate my lamp to the sky." I stood and watched her light uselessly +burning in the void. + +In the moonless gloom of midnight I asked her, "Maiden, what is your +quest holding the lamp near your heart? My house is all dark and +lonesome,--lend me your light." She stopped for a minute and thought and +gazed at my face in the dark. "I have brought my light," she said, "to +join the carnival of lamps." I stood and watched her little lamp +uselessly lost among lights. + +_Rabindranath Tagore._ + + + +CHAPTER SIX + + +WOMEN WHO DO THINGS + + +India has boasted certain eminent women whom America knows well. Ramabai +with her work for widows is a household word in American homes and +colleges; President Harrison's sentences of appreciation emphasized the +distinction that already belonged to Lilavati Singh; Chandra Lela's +search for God has passed into literature. The Sorabji sisters are known +in the worlds of law, education, and medicine. + +But these names are not the only ones that India has to offer. In the +streets of her great cities where two civilizations clash; in sleepy, +old-world towns where men and women, born under the shade of temple +towers and decaying palaces, are awakening to think new thoughts; in +isolated villages where life still harks back to pre-historic +days--against all these backgrounds you may find the Christian educated +woman of New India measuring her untried strength against the powers of +age-old tradition. + +In this chapter I would tell you of a few such women whom I have met. +They are not the only ones; they may not be even pre-eminent. Many who +knew India well would match them with lists from other localities and +in other lines of service. + +These five are all college women. One had but two years in a Mission +College whose course of study went no further; one carries an American +degree; three are graduates of a Government College for men. All go back +to the pioneer days before Madras Women's Christian College and Vellore +Medical School saw the light, and when Isabella Thoburn's college +department was small; all five bear proudly the name of Christian; +through five different professions they are giving to the world of India +their own expression of what Christianity has meant to them. + +[Illustration: MRS. PAUL APPASAMY] + + +Home Making and Church Work. + +Throughout India there exists a group of women workers, widely +scattered, largely unknown to one another, in the public eye unhonored +and unsung, yet performing tasks of great significance. Wherever an +Indian Church raises its tower to the sky, there working beside the +pastor you will find the pastor's wife. + +Sometimes she lives in the heart of the Hindu town; sometimes in a +village, in the primitive surroundings of a mass-movement community. +Eminent among such is Mrs. Azariah, wife of the first Indian bishop, and +with him at the head of the Tinnevelly Missionary Society at Dornakal. +There, in the heart of the Deccan, among primitive Telugu outcastes, is +this remarkable group of Indian missionaries, supported by Indian +funds, winning these lowly people through the gospel of future salvation +and of present betterment. + +It was on a Sunday morning that I slipped into the communion service at +Dornakal. The little church, built from Indian gifts with no aid from +the West, is simplicity itself. The roof thatched with millet stalks, +the low-hanging palmyra rafters hung with purple everlastings, the +earth-floor covered with bamboo matting, all proclaimed that here was a +church built and adorned by the hands of its worshippers. The Bishop in +his vestments dispensed the sacrament from the simple altar. Even the +Episcopal service had been so adapted to Indian conditions that instead +of the sound of the expected chants one heard the Te Deum and the Venite +set to the strains of Telugu lyrics. The audience, largely of teachers, +theological students, and schoolboys and girls, sat on the clean floor +space. One saw and listened with appreciation and reverence, finding +here a beginning and prophecy of what the Christianized fraction of +India will do for its motherland. + +It was against this background that I came to know Mrs. Azariah. In the +bungalow, as the Bishop's wife, she presides with dignity over a +household where rules of plain living and high thinking prevail. She +dispenses hospitality to the many European guests who come to see the +activities of this experimental mission station, and packs the Bishop +off well provided with food and traveling comforts for his long and +numerous journeys. The one little son left at home is his mother's +constant companion and shows that his training has not been neglected +for the multitude of outside duties. One longs to see the house when the +five older children turn homeward from school and college, and fill the +bungalow with the fun of their shared experiences. Mercy, the eldest +daughter, is one of the first Indian women students to venture on the +new commercial course offered by the Young Women's Christian Association +with the purpose of fitting herself to be her father's secretary. In a +few months she will be bringing the traditions of the Women's Christian +College of Madras, where she spent two previous years, to share with the +Dornakal community. + +But, though wife and mother and home maker, Mrs. Azariah's interests +extend far beyond the confines of her family. She is president of the +Madras Mothers' Union, and editor of the little magazine that travels to +the homes of Tamil and Telugu Christian women, their only substitute +for the "Ladies' Home Journal" and "Modern Priscilla." She is also the +teacher of the women's class, made up of the wives of the theological +students. A Tamil woman in a Telugu country, she, too, must have known a +little of the linguistic woes of the foreign missionary. Those days, +however, are long past, and she now teaches her daily classes in fluent +and easy Telugu. There are also weekly trips to nearby hamlets, where +the women-students are guided by her into the ways of adapting the +Christian's good news to the comprehension of the plain village woman, +whose interests are bounded by her house, her children, her goats, and +her patch of millet. + +Such a village we visited that same Sunday, when toward evening the +Bishop, Mrs. Azariah, and I set out to walk around the Dornakal domain. +We saw the gardens and farm from which the boys supply the whole school +family with grain and fresh vegetables; we looked up to the grazing +grounds and saw the herd of draught bullocks coming into the home sheds +from their Sunday rest in pasture. I was told about the other activities +which I should see on the working day to follow--spinning and weaving +and sewing, cooking and carpentry and writing and reading--a simple +Christian communism in which the boys farm and weave for the girls, and +the girls cook and sew for the boys, and all live together a life that +is leading up to homes of the future. + +It was after all that that we saw the village. On the edge of the +Mission property we came to the small group of huts, wattled from tree +branches and clay, inhabited by Indian gypsy folk, just settling from +nomadism into agricultural life. So primitive are they still, that lamp +light is _taboo_ among them, and the introduction of a kerosene lantern +would force them to tear down those attempts at house architecture and +move on to a fresh site, safe from the perils of civilization. It is +among such primitive folk that Mrs. Azariah and her students carry their +message. Herself a college woman, what experiment in sociology could be +more thrilling than her contact with such a remnant of the primitive +folk of the early world? + +Mother, home-maker, editor, teacher, evangelist, with quiet +unconsciousness and utter simplicity she is building her corner of +Christian India. + + +Public Service. + +"To-morrow is the day of the Annual Fair and I am so busy with +arrangements that I had no time even to answer the note you sent me +yesterday." No, this was not said in New York or Boston, but in Madras; +and the speaker was not an American woman, but Mrs. Paul Appasamy, the +All-India Women's Secretary of the National Missionary Society. + +[Illustration: MRS. PAUL APPASAMY] + +It was at luncheon time that I found Mrs. Appasamy at home, and +persuaded her by shortening her meal a bit to find time to sit down with +me a few minutes and tell me of some of the opportunities that Madras +offers to an Indian Christian woman with a desire for service. + +For such service Mrs. Appasamy has unusual qualifications. The fifth +woman to enter the Presidency College of Madras, she was one of those +early pioneers of woman's education, of whom we have spoken with +admiring appreciation. Two years of association with Pandita Ramabai in +her great work at Poona added practical experience and a familiarity +with organization. Some years after her marriage to Mr. Appasamy, a +barrister-at-law in Madras, came the opportunity for a year of foreign +travel, divided between England and America. Such experiences could not +fail to give a widened outlook, and, when Mrs. Appasamy returned to make +her home in Madras, she soon found that not even with four children to +look after, could her interests be confined to the walls of her own +home. + +American girls might be interested to know how wide a range of +activities Indian life affords--how far the Western genius for +organization and committee-life has invaded the East. Here is a partial +list of Mrs. Appasamy's affiliations: + +Member of Council and Executive for the Women's Christian College. + +Vice President of the Madras Y.W.C.A. + +Member of the Hostel Committee of the Y.W.C.A. + +Member of the Vernacular Council of the Y.W.C.A. + +Women's Secretary for All India of the National Missionary Society. + +Supervisor of a Social Service Committee for Madras. + +President of the Christian Service Union. + +Of all her activities, Mrs. Appasamy's connection with the National +Missionary Society is perhaps the most interesting. The "N.M.S.," as it +is familiarly called, is a cause very near to the hearts of most Indian +Christians. The work in Dornakal represents the effort of Tinnevelly +Tamil Christians for the evangelization of one section of the Telugu +country. The N.M.S. is a co-ordinated enterprise, taking in the +contributions of all parts of Christian India and applying them to seven +fields in seven different sections of India's great expanse. The first +is denominational and intensive; the second interdenominational and +extensive. India has room for both and for many more of each. Both are +built upon the principle of Indian initiative and employ Indian workers +paid by Indian money. + +In the early days of the N.M.S., its missionaries were all men, assisted +perhaps by their wives, who with household cares could give only limited +service. Later came the idea that here was a field for Indian women. At +the last convention, the question of women's contribution and women's +work was definitely raised, and Mrs. Appasamy took upon herself the +burden of travel and appeal. Already she has organized contributing +branches among the women of India's principal cities and is now +anticipating a trip to distant Burmah for the same purpose. Rupees +8,000--about $2,300.00--lie in the treasury as the first year's +response, much of it given in contributions of a few cents each from +women in deep poverty, to whom such gifts are literally the "widow's +mite." + +The spending of the money is already planned. In the far north in a +Punjabi village a house is now a building and its occupant is chosen. +Miss Sirkar, a graduate now teaching in Kinnaird College, Lahore, has +determined to leave her life within college walls, to move into the +little house in the isolated village, and there on one third of her +present salary to devote her trained abilities to the solution of rural +problems. It is a new venture for an unmarried woman. It requires not +only the gift of a dedicated life, but also the courage of an +adventurous spirit. Elementary school teaching, social service, +elementary medical help--these are some of the "jobs" that face this new +missionary to her own people. + +But, to return to Mrs. Appasamy, she not only organizes other people for +work, but in the depressed communities of Madras herself carries on the +tasks of social uplift. As supervisor of a Social Service organization, +she has the charge of the work carried on in fifteen outcaste villages. +With the aid of several co-workers frequent visits are made. Night +schools are held for adults who must work during the hours of daylight, +but who gather at night around the light of a smoky kerosene lantern to +struggle with the intricacies of the Tamil alphabet. Ignorant women, +naturally fearful of ulterior motives, are befriended, until trust +takes the place of suspicion. The sick are induced to go to hospitals; +learners are prepared for baptism; during epidemics the dead are buried. +During the great strike in the cotton mills, financial aid was given. +Hull House, Chicago, or a Madras Pariah Cheri--the stage setting shifts, +but the fundamental problems of ignorance and poverty and disease are +the same the world around. The same also is the spirit for service, +whether it shines through the life of Jane Addams or of Mrs. Appasamy. + + +With the "Blue Triangle." + +The autumn of 1906 saw the advent of the first Indian student at Mt. +Holyoke College. Those were the days when Oriental students were still +rare and the entrance of Dora Maya Das among seven hundred American +college girls was a sensation to them as well as an event to her. + +It is a far cry from the wide-spreading plains of the Punjab with their +burning heats of summer to the cosy greenness of the Connecticut +valley--a far cry in more senses than geographical distance. Dora had +grown up in a truly Indian home, as one of thirteen children, her father +a new convert to Christianity, her mother a second generation Christian. +The Maya Das family were in close contact with a little circle of +American missionaries. An American child was Dora's playmate and +"intimate friend." In the absence of any nearby school, an American +woman was her teacher, who opened for her the door of English reading, +that door that has led so many Oriental students into a large country. +Later came the desire for college education. To an application to enter +among the men students of Forman Christian College at Lahore came the +principal's reply that she might do so if she could persuade two other +girls to join her. The two were sought for and found, and these three +pioneers of women's education in the Punjab entered classes which no +woman had invaded before. + +[Illustration: BABY ON SCALES] + +Then came the suggestion of an American college, and Dora started off on +a voyage of discovery that must have been epoch-making in her life. It +is, as I have said, a far cry from Lahore to South Hadley. It means not +only physical acclimatization, but far more delicate adjustments of the +mind and spirit. Many a missionary, going back and forth at intervals of +five or seven years, could tell you of the periods of strain and stress +that those migrations bring. How much more for a girl still in her +teens! New conventions, new liberties, new reserves--it was young David +going forth in Saul's untried armor. Of spiritual loneliness too, she +could tell much, for to the Eastern girl, always untrammelled in her +expression of religious emotion, our Western restraint is an +incomprehensible thing. "I was lonely," says Miss Maya Das, "and then +after a time I reacted to my environment and put on a reserve that was +even greater than theirs." + +So six years passed--one at Northfield, four at Mt. Holyoke, and one at +the Y.W.C.A. Training School in New York. Girls of that generation at +Mt. Holyoke will not forget their Indian fellow student who "starred" in +Shakespearian roles and brought a new Oriental atmosphere to the pages +of the college magazine. Six years, and then the return to India, and +another period of adjustment scarcely less difficult than the first. +That was in 1910, and the years since have seen Miss Maya Das in various +capacities. First as lecturer, and then as acting principal of Kinnaird +College at Lahore, she passed on to girls of her own Province something +of Mt. Holyoke's gifts to her. Now in Calcutta, she is Associate +National Secretary of the Y.W.C.A. + +It was in Calcutta that I met Miss Maya Das, and that she left me with +two outstanding impressions. The first is that of force and initiative +unusual in an Indian woman. How much of this is due to her American +education, how much to her far-northern home and ancestry, is difficult +to say. Whatever the cause, one feels in her resource and executive +ability. In that city of purdah women, she moves about with the freedom +and dignity of a European and is received with respect and affection. + +The second characteristic which strikes one is the fact that Miss Maya +Das has remained Indian. One can name various Indian men and some women +who have become so denationalized by foreign education that "home" is to +them the land beyond the water, and understanding of their own people +has lessened to the vanishing point. That Miss Maya Das is still +essentially Indian is shown by such outward token as that of dropping +her first name, which is English, and choosing to be known by her Indian +name of Mohini, and also by adherence to distinctively Indian dress, +even to the embroidered Panjabi slippers. What matters more is the +inward habit of mind of which these are mere external expressions. + +In a recent interview with Mr. Gandhi, Miss Maya Das told him that as a +Christian she could not subscribe to the Non-Co-operation Movement, +because of the racial hate and bitterness that it engenders; yet just +because she was a Christian she could stand for all constructive +movements for India in economic and social betterment. One of Mr. +Gandhi's slogans is "a spinning wheel in every home," that India may +revive its ancient arts and crafts and no longer be clothed by the +machine looms of a distant country. Miss Maya Das told him that she had +even anticipated him in this movement, for she and other Christian women +of advanced education are following a regular course in spinning and +weaving, with the purpose of passing on this skill through the Rural +Department of the Y.W.C.A. + +Another pet scheme of Miss Maya Das is the newly formed Social Service +League of Calcutta. Into its membership has lately come the niece of a +Chairman of the All-India Congress, deciding that the constructive +forces of social reform are better to follow than the destructive +programme of Non-Co-operation. Miss Maya Das longs to turn her abounding +energy into efforts toward purdah parties and lectures for the shut-in +women of the higher classes, believing that in this way the Association +can both bring new interests into narrow lives, and can also gain the +help and financial support of these bored women of wealth toward work +among the poor. + +One of Miss Maya Das's interests is a month's summer school for rural +workers, a prolonged Indian Silver Bay, held at a temperature of 112 in +the shade, during the month of May when all schools and colleges are +closed for the hot weather vacation. Last year women came to it from +distant places, women who had never been from home before, who had never +seen a "movie," who had never entered a rowboat or an automobile. Miss +Maya Das's stereopticon lectures carried these women in imagination to +war scenes where women helped, to Hampton Institute, to Japan, and +suggested practical ways of assisting in tuberculosis campaigns and +child welfare. After four weeks of social enjoyment and Christian +teaching they returned again to their scattered branches with the +curtain total of their results from 88 in Newark to 355 in Madras. + +[Illustration: PUTTING SPICES IN BABY'S MILK + Notice Feeding Vessels, Shell and Tin Cup] + +What is Dr. Vera Singhe doing about it? With her two medical assistants, +her corps of nurses, and the increasing number of health visitors whom +she herself has trained, she has been able to reduce the death rate +among the babies in her care during 1920 from the city rate of 280 for +that year to 231. + +But enough of statistics. More enlightening than printed reports is a +visit to the Triplicane Health Centre, where in the midst of a congested +district work is actually going on. We shall find no up-to-date building +with modern equipment, but a middle-class Hindu house, adapted as well +as may be to its new purpose. Among its obvious drawbacks, there is the +one advantage, that patients feel themselves at home and realize that +what the doctor does in those familiar surroundings they can carry over +to their own home life. + +Our visit happens to be on a Thursday afternoon, which is Mothers' Day. +Thirty or more have gathered for an hour of sewing. It is interesting +to see mothers of families taking their first lessons in hemming and +overcasting, and creating for the first time with their own hands the +garments for which they have always been dependent on the bazaar +tailor. For these women have never been to school--their faces bear that +shut-in look of the illiterate, a look impossible to define, but just as +impossible to mistake when once it has been recognized. With the mothers +are a group of girls of ten or twelve, who are learning sewing at an +earlier age, when fingers are more pliant and less like to thumbs. Then +there are the babies, too--most of them health-centre babies, who come +for milk, for medicine, for weighing, over a familiar and oft-traveled +road. Fond mothers exhibit them with pride to the doctor, and there is +much comparison of offspring, much chatter, and much general +sociability. + +Back of the dispensary is the milk room, where in an adapted and +Indianized apparatus, due to the doctor's ingenuity, the milk supply is +pasteurized each day, and given out only to babies whose mothers are +positively unable to nurse them, and are too poor to buy. + +Of some of the difficulties encountered Dr. Vera Singhe will tell in her +own words: + +"The work of the midwife is carried out in the filthiest parts of the +city among the lowest of the city's population, both day and night, in +sun and rain ... A patient whose 'address' was registered at the +Triplicane Centre was searched for by a nurse on duty in the locality of +the 'address' given, and could not be found. Much disappointed, the +nurse was returning to the centre, when to her bewilderment she found +that her patient had been delivered in a broken cart." + +Of some of the actual cases where mothers have been attended by +untrained barber women, the details are too revolting to publish. +Imagine the worst you can, and then be sure that your imagination has +altogether missed the mark. + +Of the reaction upon ignorance and superstition Dr. Vera Singhe says, +"In Triplicane dispensary as many as sixty cords around waists and arms +and variously shaped and sized pieces of leather which had been tied in +much trust and confidence to an innocent sufferer with the hope of +obtaining recovery have been in a single day removed by the mothers +themselves on seeing that our treatment was more effective than the +talisman." + +Weighing, feeding, bathing, prevention of disease, simple +remedies--knowledge of all these goes out from the health centres to the +unsanitary homes of crowded city streets. So far one woman's influence +penetrates. + + +In a Hospital. + +It was on a train journey up-country from Madras, some twelve years ago, +that I first met Dr. Paru. She and I shared the long seat of the small +second-class compartment, and in that close neighborliness I soon fell +to wondering. From her dress I knew her to be a Hindu, yet her jewels +were few and inconspicuous. She was most evidently of good family, yet +she was traveling unattended. + +Presently we fell into some casual talk, the inconsequent remarks +common to chance acquaintance the world over. More intimate conversation +followed, and before the end of the short journey together, I knew who +Miss Paru was. The oldest daughter of a liberal Hindu lawyer on the +Malabar Coast, she was performing the astounding feat of taking a +medical course at the Men's Government College in Madras, while +systematically breaking her caste by living at the Y.W.C.A. I almost +gasped with astonishment. "But what do your relatives say?" I asked. +"Oh," she replied, "my father is the head of his family and an +influential man in our town. He does as he pleases and no one dares to +object." + +That was twelve years ago. Yesterday for the second time I met my +traveling companion of long ago. She is now Dr. Paru, assistant to Dr. +Kugler in the big Guntur Women's Hospital, with its hundred beds, +managing alone its daily dispensary list of one hundred and fifty +patients, and performing unaided such difficult major operations as a +Caesarean section for a Brahman woman, of whom Dr. Kugler says, "The +patient had made many visits to Hindu shrines, but the desire of her +life, her child, was the result of an operation in a Mission Hospital. +In our Hospital her living child was placed in her arms as a result of +an operation performed by a Christian doctor." + +How did Dr. Paru, the Hindu medical student, develop into Dr. Paru, the +Christian physician? I asked her and she told me, and her answers were a +series of pictures as vivid as her own personality. + +First, there was Paru in her West Coast Home, among the cocoanut palms +and pepper vines of Malabar where the mountains come down to meet the +sea and the sea greets the mountains in abundant rains. Over that +Western sea once came the strange craft of Vasco di Gama, herald of a +new race of invaders from the unknown West. Over the same sea to-day +come men of many tongues and races, and Arab and African Negroes jostle +by still in the bazaars of West Coast towns. Such was the setting of +Paru's home. During her childhood days certain visitors came to its +door, Bible women with parts of the New Testament for sale, little +paper-bound Gospels with covers of bright blue and red. The contents +meant nothing to Paru then, but the colors were attractive, and for +their sake she and her sister, childlike, bought, and after buying, +because they were schoolgirls and the art of reading was new to them, +read. + +The best girls' school in that Malabar town was a Roman Catholic +convent. It was there that Paru's education was given to her, and it was +there that prayer, even in its cruder forms, entered into her +experience. Religious teaching was not compulsory for non-Christian +pupils, but, when the sisters and their Christian following gathered +each morning for prayers, the doors were not shut and among other +onlookers came Paru, morning after morning, drawn partly by curiosity, +partly by a sense of being left out. Never in all her years in that +school did the Hindu child join in the Christian service, but at home, +when father and mother were not about, she gathered her sister and +younger brothers into a corner and taught them in childish words to tell +their wants and hopes and fears to the Father in Heaven. + +The lawyer-father was the abiding influence in the daughter's growth of +mind and soul. A liberal Hindu he would have been called. In reality, +he was one of that unreckoned number, the Nicodemuses of India, who come +to Jesus by night, who render Him unspoken homage, but never open +confession. A man of broad religious interests, he read the Hindu Gita, +the Koran, and the Gospels; and among them all the words of Jesus held +pre-eminence in his love and in his life. When in later years he found +his daughter puzzling over Bible commentaries to clear up some question +of faith, he asked impatiently, "Why do you bother with those books? +Read the words of Jesus in the Gospels and act accordingly. That is +enough." Father and daughter were wonderful comrades. In all the years +of separation when, as student and doctor, Paru was held on the opposite +side of India, long weekly letters went back and forth, and events and +thoughts were shared. When the hour of decision came, and the girl +ventured into untried paths where the father could not follow, there +were separation and misunderstanding for a time, but that time was +short. The home visits were soon resumed and the Christian daughter was +once more free to share home and meals with her Hindu family. And when +one day the father said, "If a person feels a certain thing to be his +duty, he should do it, whatever the cost," Paru rejoiced, for she knew +that her forgiveness was sealed. + +Dr. Paru's entrance into the world of medicine was due to her father's +wish rather than her own. He was of that rare type of social reformer +who acts more than he speaks. Believing that eventually his daughter +would marry, he felt that as a doctor from her own home she could carry +relief and healing into her small neighborhood. Paru, to please her +father, went into the long grind of medical college, conquered her +aversion for the dissecting table, and "made good." What does he think, +one wonders, as, looking upon her to-day with the clearer vision of the +life beyond, he sees the beloved daughter, thoughts of home and husband +and children put aside, but with her name a household word among the +women of a thousand homes. Ask her what she thinks of medicine as a +woman's profession and her answer will leave no doubt whether she +believes it worth while. + +Actual decision for Christ was a thing of slow growth, its roots far +back in memories of bright-covered Gospels and convent prayers, fruit of +open confession maturing only during her years of service at Guntur. +Life in the Madras Y.W.C.A. had much to do with it. There were Indian +Christian girls, fellow students. "No," said Dr. Paru, "they didn't talk +much about it; they had Christian ideals and tried to live them." There +was a secretary, too, who entered into her life as a friend. "Paru," she +said at last, "you are neither one thing nor the other. If you aren't +going to be a Christian, go back and be a Hindu. At least, be +something." At Guntur there were the experiences of Christian service +and fellowship. Finally, there were words spoken at a Christian meeting, +"words that seemed meant for me"; and then the great step was taken, and +Dr. Paru entered into the liberty that has made her free to appear +outwardly what she long had been at heart. + +Such are a few of those Indian women whom one delights to honor. They +broke through walls of custom and tradition and forced their way into +the open places of life. Few they are and widely scattered, yet their +influence is past telling. + +To-day Lucknow, Madras, and Vellore are sending out each year their +quota of educated women, ready to find their place in the world's work. +It gives one pause, and the desire to look into the future--and dream. +Ten years hence, twenty, fifty, one hundred! What can the dreamer and +the prophet foretell? When those whom we now count by fives and tens are +multiplied by the hundred, what will it mean for the future of India and +the world? What of the gladness of America through whose hand, +outstretched to share, there has come the release of these latent powers +of India's womanhood? + +But what of the powers not released? What of the "mute, inglorious" +company of those who have had no chance to become articulate? There +among the road-menders, going back and forth all day with a basket of +crushed stone upon her head, toils a girl in whose hand God has hidden +the cunning of the surgeon. No one suspects her powers, she least of +all, and that undeveloped skill will die with her, undiscovered and +unapplied. "To what purpose is this waste?" + +Into your railway carriage comes the young wife of a rajah. Hidden by a +canopy of crimson silk, she makes her aristocratic entrance concealed +from the common gaze. Her life is spent within curtains. Yet she is the +descendant of a Mughal ancestor who carried off and wedded a Rajput +maiden. In her blood is the daring of Padmini, the executive power of +Nur Jahan. With mind trained and exercised, she would be the +administrative head of a woman's college. Again,--"To what purpose is +this waste?" + +Who dares to compute the sum total of lives wasted among the millions +of India's women because undiscovered? Will American girls grudge their +gifts to help in the discovery? Will American girls grudge the +investment of their lives? + + + Only like souls I see the folk thereunder, + Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings, + Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder, + Sadly contented with a show of things. + Then with a rush the intolerable craving + Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call; + Oh, to save these! To perish for their saving, + Die for their life, be offered for them all. + + +MYERS + + +THE END + + +[ILLUSTRATION: A REPRESENTATIVE OF INDIA'S WOMANHOOD + +Miss Lilavati Singh, M.A., Acting President of the Isabella Thoburn +College, who died in Chicago in 1909 after thirty-one years of +association with the college as teacher and pupil. A native of India, +but a master of the English language, she was the first woman to sit on +a world committee, having been president of the Woman's Section of the +World Student Christian Federation. In this capacity she lectured in +various countries of Western Europe and the United States.] + + + +INDEX + + +Achievements of Christianity, + of women, + +Alliance, an international, + +America, students continue + studies in, + +American women, gifts of, + to Medical School, + +Anglo-Saxon civilization, + +Appasamy, Mrs. Paul, + +Archaeology, revelations of, + +Aryan invades India, the, + +Art Club, + +Athletic teams, + +Athletics, + +Azariah, Mrs.; + magazine edited by, + +Blue Triangle, with the, + +Brooke, Rupert, quoted, + +Brown-skinned tribes, + +Basket ball, + +Butler, Mrs. William, + +Calcutta, Social Service + League of, + +Caste and pride of race, + broken by Dr. Paru, + +Chamberlain, Miss, + +Character, training women in, +and college education, + +Chatterji, Omiabala, + +Child marriage, + +Child welfare, + +Child widows and education, + +Children, corpses--and, + +Children's Home prevents + disease, beggary, and crime, + +Chinnappa, Mrs. _See_ Singhe, + Dr. Vera. + +Christ, call of, must be heard + to redeem the women of + India; demonstration of + uplifting influence of, demands + college education, + transforming power + through; power, revelations + of, + +Christ's gift of education, + +Christian education, Hindu + or, + +Christian ideals, distribution + of, demands college education, + +Christian unity in education, + +Christian women and need of + India, + +Christian workers, training, + demands college education, + +Christianity, achievements of; + Dr. Paru a convert + to, + +Church work and home making, + +Churches should practice internationalism, + +Civilization, dawn of, of + Anglo-Saxon recent, + +Cleanliness inculcated, + +Co-education in India, + discussed by students, + +College, why go to? + teachers for high schools, + doctors for hospitals, + leadership, + motherhood; co-education, + +College education and future + of India; for Indian + girls justified, + +College girls, missionary service + one of the greatest + fields for, + +College woman, the, and + India, + +College women, pioneer services + of, + +Colleges, Indian, best for undergraduates; + must be made truly Christian to redeem + India; should practice + internationalism, + +Columbia University, + +"Conscience clause," + +Co-operation of missions, + +Co-operative housekeeping, + +Corpses--and children, + +Cosmopolitan atmosphere of + Lal Bagh, + +Cosmopolitan Club, + +Crime prevented by Children's + Home, + +Death rates of infants, + +Debt and dowry system, + +Dissecting room at Vellore, + +Doctor, when the, passes; + where no, passes, + +Doctors for hospitals, + +Dowry, married without, + +Dowry system, + +Drama at Madras Christian + College, + +Dramatic Society, + +Dramatics, + +Dravidians, + +Early rising, + +"Earth-thou-art, Mrs.," + +East, gifts of, to West; + to West, adjustments + required for change from, + +Education, gift of Christ; + proved that Indian girls + can receive; of Indian + girl; for girls; Hindu + or Christian; an instrument + to break down + seclusion of the zenanas; + college, and leadership; + college, and motherhood; + and early marriage; + and child widows; + and world peace; + "triangular alliance" in; + Christian unity in; college, + for Indian girls justified; + missions can not + long meet demand for; + Christian, Indian men + testify to value of, _See_ + School. + +Educated classes of India, to + meet needs of, demands + college education, + +England, students continue + studies in, + +English, conquest of, the big + job at high school, + +Examination papers of students, + + +Fellowship, American, at Lal + Bagh, + +Findley, Dr., + +"Flivver," an Indian, + +Folk-lore, woman in; + woman heroine of, + +Ford, the, in a new capacity, + +Future of India demands + college education, + +Future? what of. + +Gandhi, Mr., and Miss Maya + Das. + +Garden of hid treasure the. + +George, Miss. + +Girl, Indian, to-day; uneducated; + marriage of; life of; school + life of; religion of; + why go to college?; + Girl students at Vellore + Medical School; who + they are; why they + came; their future. + +Girls, proved that Indian, can + be educated; education + of; high school, where + they come from; + what they study; + Indian, college education + for, justified. + +God alone will not redeem + India; in nature; + transforming world + through Christ. + +Goreh, Ellen Lakshmi, + quoted. + +Government. _See_ Student + government. + +Graduate from Madras + Christian College, letter + from. + +Griscom, Dr. + +Guntur Women's Hospital. + +Harischandra. + +Heal, sent forth to. + +High school, at; where + girls are from; + studies; conquest of + English; life of girls; + athletics; basket + ball; dramatics; + Harischandra; + student government; + co-operative housekeeping; + religion of girls; + religion made practical; + outlets for religious + emotion; teachers + for. + +Hindu or Christian education. + +Hindu lawyer prefers Gospels + to sacred books of + India. + +Hinduism, actualities of, unprintable; + and Christianity; + to Christianity, + Dr. Paru a convert from. + +History Club. + +Home life and college women. + +Home making and church + work. + +Homemakers, training, demands + college education. + +Hospital, in a. + +Hospital wards at Vellore. + +Hospitals, doctors for. + +Houses at Vellore. + +Housekeeping, co-operative. + +Idol, wives of the. + +"In the Secret of His Presence." + +India, poetry of, felt to be + insincere; no place for + redemption of woman in + the religions of; need of, + can only be met by educated + Indian Christian + women; silent revolution + has begun in; God alone + will not redeem; future + of, demands college education; + the Aryan invades; + Muhammadans invade; co-education in; + superstition in; + and the college woman; + medical needs of, and supply + of women physicians, + +Indian conditions, worship + adapted to, + +Industrial education; + +Infants, death rates of, + +Isabella Thoburn College, beginnings + of, _See_ Lal Bagh. + +International alliance, an, + +Internationalism, let churches + and colleges practice, + +Jahan, Shah, + +Janaki, Miss, + +_Karma_, + +Kindergarten, Indian, + +Kinnaird College, + +Kipling quoted; cited, + +Kugler, Dr., + +Lal Bagh; cosmopolitan + atmosphere; scholarship; + American fellowship; + first fellow; + social questions; + co-education discussed; + early marriage and child + widows; purdah discussed; + social services; + cleanliness inculcated; + religious instruction + by students; medical + instruction by students; + reading taught + by students; sewing; + purdah park suggested; social + service during vacation; + social service + and strikes; visiting the + poor and sick; what + alumnae records show, + _See_ Isabella Thoburn College. + +Lamp and the sunflower, + +Languages at Madras Christian + College, + +Leadership forced upon educated + Indian girls; training + native, demands college + education; and + college education,. + +Legal profession for women, + +Lela, Chandra, + +Licentiate in teaching, + +Life of Indian girl, + +"Lighted to lighten," + +Literary and Debating Societies, + +Literature; magazine edited + by Mrs. Azariah, + +Lucknow, + +Lyon, Mary, + +Madras Christian College, + letter from student at; + "triangular alliance; + inter-missionary; nine + languages represented; + sunflower and the lamp; + campus of; student + organizations; student + government; athletic + teams; Literary and + Debating Societies; + Star Club; Natural History + Club; Art Club; + Dramatic and Musical + Societies; History Club; + Y.W.C.A.; social + service; applied psychology; + _The Sunflower_; + superstitions; the + college woman and India; + teaching; legal profession; + politics; + home life; what one + reformer achieved; + dowry system; college + education for women justified; + letter from graduate; + extract from + journal of teacher in; + students continue + studies in England and + America; licentiates in + teaching; examination + papers; student + body of; "conscience + clause,"; effort to aid + cause of nationalism; + social service by students; + students of, love + Shakespeare; drama + at; students collect + fund for science building, + +Madras Corporation Child + Welfare Scheme, + +Madras Mothers' Union, + +McDougall, Miss Eleanor + +Magazine edited by Mrs. + Azariah, + +Manikin, makeshift, + +Manu, laws of, + +Marriage of Indian girl, + +Marriage, early, and education, + _See_ Child marriage; + Dowry system. + +Maya Das, Dora; and + Mr. Gandhi, + +Medical instruction by students, + +Medical needs of India and + supply of women physicians, + +Medical School, Vellore. _See_ + Vellore Medical School. + +Medical service, + +Medical treatment, ignorant; + superstition in, + +Mid-wife, work of a, + +Mid-wives, ignorant + +Mission boards, fourteen, support + Madras Christian College, + +Missions, criticism of; + can not long meet demand + for education, + +Missionary service one of + greatest fields for college + girls, + +"Moral equivalent of war," + +Morality and religion unrelated, + +Motherhood and college education, + +Mt. Holyoke College and + Mary Lyon; first + Indian student at, + +Muhammadans invade India, + +Multiplication, problem in, + +Musical Society, + +Myers quoted, + +Naidu, Mrs. Sarojini, + +Nala and Damayanti, + +Natural History Club, + +Nature, God in, + +National life of India, training + women for, demands + college education, + +National Missionary Society, + +Nationalism, effort to aid + cause of, + +Nur Jahan, "the light of the + world," + +Nurses' Home of Vellore + Medical School, + +Obstetrics, makeshift manikin + for teaching, + +"Once upon a time," + +Opportunities for service, + +Organizations of students, + +Palm trees, school under, + +Parker, Mrs. Edwin W., + +Paru, Dr.; breaks + caste; father of, prefers + Gospels to sacred + books of India, + +Peace. See World peace. + +Physicians, women. See + Women physicians. + +Pioneer services of college + women, + +Poem by Rabindranath + Tagore, + +Poetry of India, + +Politics, training women for, + demands college education, + women in, + +Poor, visiting the, + +Prostitution, religious, + protected, + +Public service, + +Purdah, origin of; discussed, + +Purdah parks suggested, + +Pushpam and her work as a + reformer, + +Race, pride of, and caste, + +Rama and Sita, + +Ramabai, Pandita, + +Reading taught by students, + +Redemption of woman, no + place for, in religions of + India + +Reform + +Reformer, one, and what she + achieved, + +Religion, the Indian girl's, + and morality unrelated, + made practical, + +Religions of India, no place + for redemption of woman + in the, + +Religious education, aim of, + +Religious emotion, outlets for, + +Religious instruction by students, + +Revolution, silent, + Roads, metalled, in India, + Rukkubai + +Salvation, yearning for, of + souls, Myers, + +Sarber, Miss, + +Schell Hospital, + +Scholarship at Lal Bagh, + +School, at; Hindu or + Christian; under + palm trees, _See Education_ + +School life of Indian girl, + +Science building, students + collect fund for, + +Scudder, Dr. Ida + +Sent forth to heal, + +Servants of India Society, + +Serveth, among you as He + that, + +Service, great field for, for + college girls; public, + +Sewing taught by students; + lessons in, + +Shakespeare loved by students, + +Sick, visiting the, + +Singh, Lilavati, + +Singhe, Dr. Vera, + quoted, + +Sirkir, Miss, + +Site, new, of Vellore Medical + College, + +Social life, moralizing, demands + college education, + +Social questions discussed by + students, + +Social services of Lal Bagh + students; during + vacation; and strikes, + at Madras; by + students of Madras Christian + College; in outcaste + villages, + +Social Service League of Calcutta, + +Sociology, applied, + +Solidarity of the world, + +Song of the Women, The, + quoted, + +Sorabji, Cornelia, + +Sorabji sisters, + +Star Club, + +Stone age, remains of, + +Strikes and social service, + +Student body of Madras + Christian College, at + Vellore Medical School. _See_ + Girl students. + +Student government, + +Student organizations, + +Students, examination papers + of; collect fund for + science building, + +Summer school for rural + workers, + +Sunflower and the lamp, + +_Sunflower, The_, college magazine, + +Superstition in India,; in + medical treatment, + +_Suttee_, + +Tagore, Rabindranath, poem + by, + +Taj Mahal, + +Talisman, reliance upon, + +Tank described, + +Teachers for high schools, + +Teaching as occupation, + licentiate in, + +Telugu outcastes, missionary + work among, + +Temples, vile things connected + with, + +Thillayampalam, first fellow + from Isabella Thoburn College, + +Thoburn, Isabella, + +Thumboo, Regina, + +Tinnevelly Missionary Society, + +To-day, yesterday and, + +Traditions of womanhood, + +Trail, the long, a-winding, + +Transportation, Indian, + +Treasure, the garden of hid, + +Triplicane Health Centre, 144. + +Union Missionary Medical + School for Women, Vellore. + _See_ Vellore Medical + School. + +Vacation, social service during, + +Veil, use of, + +Vellore Medical School, needs + of; modest start of; + scholarship at; Licensed + Medical Practitioner; + visit to; housing + shortage at; corpses-- + and children; dissecting + room; early + rising; Schell Hospital; + the Ford in a new + capacity; Nurses' + Home; makeshift + manikin; new site; + who the students are; + why the students came; + future of the students; + medical needs of + India; ignorant medical + treatment; + gifts of American women + to, + +Villages, outcaste, social service + in, + +Vincent, Shelomith, + +Visiting the poor and sick, + +"War, moral equivalent of," + +Waste? to what purpose, + +West, gifts of East to, + +Widowhood; compulsory, + +Wives of the idol + +Woman, redemption of, no + place for, in the religions + of India; in folk-lore; + heroine of folk-love; + and laws of Manu, + _See_ Girl. + +Woman's Christian College, + Madras. _See_ Madras Christian + College. + +Woman's Foreign Missionary + Society of the Methodist + Episcopal Church, + +Womanhood, traditions of, + +Women, Indian, are asserting + their rights; gifts of + American, and Vellore + Medical School; who + do things, + +Women physicians, pre-medical + training of, demands + college education; efforts + to increase number of; + supply of, and India's + medical needs, + +World, solidarity of, + +World peace and education, + +Worship adapted to Indian + conditions, + +Yesterday and to-day, + +Young Women's Christian + Association of Madras College, + +Zenanas, opening of, through + education, + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India +by Alice B. Van Doren + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12062 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4ece5d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12062 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12062) diff --git a/old/12062.txt b/old/12062.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9265e14 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12062.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5441 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India +by Alice B. Van Doren + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India + +Author: Alice B. Van Doren + +Release Date: April 16, 2004 [EBook #12062] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIGHTED TO LIGHTEN *** + + + + +Produced by Carel Lyn Miske, Shawn Cruze and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +[Illustration: Regina Thumboo +College, Lucknow +The First M.A. from Isabella Thoburu] + + +Lighted to Lighten + +The Hope of India + +A Study of Conditions +among Women in India + +By ALICE B. VAN DOREN + + +1922 + + + +FOREWORD + +The Central Committee sends out this book on Indian girlhood to meet +the young women of America with their high privilege of education, that +often unrealized and unacknowledged gift of Christ. + +Miss Van Doren has given emphasis in the book to the privileged young +woman of India; she shows the possibilities, and yet you will see in it +something of the black shadow cast by that religion which holds no place +for the redemption of woman. If you could see it in its hideousness +which the author can only hint at, you would say as two American college +girls said after a tour through India, "We cannot endure it. Don't take +us to another temple. We never dreamed that anything under the guise of +religion could be so vile." And somehow there has seemed to them since a +note of insincerity in poetic phrasings of Hindu writers who pass over +entirely gross forms of idolatrous faith to indulge in noble sentiments +which suggest plagiarism. A distinguished author said recently, "I can +never read Tagore again after seeing the women of India." From sacred +temple slums of South India to shambles of Kalighat it is revolting, +sickening, shameful. It is pleasanter to dwell on the beauties of +Hinduism and ignore the unprintable actualities, but if we are to help +we must feel how terrible and immediate the need is. No one can really +meet that need but the educated Indian Christian women whom God is +preparing in this day for service. They are the ones who are Lighted to +Lighten. They are the Hope of the future. Fifty years ago, after the +Civil war, the light began in the organization of Woman's Missionary +Societies. Through all the years women have gone, never very many, +sometimes not very strong, limited in various ways, but with one stern +determination, at any cost "to save some." + +Now at the close of your war, young women of America, a new era is +beginning in which you are called to take your part. You will not be the +pioneers. The trail is blazed. It has been proven that Indian girls can +be educated, their minds are keen and eager, they are Christian, many of +them, in a sense which girls of America cannot comprehend. Their task is +infinitely greater than yours. If they fail, the redemption of Indian +womanhood will not be realized, and so we see them taking as the college +emblem, not the beautiful, decorated brass lamp of the palace, but the +common, little clay lamp of the poorest home and going out with the +flickering flame to lighten the deep darkness of their land. College +girls in America sometimes wear their degree as a decoration. To these +girls it is equipment, armor, weapons, for the tearing down of +strongholds. These girls must be leaders. They cannot escape the +challenge. + +Until now the undertaking has seemed hopeless. What could a few foreign +women do among those millions? But the great, silent revolution has +begun Eastern women are seeking self-determination as nations seek it. +They are asserting rights to soul and mind and body. They refuse to be +chattels, and going out to release these millions come these little +groups of Christian college girls who are to furnish leadership. Have +we no part? Yes, as allies we are needed as never before. Unless from +the faculties of our colleges, as well as from our student volunteers +adequate aid is sent at once these little groups may fail. This is your +"moral equivalent of war." To go and help them in this Day which is +their Day of Decision requires vision, devotion, a glorious giving of +life which will count just in proportion as the need is immediate, the +battle in doubt, failure possible. Mission Boards must go haltingly for +lack of women and of funds until groups of women from colleges in +America hear the call of Christ and follow Him, for God Himself will not +do this work alone. He has chosen that it shall be done through you. +From our colleges and medical schools recruits and funds must be sent +until those who are in the new colleges over there are trained and ready +to win India for their Master. To bring them over here for training is +not altogether good. There are dangers in this our age of jazz. It is +not good to send out very young girls to a far country during the +formative years lest a strange language and customs and a new +civilization should unfit them to go back to their "Main Street" and +adjust themselves. The Indian Colleges are best for the undergraduate +Indian girl and are the only ones for the great majority. We must make +these the best possible, truly Christian in their teaching and +standards, in impressions on the lives of students as well as in their +mission to the people of India. + +This book is for study in our church societies of older girls and of +women, and very especially for girls in the colleges, who should +consider this as one of the greatest fields for service in the world +to-day. We preach internationalism. Let our churches and colleges +practice it. + +Mrs. HENRY W. PEABODY +Miss ALICE M. KYLE +Mrs. FRANK MASON NORTH +Miss GERTRUDE SCHULTZ +Miss O.H. LAWRENCE +MRS. A.V. POHLMAN +Miss EMILY TILLOTSON + + +NOTE: The Central Committee recommends Dr. Fleming's book, "Building +with India", for advanced study classes and groups who wish really to +_study_. For Women's societies wishing programs for meetings we think +Miss Van Doren's book better as it is less difficult and more concrete. + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + FOREWORD + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + PREFACE + INTRODUCTION + I YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY + II AT SCHOOL + A HIGH SCHOOL +III THE GARDEN OF HID TREASURE + LUCKNOW + IV AN INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE + V SENT FORTH TO HEAL + VI WOMEN WHO DO THINGS + INDEX + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +Regina Thuniboo +What Will Life Bring to Her? +Meenachi of Madura +Married to the God +Will Life Be Kind to Her? +A Temple in South India +The Sort of Home that Arul Knew +Priests of the Hindu Temple +Tamil Girls Preparing for College +The Village of the Seven Palms +Basketball at Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow +Biology Class at Lucknow College +A Social Service Group-Lucknow College +Village People +Girls of All Castes Meet on Common Ground +Shelomith Vincent +Street Scenes in Madras +Scenes at Madras College +At Work and Play +The New Dormitory at Madras College +The Old India +Contrasts +First Building at New Medical School, Vellore +Dr. Scudder and the Medical Students at Vellore +Where God is a Stone Image--Where God is Love +A Medical Student in Vellore +Better Babies +Freshman Class at Vellore-Latest Arrivals at Vellore +Dora Mohini Maya Das +Mrs. Paul Appasamy +Putting Spices in Baby's Milk +Baby on Scales +A Representative of India's Womanhood + + + +PREFACE + +These chapters are written with no claim to their being an accurate +representation of life in all India. That India is a continent rather +than a country is a statement so often repeated that it has become +trite. To understand the details of girl-life in all parts of this +continent would require a variety of experience which the present +writer cannot claim. This book is written frankly from the standpoint of +one who has spent fifteen years in the South, and known the North only +from brief tours and the acquaintance which reading can give. + +For help in advice and criticism thanks are due to friends too numerous +to name; especial mention, however, should be made of the kindness of +three Indian critics who have read the manuscript: Miss Maya Das of the +Y.W.C.A., Calcutta, Mr. Chandy of Bangalore, and Mr. Athiseshiah of +Voorhees College, Vellore. + + + +TO-MORROW + + +"If there were no Christian College in India, the foreshadowings of a +great To-morrow would demand its creation. It is needed: + +(1) for training native leadership in this age when all India is +demanding Indian leadership along all lines, and is impatient of foreign +control. + +(2) for developing Christian workers for the multitudes in India who are +turning to Christianity and need care and shepherding in schools and in +all phases of daily life. + +(3) for the education of those who will be the homemakers of their +country, that the stamp of Christianity may be upon the minds and lives +of mothers and wives in this New India. + +(4) for moralizing the social life in India which otherwise would have +the bias of an increasingly disproportionate educated male population. + +(5) for demonstrating the uplifting influence of Christ upon that sex +which has been so disastrously ignored and repressed in India, and for +proving that the best is none too good for Indian womanhood. 'Better +women' are the strongest factor in the development of a Better India. + +(6) for definitely distributing the ideals of Christian womanhood to all +parts of Southern Asia from which the College draws its students. +Personal witness to the value of Christian education for women is a real +Kingdom message. + +(7) for training women to take their part in the new national life of +awakened India. This training must be by contact with lives already +devoted to Christ, more than by precept, for 'character is caught, not +taught.' + +(8) for meeting the needs of the more educated classes of India, as the +evangelistic and other parts of mission work minister specifically to +the needs of the masses." + +(9) In furnishing pre-medical training for the hundreds of women who +must be educated to follow in the footsteps of the Great Physician. + + + +INTRODUCTION + +To say that the world is one is to-day's commonplace. What causes its +new solidarity? What but the countless hands that reach across its +shores and its Seven Seas, hands that devastate and hands that heal! +There are the long fingers of the cable and telegraph that pry through +earth's hidden places, gathering choice bits of international gossip and +handing them out to all the breakfast tables of the Great Neighborhood. +There are the swift fingers of transcontinental train and ocean liner, +pushing the dweller from the West into the Far East, the man from the +prairie into the desert. There are the devastating fingers of war that +first fashion and then carry infernal machines and spread them broadcast +over towns and ships and fertile fields. Thank God, there are also hands +of kindness that dispense healing medicines, that scatter schoolbooks +among untaught children and the Word of God in all parts of earth's +neighborhood. And, lastly, there are hands that seem never to leave the +house roof and the village street, yet gain the power of the long reach +and set thousands of candles alight across the world. + +"Why don't you let them alone? Their religion is good enough for them," +was the classic comment of the armchair critic of a generation ago. Time +has answered it. Nothing in to-day's world ever lets anything else +alone. We read the morning paper in terms of continents. To the League +of Nations China and Chile are concerns as intimate as Upper Silesia. To +the Third Internationale the obscure passes of Afghanistan are a near +frontier. Suffrage and prohibition are echoed in the streets of Poona +and in the councils of Delhi. Labor strikes in West Virginia and Wales +produce reactions in the cotton mills of Madras. And the American girl +in high school, in college, in business, in society, in a profession, +is producing her double under tropic suns, in far-off streets where +speech and dress and manners are strange, but the heart of life is one. +That time is past; we cannot let them alone; we can only choose what +shall be the shape and fashioning done by hands that reach across the +sea. + + + +CHAPTER ONE + + +YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY + + +"Once upon a Time." + +"Once upon a time,"[1] men and women dwelt in caves and cliffs and +fashioned curious implements from the stones of the earth and painted +crude pictures upon the walls of their rock dwellings. Archaeologists +find such traces in England and along the river valleys of France, among +the sands of Egyptian deserts and in India, where armor heads, ancient +pottery, and cromlechs mark the passing of a long forgotten race. Thus +India claims her place in the universal childhood of the world. + + +The Brown-skinned Tribes. + +"Once upon a time,"[2] when the Stone Men had passed, a strange, new +civilization is thought to have girdled the earth, passing probably in a +"brown belt" from Mediterranean lands across India to the Pacific world +and the Americas. Its sign was the curious symbol of the Swastika; its +passwords certain primitive customs common to all these lands. Its +probable Indian representatives are known to-day as Dravidians--the +brown-skinned people still dominating South Indian life, whose exact +place in the family of races puzzles every anthropologist. It was then +that civilization was first walking up and down the great river valleys +of the Old World. While the first pyramids[3] were a-building beside the +long green ribbon of the Nile and the star-gazers[4] of Mesopotamia were +reading future events from her towers of sun-dried bricks, Dravidian +tribes were cultivating the rich mud of the Ganges valley, a +slow-changing race. Did the lonely traveler, I wonder, troll the same +air then as now to ward away evil spirits from the star-lit road? Did +the Dravidian maiden do her sleek hair in the same knot at the nape of +her brown neck, and poise the earthen pot with the same grace on her +daily pilgrimage to the river? + + +The Aryan Brother. + +"Once upon a time" Abraham pitched his tent beneath the oaks of Mamre, +and Moses shepherded his father-in-law's flocks at "the back side of the +desert." It was then that down through the grim passes of the Himalayas, +where now the British regiments convoy caravans and guard the outposts +of Empire, a people of fair skin and strange speech migrated southward +to the Land of the Five Rivers and the fat plains of the Ganges. Aryan +even as we, the Brahman entered India, singing hymns to the sun and the +dawn, bringing with him the stately Sanskrit speech, new lore of priest +and shrine, new pride of race that was to cleave society into those +horizontal strata that persist to-day in the caste system. Thus through +successions of Stone-Age men, Dravidian tribes, and Aryan invaders, +India stretches her roots deep into the past. But while there were +transpiring these + + + "Old, unhappy, far-off things + And battles long ago," + + +where were we? The superior Anglo-Saxon who speaks complacently of "the +native" forgets that during that same "once upon a time" when +civilization was old in India, his ancestors, clad in deer skin and blue +paint, were stalking the forests of Europe for food. + + +Gifts to the West. + +Nor did these old civilizations forbear to reach hands across the sea +and share with the young and lusty West the fruits of their knowledge. +On a May morning, as skillful carriers swing you up to the heights of the +South India hills, there is a sudden sound reminiscent of the home +barnyard, a scurry of wings across the path, and a gleam of glossy +plumage; Mr. Jungle Cock has been disturbed in his morning meal. Did you +know that from his ancestors are descended in direct lineage all the +Plymouth Rocks and the White Leghorns of the poultry yard, all the Buff +Orpingtons that win gold medals at poultry shows? Other food stuffs +India originated and shared. Sugar and rice were delicacies from her +fields carried over Roman roads to please the palates of the Caesars.[5] + + +Traditions of Womanhood. + +Besides these contributions to the world's pantry, there were gifts of +the mind and spirit. To those days of long ago modern India looks back +as to a golden age, for she was then in the forefront of civilization, +passing out her gifts with a generous hand. Of that ancient heritage not +the least part is the tradition of womanhood,--a heritage trampled in +the dust of later ages, its restoration only now beginning through that +liberty in Christ which sets free the woman of the West and of the East. + +Much might be written on the place of the Indian woman in folk-lore epic +and drama. Helen of Troy and Dido of Carthage pale into common +adventuresses when placed beside the quiet courage and utter +self-abnegation of such Indian heroines as Sita and Damayanti. + +The story of Rama and Sita is the Odyssey of the East, crooned by +grandmothers over the evening fires; sung by wandering minstrels under +the shade of the mango grove; trolled by travelers jogging in bullock +carts along empty moonlit roads. Sita's devotion is a household word to +many a woman-child of India. Little Lakshmi follows the adventures of +the loved heroine as she shares Rama's unselfish renunciation of the +throne and exile to the forest with its alarms of wild beasts and wild +men. She thrills with fear at Sita's abduction by the hideous giant, +Ravana, and the wild journey through the air and across the sea to the +Ceylon castle. She weeps with Rama's despair, and again laughs with glee +at the antics of his monkey army from the south country, as they build +their bridge of stones across the Ceylon straits where now-a-days +British engineers have followed in their simian track and train and +ferry carry the casual traveler across the gaps jumped by the monkey +king and his tribe. Sita's sore temptations in the palace of her +conqueror and her steadfast loyalty until at last her husband comes +victorious--they are part of the heritage of a million Lakshmis all up +and down the length of India. + +[Illustration: WHAT WILL LIFE BRING TO HER?] + +Of the loves of Nala and Damayanti it is difficult to write in few +words. From the opening scene where the golden-winged swans carry Nala's +words of love to Damayanti in the garden, sporting at sunset with her +maidens, the old tale moves on with beauty and with pathos. The +Swayamvara, or Self Choice, harks back to the time when the Indian +princess might herself choose among her suitors. Gods and men compete +for Damayanti's hand among scenes as bright and stately as the lists of +King Arthur's Court, until the princess, choosing her human lover, +throws about his neck the garland that declares her choice. Happy years +follow, and the birth of children. Then the scene changes to exile and +desertion. Through it all moves the heroine, sharing her one garment +with her unworthy lord, "thin and pale and travel-stained, with hair +covered in dust," yet never faltering until her husband, sane and +repentant, is restored to home and children and throne. + +So the ancient folk-lore goes on, in epic and in drama, with the woman +ever the heroine of the tale. True it is that her virtues are limited; +obedience, chastity, and an unlimited capacity for suffering largely sum +them up. They would scarcely satisfy the ambitions of the new woman of +to-day; yet some among us might do well to pay them reverence. + +Those were the high days of Indian womanhood. Then, as the centuries +passed, there came slow eclipse. Lawgivers like Manu[6] proclaimed the +essential impurity of a woman's heart; codes and customs began to bind +her with chains easy to forge and hard to break. Later followed the +catastrophe that completed the change. The Himalayan gateways opened +once more and through them swarmed a new race of invaders, passing out +of those barren plains of Central Asia that have been ever the breeding +grounds of nations and swooping upon India's treasures. In one hand the +green flag of the Prophet, in the other the sword, these followers of +Muhammad sealed for a millennium the end of woman's high estate. + +All was not lost without a mighty struggle.[7] From those days come the +tales of Rajput chivalry--tales that might have been sung by the +troubadours of France. Rajput maidens of noble blood scorned the throne +of Muslim conquerors. Litters supposed to carry captive women poured out +warriors armed to the teeth. Men and women in saffron robes and bridal +garments mounted the great funeral pyre, and when the conquering +Allah-ud-din entered the silent city of Chitore he found no resistance +and no captives, for no one living was left from the great Sacrifice of +Honorable Death. + +After that came an end. Everywhere the Muhammadan conqueror desired many +wives; in a far and alien land his own womankind were few. Again and +again the ordinary Hindu householder, lacking the desperate courage of +the Rajput, stood by helpless, like the Armenian of to-day, while his +wife and daughter were carried off from before his eyes, to increase the +harem of his ruler. Small wonder that seclusion became the order of the +day--a woman would better spend her life behind the purdah of her own +home than be added to the zenana of her conqueror. Later when the throes +of conquest were over and Hindu women once more ventured forth to a +wedding or a festival, small wonder that they copied the manners of +their masters, and to escape familiarity and insult became as like as +possible to women of the conquering race. Thus the use of the veil +began. + +At that beginning we do not wonder; what makes us marvel is that a +repressing custom became so strong that, even after a century and a half +of British rule, all over North India and among some conservative +families of the South seclusion and the veil still persist. Walk the +streets of a great commercial town like Calcutta, and you find it a city +of men. An occasional Parsee lady, now and then an Indian Christian, +here and there women of the cooly class whose lowly station has saved +their freedom--otherwise womankind seems not to exist. + +The high hour of Indian womanhood had passed, not to return until +brought back by the power of Christ, in whose kingdom there is "neither +male nor female, but all are one." Yet as the afterglow flames up with a +transient glory after the swift sunset, so in the gathering darkness of +Muhammadan domination we see the brightness of two remarkable women. + +There was Nur Jahan, the "Light of the World," wife of the dissolute +Jahangir. Never forgetful, it would seem, of a childish adventure when +the little Nur Jahan in temper and pride set free his two pet doves, +twenty years later the Mughal Emperor won her from her soldier husband +by those same swift methods that David employed to gain the wife of +Uriah, the Hittite. + +And when Nur Jahan became queen she was ruler indeed, "the one +overmastering influence in his life."[8] From that time on we see her, +restraining her husband from his self-indulgent habits, improving his +administration, crossing flooded rivers and leading attacks on +elephants to save him from captivity; "a beautiful queen, beautifully +dressed, clever beyond compare, contriving and scheming, plotting, +planning, shielding and saving, doing all things for the man hidden in +the pampered, drink-sodden carcass of the king; the man who, for her at +any rate, always had a heart." Think of Nur Jahan's descendants, hidden +in the zenanas of India. When their powers, age-repressed, are set free +by Christian education, what will it mean for the future of their nation? + +[Illustration: MEENACHI OF MADURA +The Average Girl, a Bride at Twelve] + +Then there came the lady of the Taj, Mumtaz Mahal, beloved of Shah +Jahan, the Master Builder. We know less of her history, less of the +secret of her charm, only that she died in giving birth to her +thirteenth child, and that for all those years of married life she had +held her husband's adoration. For twenty-two succeeding years he spent +his leisure in collecting precious things from every part of his world +that there might be lacking no adornment to the most exquisite tomb ever +raised. And when it was finished--rare commentary on the contradiction +of Mughal character--the architect was blinded that he might never +produce its like again. + +All that was a part of yesterday--a story of rise and fall; of woman's +repression, with outbursts of greatness; of countless treasures of +talent and possibilities unrecognized and undeveloped, hidden behind the +doors of Indian zenanas. What of to-day? + + +TO-DAY: The Average Girl. + +Meenachi of Madura, if she could become articulate, might tell us +something of the life of the average girl to-day. Being average, she +belongs neither to the exclusive streets of the Brahman, nor to the +hovels of the untouchable outcastes, but to the area of the great middle +class which is in India as everywhere the backbone of society. +Meenachi's father is a weaver of the far-famed Madura muslins with their +gold thread border. Her earliest childhood memory is the quiet weavers' +street where the afternoon sun glints under the tamarind trees and, +striking the long looms set in the open air, brings out the blue and +mauve, the deep crimson and purple and gold of the weaving. + +There were rollicking babyhood days when Meenachi, clad only in the +olive of her satin skin with a silver fig leaf and a bead necklace for +adornment, wandered in and out the house and about the looms at will. +With added years came the burden of clothing, much resented by the +wearer, but accepted with philosophic submission, as harder things would +be later on. Toys are few and simple. The palmyra rattle is exchanged +for the stiff wooden doll, painted in gaudy colors, and the collection +of tiny vessels in which sand and stones and seeds provide the +equivalent of mud pies in repasts of imaginary rice and curry. Household +duties begin also. Meenachi at the age of six grasps her small bundle of +broom-grass and sweeps each morning her allotted section of verandah. +Soon she is helping to polish the brass cooking pots and to follow her +mother and older sisters, earthen waterpot on hip, on their morning and +evening pilgrimages to the river. + +Being only an average girl, Meenachi will never go to school. There are +ninety and nine of these "average" unschooled girls to the one "above +the average" to whom education offers its outlet for the questing +spirit. She looks with curiosity at the books her brother brings home +from high school, but the strange, black marks which cover their pages +mean nothing to her. Not for her the release into broad spaces that +comes only through the written word. For, mark you, to the illiterate +life means only those circumscribed experiences that come within the +range of one's own sight and touch and hearing. "What I have seen, what +I have heard, what I have felt"--there experience ends. From personal +unhappiness there is no escape into the world current. + +Meenachi is twelve and the freedom of the long street is hers no more. +Yellow chrysanthemums in her glossy hair, a special diet of milk and +curds and sweet cakes fried in ghee, and the outspoken congratulations +of relatives, male and female, mark her entrance into the estate of +womanhood. What the West hides, the East delights to reveal. + +Now follows the swift sequel of marriage. The husband, of just the right +degree of relationship, has long been chosen. The family exchequer is +drained to the dregs to provide the heavy dowry, the burdensome +expenditure for wedding feast and jewels, and the presentation of +numerous wedding garments to equally numerous and expectant relatives. +Meenachi is carried away by the splendor of new clothes and jewels and +processions, and the general _tamash_ of the occasion. Has she not the +handsomest bridegroom and the most expensive _trousseau,_ of this +marriage month? Is she not the envy of all her former playmates? Only +now and then comes a strange feeling of loneliness when she thinks of +leaving the dear, familiar roof the narrow street with its tamarind +trees and many colored looms. The mother-in-law's house is a hundred +miles away, and the mother-in-law's face is strange. + +Will Meenachi be sad or happy? The answer is complex and hard to find, +for it depends on many contingencies. The husband--what will he be? He +is not of Meenachi's choosing. Did she choose her father and mother, and +the house in which she was born? Were they not chosen for her, "written +upon her forehead" by her _Karma_, her inscrutable fate? Her husband has +been chosen; let her make the best of the choice. + +Will she be happy? The future years shall make answer by many things. +Will she bear sons to her husband? If so, will her young body have +strength for the pains of childbirth and the torturings of ignorant and +brutal midwives? Will her _Karma_ spare to her the life of husband and +children? In India sudden death is never far; pestilence walks in +darkness and destruction wastes at noon day. The fear of disease, the +fear of demons, the fear of death will be never far away; for these +fears there will be none to say, "Be not afraid." + +So Meenachi, the bride, passes out into the unknown of life, and later +into the greater unknown of death. No one has taught her to say in the +valley of the shadow, "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." The +terrors of life are with her, but its consolations are not hers. + +[Illustration: MARRIED TO THE GOD +A Little Temple Girl] + + +Widowhood. + +Of widowhood I shall say little. Since the ancient days of _suttee_ when +the wife mounted her husband's funeral pyre volumes have been written on +the lot of the Indian widow. To-day in some cases the power of +Christianity has awakened the spirit of social reform and the rigors of +widowhood are lessened. Among the majority the old remains. In general, +the higher you rise in the social scale, the sterner the conventions and +fashions of widowhood become. + +In Madras you may visit a Widow's Home, where through the wise efforts +of a large-hearted woman in the Educational Department of Government +more than a hundred Brahman girl-widows live the life of a normal +schoolgirl. No fastings, no shaven heads, no lack of pretty clothes or +jewels mark them off from the rest of womanhood. Schools and colleges +open their doors and professional life as teacher or doctor offers hope +of human contact and interest for these to whom husband and child and +home are forever forbidden. In all India you may find a very few such +institutions, but "what are these among so many?" The millions of +repressed child widows still go on. + + +Wives of the Idol. + +Worse is the fate of those whose _Karma_ condemns them to a life of +religious prostitution. Perhaps the first-born son of the family lies +near to death. The parents vow a frantic vow to the deity of the local +temple. "Save our son's life, O Govinda; our youngest daughter shall be +dedicated to thy service." The son recovers, the vow must be fulfilled, +and bright-eyed, laughing Lakshmi, aged eight, is led to the temple, put +through the mockery of a ceremony of marriage to the black and misshapen +image in the inmost shrine, and thenceforth trained to a religious +service of nameless infamy. + +The story of Hinduism holds the history of some devout seekers after +God, of sincere aspiration, in some cases of beautiful thought and life. +This deepest blot is acknowledged and condemned by its better members. +Yet in countless temples, under the brightness of the Indian sun, the +iniquity, protected by vested interests, goes on and no hand is lifted +to stay. Suppose each American church to shelter its own house of +prostitution, its forces recruited from the young girls of the +congregation, their services at the disposal of its worshippers. The +thought is too black for utterance; yet just so in the life of India has +the service of the gods been prostituted to the lusts of men. + + +Reform. + +The achievements of Christianity in India are not confined to the four +million who constitute the community that have followed the new Way. +Perhaps even greater has been the reaction it has excited in the ranks +of Hinduism among those who would repudiate the name of Christian. Chief +among the abuses of Hinduism to be attacked has been the traditional +attitude toward woman. Child marriage and compulsory widowhood are +condemned by every social reformer up and down the length of India. The +battle is fought not only for women, but by them also. Agitation for +the suffrage has been carried on in India's chief cities. In Poona not +long since the educated women of the city, Hindu, Muhammadan, and +Christian, joined in a procession with banners, demanding compulsory +education for girls. + +Of women not Christian, but freed from ancient bonds by this reflex +action of Christian thought, perhaps the most eminent example is Mrs. +Sarojini Naidu. Of Brahman birth, but English education, she dared to +resist the will of her family and the tradition of her caste and marry a +man of less than Brahman extraction. Now as a writer of distinction +second only to Tagore she is known to Europe as well as to India. In her +own country she is perhaps loved best for her intense patriotism, and is +the best known woman connected with the National Movement. + +Chiefly, however, it is among the Christian community that woman's +freedom has become a fact. Women such as Mrs. Naidu exist, but they are +few. Now and then one reads of a case of widow-remarriage successfully +achieved. Too often, however, the Hindu reformer, however well-meaning +and sincere, talks out his reformation in words rather than deeds. He +lacks the support of Christian public opinion; he lacks also the +vitalizing power of a personal Christian experience. It is easy to speak +in public on the evils of early marriage; he speaks and the audience +applauds. He knows too well that in the applauding audience there is not +a man whose son will marry his daughter if she passes the age of +twelve. So the ardent reformer talks on, with the abandon of the darky +preacher who exhorted his audience "Do as I say and not as I do"; and +hopes that in some future incarnation life will be kinder, and he may be +able to carry out the excellent practices he really desires. + +A Hindu girl of high family was allowed to go to college. There being +then no women's college in her part of India, she entered a Government +University in a large city, where there were a few other women students. +Western standards of freedom prevailed and were accepted by men and +women. Rukkubai shared in social as well as academic life. With a strong +arm and a steady eye, she distinguished herself at tennis and badminton, +and came even to play in mixed doubles, a mark of the most "advanced" +social views to be found in India. + +After college came marriage to a man connected with the family of a well +known rajah. The husband was not only the holder of a University degree +similar to her own, but a zealous social reformer, eloquent in his +advocacy of women's freedom. Life promised well for Rukkubai. A year or +two later a friend visited her behind the purdah, with the doors of the +world shut in her face. The zeal of the reforming husband could not +stand against the petty persecutions of the older women of the family. +"I wish," said Rukkubai, "that I had never known freedom. Now I have +known--and lost." + +[Illustration: WILL LIFE BE KIND TO HER?] + +Yet not all reformers are such. There are an increasing number whose +deeds keep pace with their words. Such may be found among the members of +The Servants of India Society, who spend part of the year in social +studies; the remainder in carrying to ignorant people the message they +have learned. + +Such is the heritage of the Hindu woman of ancient freedom; centuries +when traditions of repression have gripped with ever-tightening hold; +to-day a new ferment in the blood, a new striving toward purposes half +realized. + +Of to-morrow, who can say? The future is hidden, but the chapters that +follow may perhaps serve to bring us into touch with a few of the many +forces that are helping to shape the day that shall be. + +[Footnote 1: History of India, E.W. Thompson. Christian Literature +Society, London and Madras, pp. 11-12.] + +[Footnote 2: Outline of History, H.G. Wells. Vol. I, pp. 146-8.] + +[Footnote 3: Outline of History, H.G. Wells, Vol. I, pp. 196-199.] + +[Footnote 4: Outline of History, H.G. Wells, Vol. I, pp. 189-190.] + +[Footnote 5: Ancient Times, Breasted, pp. 658-9.] + +[Footnote 6: Code of Manu, Book 9, quoted Lux Christi, Mason, p. 14.] + +[Footnote 7: India through the Ages, Florence Annie Steele, Routledge, +pp. 95-104, 116-18.] + +[Footnote 8: India through the Ages, pp. 190-200] + + + +CHAPTER TWO + + +AT SCHOOL + + +Hindu or Christian. + +In the last chapter we have spoken of the Hindu girl as yet untouched by +Christianity, save as such influence may have filtered through into the +general life of the nation. We have had vague glimpses of her social +inheritance, with its traditions of an ancient and honorable estate of +womanhood; of the limitations of her life to-day; of her half-formed +aspirations for the future. + +Of education as such nothing has been said. As we turn now from home to +school life, we shall turn also from the Hindu community to the +Christian. This does not mean that none but Christian girls go to +school. In all the larger and more advanced cities and in some towns you +will find Government schools for Hindu girls as well as those carried on +by private enterprise, some of them of great efficiency. Yet this +deliberate turning to the school life of the Christian community is not +so arbitrary as it seems. + +In the first place, the proportion of literacy among Christian women is +far higher than among the Hindu and Muhammadan communities. Again, +because a large proportion of Christians have come from the depressed +classes, the "submerged tenth," ground for uncounted centuries under the +heel of the caste system, their education is also a study in social +uplift, one of the biggest sociological laboratory experiments to be +found anywhere on earth. And, lastly, it is through Christian schools +that the girls and women of America have reached out hands across the +sea and gripped their sisters of the East. + + +The School under the Palm Trees. + +"And the dawn comes up like thunder Outer China 'cross the Bay." Far +from China and far inland from the Bay is this South Indian village, but +the dawn flashes up with the same amazing swiftness. Life's daily +resurrection proceeds rapidly in the Village of the Seven Palms. Flocks +of crows are swarming in from their roosting place in the palmyra jungle +beside the dry sand river; the cattle are strolling out from behind +various enclosures where they share the family shelter; all around is +the whirr of bird and insect as the teeming life of the tropics wakes to +greet "my lord Sun." + +Under the thatch of each mud-walled hovel of the outcaste village there +is the same stir of the returning day. Sheeted corpses stretched on the +floor suddenly come to life and the babel of village gossip begins. + +In the house at the far end of the street, Arul is first on her feet, +first to rub the sleep from her eyes. There is no ceremony of dressing, +no privacy in which to conduct it if there were. Arul rises in the same +scant garment in which she slept, snatches up the pot of unglazed clay +that stands beside the door, poises it lightly on her hip, and runs +singing to the village well, where each house has its representative +waiting for the morning supply. There is the plash of dripping water, +the creak of wheel and straining rope, and the chatter of girl voices. + +[Illustration: A TEMPLE IN SOUTH INDIA] + +The well is also the place for making one's morning toilet. Arul dashes +the cold water over her face, hands, and feet. No soap is required, no +towel--the sun is shining and will soon dry everything in sight. Next +comes the tooth-brushing act, when a smooth stick takes the place of a +brush, and "Kolynos" or "Colgate" is replaced by a dab of powdered +charcoal. Arul combs her hair only for life's great events, such as a +wedding or a festival, and changes her clothes so seldom that it is +better form not to mention it. + +Breakfast is equally simple,--and the "simple life" at close range is +apt to lose many of its charms. In the corner of the one windowless +room that serves for all domestic purposes stands the earthen pot of +black gruel. It is made from the _ragi_, little, hard, round seeds that +resemble more than anything else the rape seed fed to a canary. It looks +a sufficiently unappetizing breakfast, but contentment abounds because +the pot is full, and that happens only when rains are abundant and +seasons prosperous. The Russian peasant and his black bread, the Indian +peasant and his black gruel--dark symbols these of the world's hunger +line. + +There is no sitting down to share even this simple meal, no conception +of eating as a social event, a family sacrament. The father, as lord and +master, must be served first; then the children seize the one or two +cups by turn, and last of all comes Mother. Arul gulps her breakfast +standing and then dashes into the street. She is one of the village herd +girls; the sun is up and shining hot, and the cattle and goats are +jostling one another in their impatience to be off for the day. + +The dry season is on and all the upland pastures are scorched and brown. +A mile away is the empty bed of the great tank. A South Indian tank in +our parlance would be an artificial lake. A strong earth wall, planted +with palmyras, encircles its lower slope. The upper lies open to receive +surface water, as well as the channel for the river that runs full +during the monsoon months. During the "rains" the country is full of +water, blue and sparkling. Now the water is gone, the crops are +ripening, and in the clay tank bottom the cattle spend their days +searching for the last blades of grass. + +"Watch the cows well, Little Brother," calls Arul, as she hurries back +on the narrow path that winds between boulders and thickets of prickly +pear cactus. Green parrots are screaming in the tamarind trees and +overhead a white-throated Brahmany kite wheels motionless in the vivid +blue. The sun is blazing now, but Arul runs unheeding. It is time for +school--she knows it by the sun-clock in the sky. "Female education," as +the Indian loves to call it, is not yet fashionable in the Village of +the Seven Palms. With twenty-five boys there are only three girls who +frequent its halls of learning. Of the three Arul is one. Her father, +lately baptized, knows but little of what Christ's religion means, but +the few facts he has grasped are written deeply in his simple mind and +show life-results. One of these ideas is that the way out and up is +through the gate of Christian education. And so it is that Arul comes to +school. She is but eight, yet with a mouth to feed and a body to clothe, +and the rice pot often empty, the halving of her daily wage means +self-denial to all the family. So it is that Arul, instead of herding +cattle all day, runs swiftly back to the one-roomed schoolhouse under +the cocoanuts and arrives not more than half an hour late. + +The schoolroom is so primitive that you would hardly recognize it as +such. Light and air and space are all too little. There are no desks or +even benches. A small, wooden blackboard and the teacher's table and +rickety chair are all that it can boast in the way of equipment. The +only interesting thing in sight is the children themselves, rows of them +on the floor, writing letters in the sand. Unwashed they are, uncombed +and almost unclothed, but with all the witchery of childhood in their +eyes. In that bare room lies the possibility of transforming the life of +the Village of the Seven Palms. + +But the teacher is innocent of the ways of modern pedagogy, and deep and +complicated are the snares of the Tamil alphabet with its two hundred +and sixteen elusive characters. Baffling, too, are the mysteries of +number combination. "If six mangoes cost three annas, how much will one +mango cost?" Arul never had an anna of her own, how should she know? The +teachers bamboo falls on her hard, little hand, and two hot tears run +down and drop on the cracked slate. The way to learning is long and +beset with as many thorns as the crooked path through the prickly pear +cactus. Bible stories are happier. Arul can tell you how the Shepherds +sang and all about the little boy who gave his own rice cakes and dried +fish, to help Jesus feed hungry people. She has been hungry so often +that that story seems real. + +The years pass over Arul's head, leaving her a little taller, a little +fleeter of foot as she hurries back from the pasture, a little wiser in +the ways of God and men. Still her father holds out against the +inducements of child labor. Arul shall go to school as long as there is +anything left for her to learn. And into Arul's eyes there has come the +gleam of a great ambition. She will leave the Village of the Seven Palms +and go into the wide world. The most spacious existence she knows of is +represented by the Girls' Boarding School in the town twenty miles away. +To enter that school, to study, to become a teacher perhaps--but beyond +that the wings of Arul's imagination have not yet learned to soar. The +meaning of service for Christ and India, the opportunity of educated +womanhood, such ideas have not yet entered Arul's vocabulary. She will +learn them in the days to come. + +Countless villages of the Seven Palms; countless schools badly equipped +and poorly taught; countless Aruls--feeling within them dim gropings, +half-formed ambitions. Somewhere in America there are girls trained in +rural education and longing for the chance for research and original +work in a big, untried field. What a chance for getting together the +girl and the task! + +[Illustration: THE SORT OF HOME THAT ARUL KNEW IN THE VILLAGE OF SEVEN +PALMS] + + + +A HIGH SCHOOL + + +Where the Girls Come from. + +If the girls of India could pass you in long procession, you would need +to count up to one hundred before you found one who had had Arul's +opportunity of learning just to read and write. Infinitely smaller is +the proportion of those who go into secondary schools. American women +have been responsible for founding, financing, and teaching many of the +Girls' High Schools that exist. They are of various sorts. Some have new +and up-to-date plants, modelled on satisfactory types of American +buildings. Others are muddling along with old-time, out-grown +schoolrooms, spilling over into thatched sheds, and longing for the day +when the spiritual structure they are erecting will be expressed in a +suitable material form. Schools vary also as to social standing, +discipline, and ideals; yet there are common features and problems, and +one may be more or less typical of all. Most include under one +organization everything from kindergarten to senior high school, so that +the school is really a big family of one or two or four hundred, as the +case may be. + +The girls come from many grades of Indian life. The great majority are +Christians, for few Hindu parents are yet sufficiently "advanced" to +desire a high school education for their daughters, and those who do +usually send their girls to a Government school where caste regulations +will be observed and where there will be no religious teaching. + +Some of the Christian girls come from origins as crude as that of Arul. +To such the simplest elements of hygiene are unknown, and cleanly and +decent living is the first and hardest lesson to be learned. Others are +orphans, waifs, and strays cast up from the currents of village life. +Uncared for, undernourished, with memories of a tragic childhood behind +them, it is sometimes an impossible task to turn these little, old women +back into normal children. But the largest number are children of +teachers and catechists, pastors, and even college professors, who come +from middle class homes, with a greater or less collection of Christian +habits and ideals. With all these is a small scattering of high caste +Hindu girls, the children of exceptionally liberal parents. The +resulting school community is a wonderful example of pure democracy. +Ignorant village girls learn more from the "public opinion" of their +better trained schoolmates than from any amount of formal discipline; +while daughters of educated families share their inheritance and come +to realize a little of the need of India's illiterate masses. So school +life becomes an experiment in Christian democracy, where a girl counts +only for what she can do and be; where each member contributes something +to the life of the group and receives something from it. + + +What the Girls Study. + +Schools are schools the world over, and the agonies of the three R's are +common to children in whatever tongue they learn. An Indian kindergarten +is not so different from an American, except for language and local +color. Equipment is far simpler and less expensive, but there is the +same spontaneity, the same joy of living; laughter and play have the +same sound in Tamil as in English. Besides, Indian kindergartens produce +some charming materials all their own--shiny black tamarind seeds, piles +of colored rice, and palm leaves that braid into baby rattles and fans. + +So, too, a high school course is much the same even in India. The +right-angled triangle still has an hypotenuse, and quadratics do not +simplify with distance, while Tamil classics throw Vergil and Cicero +into the shade. The fact that high school work is all carried on in +English is the biggest stumbling block in the Indian schoolgirl's road +to learning. What would the American girl think of going through a +history recitation in Russian, writing chemistry equations in French, +or demonstrating a geometry proposition in Spanish? Some day Indian +education may be conducted in its own vernaculars; to-day there are +neither the necessary text-books, nor the vocabulary to express +scientific thought. As yet, and probably for many years to come, the +English language is the key that unlocks the House of Learning to the +schoolgirl. Indian classics she has and they are well worth knowing; but +even Shakespeare and Milton would hardly console the American girl for +the loss of all her story books, from "Little Women" and "Pollyanna" +up--or down--to the modern novel. To understand English sufficiently to +write and speak and even think in it is the big job of the High School. +It is only the picked few who attain unto it; those few are possessed of +brains and perseverance enough to become the leaders of the next +generation. + + +School Life. + +It is not unusual for an Indian girl to spend ten or twelve years in +such a boarding school. An institution is a poor substitute for a home, +but in such cases it must do its best to combine the two. This means +that books are almost accessories; _school life_ is the most vital part +of education. + +To such efforts the Indian girl responds almost incredibly. Whatever her +faults--and she has many--she is never bored. Her own background is so +narrow that school opens to her a new world of surprise. "Isn't it +wonderful!" is the constant reaction to the commonplaces of science. No +less wonderful to her is the liberty of thinking and acting for herself +that self-government brings. + +Seeta loves her home, but before a month is over its close confinement +palls and she writes back, "I am living like a Muhammadan woman. I wish +it were the last day of vacation." Her father is shocked by her desire +to be up and doing. He calls on the school principal and complains, "I +don't know what to make of my daughter. Why is she not like her mother? +Are not cooking and sewing enough for any woman? Why has she these +strange ideas about doing all sorts of things that her mother never +wanted to do?" Then the principal tries to explain patiently that new +wine cannot be kept in old bottles, and that unless the daughter were to +he different from the mother it was hardly worth while to send her for +secondary education. So, when the long holiday is over, Seeta returns +with a fresh appreciation of what education means in her life; and we +know that when _her_ daughters come home for vacation, it will be to a +mother with sympathy and understanding. + +The girls' loyalty to their school is at times almost pathetic. An +American teacher writes, "One moonlight night when I was walking about +the grounds talking with some of the oldest girls, one of them caught my +hand, and turned me about toward the school, which, even under the magic +of the Indian moon, did not seem a particularly beautiful sight to me. +'Amma' (mother), she said, in a voice quivering with emotion, 'See how +beautiful our school is! When I stand out here at night and look at it +through the trees, it gives me such a feeling _here_,' and she pressed +her hand over her heart. + +"'Do you think it is only beautiful at night?' one of the other girls +asked indignantly, and all joined in enthusiastic affirmations of its +attractions even at high noon,--which all goes to show how relative the +matter is. I, with my background of Wellesley lawns and architecture, +find our school a hopelessly unsanitary makeshift to be endured +patiently for a few years longer, but to these girls with their +background of wretchedly poor village homes it is in its bare +cleanliness, as well as in its associations, a veritable place of +'sweetness and light.'" + + +Athletics. + +Organized play is one of the gifts that school life brings to India. It, +too, has to be learned, for the Indian girl has had no home training in +initiative. The family or the caste is the unit and she is a passive +member of the group, whose supreme duty is implicit obedience. One +Friday when school had just reopened after the Christmas vacation, one +of the teachers came to the principal and said, "May we stop all classes +this afternoon and let the children play? You see," as she saw +remonstrance forthcoming, "it's just _because_ it's been vacation. They +say they have been so long at home and there has been no chance to +play." Classes were stopped, and all the school played, from the +greatest unto the least, until the newly aroused instinct was satisfied. + +Basket ball had an interesting history in one school. At first the +players were very weak sisters, indeed. The center who was knocked down +wept as at a personal affront, and the defeated team also wept to prove +their penitence for their defeat. But gradually the team learned to play +fair, to take hard knocks, and to cheer the winners. They grew into such +"good sports" that when one day an invading cow, aggrieved at being hit +in the flank by a flying ball, turned and knocked the goal thrower flat +on the ground, the interruption lasted only a few minutes. The prostrate +goal-thrower recovered her breath, got over her fright, and, while +admiring friends chased the cow to a safe distance, the game went on to +the finish. + + +Dramatics. + +The dramatic instinct is strong and the school girl actress shines, +whether in the role of Ophelia or Ramayanti. In India among Hindus or +Christians, in school or church or village, musical dramas are +frequently composed and played and hold unwearied audiences far into the +night. Among Christians there is a great fondness for dramatizing Bible +narratives. Joseph, Daniel, and the Prodigal Son appear in wonderful +Indian settings, "adapted" sometimes almost beyond recognition. They +show interesting likeness to the miracle and mystery plays of the Middle +Ages. There is the same naive presentation; the same introduction of the +buffoon to offset tragedy with comedy; the same tendency to +overemphasize the comic parts until all sense of reverence is lost. In +some respects India and Mediaeval Europe are not so far apart. + +A high school class one night presented part of the old Tamil drama of +Harischandra. The heroine, an exiled queen, watches her child die before +her in the forest. Having no money to pay for cremation on the burning +ghat, she herself gathers firewood, builds a little pyre, and with such +tears and lamentations as befit an Oriental woman lays her child's body +on the funeral pile. Just as the fire is lighted and the corpse begins +to burn, the keeper of the burning ghat appears and, with anger at this +trespass, kicks over the pyre, puts the fire out, and throws the body +aside. Just at this moment Chandramathy sees in him the exiled king, her +husband and lord, and the father of her dead child. There are tearful +recognitions; together they gather again the scattered firewood, rebuild +the pyre, and share their common grief. + +The play was given in a dimly lighted court, with simple costumes and +the crudest stage properties. But one spectator will not soon forget the +schoolgirl heroine whose masses of black hair swept to her knees. She +lived again all the pathos, the anger and despair and reconciliation of +the old tale, and her audience thrilled with her as at the touch of a +tragedy queen. + + +Student Government. + +Co-operation in school government and discipline is one of the most +educational experiences that an Indian girl can pass through. To feel +the responsibility for her own actions and those of her schoolmates, to +form impersonal judgments that have no relation to one's likes and +dislikes, these are lessons found not between the covers of text-books, +but at the very heart of life-experience. Under such moral strain and +stress character develops, not as a hothouse growth of unreal dreams and +theories, but as the sturdy product of life situations. + +Some schools divide themselves into groups, each of which elects a +"queen" to represent and to rule. The queens with elected teachers and +the principal form the governing body, before which all questions of +discipline come for settlement. Great is the office of a queen. She is +usually well beloved, but also at times well hated, for the "Court" +occasionally dispenses punishments far heavier than the teachers alone +would dare to inflict and its members often realize the truth of +Shakespeare's statement, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." + +[Illustration: PRIESTS OF THE HINDU TEMPLE.] + +The "Court" is now in session and has two culprits before its bar. +Abundance has been found to have a cake of soap and a mirror, not her +own, shut up in her box. Lotus copied her best friend's composition and +handed it in as hers. What shall be done to the two? Discussion waxes +hot. The play hour passes. Shouts and laughter come in from the tennis +court and the basket ball field. Every one is having a good time save +the culprits and the four queens, who pay the penalty of greatness and +bear on their young shoulders the burdens of the world. Evidence is hard +to collect, for the witnesses disagree among themselves. Then there are +other complications. Abundance stole _things_ which you can see and +touch, while Lotus's theft was only one of intangible thoughts. +Furthermore, Abundance comes from a no-account family, quite "down and +out," while Lotus is a pastor's daughter and as such entitled to due +respect and deference. And still further, nobody likes Abundance, while +Lotus is very popular and counts one of the queens as her intimate +friend. Much time passes, the supper bell rings, and the players troop +noisily indoors, but the four burdened queens still struggle with their +dawning sense of justice. At last, as the swift darkness drops, the case +is closed and judgment pronounced. Much time has been consumed, but four +girls have learned a few of life's big lessons, not found in books, such +as: that thoughts are just as real as things; that likes and dislikes +have nothing to do with matters of discipline; that a girl of a "way up" +family should have more expected of her than one who is "down and out." +Perhaps that experience will count more than any "original" in geometry. + +Student Government also brings about a wonderful comradeship between +teachers and pupils. Out of it has grown such a sense of friendly +freedom as found expression in this letter written to its American +teacher by a Junior Class who were more familiar with the meter of +Evangeline than with the geometry lesson assigned. + +Dear Miss----: + +We are the Math. students who made you lose your temper this morning, +and we feel very sorry for that. We found that we are the girls who must +be blamed. We ought to have told you the matter beforehand, but we +didn't, so please excuse us for the fault which we committed and we +realize now. Our love to you. + +V Form Math. Girls. + +P.S. We would like to quote a poem which we are very much interested in +telling you: + + + "What is that that ye do, my children? + What madness has seized you this morning? + Seven days have I labored among you, + Not in word alone, but showing the figures on the + board. + Have you so soon forgotten all the definitions of _Loci_? + Is this the fruit of my teaching and laboring?" + + +Co-operative Housekeeping. + +Co-operation is needed not only in "being good," but also in eating and +drinking and keeping clean. There are school families in India where +every member from the "queen" to the most rollicking five-year-old has +her share in making things go. The queen takes her turn in getting up at +dawn to see that the "water set" is at the well on time; five-year-old +Tara wields her diminutive broom in her own small corner, and each is +proud of her share. There is in Indian life an unfortunate feud between +the head and the hand. To be "educated" means to be lifted above the +degradation of manual labor; to work with one's hands means something +lacking in one's brain. Not seldom does a schoolboy go home to his +village and sit idle while his father reaps the rice crop. Not seldom +does an "educated" girl spend her vacation in letter writing and crochet +work while her "uneducated" mother toils over the family cooking. + +Girls, however, who have spent hours over the theories of food values, +balanced meals, and the nutrition of children, and other hours over the +practical working out of the theories in the big school family, go home +with a changed attitude toward the work of the house. Siromony writes +back at Christmas time, "The first thing I did after reaching home was +to empty out the house and whitewash it." + +Ruth's letter in the summer vacation ends, "We have given our mother a +month's holiday. All she needs to do is to go to the bazaar and buy +supplies. My sister and I will do all the rest." + +On Christmas day, Miracle, who is spending her vacation at school, all +on her own initiative gets up at three in the morning to kill chickens +and start the curry for the orphans' dinner, so that the work may be +well out of the way before time for the Christmas tree and church. + +Golden Jewel begs the use of the sewing machine in the Mission bungalow. +All the days before Christmas her bare feet on the treadle keep the +wheels whirring. Morning and afternoon she is at it, for Jewel has a +quiver full of little brothers and sisters, and in India no one can go +to church on Christmas without a new and holiday-colored garment. One +after another they come from Jewel's deft fingers and lie on the floor +in a rainbow heap. When Christmas Eve comes all are finished--except her +own. On Christmas morning all the family are in church at that early +service dearest to the Indian Christian, with its decorations of palm +and asparagus creeper, its carols and rejoicings and new and shining +raiment. In the midst sits Jewel and her clothes to the most seem +shabby, but to those who know she is the best dressed girl in the whole +church, for she is wearing a new spiritual garment of unselfish service. + +[Illustration: Tamil Girls Preparing for College] + +[Illustration: The Village of the Seven Palms] + + +The Indian Girl's Religion. + +To the Indian schoolgirl religion is the natural atmosphere of life. She +discusses her faith with as little self-consciousness as if she were +choosing the ingredients for the next day's curry. She knows nothing of +those Western conventions that make it "good form" for us to hide all +our emotions, all our depth of feeling, under the mask of not caring at +all. She has none of that inverted hypocrisy which causes us to take +infinite pains to assure our world that we are vastly worse than we are. +What Lotus feels she expresses simply, naturally, be it her interest in +biology, her friendship for you, or her response to the love of the +All-Father. And that response is deep and genuine. There is a spiritual +quality, an answering vibration, which one seldom finds outside the +Orient. You lead morning prayers and to pray is easy, because in those +schoolgirl worshippers you feel the mystic quality of the East leaping +up in response. You teach a Bible class and the girls' eager questions +run ahead so fast that you lose your breath as you try to keep pace. + +The following letter was written by a girl just after her first +experience of a mountain climb with a vacation camp at the top. "Now we +are on Kylasa, enjoying our 'mountain top experience.' This morning +Miss ---- gave a beautiful and inspiring talk on visions. She showed us +that the climbing up Kylasa could be a parable of our journey through +this world. In places where it was steep and where we were tired, the +curiosity we had to see the full vision on the top kept us courageous to +go forward and not sit long in any place. She compared this with our +difficulties and dark times and this impressed me most, I think. + +"When we came up it was dark and I was supposed to come in the chair, +but I did not wait for it, because I was very curious to go up. When I +came to a place very dark, with bushes and trees very thick on both +sides, I had to give up and wait until the others came. When I was +waiting I saw the big, almost red moon coming, stealing its way through +the dark clouds little by little. It was really glorious. I thought of +this when Miss ---- talked to us, and it made it easier to understand her +feeling about that. + +"So much of that, and now I want to tell you about the steep rocks I am +climbing these days," and then follows the application to the big "Hill +Difficulty" that was blocking up her own life path. + + +God in Nature. + +Love of nature is not as spontaneous in the Indian girl as in the +Japanese. Yet with but a little training of the seeing eye and +understanding heart, there develops a deep love of beauty that includes +alike flowers and birds, sunsets and stars. A High School senior thus +expressed her thoughts about it at the final Y.W.C.A. meeting of the +year. + +"Nature stands before our eyes to make us feel God's presence. I feel +God's presence very close when I happen to see the glorious sunset and +bright moonlight night when everybody around me is sleeping. I think +Nature gives a much greater and more glorious impression about God than +any sermon. + +"Whenever I felt troubled or worried, I did not often read the Bible or +prayer book, but I wanted to go alone to some quiet place from where I +could see the broad, bright blue sky with all its mysteries and green +trees and gray mountains with fields and forests around them. + +"I think Nature is the best comforter and preacher of God. When we are +too tired to learn our lessons or to do our duty, we can go alone for a +safe distance where God waits for us to strengthen us. It is hard for me +to sit and think about God in the class room, where everybody is +speaking, and the class books and sums on the board attract my +attention, or make me feel useless because I was not able to do them as +nicely as others in my class. But, if we go away from all these, our +friend Nature jumps up and greets us with new greetings. The cool wind +and the pretty birds and wonderful little flowers and giant-like rocks +help us to feel the presence of God. We cannot appreciate all these when +we are walking with the crowd and talking and playing, but, if we are +left alone when we go out to see God, then even the stones and tiny +flowers which we often see look like a mystery to us. In thinking about +them we can feel the wisdom of God." + +Crude as the English may be, the spiritual perception is not so +different from that of the English lad who cried, + + + "My heart leaps up when I behold + A rainbow in the sky." + + +Religion Made Practical. + +Religious feeling and expression may be natural to the Indian mind, but +how about its transfer to the affairs of the common day? It is a hard +enough proposition for any of us, be we from the East or the West; to +make the difficulty even greater, the Indian girl is heir to a religious +system in which religion and morals may be kept in water-tight +compartments. Where the temples shelter "protected" prostitution and the +wandering "holy man" may break all the Ten Commandments with impunity, +it is hard to learn that the worship of God means right living. Harder +than irregular verbs or English idioms is the fundamental lesson that +the Bible class on Sunday has a vital connection with honest work in +arithmetic on Monday, the settling of a quarrel on Tuesday, and the +thorough sweeping of the schoolroom on Wednesday. Right here it is that +we see "the grace of God" at work in the hearts of big girls and +middle-sized girls and little children from the villages. When classes +can be left to take examinations unsupervised, a big step forward is +marked. When before Communion Sunday the "queens" of their own +initiative settle up the school quarrels and "make peace," one has the +glad feeling that a little bit of the Kingdom of God has come in one +small corner of the earth. + +[Illustration: BASKETBALL AT ISABELLA THOBURN COLLEGE, LUCKNOW] + + +"Among you as He that serveth." + +Religious emotion may find one of its normal outlets in personal +right-living. That is good as far as it goes, but yet not enough. It +must seek expression also in making life better for other people. The +Indian schoolgirl lives in the midst of a vast social laboratory, +surrounded by problems that are overwhelmingly intricate. What is her +education worth? Nothing, if it leads to a cloistered seclusion; +everything, if it brings her into vital healing touch with even one of +its needs. + +The spirit of Christian social service opens many doors. There are +Sunday afternoons to be spent with the shy pupils of the High Caste +Girls' Schools at the opposite end of town. In the outcaste village +beside the rice fields we may find the other end of the social +scale--twenty or thirty little barbarians whose opening exercises must +start off with a compulsory bath at the well. + +Vacation weeks at home are bristling with opportunity--the woman next +door whose forgotten art of reading may be revived; the bride in the +next street who longs to learn crochet work; the little troop of +neighbor children who crowd the house to learn the haunting strains of a +Christian lyric. A cholera epidemic breaks out, and, instead of blind +fear of a demon-goddess to be placated, there is practical knowledge as +to methods of guarding food and drinking water. The baby of the house is +ill and, instead of exorcisms and branding with hot irons, there is a +visit to the nearest hospital and enough knowledge of hygienic laws to +follow out the doctor's directions. + +Rebecca teaches a class of small boys in the outcaste Sunday school that +gives preliminary baths. On this particular Sunday, however, she starts +out armed not with the picture roll and lyric book, but with a motley +collection of soap and clean rags, cotton swabs and iodine and ointment. + +"Amma," says Rebecca, "in the little thatched house, the fourth beyond +the school, I saw a boy whose head is covered with sores. May Zipporah +teach my class to-day, while I go and treat the sores, as I have learned +to do in school?" So Rebecca, following in the steps of Him who sent out +His disciples not only to preach but also to heal, attacks one of the +little strongholds of dirt and disease and carries it by storm. No young +surgeon after his first successful major operation was ever prouder than +Rebecca when the next Sunday evening she rushes into the bungalow, eyes +shining, to report her cure complete. + +Is there somewhere an American girl who longs to "do things"? A little +plumbing--or its equivalent in a land where no plumbing is; a little +bossing of the carpenter, the mason, the builder; a great deal of "high +finance" in raising one dollar to the purchasing power of two; a deal of +administration with need for endless tact; the teaching of subjects +known and unknown,--largely the latter; a vast amount of mothering and a +proportionate return in the love of children; days bristling with +problems, and nights when one sinks into bed too tired to think or +feel--there you have it, with much more. More because it means +opportunity for creative work--creative as one helps to mould the new +education of new India; creative as one reverently helps to fashion some +of the lives that are to be new India itself. More too, as the rebound +comes back to one's self in a life too full for loneliness, too +obsessing for self-interest. Does it pay? Try it for yourself and see. + +One bright noon in North India, sixty years ago, a young missionary on +an evangelistic tour among the villages paused to rest by the wayside. +As he paced up and down beneath the tamarind trees, pondering the +problem of India's womanhood, shut in the zenanas beyond the reach of +the Gospel which he was bringing to the little villages, there fell at +his feet a feather from a vulture's wing. Picking it up, he whimsically +cut it into a quill. Thinking that his sister in far-away America might +like a letter from so strange a pen, he went into his tent and wrote to +her. He told her of the millions of girls shut up in those "citadels of +heathenism," the zenanas of India,--a problem which only Christian women +might hope to solve. Half playfully, half in earnest, he added, "Why +don't you come out and help?" As swift as wind and wave permitted was +Isabella Thoburn's answer, "I am coming as soon as the way opens!" + +Already a group of women, stirred to the depths by the words of Mrs. +Edwin W. Parker and Mrs. William Butler, returned missionaries from +India, were forming a Society to help the women and girls of Christless +lands. At the first public meeting of this Woman's Foreign Missionary +Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, though but twenty women were +present with but three hundred dollars in the treasury, when they +learned that Isabella Thoburn,--gifted, consecrated, wise,--was ready to +go to India, they exclaimed, "Shall we lose Miss Thoburn because we have +not the needed money in our hands to send her? No, rather let us walk +the streets of Boston in our calico dresses, and save the expense of +more costly apparel!" Thus was answered the letter written with the +feather from the vulture's wing by the wayside in India. In 1870, +Isabella Thoburn gathered six little waifs into her first school in +India, a one-roomed building in the noisy, dusty bazaar of Lucknow. From +this brave venture have grown the Middle School, the High School, and +finally in 1886 the first woman's Christian College in all Asia, housed +in the Ruby Garden, Lal Bagh. Here for thirty-one years Isabella Thoburn +lived and loved and labored for the girls of India. + + + +CHAPTER THREE + + +I. THE GARDEN OF HID TREASURE + + +Prelude: Why go to College? + +"Why should an Indian girl want a college education?" queried Mary +Smith, as she listened to her roommate's account of the "Lighting of the +Christmas Candles." "I can see why she would need to learn to read and +write, and even a high school course I wouldn't mind; but college seems +to me perfectly silly, and an awful waste of good money. Why, from our +own home high school there are only six of us at college." + +Mary Smith, fresh from "Main Street," may be less provincial than she +sounds. Her question puts up a real problem. When only one girl in one +hundred has a chance at the Three R's, is it right to "waste money" on +giving certain others the chance to delve into psychology and higher +mathematics? When there is not bread enough to go around, why should +some of the family have cake and pudding? + +Something less than a hundred years ago, similar questions were vexing +the American public. Those were the days when Mary Lyon fought her +winning battle against the champions of the slogan "The home is woman's +sphere," the days in which the pioneers of women's education +foregathered from the rocky farmslopes of New England, and Mt. Holyoke +came into being. Mary Smith, who is duly born, baptized, vaccinated, and +registered for Vassar, the last requiring no more volition on her part +than the first, realizes little of the ancient struggle that has made +her privilege a matter of course. + +They are much the same old arguments that must be gone over again to +justify college education for our sisters of the East. Rather say +argument, in the singular, for there is just one that holds, and that is +the possibilities for service that such education opens up. + +High schools there must be in India, but who will teach them? American +and English women have never yet gone out to India in such numbers as to +staff the schools they have founded, nor would there be funds to support +them if they did. Travel through India to-day and you will find girls' +schools staffed either with under-qualified women teachers, or else with +men whose academic qualifications are satisfactory, but who, being men, +cannot fill the place where a woman is obviously needed. What could be +more contradictory than to find a Christian girls' school, supported +largely by American money, but staffed by Hindu men, just because no +Christian women with necessary qualifications are available? + +Hospitals there must be, but where are the doctors to conduct them? Here +again, foreign doctors can fill the need of the merest fraction of +India's suffering womankind. But the American doctor can multiply +herself in just one way. Give her a Medical College, well equipped and +staffed, and a body of Indian girls with a sufficient background of +general education, and instead of one doctor and one hospital you will +find countless centres of healing springing up in city and small town +and along the roadside where the doctor passes by. + +Leadership there must be among the women of the New India. Where will it +be found but among those women whose powers of initiative have been +developed by the four years of life in a Christian college? Church +workers, pastors' wives, social workers, child welfare promoters, where +can you find them in India? Here and there, scattered in unlikely +places, where educated women, married and home-making, yet let their +surplus energy flow out into neighborhood betterment. + +Mothers of families there must be, and far be it from me to say that +non-college women fail in that high office. There comes before me one +mother of fourteen children who has never seen the inside of a college +classroom, yet whom it would be hard to excel in her qualities of +motherliness. But, other things being equal, it is to the Christian, +educated mothers that we turn to find the life of the ideal home, with +real comradeship between wife and husband, with intelligent +understanding of the children, and the coveting for them of the best +that education can give. + +One other question Mary Smith may rightly ask. What about the men's +colleges already existing? Will co-education not work in India? + +To a certain limited extent it has. Rukkubai, with her too brief years +of freedom, proved its possibility. Others there have been, pioneer +souls, who pushed their way into lecture halls crowded with men, took +notes in the dark and undesirable remnants of space allotted to them, +and by dint of perseverance and hard work passed the examinations of the +University and carried off the coveted degree. + +They were courageous women, deserving admiration. They won knowledge, +sometimes at heavy cost of health and nerve power. They helped to make +women's education possible. But what of the fairer side of college life +could they ever know? They were accepted always on sufferance; they +never "belonged." One such pioneer was a friend of mine. In many walks +and talks she told me of life in a men's college under the patronage of +the Maharajah of a native state. Loyal to her college, and proud of the +treasures of opportunity it had opened to her, she yet sighed for what +she had missed. "When I see the life of the girls in the Women's +Christian College at Madras," she said, "I feel that I have never been +to college." + +Three times the girls and women of America have reached out hands across +the sea and either founded or helped to found Christian schools of +higher education for the women of India, with the belief that they have +a right to the knowledge of the spiritual truth which has brought to +Christian women of America development in righteousness, freedom of +faith, a personal knowledge of God through Jesus Christ, and the blessed +hope of immortality. + +Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, 1886. + +The Women's Christian College, Madras, 1915. + +The Vellore Medical School, 1918. + +These three names and dates are red-lettered in the history of +international friendship, for through them the college women of America +and India are joined into one fellowship of knowledge and service. + +[Illustration: BIOLOGY CLASS AT LUCKNOW COLLEGE +Head of Class Leaning on Table, and Nine Students Dissecting Nine Rabbits] + + + +LUCKNOW + + +Lal Bagh. + +A dusty journey of a night and almost a day brings you from Calcutta +across the limitless Ganges plains to Lucknow, capital of the ancient +kingdom of Oudh. Every tourist visits it, making a pious pilgrimage +first to the Residency, where in the midst of green lawns and banyan +trees the scarred ruins tell of the unforgettable Mutiny days of '57; +and then to the nearby cemetery, where the dead sleep among the +jasmines. Then, if his hours are wisely chosen, the traveler drives back +to the town at sunset when palace towers and cupolas, mosque minarets +and domes are silhouetted against the blazing west in an unrivalled +skyline. + +The tourist returns to the bazaars and in the midst of them, amid the +dust and clatter of _ekkas_ and _tongas_, probably passes by a sight +more interesting than Residency ruins and abandoned palaces--inasmuch as +it deals with the living present rather than the dead past. It was in +Lal Bagh, the Ruby Garden of hid treasure, that the Nawab Iq +bal-ud-dowler, Lord Chamberlain to the first king of Oudh, hid, +according to report, great caskets of silver rupees, with a huge ruby +possessed of magic virtues, and left behind him a sheet of detailed +directions for finding the treasure, with, alas, a postscript to explain +that all the careful directions were quite wrong, being intended to +mislead the would-be discoverer. It was again in Lal Bagh that Isabella +Thoburn founded her school for Indian girls, and in 1886 opened the +classes of the first women's college for India to possess residence +accommodation and a staff of women teachers. The buried rupees and the +magic ruby have never been unearthed; instead these years of Lal Bagh +history have witnessed the discovery of richer treasure in the minds and +hearts of young women, set free from age-long repressions and sent out +to share their riches with a world in need. + +You enter Lal Bagh's gates and find yourself before a stretch of dull +red buildings whose wide-arched verandahs are built to keep out the +fierce suns of May In November the sun has lost its terrors, and you +rejoice in its warmth as it shines upon the gardens with their riot of +color--yellow and white chrysanthemums, roses, and masses of flaming +poinsettias, surely a fair setting for the girls who walk amid its +changing loveliness. + + +Cosmopolitan Atmosphere. + +As you leave the setting and for a few days merge yourself into the life +that is going on within, there are a few outstanding impressions that +fasten upon you and persistently mingle with Lal Bagh memories. Of +these, perhaps, the foremost is the cosmopolitan atmosphere. Here you +have on the one hand a group of American college women representing no +one locality, no narrow section of American life, but drawn from east +and west, north and south. On the other side, you see a body of nearly +sixty Indian students whose homes range all the way from Ceylon to the +Northwest frontier, from Singapore to Bombay. + +What of the result? It is an atmosphere where East and West meet, not in +conflict, but in a spirit of give and take, where each re-inforces the +other. It is probably due to this friendly clash of ideas that the +"typical" student at Isabella Thoburn strikes the observer as of no +"type" at all, but a person whose ideas are her own and who has a gift +for original thinking rare in one's experience of Indian girls. In the +class forums that were held during my visit the most striking element +was the difference of opinion, and its free expression. + +Scholarship. Lal Bagh is no longer satisfied with the production of mere +graduates. Her ambition is now reaching out to post-graduate study, made +possible by the gift of an American fellowship. The first to receive +this honor are two Indian members of the faculty, one of them Miss +Thillayampalam, Professor of Biology, whose home is in far-off Ceylon at +the other end of India's world. Henceforth, America may expect to find +each year one member of the Lal Bagh family enrolled in some school of +graduate work. Such work, however, is not to be confined to a +scholarship in a foreign land, for this year the college enrolls Regina +Thumboo, its first candidate for the degree of M.A. Her parents, +originally from the South, emigrated from Madras to Singapore. There +Regina was born, the youngest of five children. The father, a civil +engineer in the employ of a local rajah was ambitious for his +children, and, seeing in Regina a child of unusual promise, sent her +first to a Singapore school, then on the long journey across to Calcutta +and inland to Lucknow. At Lal Bagh she stands foremost in scholarship. +When she has completed her M.A. in history and had her year of advanced +work in some American university, she plans to return to the faculty of +her _Alma Mater_. + + +Social Questions. + +Scholarship at Isabella Thoburn College does not deal exclusively with +the dusty records of dead languages and bygone civilizations. It is +linked up with present questions, and is alive to the changing India of +to-day. Among the matters discussed during my visit were such as: the +substitution of a vernacular for English in the university course; the +possibility of a national language for all India; the advisability of +co-education; and the place of the unmarried woman in New India. To +report all that the girls said and wrote would require a book for +itself, but so far as space allows we will let the girls speak for +themselves. + + +Co-education. + +The Senior Class of eight discussed co-education with great interest, +and when the vote was taken five were in the affirmative and only three +in the negative. + +[Illustration] + +The following paper voices the objections to co-education as expressed +by one especially thoughtful student: + +"Co-education is an excellent thing, but it can only work successfully +in those highly civilized countries where intellectual and moral +strength and freedom of intercourse control the lives and thoughts of +the student bodies. Unfortunately these fundamental principles of +co-education are sadly lacking in India. + +"Although woman's education is being pushed forward with considerable +force, for many years to come the girls will still be a small minority +in comparison with the number of boys. Besides, in two or three cases +where Indian girls have had the privilege of studying with the boys, +they have told me that, in spite of immensely enjoying the competitive +spirit and broadminded behavior of the boys, they always felt a certain +strain and strangeness in their company. One student attended a history +class for full two years and yet she never got acquainted with one +single boy in her class. There is no social intercourse between the two +parties. If each side does not stand on its own dignity in constant fear +of overstepping the bounds of etiquette and courtesy, their reputation +is bound to be marred." + +The arguments for the other side are presented as well. The American +reader may be interested to see that the Indian college girl does not +consider Western ways perfect, but is quite ready to criticize the +manners and morals of her American cousin. + +"Co-education cannot burst upon India like lightning. It has to grow +gradually in society; and until there is a perfect understanding and +sympathy between the sexes, this system will not work. + +"Again, co-education should not begin from college. The girls come in +from high schools where they are locked up and have no contact with the +outside world; and if they come into such colleges when many of them are +immature, there will be not only a complete failure of the system, but +the result will be fatal in many cases. So the system should be +introduced from the primary department and worked up through the high +schools and colleges. + +"First, there is the question of chivalry, which is a problem that +Indian men should solve for themselves. But how are they to solve it? If +they study with women, chivalry would become natural to them. + +"On the other hand, a woman has to learn how to receive a man's +attention--how far to go in her behavior. The question now is, where can +she learn this? Isn't it by mixing and mingling in a place where she +feels that she is not inferior to man? It is in an educational +institution that this equality is most keenly felt. + +"Closely allied with chivalry is the question of modesty. It is commonly +said that Indian women have a poise, quietness, and reserve different to +that in Western women. + +"Boldness in women is another fact connected with the above. Indian men +and women should not try to follow Western manners. They have hereditary +manners which should not be deserted. Indian women can keep their +modesty and reserve even while mixing with men. If co-education is made +a slow development this difficulty will not appear. + +"Secondly, this system will give more facilities to woman for various +kinds of occupation. She will then realize that her education is not +confined to her home merely, but that she has a right to contribute to +humanity just as big a share as any man. With this realization there +will come efforts on her part to better the condition of her country by +doing her little share. How much a woman can do who has a firm +conviction that she is not inferior to any one in this life, but that +she is a contributor to her country, whichsoever vocation she follows in +life, in that she can do her share! + +"The third point is that early marriage and widowhood will be lessened +in a large degree. While education will teach men and women to reverence +their parents and always consult them, at the same time they will learn +to choose for themselves. By coming in contact with the opposite sex, +they will learn to decide their marriage themselves; and choosing does +not come at an early and immature age. Thus child widowhood, too, will +be decreased. Then, too, the widows will be able to work for their +livelihood if they don't wish to marry again." + + +Purdah. + +To the North India girl, perhaps the most vexing social question is that +of _purdah_. How can education reach women who live shut away from the +sky and the sun and the lives of men? On the other hand, if after the +seclusion of a thousand years freedom were suddenly thrust upon women +not even trained to desire it, who can measure the disaster that would +follow? Where can the vicious circle be broken, and how? + +Tiny arcs of its circumference have been broken already. Lal Bagh +includes in its family not only its majority of Christian girls, but +also a scattering of Hindus and Muhammadans who have made more or less +of a break with ancestral customs. + +One among these is a member of the Sophomore Class, Omiabala Chatterji +of Allahabad. Of Brahman parentage, she was fortunate in having a father +of liberal views, who was ambitious for his daughter's education. He +died when Omiabala was but three years old, but not before he had passed +on to his wife his hopes for the future of the little daughter. The +mother, with no experience of school life herself, but only the limited +opportunity of a little teaching in her own home, yet entered into the +father's ambitions. From childhood Omiabala was taught that hers was not +to be the ordinary life of the Brahman woman--she was set apart by her +father's wish, dedicated to the service of her people. So the years came +and went, and instead of wedding festivities the child was sent away on +the journey to Lucknow, to enter into a strange, new life. There +followed weeks of homesickness and longing, then gradual adjustment, +then glad acceptance of new opportunity. Omiabala now talks +enthusiastically of her future plans for work among her own +people--plans for the education of Brahman girls, and for marriage +reform such as shall make this possible. + +[Illustration: VILLAGE PEOPLE.] + +The Freshman Class had a spirited discussion as to the benefits and +evils of the purdah system. Opinions ranged all the way from that of the +zealous young reformer who wished it abolished at once and for all; +through advocates of slow changes lasting ten, twenty or even thirty +years; all the way to the young Hindu wife, who would never see it done +away with, "because women would become disobedient to their husbands." + +Here are some of the pros and cons. A Hindu student writes: + +"I maintain that the purdah system should not be done away with +altogether, for it will upset the whole foundation of the Hindu +principle of 'dharm' or how a woman should act and behave before she is +called a good and honorable woman. Sometimes, when a woman is given much +freedom and liberty and is allowed to go wherever she pleases, she +begins to take advantage of such opportunities and does those things +which might bring disgrace to the family. The question of education +should not be brought up in connection with the purdah, for even the +educated ladies are apt to fall in the same temptation as the uneducated +ones when the purdah system is removed altogether. The purdah system has +done much to maintain the honor and respect of the higher class ladies. +The low class women who are always abroad working among men and in the +midst of throngs of people are not educated at all and have as much +freedom as their men have. So we can conclude that the purdah system +only exists among higher classes of people and those who care much for +the honor and respect of their family. The higher a family is the more +it will be particular about this system." + +The following paragraph expresses the views of a Muhammadan Freshman: + +"Among us, that is the Muslims, purdah is very strict. Ladies need +purdah at present, for the men are not civilized enough. Besides, the +purdah system should be gradually abolished. If too much freedom is +given all at once, ladies won't know how to behave and they will be an +hindrance in further progress. Education is at the back of progress. +Girls should first be educated and given liberty gradually. Though we +Muslim girls have come to Christian colleges and don't observe purdah, +yet we are very careful of how we should make the best of it and show a +good example by our personality and behavior so that the people who +criticize us may not have anything to say. I think if all of us try hard +to abolish this system it will take us at least twenty years to do it. +No matter what happens I don't approve of ladies mixing _very_ much with +gentlemen. + +"There are certainly many disadvantages in the purdah system. For +instance, it makes ladies quite helpless and dependent. They cannot go +out to get any thing or travel even if they are in great necessity. They +do not know the streets and roads, so they cannot run away to save their +honor or life. Men seem to become their right hand and feet. They do not +know, often, what is going on outside their homes and do not enjoy the +beauty of nature, and live an uneventful life. This seems to make the +ladies lazy and they always keep planning marriages. This is the chief +reason of the early marriage of girls among the Muslims. The girl +herself has nothing to do, so they think it best for her to get +married." + +With these it is interesting to compare the views of a Christian +student, a young pastor's wife, who along with the care of home and +children is now receiving the higher education of which she was deprived +in her schoolgirl days. + +"The genius of the East will take some time to be taught the social +customs of the West. To an Indian it would be a horrible idea if his +sister or daughter or wife will go out to tea or supper or dance with a +young man who is neither related nor a close friend of the family. India +will fondly preserve its genius. + +"Indian leaders look with alarm at the possibility of a female India of +the type of the West. They would like the purdah system to be removed, +females to be educated, to get the franchise, and still for them to keep +their modesty. There are many who would like to break this barrier, but +it would be disastrous for India to arrive at such a state within +fifteen or twenty years when ninety-nine out of one hundred women are +illiterate. Education is essential and as long as Indian women, the +future mothers of India, do not realize their responsibility, it is much +better and wiser that they should remain behind the scene. + +"The help we can give in bringing about this great reform is to show by +our example. Freedom does not mean simply coming out of purdah and +taking undue advantage and misuse of liberty. We who have done away +with our purdah should not be stumbling blocks to others. Freedom guided +and governed by the Spirit of God is the only freedom and every true +citizen ought to help to bring it about." + + +Social Service. + +Lal Bagh students are interested not only in the theories of social +reform; they are taking a direct part in the application of these +theories through the means of social service, not put off for some +future "career," but carried on during the busy weeks of college life. +Nor is such service merely social; through it all the Christian motive +holds sway. We will let one of the students tell in her own words what +they are attempting. + +"'Cleanliness is next to godliness' is the first lesson we teach in our +social and Christian service fields. Both in our work in the city and in +our own servants' compound, we emphasize personal cleanliness and that +of the home, and have regular inspection of servants' homes. + +"Religious instruction is given to non-Christian children and women in +various sections of the city in separate classes. Side by side with +these, they are given tips about doctoring simple ailments, and taught +how to take precautions at the time of epidemics like cholera, typhoid, +etc. Lotions, fever mixtures, cough mixtures, quinine, etc., are given +to the poorer depressed classes, as also clothes and soap to the needy +ones. + +"In the servants' compound plots have been provided for gardening, and +provision made for the children's play, and pictures given to parents as +prizes for tidy homes. Soap and clothes and medicines are given here +also; a special series of lectures on diseases and the evils of drink +has been started. A lecture a week is given--cholera, malaria, typhoid +fever, dysentery have been touched on--lantern slides and charts and +pictures have been used for illustration. On Saturday nights the +Christian servants have song-service and prayer meeting, and on Sunday +noon a Bible class. Each of these is conducted by a teacher assisted by +girls of the College. + +"There is opportunity for service for people of all tastes--those who +prefer teaching how to read and write, for sewing, for care of the +health, care of the baby, avoiding sickness, nursing the sick ... but in +every case devotion, enthusiasm, and a sympathetic Christian spirit are +needed. Our motive both among our own Christian servants and those who +reside in the city and are non-Christians is to serve the least of our +needy fellowmen according to the wishes of our Master, and to enlighten +and uplift our less fortunate neighbors through the avenues of Christian +social service." + +An interesting practical suggestion is the following: + +"In our Social Service class, which is held every Thursday, there has +come up a suggestion about opening up a few Purdah Parks for Indian +ladies. It is very essential that Indian women should have some places, +where they can take recreation and have some social intercourse with one +another, also that the rich and poor may all meet and be brought into +sympathy with one another. + +"There is a Park right in front of our College, and we have suggested +that, if this particular Park is made into a Purdah Park once a week, +then we college girls interested in social service work can form a +committee and look after the different arrangements, such as the water +supply, games, playthings for children, etc. + +"We have drawn up a petition and this will be signed by the influential +ladies of this place, such as the wives of the Professors of our Lucknow +University, and then it will be presented to the Lucknow Improvement +Trust Committee. + +"We all hope that this petition will be granted, and our sisters will +have more of social life and hygienic advantages, to help make stronger +mothers and stronger children." + +Nor do the girls of Isabella Thoburn College forget all these interests +when vacation days come round. This tells something of holiday +opportunity. How do our summer vacations compare with it? "How apt one +is to slacken and get a little selfish in planning out a programme for a +holiday. One is not tied down to the usual duties and routine of school +work, and plans are made as to the best possible way of spending the +days for one's own pleasure and relaxation. The many little things that +one's heart longs for, and for which there is no time during the busy +days, are now looked forward to; a particular piece of needlework, a +favorite book, some excursions to places of interest; all these and +other things are likely to crowd out thoughts of our duties to others in +making life a little better and some one a little happier each day. + +"And yet a holiday is the time when one can more freely give oneself to +others, for opportunities of helpful service offer themselves in the +very holiday pursuits, if one has eyes for them. + +"Rooming in a home where many mothers have still many more children, one +would feel at first like escaping from the noise and commotion caused by +crying babies, and yet here are some opportunities of service. It is +never a wise plan to leave children to the entire care of ayahs. A very +profitable hour may be spent in directing games when the little people +build with their bricks gates and bridges, houses and castles, and the +older ones listen with interest to some story of adventure. An hour +spent in the open air under shady trees in this way would draw many a +grateful heart, for there would be less crying, fewer quarrels, and a +little more peace for all around. + +"In these days when strikes are so common, many opportunities for social +service offer themselves. It may be a postal strike. Now, not many of us +like to be kept waiting for our mail, and, if the postmen are not +bringing us our letters, we very soon contrive some means of getting +them. I grant it isn't a very enviable job to be standing outside a +delivery window awaiting the sorting of letters by a crew of girl guides +and boy scouts, who are not any too serious about their work. But once +the letters are secured and delivered at the neighboring homes of +friends and others, it is something done, besides the satisfaction of +being able to sit down and read your own letters as well as having the +grateful appreciation from others. + +"Again, a picnic has been planned to some far away hill. The party +arrives; tiffin baskets are placed in some shady spot. One of the party +wanders away to a little village not far off. She is soon surrounded by +a group of scrubby children, who watch her with eyes full of curiosity +and wonder. She dips her hand into the bag she has been carrying and +brings out a handful of nuts and oranges, and, before sharing them with +the children, she invites them to wash their scrubby, little hands and +faces in the sparkling stream of clear, crystal water that is flowing +through the valley. She gets to talking to them, and asks about their +homes, and one little child leads her to a meagre, little, grassy hut in +which her sick sister is lying. She hasn't any medicine with her, but +she opens wide the door of the hut and lets the bright sunlight in. She +strokes the little one's feverish brow, and sets to, and fixes up the +bed and soon gets the sickroom, such as it is, clean and tidy. The +mother is touched by the gentle kindliness of the stranger and confides +her sorrows to her. Other homes are visited. People expecting the kind +visitor brush up and tidy their huts. + +"So the picnic excursion ends leaving a cleaner and happier spot +nestling in among those mountainsides. Several visits are paid to the +little village. The stranger is no longer a stranger, for she is now +known and loved and is greeted by clean, happy, smiling children, and +blessed by grateful mothers. And so in the home and in the office and in +God's out-of-doors we can find opportunities for helping others." + +[Illustration: GIRLS OF ALL CASTES MEET ON COMMON GROUND IN THE +CHRISTIAN COLLEGE.] + +Eminent among the student body for maturity of thought and depth of +Christian purpose is Shelomith Vincent. Many of these characteristics +may be accounted for by her splendid inheritance. Her father was of the +military caste, the son of a Zemindar, or petty rajah. At the time of +the Mutiny he, a boy of ten years, ran away in the crowd and followed +the mutineers on their long march from Lucknow to Agra, where he was +rescued by a missionary and brought up in his family. Later, longing to +know his past, the young man returned to Lucknow, found his relatives, +weighed in the balance the claims of Hinduism and Christianity, and of +his own accord decided for the latter. Later we see him a Sanskrit +student in Benares, where he married his wife, a fifteen-year-old +Brahman convert. + +The Christian couple moved soon to the Central Provinces, where Mr. +Vincent entered upon his twenty-five years of service as a Christian +pastor, using his Sanskrit learning to interpret the message of +Christianity to his Hindu friends. Yet it was in lowlier ways that his +life was most telling. Settling in a peasant colony of a thousand +so-called converts, only half-Christianized, the story of his labors and +triumphs reads like that of Columba, or Boniface in early Europe. +Through perils of robbers and perils of famine he labored on, building +villages, digging wells, distributing American corn in famine days, +reproving, teaching, guiding. All this I am telling, because it +explains much of the daughter's quiet strength. One of ten children, +she has spent many years in earning money to educate the younger +brothers and sisters, and she is finishing her college course as a +mature woman. Miss Vincent hopes that the American fellowship may one +day be hers; and already her plans are developing as to the ways she +will contrive to pass on her opportunities to her fellow countrywomen. +Her heart is with those illiterate village women among whom her +childhood was passed; her longing is to share with them the truth, the +beauty, and the goodness with which Lal Bagh has filled her days. + +Has Lal Bagh been a paying investment? One wishes that every one whose +dollars have found expression in its walls might come to feel the +indefinable spirit that pervades them, filling cold brick and mortar +with life energy. For centuries philosophers searched for that +Philosopher's Stone that was to transmute base metals into gold. In the +world to-day there are those who have found a subtler magic that +transforms dead gold and silver into warm human purposes and the +Christ-spirit of service. That is the miracle one sees in daily process +at Lal Bagh. + + +IN THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE + +ELLEN LAKSHMI GOREH (_Lucknow College_) + + + In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide! + Oh, how precious are the lessons which I learn at Jesus' side! + Earthly cares can never vex me, neither trials lay me low; + For when Satan comes to tempt me, to the secret place I go. + + When my soul is faint and thirsty, 'neath the shadow of His + wing + There is cool and pleasant shelter, and a fresh and crystal + spring; + And my Saviour rests beside me, as we hold communion + sweet: + If I tried, I could not utter what He says when thus we meet. + + Only this I know: I tell Him all my doubts, my griefs and + fears; + Oh, how patiently He listens! and my drooping soul He + cheers: + Do you think He ne'er reproves me? What a false friend He + would be, + If He never, never told me of the sins which He must see. + + Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the + Lord? + Go and hide beneath His shadow: this shall then be your + reward; + And whene'er you leave the silence of that happy meeting + place, + You must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face. + + +[Illustration: SHELOMITH VINCENT] + +LAL BAGH ALUMNAE RECORDS SHOW THE FOLLOWING: + + +The first Kindergarten in India. + +The first college in India with full staff of women and residence +accommodation. + +The first Arya Samaj B.A. graduate. + +The F.Sc. graduate who became the second woman with the B.Sc. degree in +India. + +The F.Sc. graduate who later graduated at the foremost Medical College +in North India as the first Muhammadan woman doctor in India and +probably in the world. + +The first woman B.A. and the first Normal School graduate from +Rajputana. + +The first woman to receive her M.A. in North India. + +The first Muhammadan woman to take her F.A. examination from the Central +Provinces. + +Probably the first F.A. student to take her examination in purdah. + +The first Teachers Conference (held annually) in India. + +The first woman's college to offer the F.Sc. course. + +The first college to have on its staff an Indian lady. + +The first woman (Lilavati Singh) from the Orient to serve on a world's +Committee. + +The first woman dentist. + +The first woman agriculturist. + +The first woman in India to be in charge of a Boys' High School. + +A Lal Bagh graduate organized the Home Missionary Society which has +developed into an agency of great service to the neglected Anglo-Indian +community scattered throughout India. + +The Lal Bagh student who took an agricultural course in America and is +now helping convert wastes of the Himalaya regions into fruitful +valleys. + +Miss Phoebe Rowe, an Anglo-Indian who was associated with Lal Bagh in +Miss Thoburn's time, was a wonderful influence in the villages of North +India and carried the Christian message by her beautiful voice as well +as her consecrated personality. She traveled in America, endearing India +to many friends here. She is one--perhaps the most remarkable, +however--of many Lal Bagh daughters who are serving as evangelists in +faraway places. + + +FROM A STUDENT AT MADRAS WOMEN'S COLLEGE + +"Your letter was handed to me as I returned from my evening hour of +prayer, prayer for our school, special prayer for the problem God has +called us to tackle together. I believe that the solution for many of +our problems at school is to put things on a Christian foundation. We +want workers who are real Christians and who love the Master as +sincerely as they do themselves and serve Him for their love of Him. +This may not be easy work for us to do, but if God is transforming the +whole globe and moulding it from the 'new spiritual center,' +namely,--Jesus Christ, it is certainly not hard for Him to accomplish it +in this place. How He is going to do it I am blind to see. Let us put +our feet on the one step that we see with the faith expressed in 'One +step enough for me,' and the next step will flash before our eyes. One +question that used to trouble me is, how we are to do the work. The poem +by Edward Sill in 'The Manhood of the Master' cheers me up now as then +with the thought that a broken sword flung away by a craven as useless +was used by a king's son to win victory in the same battle. God will use +it and perform His work. We have dedicated ourselves for His duty which +is gripping our souls. He will use them according to His purpose." + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + + +AN INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE + + +Education and World Peace. + +While statesmen discuss disarmament and politicians and newspaper +editors foment race consciousness and mutual distrust, certain forces +that never figure in newspaper headlines, that come "not with +observation," are working with silent constructive power to bind nations +together in ties of peace and good will. Among these silent forces are +certain educational institutions. Columbia University has its +Cosmopolitan Club, at whose Sunday night suppers you may meet +representatives of forty to fifty nations, Occidental and Oriental. In +the Near East, amid the race hatred and strife that set every man's +hand against his fellow, the American Colleges at Constantinople and +Beirut have stood foremost among the forces that produce unification and +brotherhood. + +During the war-scarred days of 1915, while nation was rising up against +nation, there was founded in the city of Madras one of these +international ventures in co-operation. Known to the world of India as +the Women's Christian College of Madras, it might just as truthfully be +called a Triangular Alliance in Education, for in it Great Britain +including Canada, the United States, and India are joined together in +educational endeavor. America may well admire what Britain has been +doing during long years for India's educational advancement. Among +England's more recent contributions to education in India none has been +greater that the coming of Miss Eleanor McDougall from London University +to take the principalship of this international college for women. Under +her wise leadership British and American women have worked in one +harmonious unit, and international co-operation has been transformed +from theory to fact. + + +Where Missions Co-operate. + +The Women's Christian College is not only international, it is also +intermissionary. Supported by fourteen different Mission Boards, +including almost every shade of Protestant belief and every form of +church government, it stands not only for international friendship, but +also as an outstanding evidence of Christian unity. + +The staff and the student body are as varied as the supporting +constituency. In the former, along with British and American professors +are now two Indian women lecturers, Miss George, a Syrian Christian, who +teaches history, and Miss Janaki, a Hindu, who teaches botany. Both are +resident and a happy factor in the home life of the college. Among the +students nine Indian languages are represented, ranging all the way from +Burma to Ceylon, from Bengal to the Malabar Coast. From the last named +locality come Syrian Christians in great numbers. This interesting sect +loves to trace its history back to the days of the Apostle Thomas. Be +that historical fact or merely a pious tradition, this sect can +undoubtedly boast an indigenous form of Christianity that dates back to +the early centuries of the Christian era; and it stands to-day in a +place of honor in the Indian Christian community. + +[Illustration: A road near the College] + +[Illustration: The Potters' Shop + STREET SCENES IN MADRAS] + + +The Sunflower and the Lamp. + +Perhaps much of the success which the College at Madras has achieved on +the side of unity is due to the fact that her members are too busy to +think or talk about it because their time is all filled up with actually +doing things together. Expressing this spirit of active co-operation is +the college motto, "Lighted to lighten"; the emblem in the shield is a +tiny lamp such as may burn in the poorest homes in India. Below the lamp +is a sunflower, whose meaning has been discussed in the college magazine +by a new student. She says, "To-day the sunflower stands for very much +in my mind. It is symbolic of this our College, for, as our amateur +botanists tell us, the sunflower is not a flower, but a congregation of +them. The tiny buds in the centre are our budding intellects. To-day +they are in the making; to-morrow they will bloom like their sisters who +surround them. Nourished from the same source, their fruit will be even +likewise. + +"Around these are the golden rays--each a tongue of fire to protect and +inspire. There is none high or low amongst them, being all alike, and +these are our tutors, and the sunflower itself turns to the sun, the +great giver of life, for its inspiration, ever turning to him, never +losing sight of his face. A force inexplicable draws the flower to the +King of Day, even as our hearts are turned to Him at morn and at eve, be +we East or West." + + +In a Garden. + +It is fitting that the sunflower should bloom in a garden, and so it +does. This time it is not a walled garden like that of Lal Bagh; the +Women's College is situated out from the city in a green and spacious +suburb, where the little River Cooum wanders by its open spaces. The ten +acres have much the air of an American college campus,--the same sense +of academic quiet, of detachment from the work-a-day world. The whole +compound is dominated by the tall, white columns of the old main +building, which confer an air of distinction upon the whole place, as +well they may, for have they not guarded successively government +officials and Indian rajahs? + +Nearby is the new residence hall, as modern as the other is historic. +Three stories in height, its verandahs are in the form of a hollow +square, and look out upon a courtyard gay with the bright-hued foliage +of crotons and other tropical plants. Beyond is the garden itself, +filled not with the roses and chrysanthemums of winter Lucknow, but with +the perpetual summer foliage of spreading rain trees, palms, and long +fronded ferns, with fluffy maidenhair between. In their season the +purple masses of Bougainvillea, and the crimson of the Flamboya tree set +the garden afire. In the evening when the girls are sitting under the +trees or walking down the long vistas with the level sunbeams bringing +out the bright colors of their draped _saris_, it brings to mind nothing +so much as a scene from "The Princess" where among fair English gardens + + + "One walked reciting by herself, and one + In this hand held a volume as to read." + + + +Student Organizations. + +Yet life in the Women's College is not a cloistered retreat such as "The +Princess" tried to establish, nor are its activities confined to the +study of classics in a garden. Student organizations flourish here with +a variety almost as great as in the West. There is, first of all, the +College Committee, which corresponds roughly to our Scheme of Student +Government. Its members are chosen from the classes and in their turn +elect a President known as "Senior Student." She is the official +representative of the whole student body. Communications from faculty to +students pass through her, and she represents the College on state +occasions, such as visits from the Viceroy or other Government +officials. Various student committees are also elected to plan meetings +for the Literary and Debating Societies, to organize excursions for +"Seeing Madras," and to plan for athletic teams and contests. How well +the last named have succeeded is proved by the silver cup carried off as +a trophy by the College badminton team, which distinguished itself as +the winner in last year's intercollegiate sports. + +An unusual organization is the Star Club, which has been carried on for +several years, with programme meetings once a month and bi-weekly groups +for observation. No wonder that astrology and the beginnings of +astronomy came from the Orient, or that Wise Men from the East found a +Star as the sign to lead their journeying. Night after night the +constellations rise undimmed in the clear sky and fairly urge the +beholder to close acquaintance. A knowledge of them fills the sky with +friendly forms and gives the student a new and lasting "hobby" that may +be pursued anywhere, and kept through life. The Star Club has +popularized its celestial interests by presenting to the College a +pageant in three scenes, a "Dream of the Sun and Planets," in which the +Earth Dweller is transported to the regions of the sky and holds long +and intimate conversations with the various heavenly bodies. As the +final scene, the planets slant in their relative positions, and the +Signs of the Zodiac with shields take their places on each side of +Father Sun. + +The Natural history Club has interests ranging all the way from the +theory of evolution to the names and songs of the common birds of +Madras. + +The Art Club not only does out-door sketching, but has entered upon a +wide field in the study of Indian art and architecture. India is +reviving a partly forgotten interest in her ancient arts and crafts and +has much to offer the student, from the wonderful lines of the Taj Mahal +to the Ahmadabad stone windows with their lace-like traceries; from the +portraits of Moghal Emperors to the fine detail of South India temple +carvings. Study in the Art Club means a new appreciation of the beauty +found among one's own people. + +The Dramatic and Musical Societies unite now and then in public +entertainments, such as "Comus" which was given in honor of the women +graduates of the whole Presidency at the time of the University +Convocation. The Society repertoire of plays given during the last five +years includes a considerable variety--dramatists so far apart as +Shakespeare and Tagore; the old English moralities of "Everyman" and +"Eager Heart"; the old Indian epic-dramas of "Sakuntala" and "Savitri"; +together with Sheridan's "Rivals" and scenes from "Emma" and "Ivanhoe." +The Musical Club specializes on Christmas carols, with which the College +is wakened at four o'clock "on Christmas day in the morning." + +The History Club sounds like an organization of research workers; on the +contrary, its interests are bound up with the march of current events in +India and the world. At the time when India was stirred by the visit of +the Duke of Connaught and the launching of the Reform Government, this +Club took to itself the rights of suffrage, elected its members to the +first Madras Legislative Council, and after the elections were duly +confirmed sat in solemn assembly to settle the affairs of the Province. +They have also carried out equally dramatic representations of the +English House of Lords and even the League of Nations. + + +"Lighted to Lighten." + +The Young Women's Christian Association of the College among its many +activities includes Bible classes in the vernacular which bring together +students from the same language areas and after a week of purely English +study and English chapel service serve as a link with home life and home +conditions. Not only with home on the one side; on the other the +Association ties them up with wider interests, with conferences that +bring together students from all India, with activities that range all +the way from teaching servants' children to read and translating +Christian books into their own vernaculars to sending gifts of money to +a suffering student in Vienna. + +Social service is carried on along lines not very different from those +pursued in Lucknow. Sunday schools, visits to outcaste villages, and +lectures on health and cleanliness have their place. A new feature is +the dispensing of simple medical help, which not only relieves the +recipients, but teaches the students what they can do later when in +their own homes. Another distinctive venture is the "Little School" in +the college grounds, where volunteer workers take turns morning and +evening in teaching the neighborhood children, and thus get their first +taste of the joys and difficulties of the teacher's profession. + +An interested girl thus expresses her ideas on the subject of social +service. Her emphasis upon the positive side of life speaks well for her +future accomplishment: + +"Though the condition of the people is deplorable we need not despair of +making matters better for them. Instead of giving the mere negative +instructions that they should not drink, or be extravagant with their +money, or get into the clutches of money lenders, we can do something +positive. Some interesting diversions could be invented that would +prevent men from frequenting drinking houses. With regard to their +extravagance on certain occasions, we might suggest to them ways in +which they could lessen items of expenditure. To prevent their being at +the mercy of money lenders, co-operative societies may be started in +order to lend money at a lower rate of interest; or to supply them with +capital or with tools in order to start their work. + +"To remove the other evil of ignorance with regard to health, we may go +into the villages and give them practical lessons on cleanliness. We +could tell them of the value of fresh air and give them other needful +instructions. + +"In doing social work of this kind, there are many principles we ought +to have in mind. Instead of telling a poor man with no means of living +that he should not steal it would be better to see that he is somehow +placed beyond the reach of want. Another is that instead of merely +imparting morality in negative form, it would be better to point out to +them some positive way in which they could improve. More important than +any of these principles is that instead of thinking of 'bestowing good' +on the people, it would be more effective, if we co-operate with them +and enlist their initiative, thus enabling them by degrees to be fit to +manage their own affairs." + + +Applied Sociology. + +Certain parts of the curriculum also tie up closely with community life. +Economics and essay writing lead into fields of research. Essays and +contributions to the College magazine, "The Sunflower," bear such titles +as the "Social Needs of Kottayam District," which goes into the causes +of poverty and distress in the writer's own locality, or "The Religion +of the People of Kandy," written by a convert from Buddhism who knows +from her own childhood experience the beauties and defects of that great +religious system. + +An intercollegiate essay prize was won by a Christian college girl who +wrote on her own home town, "The Superstitions and Customs of the +Village of Namakal." She writes: + +"A set of villages would also be seen where the people are very much +like the insects under a buried stone, which run underground, unable to +see the light or to adapt themselves to the light. The moment the stone +is turned up, so much accustomed are they to live in the darkness of +superstition and unbelief that they think they would be better off to go +on so, and refuse to accept the light rays of science, education, and +civilization, which are willingly given them." + +The list of current omens and superstitions which she has unearthed may +prove of interest to Western readers who have little idea of the burden +of _taboo_ under which the average Hindu passes his days. The essayist +says: + +"An attempt to enumerate these superstitious beliefs would be useless, +but the following would illustrate the villagers' deep regard for them, +It is a good omen to hear a bell ring, an ass bray, or a Brahmini kite +cry, when starting out to see a married woman whose husband is alive. +They believe it to be an excellent omen to see a corpse, a bunch of +flowers, water, milk, a toddy pot, or a washerman with dirty clothes, +while setting out to give any present to her or her husband. No Hindu +man or woman would set out to visit a newly married couple if he or she +hears sneezing while starting, or proceed on the journey if he or she +hears the wailing of a beggar, or happens to see a Brahmin widow, a +snake, a full oil pot, or a cat." + +[Illustration: IN THE CLOISTER'S STUDIOUS SHADE] + +[Illustration: MISS JACKSON AND SOME SOCIAL SERVICE WORKERS] + + +The College Woman and India. + +Many of the students are full of ideas as to the various places which +women may fill in the economy of the India of the future. Among the +professions open to women, teaching is of course the favorite. Its +opportunities are shown in the following: + +"The University women who, more than any one else, have enjoyed the +fruits of education and the privileges of college life are naturally +very keen on imparting them to the million of their less graduate +sisters. Almost every student in a college is now filled with a greater +love and longing to help the uneducated women. Thus, most of them go out +as teachers. Some of them work in their own schools, or take up work +either in a mission school or a government school. Some of the graduates +are now in a position to establish schools of their own. The pay for +teachers is usually lower than that earned by women in other positions, +but the fact that so many women become teachers shows that they care +more for service than for salary, for surely this is the greatest +service that they as women can give to India." + +Another student has some ideas as to new methods to be used: + +"The present method of teaching in India is not quite suitable to the +modern stage of children. Now, children are very inquisitive and try to +learn by themselves. They cannot understand anything which is taught as +mere doctrines. The teacher has to draw her answers from the children +and thus build up her teaching on the base of their previous knowledge. +So the educated women have to train themselves in schools where they are +made fit to meet the present standard of children." + +Miss Cornelia Sorabji has shown by her career what a woman lawyer can +do for other women. A college girl writes as follows of the +opportunities for service that other students might find in the law: + +"I have seen many women in the villages, though not educated, showing +the capacities of a good lawyer. I think that women have a special +talent in performing this business, and hence would do much better than +men. Tenderness and mercy are qualities greatly required in a judge or +magistrate. Women are famous for these and so their judgments which will +be the products of justice tempered by mercy will be commendable. A man +cannot understand so fully a woman, the workings of her mind, her +thoughts and her views, as a woman can; so in order to plead the cause +of women there should be women lawyers who could understand and put +their cases in a very clear light." + +Another feels the need of women in politics: + +"According to the present system in India, the government is carried on +by men alone. Thus women are exclusively shut off from the +administration of the country. The good and bad results of the +government affect men and women alike. Therefore, it is only fair that +women also should have an active part in the government of the country. +Women should be given seats in the Legislative Council where they would +have an opportunity to listen to the problems of the country and try to +solve them. + +"From ordinary life we see that women are more economical than men. +Therefore, it would be better for the country if women could take a part +in economic matters. When the rate of tax is fixed men are likely to +decide it merely from a consideration of their income without thinking +about small expenses. Women are acquainted with every expense in detail. +If women could take part in economic affairs, the expenditure of a +country would be directed in a better and more careful way. + +"In national and international questions also women can take a part. +Women are more conservative, sympathetic, and kind than men. Great +changes and misery which are not foreseen at all are brought by wars +between different countries. Women, too, can consider about the affairs +of wars as well as men. Their sympathetic and conservative views will +help the people not to plunge into needless wars and political +complications. + +"Women know as well as, and perhaps more than men, the evils which +result from the illiteracy of people and their unsanitary conditions. +Men spend much of their time outside home, while women in their quiet +homes can see their surroundings and watch the needs of people around +them. So women can give good ideas in matters concerning education and +sanitation. In this way, women can influence the public opinion of a +place and the government of a country depends much on the nature of +public opinion." + +But with all these "new woman theories" the claims of home are not +forgotten: + +"Among the many possibilities opening out to women, we cannot fail to +mention _home life_, though it is nothing new. + +"According to the testimony of all history, the worth and blessing of +men and nations depend in large measure on the character and ordering of +family life. 'The family is the structural cell of the social organism. +In it lives the power of propagation and renewal of life. It is the +foundation of morality, the chief educational institution, and the +source of nearly all real contentment among men.' All other questions +sink into insignificance when the stability of the family is at stake. +In short, the family circle is a world in miniature, with its own +habits, its own interests, and its own ties, largely independent of the +great world that lies outside. When the family is of such great +importance, how much greater should be the responsibilities of women in +the ordering of that life? Is it not there in the home that we develop +most of our habits, our lines of thought and action? + +"Even while keeping home, woman can do other kinds of work. She can +help her husband in his varied activities by showing interest and +sympathy in all that he does; she can influence him in every possible +way. Then also she may do social and religious work, and even teaching, +though she has to manage a home. But _the_ work that needs her keenest +attention is in the home itself, in training up the children. Happiness +and cheerfulness in the home circle depend more or less on the radiant +face of the mother, as she performs her simple tasks, upon her +tenderness, on her unwearied willingness to surpass all boundaries in +love. She is the 'centre' of the family. The physical and moral training +of her children falls to her lot. + +"Now, the developing of character is no light task, nor is it the least +work that has to be done. The family exists to train individuals for +membership in a large group. In the little family circle attention can +be concentrated on a few who in turn can go out and influence others. +The family, therefore, is the nursery of all human virtues and powers. + +"In conclusion, expressing the same idea in stronger words, it is to be +noted that whether India shall maintain her self-government, when she +receives it, depends on how far the women are ready to fulfill the +obligations laid upon them. This is a great question and has to be +decided by the educated women of India." + +[Illustration: In the Laboratory, Madras] + +[Illustration: Tennis Champions with Cup AT WORK AND PLAY] + + +One Reformer and What She Achieved. + +Of the wealth of human interest that lies hidden in the life-stories of +the one hundred and ten students who make up the College, who has the +insight to speak? Coming from homes Hindu or Christian, conservative or +liberal, from the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the modern Indian city, or +the far side of the jungle villages, one might find in their home +histories, in their thoughts and ambitions and desires, a composite +picture of the South Indian young womanhood of to-day. Countries as well +as individuals pass through periods of adolescence, of stress and strain +and the pains of growth, when the old is merging in the new. The student +generation of India is passing through that phase to-day, and no one who +fails to grasp that fact can hope to understand the psychology of the +present day student. + +In Pushpam's story it is possible to see something of that clash of old +and new, of that standing "between two worlds" that makes India's life +to-day adventurous--too adventurous at times for the comfort of the +young discoverer. + +Pushpam's home was in the jungle--by which is meant not the luxuriant +forests of your imagination, but the primitive country unbroken by the +long ribbon of the railway, where traffic proceeds at the rate of the +lumbering, bamboo-roofed bullock cart, and the unseemliness of Western +haste is yet unknown. Twice a week the postbag comes in on the shoulders +of the loping _tappal_ runner. Otherwise news travels only through the +wireless telegraphy of bazaar gossip. The village struggles out toward +the irrigation tank and the white road, banyan-shaded, whose dusty +length ties its life loosely to that of the town thirty miles off to the +eastward. On the other side are palmyra-covered uplands, and then the +Hills. + +The Good News sometimes runs faster than railway and telegraph. Here it +is so, for the village has been solidly Christian for fifty years. Its +people are not outcastes, but substantial landowners, conservative in +their indigenous ways, yet sending out their sons and daughters to +school and college and professional life. + +Of that village Pushpam's father is the teacher-catechist, a gentle, +white-haired man, who long ago set up his rule of benevolent autocracy, +"for the good of the governed." + +"To this child God has given sense; he shall go to the high school in +the town." The catechist speaks with the conviction of a Scotch Dominie +who has discovered a child "of parts," and resistance on the part of the +parent is vain. The Dominie's own twelve are all children "of parts" and +all have left the thatched schoolhouse for the education of the city. + +Pushpam is the youngest. Term after term finds her leaving the village, +jogging the thirty miles of dust-white road to the town, spending the +night in the crowded discomfort of the third class compartment K marked +for "Indian females." Vacation after vacation finds her reversing the +order of journeying, plunging from the twentieth century life of +college into the village's mediaeval calm. There is no lack of +occupation--letters to write for the unlearned of the older generation +to their children far afield, clerks and writers and pastors in distant +parts; there are children to coach for coming examinations; there are +sore eyes to treat, and fevers to reduce. + +One Christmas Pushpam returns as usual, yet not as usual, for her +capable presence has lost its customary calm. She is "anxious and +troubled about many things," or is it about one? + +Social unrest has dominated college thinking this last term, focussing +its avenging eyes upon that Dowry System which works debt and eventual +ruin in many a South Indian home. Pushpam has seen the family struggles +that have accompanied the marriages of her older sisters; the "cares of +the world" that have pressed until all the joy of days that should have +been festal was lost in the counting out of rupees. In neighbor homes +she has seen rejoicing at the birth of a son, as the bringer of +prosperity, and grief, hardly concealed, at the adversity of a +daughter's advent. Unchristian? Yes; but not for the lack of the milk of +human kindness; rather from the incubus of an evil social system, +inherited from Hindu ancestors. + +Pushpam's father is growing old; lands and jewels have shrunk. Married +sons and daughters are already gathering and saving for the future of +their own young daughters. Three thousand rupees are demanded of Pushpam +in the marriage market. The thought of it is marring the peace of her +father's face and breaking his sleep of nights. But Pushpam has news to +impart, "Father, I have something to say. It will hurt you, but I must +speak. It is the first time that I, your daughter, have even disobeyed +your wishes, but this time it must be. + +"All this college term we girls have been thinking and talking of our +marriage system and its evils. Husbands are bought in the market, and in +these war years they, like everything else, are high. A man thinks not +of the girl who will make his home, but of the rupees she will bring to +his father's coffers. Marriage means not love, but money. My classmates +and I have talked and written and thought. Now three of us have made one +another a solemn promise. Our parents shall give no dowries for us. We +have no fear of remaining unmarried; we can earn our way as we go and +find our happiness in work. Or if there are men who care for us, and not +for the rupees we bring, let them ask for us; we will consider such +marriages, but no other. Do not protest, Father, for our minds are made +up." + +[Illustration: THE NEW DORMITORY AT MADRAS COLLEGE] + +The old man, for years autocrat of the village, bows to the will of his +youngest child, fearing the jeers of relatives, yet unable to withstand. + +No, Pushpam did not remain single. In men's colleges the same ferment is +going on, and when a suitor came he said, "I want you for yourself, not +for the gold that you might bring." He married Pushpam, and their joy of +Christian service is not shadowed by the financial distress brought upon +the father's house. + +Mary Smith asked to be shown the justification of college education for +Indian girls. Is it good? The College of the Sunflower has its home in +dignified and seemly buildings set in a tropical garden. Does its beauty +draw students away from the world of active life, or send them with +fresh strength to share its struggles. Pushpam has given one answer. +Another one may find in the college report of 1921 with its register of +graduates. Name after name rolls out its story of busy lives--married +women, who are housemakers and also servants of the public weal; +government inspectresses of schools, who tour around "the district," +bringing new ideas and encouragement to isolated schools; teachers and +teachers, and yet more teachers, in government and mission schools, and +schools under private management. Only six years of existence, and yet +the Sunflower has opened so wide, the Lamp has lighted so many candles +in dim corners. Will the Mary Smiths of America do their part that the +next six years may be bigger and better than the last? + +The spirit of Madras Students is shown in the following extracts from +personal letters written to former teachers: + + +FROM A GRADUATE OF MADRAS CHRISTIAN COLLEGE + +"Last week we had the special privilege of hearing Mr. and Mrs. Annett, +of India Sunday School Union. The last day Mr. Annett showed how we can +lead our children to Christ and make them accept Christ as their Master. +That is the aim of religious education. My heart thrilled within me when +I heard Mr. Annett in his last lecture confirm what I had thought out as +principles in teaching and training the young, and I found my eyes wet. +But the very faith which Jesus had in people and which triumphs over all +impossibilities I am trying to have. I have patiently turned to the +girls and am trying to help them in their lives. The Christ power in me +is revealing to me many things since I surrendered to Him my will. He is +showing me what mighty works one can do through intercessory prayer +which I try to do with many failings. + +"Politics have lately been very interesting to me. Rather I have been +forced to enter in. You will have read or heard of the new movement in +India that sprang up early in September. Gandhi is the leader. I have +some clippings to send you. It is not about that I wish to write, but +about the remarkable way India is repressing the movement. The Panjab, +the province for which sympathy is called for and the one which affords +the cause for non-co-operation, has thrown up Gandhi's scheme and her +sons are standing for council elections. No Indian can help being +thrilled over the nominations and elections for legislative councils +and councils of state, which are to assemble in January according to the +Reform Act. Our girls are taking a keen interest in the affairs of the +country and earnestly praying for her. + +"This is the week of prayer of the Y.W. and Y.M.C.A. I am sure you are +remembering us,--the young women of India and our girls who are to lay +out the future in India; also our young men and boys. + +"The Student Federation has its conference in P---- during Christmas, +and four of our college students are going. If only the men would be +open hearted and less prejudiced and brave enough to stand alone and +reform society. I think the time is coming. + +"Isn't it strange that you should also feel the thirst for Bible study +just as I am doing here. I never felt the lack of Scriptural knowledge +as now while I teach our girls." + + +EXTRACTS FROM A TEACHER'S JOURNAL IN MADRAS COLLEGE + +November 12, 1921. + +We had nine graduates to garland last night and should have had more if +Convocation had followed closely on their success in April. But now one +is at Somerville College, Oxford (we have five old students in England +now and one in America), one at her husband's home in Bengal, one +serving in Pundita Ramabai's Widows' Home at Mukti near Poona, and three +kept away by some duty in their families. Among our nine were two who +had been among our very earliest students; in fact, one bears the very +first name entered on our student roll in April, 1915, when we were +looking round in trembling hope to see whether any students at all +would entrust themselves to our inexperienced hands. These two, of +course, left some years ago, but have since taken the teachers' degree, +the Licentiate in Teaching, for which they have prepared themselves by +private study while serving in schools. + +This L.T. is a University degree open to graduates in Arts only, and a +B.A., L.T., is regarded as a teacher fully equipped for the highest +posts in schools. The preparation for it has been carried on hitherto +chiefly at a Government Teachers' College, where the few women students, +though very courteously treated, have naturally been at a great +disadvantage among more than a hundred men. Such of our graduates as +have spent the required year there have been considerably disappointed, +feeling that their work has been too easy and too theoretical. In any +case it is impossible that much practical work could be found for so +large a number of students, and the belief is growing that the ideal +training college is a small one. That it must be a Christian one is from +our point of view still more important. The women B.A., L.T.'s will hold +positions of greater influence than any other class in South India. They +will be Government Inspectresses, Heads of Middle Schools and High +Schools, lecturers in Training Colleges, in fact, the sources of the +inspiration which will permeate every region of women's education. +Before long the missions will be unable to keep pace with the rapid +increase of available pupils for girls' schools. Their success in +originating and fostering the idea of educating girls has now produced a +situation with which we cannot personally cope, but which we can +indirectly control by concentrating effort at the most vital spot, that +is the training of the highest rank of women teachers. These will set +the tone and, to a great extent, determine the quality of the women +teachers who have lower qualifications, and these will have in their +hands the training of ever-increasing numbers of girl pupils and will +hand on the ideals which they have themselves received. It was an honor +which we felt very deeply when the Missionary Educational Council of +South India entrusted to the council of our College the task of +inaugurating an L.T. College for Women, and we have been very busy about +it. + + +December 15, 1921. + +More than a month has passed since I began the Journal and I am now +sitting in the junior B.A. class-room watching over nineteen students +(the twentieth happens to be absent) who are writing their terminal +examination papers. I was a false weather-prophet; rain did not come, +and still keeps away. Instead there is a high cool wind, and every one +of these students is firmly holding down her paper with the left hand +while her fountain pen (they all have fountain pens) skims all too +rapidly over the page. The great principle of answering an examination +paper is never to waste a moment on thought. If you do not know what to +say next, repeat what you said before until a new idea strikes you. As +it is not necessary to dip the pen in ink it should never leave the +page. This method enables them to produce small pamphlets which they +hand in with a happy sense of achievement, but the examiner's heart +sinks as she gathers up the volumes of hasty manuscript. + +Sometimes, however, the answers err on the side of conciseness. "We +believe them because we cannot prove them," was the truthful reply of a +student in Physics to the question, "Why do we believe Newton's Laws of +Motion?" Or sometimes an essential transition is omitted; "At the period +of the Roman conquest the Greeks were politically hopeless, economically +bankrupt, and morally corrupt. They became teachers." But sometimes it +is the caprice of the English language which betrays them. "The events +of the 15th century which most affected philosophic thought were the +founding of America and the founding of the Universe." Occasionally they +administer an unconscious rebuke. I was just starting out to give an +address at a week-night evening service from the chancel steps of a +neighboring church, and having a minute or two to spare I took up one of +my 120 Scripture papers and read, "St. Paul's chief difficulty with the +Corinthians was that women insisted on speaking in church. It is wicked +for women to talk in church." + +The nineteen students before me are very representative of our student +body, which now numbers one hundred and thirty. Eleven are writing on +Constitutional History, two on Philosophy, four on Zoology and two (a +young Hindu married girl and a Syrian Christian) on Malayalam +literature. Ten of them speak Tamil, eight Malayalam, and one Telugu. +They vary in rank from high official circles to very low origins, but +most belong to what we should call the professional classes. All are +barefooted and wear the Indian dress, which in the case of the Syrians +is always white. + +Through the open door I look into the library where the fifty-three new +students of this year are writing an English paper. There are eight +Hindus and one European among them, also two students from Ceylon, two +from Hyderabad, and one, differing widely from the rest in dress and +facial type, from Burma. The lecturer in charge is Miss Chamberlain, the +daughter of our invaluable secretary in America. She arrived only three +weeks ago to take the place of Miss Sarber who has started on her +furlough and already the dignity of the philosopher and psychologist is +mingling with the gaiety which makes her table a favorite place for +students. + +The debate on the conscience clause[*] which took place in the new +Legislative Assembly in November shows that the party now in power, the +non-Brahmin middle-class, realizes the value to the country of Christian +education. Man after man rose to express his gratitude to the Christian +College and to point out that missionaries alone had brought education +to low-caste and out-caste people. The proposal was rejected by 61 votes +to 13, a most unexpected and happy event. + +One proposal, perfectly well meant, was made at the Government Committee +on Education which aroused great indignation among our students. It was +that various concessions should be made to the supposed weakness of +women students and that the pass mark in examinations should be lowered +for them. As the Principals of both the Women's Colleges opposed the +suggestion, it was withdrawn, but this little incident shows two things, +the sympathetic feeling of men toward the studies of women, and the +distance that women have travelled since the time when they would +themselves have requested such concessions. + +In the recent agitation in favor of Nationalism finding that the only +constructive advice given was to devote themselves to Indian music, to +the spinning wheel, which is Mr. Gandhi's great remedy for social and +political ills and to social service, I did all that I could to promote +these ends. I asked the Senior Student to collect the names of all who +wished to learn to play an Indian instrument, I presented the College +with a pound of raw cotton and spinning wheel of the type recommended by +Mr. Gandhi, and the social service begun some months before was +continued This last consists of our expedition led by Miss Jackson, +which twice a week visits an unpleasant little village not far from our +gates. The students wash the children, which is not at all a delightful +task, attend to sore eyes and matted hair and teach them games and +songs, and chat with the village women about household hygiene and how +to keep out of debt. One of our Sunday Schools is in this village, too, +so by this time the students are welcome visitors, and whether they do +much good or not, they learn a great deal of sobering truth. Of course, +only a few can go at a time, but others find some scope in the other +Sunday Schools and in the little Day School which Miss Brockway +instituted for the children of our servants. This last means real +self-denial, as the work must be done every day. Still, it remains one +of our greatest problems to find channels for the spirit of service +which we try to inspire, and without which the current of their +patriotism may become stagnant. + +But I am being disappointed about the music and the spinning wheel. Not +one student was willing to undergo the toilsome practice of learning an +instrument, and though the spinning wheel was received with enthusiasm +the pound of cotton has hardly diminished at all. Nor will they take the +trouble to read the newspapers regularly. So that they might not feel +that too British a view of events was presented to them they are +supplied with some papers of a very critical tone, but I need not have +feared the risk, the papers remain unread. They much prefer the medium +of speech, and are keenly interested in almost any topic on which we +invite an attractive speaker to give an address, but they do not follow +it up by reading. They are decidedly fonder of books than they were, and +use the library more, but their taste is for the better kind of domestic +fiction more than for anything else. There is one important exception, +they all love Shakespeare and there is no one whom they so delight to +act. Whenever they invite us to an entertainment, which they do on many +and various occasions, we are fairly sure of seeing a few scenes of +Shakespeare acted much better than I have ever seen English girls of +their age act. + +The students have been collecting a fund for our new Science building, a +great and beautiful enterprise, which, also, is still in its proper +stage. The drawing of plans so large and detailed has occupied many +months. We are looking to America for the generous gift which shall +bring these plans into actuality, but help from other sources is +welcome, too, and particularly help from the students. They have made +many efforts and reached a sum of more than Rs. 500. Their most +important undertaking was a performance of "Everyman" most solemnly and +beautifully carried out before an audience of our women friends, and +there was also a dramatic version written by one of the students of the +parable of the prodigal son and performed before the college only. This +last was remarkable in its adaptation of the story to Indian conditions +and for the characteristic introduction of a mother and a sister. + +[Illustration: THE OLD INDIA + No Chance--No Hope] + + + "If she have sent her servants in our pain, + If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword, + If she have given back our sick again + And to the breast the weakling lips restored, + Is it a little thing that she has wrought? + Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought." + + +_Kipling's "Song of the Women"_ + +The Medical School at Vellore is still without a permanent home and is +lodged in scattered buildings--without a permanent staff except for two +or three heroic figures who are performing each the work of +several--without a certainty of a regular income in any way equivalent +to its needs--but it has an enthusiastic band of students and it has Dr. +Ida Scudder, and so the balance is on the right side. + +[Footnote *: Opposing the study of the Bible in our schools.] + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + + +SENT FORTH TO HEAL + + +"THE Long Trail A-Winding." + +Who that has read "Kim" will ever forget Kipling's picture of the Grand +Trunk Road, with its endless panorama of beggars, Brahmans, Lamas, and +talkative old women on pilgrimage? Such roads cover India's plains with +a network of interlacing lines, for one of Britain's achievements on +India's behalf has been her system of metalled roads, defying alike the +dust of the dry season and the floods of the monsoon. + +One such road I have in mind, a road leading from the old fortress town +of Vellore through twenty-three miles of fertile plain, to Gudiyattam, +at the foot of the Eastern Ghats. It is just a South Indian "up country" +road, skirting miles of irrigated rice fields, gold-green in their +beginnings, gold-brown in the days of ripening and reaping. It winds +past patches of sugar cane and cocoanut palm; then half arid uplands, +where goats and lean cattle search for grass blades that their +predecessors have overlooked; then the _bizarre_ shapes of the ghats, +wide spaces open to the play of sun and wind and rain, of passing shadow +and sunset glory. They are among the breathing spaces of earth, which no +man hath tamed or can tame. + + +An Indian "Flivver." + +An ordinary road it is, and passing over it the ordinary +procession--heavy-wheeled carts drawn by humped, white bullocks; crowded +jutkas whose tough, little ponies disappear in a rattle of wheels and a +cloud of dust; weddings, funerals, and festivals with processions gay or +mournful as the case may be. One feature alone distinguishes this road +from others of its kind; once a week its dusty length is traversed by a +visitant from the West, a "Tin Lizzie," whose unoccupied spaces are +piled high with medicine chests and instrument cases. Once a week the +Doctor passes by, and the countryside turns out to meet her. + + +When the Doctor Passes by. + +Where do they come from, the pathetic groups that continually bring the +little Ford to a halt? For long stretches the road passes through +apparently uninhabited country, yet here they are, the lame, the halt, +and the blind, as though an unseen city were pouring out the dregs of +its slums. Back a mile from the road, among the tamarind trees, stands +one village; at the edge of the rice fields huddles another. The roofs +of thatch or earth-brown tiles seem an indistinguishable part of the +landscape, but they are there, each with its quota of child-birth pain, +its fever-burnings, its germ-borne epidemics where sanitation is +unknown, its final pangs of dissolution. But once a week the Doctor +passes by. + +What do she and her attendants treat? Sore eyes and scabies and all the +dirt-carried minor ailments that infect the village; malaria from the +mosquitoes that swarm among the rice fields; aching teeth to be pulled; +dreaded epidemics of cholera or typhoid, small pox or plague. Now and +then the back seat is cleared of its _impedimenta_ and turned into the +fraction of an ambulance to convey a groaning patient to a clean bed in +the hospital ward. Once at least a makeshift operating table has been +set up under the shade of a roadside banyan tree, and the Scriptural +injunction, "If thy foot offend thee, cut it off," carried out then and +there to the saving of a life. + +At dark the plucky little Ford plods gallantly back to the home base, +its occupants with faded garlands, whose make-up varies with the +seasons--yellow chrysanthemums with purple everlasting tassels at +Christmas time; in the dry, hot days of spring pink and white oleanders +from the water channels among the hills; during the rains the heavy +fragrance of jasmine. All the flowers do their brave best for the day +when the Doctor passes by. + + +Where no Doctor Passes by. + +But what of the roads on which the Doctor never passes? From Vellore's +fortress-crowned hills they stretch north and south, east and west, and +toward all the intermediate points of the compass. Every city of India +forms such a nucleus for the country around. Amid the wheat fields of +the Punjab, under the tamarinds of the Ganges plain, among the lotus +pools and bamboo clusters of the Bengal deltas, and on the black cotton +fields of the Deccan are the roads and the villages, the villages and +the roads. Some mathematically minded writer once computed that, if +Christ in the days of His flesh had started on a tour among the villages +of India, visiting one each day, to-day in the advancing years of the +twentieth century many would yet be waiting, unenlightened and +unvisited. Few have been visited by any modern follower of the Great +Physician. Who can compute their sum total of human misery, of +preventable disease, of undernourishment, of pain that might all too +easily he alleviated? + +[Illustration: Kamala (Lotus Flower), Winner of The Gold Medal in +Anatomy in Vellore Medical School] + +[Illustration: A Little Lost One--What Will Such Girls Do for India? + CONTRASTS] + + +A Problem In Multiplication. + +Was it, one wonders, the memory of the Gudiyattam road, and those like +it in nameless thousands, that burned deep into Dr. Ida Scudder's heart +and brain the desire to found a Medical School, where the American +Doctor might multiply herself and reproduce her life of skillful and +devoted service in the lives of hundreds of Indian women physicians? It +is the only way that the message of the Good Physician, His healing for +soul and body, may penetrate those village fastnesses of dirt, disease, +and ignorance. One hundred and sixty women doctors at present try to +minister to India's one hundred and sixty millions of women, shut out by +immemorial custom from men's hospitals and from physicians who are men. +"What are these among so many?" What can they ever be except as they may +multiply themselves in the persons of Indian messengers of healing? + + +Small Beginnings. + +And so, in July, 1918, the Vellore Medical School was opened, under the +fostering care of four contributing Mission Boards, and with the +approval and aid of the Government of Madras. "Go ahead if you can find +six students who have completed the High School Course," said the +interested Surgeon General. Instead of six, sixty-nine applied; +seventeen were accepted; and fourteen not only survived the inevitable +weeding out process, but brought to the school at the end of the first +year the unheard of distinction of one hundred per cent, of passes in +the Government examination. That famous first class is now in its Senior +Year, and by the time this book comes from the press will be scattering +itself among thirteen centres of help and health. + +And so, in rented buildings, the Medical School started life. If ever an +institution passed its first year in a hand-to-mouth existence, this one +has. Short of funds save as mercifully provided by private means; short +of doctors for the staff; short of buildings in which to house its +increasing student body, for it has grown from fourteen to sixty-seven; +short, in fine, of everything needed except faith and enthusiasm and +hard work on the part of its founders, it has yet gone on; the girls +have been housed, classes have been taught, examinations passed, and the +first class is ready to go out into the world of work. + +Just here perhaps one brief explanation should be made. These girls will +not be _doctors_ in the narrowly technical sense, for the Government of +India reserves the doctor's degree for such students as have first taken +a college diploma and then on top of it a still more demanding medical +course of five years. These students will receive the degree of Licensed +Medical Practitioner (L.M.P.) which authorizes them to practise medicine +and surgery and even to be in charge of a hospital. The full college +may come, we hope, not many years hence, when funds become available. +Meantime, this school will year by year be turning out its quota of +medical workers whose usefulness cannot be over-estimated. + +[Illustration: FIRST BUILDING AT NEW MEDICAL SCHOOL, VELLORE, WHICH IS +HOUSING OUR STUDENTS] + + +A Visit to Vellore. + +Let us pay a visit to the School and see it as it is in its present +state of makeshift. Since its beginning it has dwelt, like Paul the +prisoner, "in its own hired house," but Paul's epistles tell of no such +uncertainty in his tenure of his rented dwelling, as that which has +afflicted this institution. The housing shortage which has distressed +New York has reached even to Vellore. Two rented bungalows were lost, +and, as an emergency measure, the future Nurses' Home was erected in +great haste on the town site and at once utilized as a dormitory with +some rooms set aside for lectures as well. + + +Corpses--and Children. + +Let us first pay a visit to "Pentland," the one remaining "hired house," +in which the Freshmen have their home with Dr. Mary Samuel, the Indian +member of the staff, as their house mother. Just behind it is the +thatched shed, carefully walled in, which serves as the dissecting room. +To the uninitiated it is a place of gruesome smells and sights, for +cadavers, whole or in fragments, litter the tables. The casual visitor +sympathizes with the Hindu student who confides to you that during her +first days of work in the dissecting room she could only sleep when +firmly flanked by a friend on each side of her "to keep off the spirits +that walk by night." After a few weeks of experience, however, the +fascinating search for nerve and muscle, tendon, vein, and artery +becomes the dominating state of consciousness, and the scientific spirit +excludes all resentment at the disagreeable. + +Pentland Compound possesses another feature in pleasing contrast to the +dissecting shed. As you come away from a session there and close the +door of the enclosing wall, from the opposite end of the compound comes +the sound of children's voices in play. There in a comfortable Indian +cottage lives the jolly family of the Children's Home. They are a merry, +well-nourished collection of waifs and strays, of all ancestries, Hindu, +Muhammadan, and Christian, mostly gathered in through the wards of the +Mission Hospitals. Only an experienced social worker could estimate what +such a home means in the prevention of future disease, beggary, and +crime. It is good for the medical students to live in close +neighborliness with this bit of actual service. One student in writing +of her future plans mentions that, as an "avocation" in the chinks of +her hospital work, she plans to raise private funds and found a little +orphanage all her own! + + +Early Rising. + +Not far from Pentland are the new buildings of Voorhees College +belonging to the Arcot Mission of the Dutch Reformed Church. For the +resent, the Medical School has the loan of its lecture rooms and +laboratories in the early morning hours before the boys' classes begin. +That means seven o'clock classes, and previous to that for most of the +students a mile walk from the town dormitory. Here is the Chemistry +Laboratory. Freshmen toil over the puzzling behavior of atoms and +electrons, while in lecture rooms the ear of the uninstructed visitor is +puzzled by the technical vocabularies of the classes in anatomy and +surgery, and one wonders how the Indian student ever achieves this vast +amount of information through the difficult medium of a foreign tongue. + +[Illustration: DR. SCUDDER AND THE MEDICAL STUDENTS AT VELLORE.] + + +In Hospital Wards. + +Next in our path of visitation comes Schell Hospital, where the theories +learned in dissecting room, laboratory, and lecture are connected up +with actual relief of sick women and children. Here the students are +divided into small groups and many kinds of clinical demonstrations are +going on at once. In the compounding room you will see a lesson in +pill-making. That smiling young person working away on the floor in +front of the table is a West Coast Brahman, sent on a stipend from the +Hindu state of Travancore. It is her first experience away from home and +the zest and adventure of the new life have already fired her spirit. + +In this verandah another group are at work with bandaging. We watch them +while brown arms and legs, heads and bodies disappear under complicated +layers of white gauze. + +In the large ward Seniors, equipped with head mirrors and stethoscopes, +with chart and pen, are taking down patients' histories and suggesting +diagnoses. Soon it will be their work to do this unaided, and every bit +of supervised practice is laying up stores of experience for the future. + +On the next verandah Doctor Findlay is giving a lecture and +demonstration on the care and feeding of babies. Demonstration is not +difficult, for the hospital always provides an abundance of ailing +infants whose regulated diet and consequently improving health serve as +laboratory tests. + + + +The Ford in a New Capacity. + +Now we follow the shady verandah around three sides of the attractive +courtyard with its trees and flowering creepers. At the far end the +class in obstetrics is going on. And behold, the irrepressible Ford has +entered into a new province. This truly American product will probably +be found to-day in every continent and nearly every country in the +world, but one ventures to prophesy that Vellore is the only spot on the +habitable globe where its cast-off tires have been metamorphosed into +models of human organs! Every student not working over an actual mother +or baby is busy performing on these home-made rubber models the +operations she may some day be called to do upon a living patient. + +In the midst of these Dr. Griscom is interrupted by next ward that +didn't cry for a week? You know that this morning you slapped it and it +cried for the first time, and its mother was very happy. Now she wants +to hear it cry again, and says--"may she please beat it herself?" The +Doctor leaves her Ford tires, and runs to the ward to explain to the +overzealous mother the difference between _massage_ administered by a +physician and the ordinary manner of "beating" a baby. + +[Illustration: Interior of the Temple Where God is a Stone Image] + +[Illustration: Interior of the Hospital Where God is Love] + +Our next place of pilgrimage is the "town site" where the new Nurses' +Home affords temporary dormitory accommodation. Beside it is the +Doctor's bungalow, and in the open space next is to be built the big +dispensary. This is well called the "town site," for it is in the thick +of Vellore's population. Children, dogs, and donkeys swarm across its +precincts, and there is no fear of these students being separated from +the actualities of Indian life. The two-story buildings, however, give +abundant opportunity for the occupants to "lift up their eyes unto the +hills"; and the open air sleeping-rooms promise breezes in the hottest +nights. + + +"Mrs. Earth Thou-Art." + +Here, too, the Seniors have their lectures in obstetrics, and with the +beginning of that course a new difficulty arose. Equipment here, as in +practically every Mission institution, is pitifully limited by lack of +funds. For the proper teaching of obstetrics there is need of a pelvic +manikin, lifesize. There were no funds to spare for so expensive a piece +of apparatus, and, if there had been, there would have been a delay of +months in getting it out from England or America. But meantime +obstetrics must be taught, and a manikin must be had. "Necessity is the +mother of invention." Necessity got to work, and "Mrs. Earth-Thou-Art" +is the result. Dr. Griscom sent for the potter, who left his wheel in +the bazaar and came to this market for new wares. After long and +detailed instructions, he returned to his wheel, and set it to the +making of a shape never seen in the potter's vision of Jeremiah or +Robert Browning. The first attempt was a failure; the second and third +were equally useless; at last something was produced that approximated +the human size and form. The tires of the Ford were again requisitioned +and, by the miraculous aid of the blacksmith, nailed to the pottery +figure without wrecking the latter. "Mrs. Earth-Thou-Art" at last +reposed complete, one example of the triumph of the missionary teacher +over the handicaps of the situation. We hope that her brittle clay will +survive until such time as some friend from across the sea is moved to +provide for her a "store-made" successor. + + +"That which shall be." + +One more spot must be visited before our pilgrimage ends. No guest of +the Medical School is ever allowed to depart without a visit to "the +site," that pride of Dr. Ida Scudder and her staff. + +Three miles out from the dust and noise of the bazaars lies this tract +of fertile land, the near hills rising even within its boundaries, the +heights of Kylasa forming a mountain wall against the sunset. Here in +the midst of natural beauty, open to every wind of heaven, the +dormitories, lecture room, chapel, and new hospital will rise. It will +mean a healthful home, with the freedom of country life and endless +opportunity for games and walks. The motor ambulances will form the +daily connecting link with the practical work of dispensary and +emergency hospital. + + +"Who's Who." + +We have spoken much of buildings and courses of study, but little of the +girls themselves. Who are they? Where do they come from? Why are they +here? What are their future plans? + +They are girls of many shades of belief, from many classes of society. +The great majority are, of course, Protestant Christians, representing +the work of almost every Mission Board to be found in South India. There +are a few Roman Catholics, and about an equal number of members of the +indigenous Syrian Christian community. Nine are Hindus, including one +Brahman. They come from the remotest corners of the Madras Presidency, +and some from even beyond its borders. + +Why did they come? There are some who frankly admit that their entrance +into Medical School was due solely to the influence of parents and +relatives, and that their present vital interest in what they are doing +dates back not to any childhood desire for the doctor's profession, but +only to the stimulating experiences of the school itself. Others tell of +a life-long wish for what the school has made possible; still others of +"sudden conversion" to medicine, brought about by a realization of need, +or in one case to the chance advice of a school friend. Two speak of the +appalling need of their own home villages, where no medical help for +women has ever been known. Some of the students have expressed their +reasons in their own words:-- + +"Once I had a severe attack of influenza and was taken to the General +Hospital, Madras. I have heard people say that nurses and doctors are +not good to the patients. But, contrary to my idea, the English and +Eurasian nurses there were very good and kind to me, more than I +expected. I used to see the students of the Medical College of Madras +paying visits to all the patients, some of whom were waiting for +mornings when they should meet their medical friends. I saw all the +work that they did. The nurses were very busy helping patients and, +whatever trouble the patients gave, they never got cross with them. They +used to sing to some of them at night, give toys to little ones and thus +coax every one to make them take medicine. I admired the kindness and +goodness that all the medical workers with whom I came in contact +possessed. As medical work began to interest me, I used to read +magazines about medical work. Again, when I once went to Karimnagar, I +saw ever so many children and women, uncared for and not being loved by +high caste people. I wanted to help Indians very much. All these things +made me join the Medical School. + +"My father's desire was that one of his daughters should study medicine +and work in the hospital where he worked for twenty years, and so in +order to fulfill his desire I made up my mind to learn medicine. + +"Now my father is dead and the hospital in which he had worked is +closed, for there is no one to take his place. So all are very glad to +see that I am learning medicine. There are many men doctors in Ceylon, +but very few lady doctors and I think that God has given me a good +opportunity to work for Him. + +"For a long time I did not know much about the sufferings of my country +women without proper aid of medical women. One day I happened to attend +a meeting held by some Indian ladies and one European. They spoke about +the great need of women doctors in India and all about the sufferings of +my sisters. One fact struck me more than anything else. It was about an +untrained mid-wife who treated a woman very cruelly, but ignorantly. +From that time I made up my mind to study medicine with the aim of +becoming a loving doctor. My wish is now that all the women doctors +should be real Christian doctors with real love and sympathizing hearts +for the patients. + +"When I told my parents that I wanted to study medicine, they and my +relatives objected and scolded me, for they were afraid that I would not +marry if I would study medicine. In India they think meanly of a person, +especially a girl, who is not married at the proper age. I want now to +show my people that it is not mean to remain unmarried. This is my +second aim which came from the first." + +[Illustration: A MEDICAL STUDENT IN VELLORE] + +The following is written by a Hindu student:-- + +"Before entering into the subject, I should like to write a few words +about myself. I am the first member of our community to attain English +education. Almost all my relatives (I talk only about the female members +of our community) have learnt only to write and read our mother language +Telugu. + +"When I entered the high school course I had a poor ambition to study +medicine. I do not know whether it was due to the influence of my +brother-in-law who is a doctor, or whether it was due to our +environments. Near our house was a small hospital. It was doing +excellent work for the last five years. Now unfortunately the hospital +has been closed for want of stock and good doctors. From that hospital I +learnt many things. I was very intimate with the doctors. I admired the +work they were doing. + +"My father had a faithful friend. He was a Brahman. He realized from his +own experience the want of lady doctors. He had a daughter, his only +child, and she died for want of proper medical aid. Whenever my father's +friend used to see me he used to ask my father to send me to the Medical +College, for he was quite interested in me, like my own father. After +all, as soon as I passed the School Final Examination, it was decided +that I should take up medicine, but at that time my mother raised many +an objection, saying the caste rules forbid it. I left the idea with no +hope of renewing it and joined the Arts College. I studied one year in +the College. Then luckily for me my father and his friend tried for a +scholarship. + +"Luckily again, it was granted by the Travancore Government. + +"I am not going to close before I tell a few words of my short +experience in the College. As soon as I came here I thought I wouldn't +be able to learn all the things I saw here. I looked upon everything +with strange eyes and everything seemed strange to me, too. But, as the +days passed, I liked all that was going on in the College. The study--I +now long to hear more of it and study it. Now everything is going on +well with me and I hope to realize my ambition with the grace of the +Almighty, for the 'thoughts of wise men are Heaven-gleams.'" + +[Illustration: BETTER BABIES Throughout India. Feeding and Weighing] + +You ask, what of the future? What will these young doctors bring to +India's need? How much will they _do_? Might one dare to prophesy that +in years to come they will at least in their own localities make stories +like the following impossible? + +A woman still young, though mother of seven living children, is carried +into the maternity ward of the Woman's Hospital. At the hands of the +ignorant mid-wife she has suffered maltreatment whose details cannot be +put into print, followed by a journey in a springless cart over miles of +rutted country road. She is laid upon the operating table with the +blessed aid of anaesthetics at hand; there is still time to save the +baby. But what of the mother? Only one more case of "too late." +Pulseless, yet perfectly conscious, she hears the permission given to +the relatives to take her home, and knows all too well what those words +mean. The Hospital has saved her baby; her it cannot save. Clinging to +the doctor's hand she cries: + +"Oh, Amma, I am frightened. Why do you send me away? I must live. My +little children,--this is the eighth. I don't care for myself, but I +must live for them. Who will care for them if I am gone? Oh, let me +live!" + +And the doctor could only answer, "Too late." + +On that road where the doctor passes by, one day she saw a beautiful boy +of one year, "the only son of his mother." The eyelids were shut and +swollen. "His history?" the doctor asks. Ordinary country sore eyes that +someway refused to get well; a journey through dust and heat to a +distant shrine of healing; numberless circlings of the temple according +to orthodox Hindu rites; then a return home to order from the village +jeweller two solid silver eyeballs as offerings to the deity of the +shrine. Weeks are consumed by these doings, for in sickness as in +health the East moves slowly. Meantime the eyes are growing more +swollen, more painful. At last someone speaks of the weekly visit of +the doctor on the Gudiyattam Road. + +The doctor picked up the baby, pushed back the swollen eyelids, and +washed away the masses of pus, only to find both eyeballs utterly +destroyed. One more to be added to the army of India's blind! One more +case of "too late"! One more atom in the mass of India's unnecessary, +preventable suffering,--that suffering which moved to compassion the +heart of the Christ. How many more weary generations must pass before +we, His followers, make such incidents impossible? How many before +Indian women with pitying eyes and tender hands shall have carried the +gift of healing, the better gift of the health that outstrips disease, +through the roads and villages of India? + +[Illustration: Freshman Class at Vellore] + +[Illustration: Latest Arrivals at Vellore] + +The existence of the Medical School has been made possible by the gifts +of American women. Its continued existence and future growth depend upon +the same source. Gifts in this case mean not only money, but life. Where +are those American students who are to provide the future doctors and +nurses not only to "carry on" this school as it exists, but to build it +up into a great future? It is to the girls now in high school and +college that the challenge of the future comes. Among the conflicting +cries of the street and market place, comes the clear call of Him whom +we acknowledge as Master of life, re-iterating the simple words at the +Lake of Galilee, "What is that to thee? Follow thou me." + +Rupert Brooke has sung of the summons of the World War that cleansed the +heart from many pettinesses. His words apply equally well to this +service of human need which has been called "war's moral equivalent." + + + "Now, God be thanked, Who has matched us with His + hour, + And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, + With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened + power, + To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, + Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary." + + +AN EXAMPLE OF CHRISTIAN TREATMENT + +Volumes might be written on the atrocities and absurdities of wizards, +quack doctors, and the hideous usages of native midwifery. The ministry +of Christian physicians comes as a revelation to the tortured victims. + +The scene is a ward in a Christian Hospital for women in South India. +The patients in adjacent beds, convalescents, converse together. + +"What's the matter with you?" says Bed No. 1 contentedly. "My husband +became angry with me, because the meal wasn't ready when he came home +and he cut my face. The Doctor Miss Sahib has mended me, she has done +what my own mother would not do." Said another in reply to the question, +"The cow horned my arm, but until I got pneumonia I couldn't stop +milking or making bread for the father of my children, even if it was +broken. The hospital is my Mabap (mother-father)." + +"What care would you get at home?" chimed in another who had been +burning up with fever. "Oh! I would be out in the deserted part of the +woman's quarters. It would be a wonderful thing if any one would pass +me a cup of water," she replied. From another bed, a young wife of +sixteen spoke of having been ill with abscesses. "One broiling day," she +said, "I had fainted with thirst. The midwives had neglected me all +through the night, and, thinking I was dying, they threw me from the +cord-bed to the floor, and dragged me down the steep stone staircase to +the lowest cellar where I was lying, next to the evil-smelling dust-bin, +ready for removal by the carriers of the dead, when the Doctor Miss +Sahib found me and brought me here. She is my mother and I am her +child." + +An old woman in Bed No. 4 exhorts the patients around her to trust the +mission workers. "I was against them once," she tells them, "but now I +know what love means. Caste? What is caste? I believe in the goodness +they show. That is their caste." + +Words profoundly wise! + +On the slope of the desolate river among the tall grasses I asked her, +"Maiden, where do you go shading your lamp with your mantle? My house is +all dark and lonesome,--lend me your light!" She raised her dark eyes +for a moment and looked at my face through the dusk. "I have come to the +river," she said, "to float my lamp on the stream when the daylight +wanes in the west." I stood alone among tall grasses and watched the +timid flame of her lamp uselessly drifting in the tide. + +In the silence of the gathering night I asked her, "Maiden, your lights +are all lit--then where do you go with your lamp? My house is all dark +and lonesome,--lend me your light." She raised her dark eyes on my face +and stood for a moment doubtful. "I have come," she said at last, "to +dedicate my lamp to the sky." I stood and watched her light uselessly +burning in the void. + +In the moonless gloom of midnight I asked her, "Maiden, what is your +quest holding the lamp near your heart? My house is all dark and +lonesome,--lend me your light." She stopped for a minute and thought and +gazed at my face in the dark. "I have brought my light," she said, "to +join the carnival of lamps." I stood and watched her little lamp +uselessly lost among lights. + +_Rabindranath Tagore._ + + + +CHAPTER SIX + + +WOMEN WHO DO THINGS + + +India has boasted certain eminent women whom America knows well. Ramabai +with her work for widows is a household word in American homes and +colleges; President Harrison's sentences of appreciation emphasized the +distinction that already belonged to Lilavati Singh; Chandra Lela's +search for God has passed into literature. The Sorabji sisters are known +in the worlds of law, education, and medicine. + +But these names are not the only ones that India has to offer. In the +streets of her great cities where two civilizations clash; in sleepy, +old-world towns where men and women, born under the shade of temple +towers and decaying palaces, are awakening to think new thoughts; in +isolated villages where life still harks back to pre-historic +days--against all these backgrounds you may find the Christian educated +woman of New India measuring her untried strength against the powers of +age-old tradition. + +In this chapter I would tell you of a few such women whom I have met. +They are not the only ones; they may not be even pre-eminent. Many who +knew India well would match them with lists from other localities and +in other lines of service. + +These five are all college women. One had but two years in a Mission +College whose course of study went no further; one carries an American +degree; three are graduates of a Government College for men. All go back +to the pioneer days before Madras Women's Christian College and Vellore +Medical School saw the light, and when Isabella Thoburn's college +department was small; all five bear proudly the name of Christian; +through five different professions they are giving to the world of India +their own expression of what Christianity has meant to them. + +[Illustration: MRS. PAUL APPASAMY] + + +Home Making and Church Work. + +Throughout India there exists a group of women workers, widely +scattered, largely unknown to one another, in the public eye unhonored +and unsung, yet performing tasks of great significance. Wherever an +Indian Church raises its tower to the sky, there working beside the +pastor you will find the pastor's wife. + +Sometimes she lives in the heart of the Hindu town; sometimes in a +village, in the primitive surroundings of a mass-movement community. +Eminent among such is Mrs. Azariah, wife of the first Indian bishop, and +with him at the head of the Tinnevelly Missionary Society at Dornakal. +There, in the heart of the Deccan, among primitive Telugu outcastes, is +this remarkable group of Indian missionaries, supported by Indian +funds, winning these lowly people through the gospel of future salvation +and of present betterment. + +It was on a Sunday morning that I slipped into the communion service at +Dornakal. The little church, built from Indian gifts with no aid from +the West, is simplicity itself. The roof thatched with millet stalks, +the low-hanging palmyra rafters hung with purple everlastings, the +earth-floor covered with bamboo matting, all proclaimed that here was a +church built and adorned by the hands of its worshippers. The Bishop in +his vestments dispensed the sacrament from the simple altar. Even the +Episcopal service had been so adapted to Indian conditions that instead +of the sound of the expected chants one heard the Te Deum and the Venite +set to the strains of Telugu lyrics. The audience, largely of teachers, +theological students, and schoolboys and girls, sat on the clean floor +space. One saw and listened with appreciation and reverence, finding +here a beginning and prophecy of what the Christianized fraction of +India will do for its motherland. + +It was against this background that I came to know Mrs. Azariah. In the +bungalow, as the Bishop's wife, she presides with dignity over a +household where rules of plain living and high thinking prevail. She +dispenses hospitality to the many European guests who come to see the +activities of this experimental mission station, and packs the Bishop +off well provided with food and traveling comforts for his long and +numerous journeys. The one little son left at home is his mother's +constant companion and shows that his training has not been neglected +for the multitude of outside duties. One longs to see the house when the +five older children turn homeward from school and college, and fill the +bungalow with the fun of their shared experiences. Mercy, the eldest +daughter, is one of the first Indian women students to venture on the +new commercial course offered by the Young Women's Christian Association +with the purpose of fitting herself to be her father's secretary. In a +few months she will be bringing the traditions of the Women's Christian +College of Madras, where she spent two previous years, to share with the +Dornakal community. + +But, though wife and mother and home maker, Mrs. Azariah's interests +extend far beyond the confines of her family. She is president of the +Madras Mothers' Union, and editor of the little magazine that travels to +the homes of Tamil and Telugu Christian women, their only substitute +for the "Ladies' Home Journal" and "Modern Priscilla." She is also the +teacher of the women's class, made up of the wives of the theological +students. A Tamil woman in a Telugu country, she, too, must have known a +little of the linguistic woes of the foreign missionary. Those days, +however, are long past, and she now teaches her daily classes in fluent +and easy Telugu. There are also weekly trips to nearby hamlets, where +the women-students are guided by her into the ways of adapting the +Christian's good news to the comprehension of the plain village woman, +whose interests are bounded by her house, her children, her goats, and +her patch of millet. + +Such a village we visited that same Sunday, when toward evening the +Bishop, Mrs. Azariah, and I set out to walk around the Dornakal domain. +We saw the gardens and farm from which the boys supply the whole school +family with grain and fresh vegetables; we looked up to the grazing +grounds and saw the herd of draught bullocks coming into the home sheds +from their Sunday rest in pasture. I was told about the other activities +which I should see on the working day to follow--spinning and weaving +and sewing, cooking and carpentry and writing and reading--a simple +Christian communism in which the boys farm and weave for the girls, and +the girls cook and sew for the boys, and all live together a life that +is leading up to homes of the future. + +It was after all that that we saw the village. On the edge of the +Mission property we came to the small group of huts, wattled from tree +branches and clay, inhabited by Indian gypsy folk, just settling from +nomadism into agricultural life. So primitive are they still, that lamp +light is _taboo_ among them, and the introduction of a kerosene lantern +would force them to tear down those attempts at house architecture and +move on to a fresh site, safe from the perils of civilization. It is +among such primitive folk that Mrs. Azariah and her students carry their +message. Herself a college woman, what experiment in sociology could be +more thrilling than her contact with such a remnant of the primitive +folk of the early world? + +Mother, home-maker, editor, teacher, evangelist, with quiet +unconsciousness and utter simplicity she is building her corner of +Christian India. + + +Public Service. + +"To-morrow is the day of the Annual Fair and I am so busy with +arrangements that I had no time even to answer the note you sent me +yesterday." No, this was not said in New York or Boston, but in Madras; +and the speaker was not an American woman, but Mrs. Paul Appasamy, the +All-India Women's Secretary of the National Missionary Society. + +[Illustration: MRS. PAUL APPASAMY] + +It was at luncheon time that I found Mrs. Appasamy at home, and +persuaded her by shortening her meal a bit to find time to sit down with +me a few minutes and tell me of some of the opportunities that Madras +offers to an Indian Christian woman with a desire for service. + +For such service Mrs. Appasamy has unusual qualifications. The fifth +woman to enter the Presidency College of Madras, she was one of those +early pioneers of woman's education, of whom we have spoken with +admiring appreciation. Two years of association with Pandita Ramabai in +her great work at Poona added practical experience and a familiarity +with organization. Some years after her marriage to Mr. Appasamy, a +barrister-at-law in Madras, came the opportunity for a year of foreign +travel, divided between England and America. Such experiences could not +fail to give a widened outlook, and, when Mrs. Appasamy returned to make +her home in Madras, she soon found that not even with four children to +look after, could her interests be confined to the walls of her own +home. + +American girls might be interested to know how wide a range of +activities Indian life affords--how far the Western genius for +organization and committee-life has invaded the East. Here is a partial +list of Mrs. Appasamy's affiliations: + +Member of Council and Executive for the Women's Christian College. + +Vice President of the Madras Y.W.C.A. + +Member of the Hostel Committee of the Y.W.C.A. + +Member of the Vernacular Council of the Y.W.C.A. + +Women's Secretary for All India of the National Missionary Society. + +Supervisor of a Social Service Committee for Madras. + +President of the Christian Service Union. + +Of all her activities, Mrs. Appasamy's connection with the National +Missionary Society is perhaps the most interesting. The "N.M.S.," as it +is familiarly called, is a cause very near to the hearts of most Indian +Christians. The work in Dornakal represents the effort of Tinnevelly +Tamil Christians for the evangelization of one section of the Telugu +country. The N.M.S. is a co-ordinated enterprise, taking in the +contributions of all parts of Christian India and applying them to seven +fields in seven different sections of India's great expanse. The first +is denominational and intensive; the second interdenominational and +extensive. India has room for both and for many more of each. Both are +built upon the principle of Indian initiative and employ Indian workers +paid by Indian money. + +In the early days of the N.M.S., its missionaries were all men, assisted +perhaps by their wives, who with household cares could give only limited +service. Later came the idea that here was a field for Indian women. At +the last convention, the question of women's contribution and women's +work was definitely raised, and Mrs. Appasamy took upon herself the +burden of travel and appeal. Already she has organized contributing +branches among the women of India's principal cities and is now +anticipating a trip to distant Burmah for the same purpose. Rupees +8,000--about $2,300.00--lie in the treasury as the first year's +response, much of it given in contributions of a few cents each from +women in deep poverty, to whom such gifts are literally the "widow's +mite." + +The spending of the money is already planned. In the far north in a +Punjabi village a house is now a building and its occupant is chosen. +Miss Sirkar, a graduate now teaching in Kinnaird College, Lahore, has +determined to leave her life within college walls, to move into the +little house in the isolated village, and there on one third of her +present salary to devote her trained abilities to the solution of rural +problems. It is a new venture for an unmarried woman. It requires not +only the gift of a dedicated life, but also the courage of an +adventurous spirit. Elementary school teaching, social service, +elementary medical help--these are some of the "jobs" that face this new +missionary to her own people. + +But, to return to Mrs. Appasamy, she not only organizes other people for +work, but in the depressed communities of Madras herself carries on the +tasks of social uplift. As supervisor of a Social Service organization, +she has the charge of the work carried on in fifteen outcaste villages. +With the aid of several co-workers frequent visits are made. Night +schools are held for adults who must work during the hours of daylight, +but who gather at night around the light of a smoky kerosene lantern to +struggle with the intricacies of the Tamil alphabet. Ignorant women, +naturally fearful of ulterior motives, are befriended, until trust +takes the place of suspicion. The sick are induced to go to hospitals; +learners are prepared for baptism; during epidemics the dead are buried. +During the great strike in the cotton mills, financial aid was given. +Hull House, Chicago, or a Madras Pariah Cheri--the stage setting shifts, +but the fundamental problems of ignorance and poverty and disease are +the same the world around. The same also is the spirit for service, +whether it shines through the life of Jane Addams or of Mrs. Appasamy. + + +With the "Blue Triangle." + +The autumn of 1906 saw the advent of the first Indian student at Mt. +Holyoke College. Those were the days when Oriental students were still +rare and the entrance of Dora Maya Das among seven hundred American +college girls was a sensation to them as well as an event to her. + +It is a far cry from the wide-spreading plains of the Punjab with their +burning heats of summer to the cosy greenness of the Connecticut +valley--a far cry in more senses than geographical distance. Dora had +grown up in a truly Indian home, as one of thirteen children, her father +a new convert to Christianity, her mother a second generation Christian. +The Maya Das family were in close contact with a little circle of +American missionaries. An American child was Dora's playmate and +"intimate friend." In the absence of any nearby school, an American +woman was her teacher, who opened for her the door of English reading, +that door that has led so many Oriental students into a large country. +Later came the desire for college education. To an application to enter +among the men students of Forman Christian College at Lahore came the +principal's reply that she might do so if she could persuade two other +girls to join her. The two were sought for and found, and these three +pioneers of women's education in the Punjab entered classes which no +woman had invaded before. + +[Illustration: BABY ON SCALES] + +Then came the suggestion of an American college, and Dora started off on +a voyage of discovery that must have been epoch-making in her life. It +is, as I have said, a far cry from Lahore to South Hadley. It means not +only physical acclimatization, but far more delicate adjustments of the +mind and spirit. Many a missionary, going back and forth at intervals of +five or seven years, could tell you of the periods of strain and stress +that those migrations bring. How much more for a girl still in her +teens! New conventions, new liberties, new reserves--it was young David +going forth in Saul's untried armor. Of spiritual loneliness too, she +could tell much, for to the Eastern girl, always untrammelled in her +expression of religious emotion, our Western restraint is an +incomprehensible thing. "I was lonely," says Miss Maya Das, "and then +after a time I reacted to my environment and put on a reserve that was +even greater than theirs." + +So six years passed--one at Northfield, four at Mt. Holyoke, and one at +the Y.W.C.A. Training School in New York. Girls of that generation at +Mt. Holyoke will not forget their Indian fellow student who "starred" in +Shakespearian roles and brought a new Oriental atmosphere to the pages +of the college magazine. Six years, and then the return to India, and +another period of adjustment scarcely less difficult than the first. +That was in 1910, and the years since have seen Miss Maya Das in various +capacities. First as lecturer, and then as acting principal of Kinnaird +College at Lahore, she passed on to girls of her own Province something +of Mt. Holyoke's gifts to her. Now in Calcutta, she is Associate +National Secretary of the Y.W.C.A. + +It was in Calcutta that I met Miss Maya Das, and that she left me with +two outstanding impressions. The first is that of force and initiative +unusual in an Indian woman. How much of this is due to her American +education, how much to her far-northern home and ancestry, is difficult +to say. Whatever the cause, one feels in her resource and executive +ability. In that city of purdah women, she moves about with the freedom +and dignity of a European and is received with respect and affection. + +The second characteristic which strikes one is the fact that Miss Maya +Das has remained Indian. One can name various Indian men and some women +who have become so denationalized by foreign education that "home" is to +them the land beyond the water, and understanding of their own people +has lessened to the vanishing point. That Miss Maya Das is still +essentially Indian is shown by such outward token as that of dropping +her first name, which is English, and choosing to be known by her Indian +name of Mohini, and also by adherence to distinctively Indian dress, +even to the embroidered Panjabi slippers. What matters more is the +inward habit of mind of which these are mere external expressions. + +In a recent interview with Mr. Gandhi, Miss Maya Das told him that as a +Christian she could not subscribe to the Non-Co-operation Movement, +because of the racial hate and bitterness that it engenders; yet just +because she was a Christian she could stand for all constructive +movements for India in economic and social betterment. One of Mr. +Gandhi's slogans is "a spinning wheel in every home," that India may +revive its ancient arts and crafts and no longer be clothed by the +machine looms of a distant country. Miss Maya Das told him that she had +even anticipated him in this movement, for she and other Christian women +of advanced education are following a regular course in spinning and +weaving, with the purpose of passing on this skill through the Rural +Department of the Y.W.C.A. + +Another pet scheme of Miss Maya Das is the newly formed Social Service +League of Calcutta. Into its membership has lately come the niece of a +Chairman of the All-India Congress, deciding that the constructive +forces of social reform are better to follow than the destructive +programme of Non-Co-operation. Miss Maya Das longs to turn her abounding +energy into efforts toward purdah parties and lectures for the shut-in +women of the higher classes, believing that in this way the Association +can both bring new interests into narrow lives, and can also gain the +help and financial support of these bored women of wealth toward work +among the poor. + +One of Miss Maya Das's interests is a month's summer school for rural +workers, a prolonged Indian Silver Bay, held at a temperature of 112 in +the shade, during the month of May when all schools and colleges are +closed for the hot weather vacation. Last year women came to it from +distant places, women who had never been from home before, who had never +seen a "movie," who had never entered a rowboat or an automobile. Miss +Maya Das's stereopticon lectures carried these women in imagination to +war scenes where women helped, to Hampton Institute, to Japan, and +suggested practical ways of assisting in tuberculosis campaigns and +child welfare. After four weeks of social enjoyment and Christian +teaching they returned again to their scattered branches with the +curtain total of their results from 88 in Newark to 355 in Madras. + +[Illustration: PUTTING SPICES IN BABY'S MILK + Notice Feeding Vessels, Shell and Tin Cup] + +What is Dr. Vera Singhe doing about it? With her two medical assistants, +her corps of nurses, and the increasing number of health visitors whom +she herself has trained, she has been able to reduce the death rate +among the babies in her care during 1920 from the city rate of 280 for +that year to 231. + +But enough of statistics. More enlightening than printed reports is a +visit to the Triplicane Health Centre, where in the midst of a congested +district work is actually going on. We shall find no up-to-date building +with modern equipment, but a middle-class Hindu house, adapted as well +as may be to its new purpose. Among its obvious drawbacks, there is the +one advantage, that patients feel themselves at home and realize that +what the doctor does in those familiar surroundings they can carry over +to their own home life. + +Our visit happens to be on a Thursday afternoon, which is Mothers' Day. +Thirty or more have gathered for an hour of sewing. It is interesting +to see mothers of families taking their first lessons in hemming and +overcasting, and creating for the first time with their own hands the +garments for which they have always been dependent on the bazaar +tailor. For these women have never been to school--their faces bear that +shut-in look of the illiterate, a look impossible to define, but just as +impossible to mistake when once it has been recognized. With the mothers +are a group of girls of ten or twelve, who are learning sewing at an +earlier age, when fingers are more pliant and less like to thumbs. Then +there are the babies, too--most of them health-centre babies, who come +for milk, for medicine, for weighing, over a familiar and oft-traveled +road. Fond mothers exhibit them with pride to the doctor, and there is +much comparison of offspring, much chatter, and much general +sociability. + +Back of the dispensary is the milk room, where in an adapted and +Indianized apparatus, due to the doctor's ingenuity, the milk supply is +pasteurized each day, and given out only to babies whose mothers are +positively unable to nurse them, and are too poor to buy. + +Of some of the difficulties encountered Dr. Vera Singhe will tell in her +own words: + +"The work of the midwife is carried out in the filthiest parts of the +city among the lowest of the city's population, both day and night, in +sun and rain ... A patient whose 'address' was registered at the +Triplicane Centre was searched for by a nurse on duty in the locality of +the 'address' given, and could not be found. Much disappointed, the +nurse was returning to the centre, when to her bewilderment she found +that her patient had been delivered in a broken cart." + +Of some of the actual cases where mothers have been attended by +untrained barber women, the details are too revolting to publish. +Imagine the worst you can, and then be sure that your imagination has +altogether missed the mark. + +Of the reaction upon ignorance and superstition Dr. Vera Singhe says, +"In Triplicane dispensary as many as sixty cords around waists and arms +and variously shaped and sized pieces of leather which had been tied in +much trust and confidence to an innocent sufferer with the hope of +obtaining recovery have been in a single day removed by the mothers +themselves on seeing that our treatment was more effective than the +talisman." + +Weighing, feeding, bathing, prevention of disease, simple +remedies--knowledge of all these goes out from the health centres to the +unsanitary homes of crowded city streets. So far one woman's influence +penetrates. + + +In a Hospital. + +It was on a train journey up-country from Madras, some twelve years ago, +that I first met Dr. Paru. She and I shared the long seat of the small +second-class compartment, and in that close neighborliness I soon fell +to wondering. From her dress I knew her to be a Hindu, yet her jewels +were few and inconspicuous. She was most evidently of good family, yet +she was traveling unattended. + +Presently we fell into some casual talk, the inconsequent remarks +common to chance acquaintance the world over. More intimate conversation +followed, and before the end of the short journey together, I knew who +Miss Paru was. The oldest daughter of a liberal Hindu lawyer on the +Malabar Coast, she was performing the astounding feat of taking a +medical course at the Men's Government College in Madras, while +systematically breaking her caste by living at the Y.W.C.A. I almost +gasped with astonishment. "But what do your relatives say?" I asked. +"Oh," she replied, "my father is the head of his family and an +influential man in our town. He does as he pleases and no one dares to +object." + +That was twelve years ago. Yesterday for the second time I met my +traveling companion of long ago. She is now Dr. Paru, assistant to Dr. +Kugler in the big Guntur Women's Hospital, with its hundred beds, +managing alone its daily dispensary list of one hundred and fifty +patients, and performing unaided such difficult major operations as a +Caesarean section for a Brahman woman, of whom Dr. Kugler says, "The +patient had made many visits to Hindu shrines, but the desire of her +life, her child, was the result of an operation in a Mission Hospital. +In our Hospital her living child was placed in her arms as a result of +an operation performed by a Christian doctor." + +How did Dr. Paru, the Hindu medical student, develop into Dr. Paru, the +Christian physician? I asked her and she told me, and her answers were a +series of pictures as vivid as her own personality. + +First, there was Paru in her West Coast Home, among the cocoanut palms +and pepper vines of Malabar where the mountains come down to meet the +sea and the sea greets the mountains in abundant rains. Over that +Western sea once came the strange craft of Vasco di Gama, herald of a +new race of invaders from the unknown West. Over the same sea to-day +come men of many tongues and races, and Arab and African Negroes jostle +by still in the bazaars of West Coast towns. Such was the setting of +Paru's home. During her childhood days certain visitors came to its +door, Bible women with parts of the New Testament for sale, little +paper-bound Gospels with covers of bright blue and red. The contents +meant nothing to Paru then, but the colors were attractive, and for +their sake she and her sister, childlike, bought, and after buying, +because they were schoolgirls and the art of reading was new to them, +read. + +The best girls' school in that Malabar town was a Roman Catholic +convent. It was there that Paru's education was given to her, and it was +there that prayer, even in its cruder forms, entered into her +experience. Religious teaching was not compulsory for non-Christian +pupils, but, when the sisters and their Christian following gathered +each morning for prayers, the doors were not shut and among other +onlookers came Paru, morning after morning, drawn partly by curiosity, +partly by a sense of being left out. Never in all her years in that +school did the Hindu child join in the Christian service, but at home, +when father and mother were not about, she gathered her sister and +younger brothers into a corner and taught them in childish words to tell +their wants and hopes and fears to the Father in Heaven. + +The lawyer-father was the abiding influence in the daughter's growth of +mind and soul. A liberal Hindu he would have been called. In reality, +he was one of that unreckoned number, the Nicodemuses of India, who come +to Jesus by night, who render Him unspoken homage, but never open +confession. A man of broad religious interests, he read the Hindu Gita, +the Koran, and the Gospels; and among them all the words of Jesus held +pre-eminence in his love and in his life. When in later years he found +his daughter puzzling over Bible commentaries to clear up some question +of faith, he asked impatiently, "Why do you bother with those books? +Read the words of Jesus in the Gospels and act accordingly. That is +enough." Father and daughter were wonderful comrades. In all the years +of separation when, as student and doctor, Paru was held on the opposite +side of India, long weekly letters went back and forth, and events and +thoughts were shared. When the hour of decision came, and the girl +ventured into untried paths where the father could not follow, there +were separation and misunderstanding for a time, but that time was +short. The home visits were soon resumed and the Christian daughter was +once more free to share home and meals with her Hindu family. And when +one day the father said, "If a person feels a certain thing to be his +duty, he should do it, whatever the cost," Paru rejoiced, for she knew +that her forgiveness was sealed. + +Dr. Paru's entrance into the world of medicine was due to her father's +wish rather than her own. He was of that rare type of social reformer +who acts more than he speaks. Believing that eventually his daughter +would marry, he felt that as a doctor from her own home she could carry +relief and healing into her small neighborhood. Paru, to please her +father, went into the long grind of medical college, conquered her +aversion for the dissecting table, and "made good." What does he think, +one wonders, as, looking upon her to-day with the clearer vision of the +life beyond, he sees the beloved daughter, thoughts of home and husband +and children put aside, but with her name a household word among the +women of a thousand homes. Ask her what she thinks of medicine as a +woman's profession and her answer will leave no doubt whether she +believes it worth while. + +Actual decision for Christ was a thing of slow growth, its roots far +back in memories of bright-covered Gospels and convent prayers, fruit of +open confession maturing only during her years of service at Guntur. +Life in the Madras Y.W.C.A. had much to do with it. There were Indian +Christian girls, fellow students. "No," said Dr. Paru, "they didn't talk +much about it; they had Christian ideals and tried to live them." There +was a secretary, too, who entered into her life as a friend. "Paru," she +said at last, "you are neither one thing nor the other. If you aren't +going to be a Christian, go back and be a Hindu. At least, be +something." At Guntur there were the experiences of Christian service +and fellowship. Finally, there were words spoken at a Christian meeting, +"words that seemed meant for me"; and then the great step was taken, and +Dr. Paru entered into the liberty that has made her free to appear +outwardly what she long had been at heart. + +Such are a few of those Indian women whom one delights to honor. They +broke through walls of custom and tradition and forced their way into +the open places of life. Few they are and widely scattered, yet their +influence is past telling. + +To-day Lucknow, Madras, and Vellore are sending out each year their +quota of educated women, ready to find their place in the world's work. +It gives one pause, and the desire to look into the future--and dream. +Ten years hence, twenty, fifty, one hundred! What can the dreamer and +the prophet foretell? When those whom we now count by fives and tens are +multiplied by the hundred, what will it mean for the future of India and +the world? What of the gladness of America through whose hand, +outstretched to share, there has come the release of these latent powers +of India's womanhood? + +But what of the powers not released? What of the "mute, inglorious" +company of those who have had no chance to become articulate? There +among the road-menders, going back and forth all day with a basket of +crushed stone upon her head, toils a girl in whose hand God has hidden +the cunning of the surgeon. No one suspects her powers, she least of +all, and that undeveloped skill will die with her, undiscovered and +unapplied. "To what purpose is this waste?" + +Into your railway carriage comes the young wife of a rajah. Hidden by a +canopy of crimson silk, she makes her aristocratic entrance concealed +from the common gaze. Her life is spent within curtains. Yet she is the +descendant of a Mughal ancestor who carried off and wedded a Rajput +maiden. In her blood is the daring of Padmini, the executive power of +Nur Jahan. With mind trained and exercised, she would be the +administrative head of a woman's college. Again,--"To what purpose is +this waste?" + +Who dares to compute the sum total of lives wasted among the millions +of India's women because undiscovered? Will American girls grudge their +gifts to help in the discovery? Will American girls grudge the +investment of their lives? + + + Only like souls I see the folk thereunder, + Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings, + Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder, + Sadly contented with a show of things. + Then with a rush the intolerable craving + Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call; + Oh, to save these! To perish for their saving, + Die for their life, be offered for them all. + + +MYERS + + +THE END + + +[ILLUSTRATION: A REPRESENTATIVE OF INDIA'S WOMANHOOD + +Miss Lilavati Singh, M.A., Acting President of the Isabella Thoburn +College, who died in Chicago in 1909 after thirty-one years of +association with the college as teacher and pupil. A native of India, +but a master of the English language, she was the first woman to sit on +a world committee, having been president of the Woman's Section of the +World Student Christian Federation. In this capacity she lectured in +various countries of Western Europe and the United States.] + + + +INDEX + + +Achievements of Christianity, + of women, + +Alliance, an international, + +America, students continue + studies in, + +American women, gifts of, + to Medical School, + +Anglo-Saxon civilization, + +Appasamy, Mrs. Paul, + +Archaeology, revelations of, + +Aryan invades India, the, + +Art Club, + +Athletic teams, + +Athletics, + +Azariah, Mrs.; + magazine edited by, + +Blue Triangle, with the, + +Brooke, Rupert, quoted, + +Brown-skinned tribes, + +Basket ball, + +Butler, Mrs. William, + +Calcutta, Social Service + League of, + +Caste and pride of race, + broken by Dr. Paru, + +Chamberlain, Miss, + +Character, training women in, +and college education, + +Chatterji, Omiabala, + +Child marriage, + +Child welfare, + +Child widows and education, + +Children, corpses--and, + +Children's Home prevents + disease, beggary, and crime, + +Chinnappa, Mrs. _See_ Singhe, + Dr. Vera. + +Christ, call of, must be heard + to redeem the women of + India; demonstration of + uplifting influence of, demands + college education, + transforming power + through; power, revelations + of, + +Christ's gift of education, + +Christian education, Hindu + or, + +Christian ideals, distribution + of, demands college education, + +Christian unity in education, + +Christian women and need of + India, + +Christian workers, training, + demands college education, + +Christianity, achievements of; + Dr. Paru a convert + to, + +Church work and home making, + +Churches should practice internationalism, + +Civilization, dawn of, of + Anglo-Saxon recent, + +Cleanliness inculcated, + +Co-education in India, + discussed by students, + +College, why go to? + teachers for high schools, + doctors for hospitals, + leadership, + motherhood; co-education, + +College education and future + of India; for Indian + girls justified, + +College girls, missionary service + one of the greatest + fields for, + +College woman, the, and + India, + +College women, pioneer services + of, + +Colleges, Indian, best for undergraduates; + must be made truly Christian to redeem + India; should practice + internationalism, + +Columbia University, + +"Conscience clause," + +Co-operation of missions, + +Co-operative housekeeping, + +Corpses--and children, + +Cosmopolitan atmosphere of + Lal Bagh, + +Cosmopolitan Club, + +Crime prevented by Children's + Home, + +Death rates of infants, + +Debt and dowry system, + +Dissecting room at Vellore, + +Doctor, when the, passes; + where no, passes, + +Doctors for hospitals, + +Dowry, married without, + +Dowry system, + +Drama at Madras Christian + College, + +Dramatic Society, + +Dramatics, + +Dravidians, + +Early rising, + +"Earth-thou-art, Mrs.," + +East, gifts of, to West; + to West, adjustments + required for change from, + +Education, gift of Christ; + proved that Indian girls + can receive; of Indian + girl; for girls; Hindu + or Christian; an instrument + to break down + seclusion of the zenanas; + college, and leadership; + college, and motherhood; + and early marriage; + and child widows; + and world peace; + "triangular alliance" in; + Christian unity in; college, + for Indian girls justified; + missions can not + long meet demand for; + Christian, Indian men + testify to value of, _See_ + School. + +Educated classes of India, to + meet needs of, demands + college education, + +England, students continue + studies in, + +English, conquest of, the big + job at high school, + +Examination papers of students, + + +Fellowship, American, at Lal + Bagh, + +Findley, Dr., + +"Flivver," an Indian, + +Folk-lore, woman in; + woman heroine of, + +Ford, the, in a new capacity, + +Future of India demands + college education, + +Future? what of. + +Gandhi, Mr., and Miss Maya + Das. + +Garden of hid treasure the. + +George, Miss. + +Girl, Indian, to-day; uneducated; + marriage of; life of; school + life of; religion of; + why go to college?; + Girl students at Vellore + Medical School; who + they are; why they + came; their future. + +Girls, proved that Indian, can + be educated; education + of; high school, where + they come from; + what they study; + Indian, college education + for, justified. + +God alone will not redeem + India; in nature; + transforming world + through Christ. + +Goreh, Ellen Lakshmi, + quoted. + +Government. _See_ Student + government. + +Graduate from Madras + Christian College, letter + from. + +Griscom, Dr. + +Guntur Women's Hospital. + +Harischandra. + +Heal, sent forth to. + +High school, at; where + girls are from; + studies; conquest of + English; life of girls; + athletics; basket + ball; dramatics; + Harischandra; + student government; + co-operative housekeeping; + religion of girls; + religion made practical; + outlets for religious + emotion; teachers + for. + +Hindu or Christian education. + +Hindu lawyer prefers Gospels + to sacred books of + India. + +Hinduism, actualities of, unprintable; + and Christianity; + to Christianity, + Dr. Paru a convert from. + +History Club. + +Home life and college women. + +Home making and church + work. + +Homemakers, training, demands + college education. + +Hospital, in a. + +Hospital wards at Vellore. + +Hospitals, doctors for. + +Houses at Vellore. + +Housekeeping, co-operative. + +Idol, wives of the. + +"In the Secret of His Presence." + +India, poetry of, felt to be + insincere; no place for + redemption of woman in + the religions of; need of, + can only be met by educated + Indian Christian + women; silent revolution + has begun in; God alone + will not redeem; future + of, demands college education; + the Aryan invades; + Muhammadans invade; co-education in; + superstition in; + and the college woman; + medical needs of, and supply + of women physicians, + +Indian conditions, worship + adapted to, + +Industrial education; + +Infants, death rates of, + +Isabella Thoburn College, beginnings + of, _See_ Lal Bagh. + +International alliance, an, + +Internationalism, let churches + and colleges practice, + +Jahan, Shah, + +Janaki, Miss, + +_Karma_, + +Kindergarten, Indian, + +Kinnaird College, + +Kipling quoted; cited, + +Kugler, Dr., + +Lal Bagh; cosmopolitan + atmosphere; scholarship; + American fellowship; + first fellow; + social questions; + co-education discussed; + early marriage and child + widows; purdah discussed; + social services; + cleanliness inculcated; + religious instruction + by students; medical + instruction by students; + reading taught + by students; sewing; + purdah park suggested; social + service during vacation; + social service + and strikes; visiting the + poor and sick; what + alumnae records show, + _See_ Isabella Thoburn College. + +Lamp and the sunflower, + +Languages at Madras Christian + College, + +Leadership forced upon educated + Indian girls; training + native, demands college + education; and + college education,. + +Legal profession for women, + +Lela, Chandra, + +Licentiate in teaching, + +Life of Indian girl, + +"Lighted to lighten," + +Literary and Debating Societies, + +Literature; magazine edited + by Mrs. Azariah, + +Lucknow, + +Lyon, Mary, + +Madras Christian College, + letter from student at; + "triangular alliance; + inter-missionary; nine + languages represented; + sunflower and the lamp; + campus of; student + organizations; student + government; athletic + teams; Literary and + Debating Societies; + Star Club; Natural History + Club; Art Club; + Dramatic and Musical + Societies; History Club; + Y.W.C.A.; social + service; applied psychology; + _The Sunflower_; + superstitions; the + college woman and India; + teaching; legal profession; + politics; + home life; what one + reformer achieved; + dowry system; college + education for women justified; + letter from graduate; + extract from + journal of teacher in; + students continue + studies in England and + America; licentiates in + teaching; examination + papers; student + body of; "conscience + clause,"; effort to aid + cause of nationalism; + social service by students; + students of, love + Shakespeare; drama + at; students collect + fund for science building, + +Madras Corporation Child + Welfare Scheme, + +Madras Mothers' Union, + +McDougall, Miss Eleanor + +Magazine edited by Mrs. + Azariah, + +Manikin, makeshift, + +Manu, laws of, + +Marriage of Indian girl, + +Marriage, early, and education, + _See_ Child marriage; + Dowry system. + +Maya Das, Dora; and + Mr. Gandhi, + +Medical instruction by students, + +Medical needs of India and + supply of women physicians, + +Medical School, Vellore. _See_ + Vellore Medical School. + +Medical service, + +Medical treatment, ignorant; + superstition in, + +Mid-wife, work of a, + +Mid-wives, ignorant + +Mission boards, fourteen, support + Madras Christian College, + +Missions, criticism of; + can not long meet demand + for education, + +Missionary service one of + greatest fields for college + girls, + +"Moral equivalent of war," + +Morality and religion unrelated, + +Motherhood and college education, + +Mt. Holyoke College and + Mary Lyon; first + Indian student at, + +Muhammadans invade India, + +Multiplication, problem in, + +Musical Society, + +Myers quoted, + +Naidu, Mrs. Sarojini, + +Nala and Damayanti, + +Natural History Club, + +Nature, God in, + +National life of India, training + women for, demands + college education, + +National Missionary Society, + +Nationalism, effort to aid + cause of, + +Nur Jahan, "the light of the + world," + +Nurses' Home of Vellore + Medical School, + +Obstetrics, makeshift manikin + for teaching, + +"Once upon a time," + +Opportunities for service, + +Organizations of students, + +Palm trees, school under, + +Parker, Mrs. Edwin W., + +Paru, Dr.; breaks + caste; father of, prefers + Gospels to sacred + books of India, + +Peace. See World peace. + +Physicians, women. See + Women physicians. + +Pioneer services of college + women, + +Poem by Rabindranath + Tagore, + +Poetry of India, + +Politics, training women for, + demands college education, + women in, + +Poor, visiting the, + +Prostitution, religious, + protected, + +Public service, + +Purdah, origin of; discussed, + +Purdah parks suggested, + +Pushpam and her work as a + reformer, + +Race, pride of, and caste, + +Rama and Sita, + +Ramabai, Pandita, + +Reading taught by students, + +Redemption of woman, no + place for, in religions of + India + +Reform + +Reformer, one, and what she + achieved, + +Religion, the Indian girl's, + and morality unrelated, + made practical, + +Religions of India, no place + for redemption of woman + in the, + +Religious education, aim of, + +Religious emotion, outlets for, + +Religious instruction by students, + +Revolution, silent, + Roads, metalled, in India, + Rukkubai + +Salvation, yearning for, of + souls, Myers, + +Sarber, Miss, + +Schell Hospital, + +Scholarship at Lal Bagh, + +School, at; Hindu or + Christian; under + palm trees, _See Education_ + +School life of Indian girl, + +Science building, students + collect fund for, + +Scudder, Dr. Ida + +Sent forth to heal, + +Servants of India Society, + +Serveth, among you as He + that, + +Service, great field for, for + college girls; public, + +Sewing taught by students; + lessons in, + +Shakespeare loved by students, + +Sick, visiting the, + +Singh, Lilavati, + +Singhe, Dr. Vera, + quoted, + +Sirkir, Miss, + +Site, new, of Vellore Medical + College, + +Social life, moralizing, demands + college education, + +Social questions discussed by + students, + +Social services of Lal Bagh + students; during + vacation; and strikes, + at Madras; by + students of Madras Christian + College; in outcaste + villages, + +Social Service League of Calcutta, + +Sociology, applied, + +Solidarity of the world, + +Song of the Women, The, + quoted, + +Sorabji, Cornelia, + +Sorabji sisters, + +Star Club, + +Stone age, remains of, + +Strikes and social service, + +Student body of Madras + Christian College, at + Vellore Medical School. _See_ + Girl students. + +Student government, + +Student organizations, + +Students, examination papers + of; collect fund for + science building, + +Summer school for rural + workers, + +Sunflower and the lamp, + +_Sunflower, The_, college magazine, + +Superstition in India,; in + medical treatment, + +_Suttee_, + +Tagore, Rabindranath, poem + by, + +Taj Mahal, + +Talisman, reliance upon, + +Tank described, + +Teachers for high schools, + +Teaching as occupation, + licentiate in, + +Telugu outcastes, missionary + work among, + +Temples, vile things connected + with, + +Thillayampalam, first fellow + from Isabella Thoburn College, + +Thoburn, Isabella, + +Thumboo, Regina, + +Tinnevelly Missionary Society, + +To-day, yesterday and, + +Traditions of womanhood, + +Trail, the long, a-winding, + +Transportation, Indian, + +Treasure, the garden of hid, + +Triplicane Health Centre, 144. + +Union Missionary Medical + School for Women, Vellore. + _See_ Vellore Medical + School. + +Vacation, social service during, + +Veil, use of, + +Vellore Medical School, needs + of; modest start of; + scholarship at; Licensed + Medical Practitioner; + visit to; housing + shortage at; corpses-- + and children; dissecting + room; early + rising; Schell Hospital; + the Ford in a new + capacity; Nurses' + Home; makeshift + manikin; new site; + who the students are; + why the students came; + future of the students; + medical needs of + India; ignorant medical + treatment; + gifts of American women + to, + +Villages, outcaste, social service + in, + +Vincent, Shelomith, + +Visiting the poor and sick, + +"War, moral equivalent of," + +Waste? to what purpose, + +West, gifts of East to, + +Widowhood; compulsory, + +Wives of the idol + +Woman, redemption of, no + place for, in the religions + of India; in folk-lore; + heroine of folk-love; + and laws of Manu, + _See_ Girl. + +Woman's Christian College, + Madras. _See_ Madras Christian + College. + +Woman's Foreign Missionary + Society of the Methodist + Episcopal Church, + +Womanhood, traditions of, + +Women, Indian, are asserting + their rights; gifts of + American, and Vellore + Medical School; who + do things, + +Women physicians, pre-medical + training of, demands + college education; efforts + to increase number of; + supply of, and India's + medical needs, + +World, solidarity of, + +World peace and education, + +Worship adapted to Indian + conditions, + +Yesterday and to-day, + +Young Women's Christian + Association of Madras College, + +Zenanas, opening of, through + education, + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India +by Alice B. 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