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Title: The education of the women of India
Author: Minna Cowan
Release date: June 18, 2026 [eBook #78894]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1912
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78894
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The Education of the Women of India
[Illustration: A Parsi Girl]
The Education of
the Women of India
By
MINNA G. COWAN, M.A. (+T.C.D.+)
Girton College
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier
Edinburgh and London
PRINTED BY
TURNBULL AND SPEARS,
EDINBURGH
Preface
It has been well said that no Western should attempt to make any
general statement about inscrutable India; the most he can venture
to say is, that “in certain places certain things which he saw may
possibly have been what he thought they really were.” The present
volume is therefore based upon appearances which may or may not have
represented reality, upon conversations with Government officials,
missionaries and Indian friends, who kindly gave of their leisure
to a stranger, and upon the study of Government Reports. Where any
generalization has been made, the writer trusts it will be taken with
the reservations which a very brief residence in the East renders
needful. If the book help the women of the West to realize how critical
is the present evolutionary period in the education of the women of
India, especially in its relation to constructive Christianity, it
will not have failed of its purpose.
My thanks are specially due to Miss Richardson and Miss M’Dougall
of Westfield College for aid in revision, to many friends for their
unstinted help, and to the Faculty of Advocates for the use of their
Library.
M. G. C.
+EDINBURGH+, _July 1912_.
To
the
G. A.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. +INTRODUCTION+ 13
II. +HISTORICAL SURVEY+ 29
III. +BURMA+ 60
IV. +EASTERN BENGAL AND ASSAM+ 78
V. +BENGAL+ 100
VI. +INTERESTING INSTITUTIONS IN THE UNITED PROVINCES
AND THE PUNJĀB+ 129
VII. +SIDELIGHTS ON SOME NATIVE STATES+ 146
VIII. +BOMBAY+ 160
IX. +UNIVERSITY EDUCATION+ 192
X. +THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION+ 223
XI. +CONCLUSION+ 244
+BIBLIOGRAPHY+ 253
+INDEX+ 254
Illustrations
A Parsi Girl _Frontispiece_
OPPOSITE PAGE
Government Examination of Girls, Calcutta 52
Girls at St Luke’s Mission, Toungoo, Burma 62
Ghurka Girl Boarder at S.P.G. Girls’ School,
Mandalay 68
A Hill School, Eastern Bengal 80
High School Class, Eastern Bengal 90
Four Scholarship Girls. United Free Church
Mission School for Hindus, Calcutta 120
Standards I. to IV. United Free Church Mission
School for Hindus, Calcutta 126
The Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow 136
C.M.S. Middle School, Amritsar--Hoop Drill 142
The Alphabet Class, Nasirabad 156
The University Settlement Students’ Hostel,
Bombay 208
Ludhiana School of Medicine--Hospital Court
Yard with Patients 216
Statistical Tables
TABLE CHAP. PAGE
I. Management of Girls’ Schools. All India II. 48
II. Classification by Race or Creed. All India II. 49
III. Management of Girls’ Schools. Burma III. 65
IV. Classification by Race or Creed. Burma III. 70
V. Comparative Figures. Bengal (Footnote [82] reference) V. 107
VI. Management of Girls’ Schools. Bengal V. 108
VII. Management of Girls’ Schools. United Provinces VI. 132
VIII. Management of Girls’ Schools. Bombay VIII. 168
IX. Classification by Race or Creed. Bombay VIII. 169
X. Classification of College Students IX. 197
XI. Diagram of University Courses IX. 204
APPENDIX
PAGE
A. Matriculation Course 250
B. Teachers’ Certificates 251
C. Growth of Female Education in India 252
I
INTRODUCTION
“That is true knowledge which can make
Us mortals saintlike, holy, pure,
The strange thirst of the spirit slake
And strengthen suffering to endure.”
+TORU DUTT.+
To write a book on the education of Indian women is a prosaic action
impelled by Western devotion to matter of fact; it would be more
fitting to write of the veil of mystic romance which has hidden the
sorrows and the joys of Indian women from the world; of the Rajput
women who issued from the royal zenana to lead a forlorn cause against
their country’s foes, or passed by hundreds to a fiery death rather
than touch the conqueror’s hand; of those whose intrigue and strategy
were redeemed from falseness by underlying devotion to others, of those
who rose above the symbols of ritual and worship to the true perception
of the Divine in life. But the modern world of the East has its own
romance, that of the meeting of diverse civilizations, of the craving
for truth and reality, of multitudes in the valley of decision. The
old chivalry is there in a new form. It is not a little thing to open
the door of self-realization, with its opportunity for an even greater
selflessness, to the myriads of Indian women. The new thought and new
ideals which are permeating the whole East have no more striking phase
than their manifestation in the life of women. The tentative attitude
towards growing freedom, the hesitation to enter in and possess, the
recurring tragedy of those who are ahead of their times, and of others
for whom the new wine is too strong, are only partial aspects of a
problem which cuts deep into modern civilization. The women who live
behind the veil in India, or who, though without, are utterly untouched
by modern education and modern ideas, are still the vast majority,
and there is in no sense a Feminist movement such as exists in Japan
and to a certain extent in China; still, the new type is there, the
pioneer in a transitional period and the fruit of modern education. A
Mohammedan lady of good social standing in Bombay keeps a school for
poor girls in her own house, and has completely given up _parda_;
Brāhma-Samāj[1] ladies are doing excellent work on Government Education
Committees; an orthodox Hindu lady goes on tour to advocate a special
system of Hindu schools; an Ārya Samāj[2] widow staffs a school for
high-caste girls in her own house with entirely voluntary teachers.
An excellent Ladies’ Magazine is edited by an Indian woman graduate
in Madras. A Parsi woman holds the position of Legal Adviser for
_parda-nashin_[3] women to the Government of Bengal. Indian women
are found doing excellent work as doctors, and a few as principals of
girls’ schools. It would be easy to multiply examples not only of those
who have taken up definite professional life, but also of others who
share in the work and interests of their husbands as closely as any
woman of the West, and who use their social influence on the side of
progress; the Maharani of Baroda has written a book to interpret to
her more secluded countrywomen the many phases of the Englishwoman’s
life; the Begum of Bhopal, on her return from the Coronation, summoned
the Ladies’ Club of her capital to exhort them once more on the
never-failing theme of education as the root of all progress; the Rani
of Gondal and many other Indian princesses take a personal interest in
the welfare of their people. The same phase is also to be seen in other
ranks; we find the orthodox Hindu wife of an Indian Deputy Commissioner
accompanying him on tour through his district, rather than that he
should live the greater part of his life apart from her.[4] Then there
are the transitional types, women who venture thus far and tremble on
the brink of many complicated problems; the wives of “England-returned”
men, whose anglicized husbands have done their best to educate them,
and by leading them painfully through the new ideas to bring them,
to some extent at least, into the “reformed life.”[5] There is much
that is pathetic here, and the tragedy of “The Broken Road,” has its
counterpart to-day in the heart of many an Indian girl, who knows that
the husband who is studying in Britain will, when he returns, have
entered a new world in which she can never share. And so by many stages
one passes back to the old, the real, India, where the woman graduates
in suffering, and where the babies seem to grow, with no stage of
girlhood, into little women on whom the burden of life falls heavily.
Yet who can say whether the influence of these “secluded ones” is not
even yet the most potent factor in modern India?
The “advanced ones” have their corporate life, and one of the most
interesting features in India to-day is the number of women’s societies
which are springing up, partly in conjunction with European ladies and
partly by entirely spontaneous effort. The traveller accustomed to read
of secluded Indian ladies would be surprised to visit the Princess
Mary Victoria Gymkhana in Bombay and meet Parsi, Mohammedan and Hindu
women playing croquet and Badminton, or having tea with their friends,
and even entertaining men of their acquaintance twice a year. It is
true that Parsi influence marks off the social life of Bombay from that
of more conservative India, but the Bombay women do not always remain
in Bombay. Some of the societies are linked with the various religious
movements, others are purely social and educational. One society, the
_Bharat Stri Mahamandal_, in the United Provinces and in Bengal,
has been founded by Hindu and Moslem women, but is intended to include
all sympathizers. Its aim is “to form a common centre for all women
thinkers and co-workers of every race, creed, class, and party in India
to associate themselves together for the progress of humanity.”[6]
Another, the _Gujerati Stri Mandal_, in Bombay, is a purely Hindu
society, which aims at bringing many of the Gujerati women, who keep
_parda_, into contact with other women, and has a definite if
somewhat ambitious educational programme. _The Seva Sadan_, or
Sisters Ministrant, a society established in Bombay in 1909, with four
branches, is under a united committee of Hindu, Mohammedan, and Parsi
representatives, and aims at philanthropic and educational work. “In
the name of Him, Who has given us so many benedictions, we call upon
every woman to become a Benediction, and we call upon all who realize
that India’s two great sins are her sin against women and her sin
against the depressed, to help us in creating Sisters Ministrant.”[7]
The vow which these Sisters Ministrant are called upon to take, is to
“look upon life as a sacred trust for loving, self-sacrificing service,
and to do such service. So help me God.” It is true that when the
high idealism of this prospectus and report are compared with actual
fact, there is evident a certain lack of reality, characteristic of
many Indian schemes. Still, good work, not unlike that of a London
Settlement, is being actually done by two splendid women at the
society’s Settlement in Bombay, and idealism never fails of its
ultimate fruit.
No account of the corporate life of Indian women would be complete
without mention of the National Indian Association, which, though
organized from London, has many Indian ladies as secretaries or
committee members of its Ladies’ Branches in India. Amongst its
many activities one of the most effective has been the holding of
_parda_ lectures and other gatherings for the encouragement of
education, and scholarships are also awarded through it to suitable
candidates. Apart from all organization, the _parda_ party, pure
and simple, whether given by the wives of Government officials, or by
private individuals, has its own part to play. The honour of holding
the first of these, as a species of feminine _durbar_, belongs
probably to Lady Amherst.[8] At the request of the famous Baiza Pai,
wife of the Maharaj of Scindhia, she received a deputation of Maratha
ladies at Agra in 1827, and the account translated from a Persian
letter by one of the guests reveals the quaint misconception of all
things Western under which the deputation laboured. The number of Lord
Amherst’s supposed wives, the English “nautch girls,” who played the
table with the ivory teeth, the strange attitude of the English ladies,
reveal a world far apart, and though the modern _parda_ party may
not be needed to-day to dispel such extreme delusions, it is still a
meeting ground for worlds far apart, and the source of many new ideas
to both English and Indian ladies. These gatherings and societies
have an extraordinary influence especially on those who have fought
shy of the proffered friendship of the missionaries, or of Government
educational effort, and they certainly count for much in the breaking
down of artificial barriers to progress.
The “secluded ones” of the real India have no corporate life and belong
to no society save that of the family. The unit of Indian civilization
is the family, and where that word includes the joint-family to
remote degrees, one may perhaps faintly understand what the corporate
influence of the women of the household means, and measure it against
the impotence of a mere society.
Such in all its variety is the diverse life of the women of India
to-day, the meeting-place of two civilizations, and fraught with untold
consequences and influences for the future. Hitherto the weight of
woman’s opinion has been conservative and religious. “A combination
of enforced ignorance and overdone religion have not only made women
in India willing victims of customs unjust and hurtful in the highest
degree, but it has also made them the most formidable because the most
effective opponents of all change or innovation.”[9] But signs have not
been wanting to show that this same influence has been inflammatory of
revolution and sedition, and instances are given, by a recent writer,
of ladies’ meetings in which sympathy was extended even to anarchists
who had been guilty of murder, and in which ladies gathered together
in zenanas were urged to do all they could to advance a mischievous
propaganda.[10] True, this kind of influence is not widespread, but it
is a natural result when impressionable characters are brought into
contact with ideas which they have not the knowledge nor opportunity
of weighing aright. There is the farther risk of recoil from enforced
restraint towards the liberty which is not a law unto itself. The
slavish imitation of the West which has marred much of the modern
movement in the past and from which the Swadeshi of to-day is a
reaction, is even more repellent in the life of women than of men,
and the Indian world would lose much of its fascination and charm if
instead of a rehabilitation of the ancient ideals of womanhood the
modern type were to develop merely as a denationalized caricature.
The classic Indian ideal of womanhood, with its wonderful vicarious
suffering, its selflessness and devotion, is enough to make the world
weep, yet it may be that it has proved throughout the centuries one
of the subtlest temptations to the strong. “It is a terrible thing,”
writes Sister Nivedita, who made the Hindu woman’s life her own; “it
dwarfs the wife. I often think that it would be good for the husbands
themselves if their wives were less soft and good.” But the glory and
the grace of it may live, and its gentle womanliness transfigure modern
life. The Indian woman need lose none of those qualities which made her
loved in Vedic times, but may prove to the world that she is conscious
of her own heritage and capable of choosing only what is good from the
life of the West.
History is made quietly, and the modern movement for the education
of the women of India and its guidance along right lines is a matter
of Imperial importance. On education of some sort they will insist.
The latest Quinquennial Report (1907) shows an increase in the
period of over 45 per cent. of the total number of girls at school,
and since then some districts show even more.[11] The emphasis at
present laid on girls’ schools is in part the result of the general
educational ferment in India. One hundred years have elapsed since
Lord Minto wrote his famous letter to the Directors of the East
India Company, animadverting on the decay of Hindu and Mohammedan
science and learning; this letter was followed two years later by the
decision to spend a lac of rupees annually for educational purposes,
a paltry sum in comparison with the Government’s educational outlay
to-day, yet representing the inauguration of a new policy. The great
principles of the systematic introduction of Western learning,
with the English language as a medium of instruction in the higher
stages; of the possession of English education as the criterion for
Government service; of the direct responsibility of the State for
secular instruction only, together with the encouragement of voluntary
effort on other lines by a policy of grants-in-aid, have borne fruit
far beyond the imagination of those who laid them down in the early
half of last century. A vast system has grown up: five Universities
with magnificent Government and missionary colleges, a network of
Primary and Secondary schools both in British territory and the
Native States, an Educational Department in every province under a
Director of Public Instruction, centralized till recently under a
Director-General, an expenditure in 1907 of public funds amounting
to 559 lacs, and, along with all this, to-day, a grave criticism,
representing various shades of political and religious opinion, of the
work done, with a questioning of its beneficial influence and of the
fundamental principles involved. Good results there certainly have
been, but there is a tendency to-day to emphasize the weak points in
the system rather than to lay stress on the actual good done, as always
happens in a world bent on reform. The main points of the indictment
brought against the system by current journalism are briefly these:
an educated minority has been created, while only 28.7 per cent. of
the present generation of boys are at school; the ranks of the lower
Government services are overcrowded, and disappointed candidates turn
only too readily to sedition; the Code tends to an abnormal development
of the repetitive faculty; intellect is emphasized at the expense of
character; the whole tendency is to take away from the Indian child
his own historical heritage of thought and feeling. The Government is
now devoting careful attention to the whole problem in its relation
to the general political situation. In January 1911, a new Central
Department of Education was formed, with a representative on the
Governor-General’s Council. Under its auspices a special Conference
of the higher educational officials and others was recently held at
Allahabad to discuss outlines of future policy, with special emphasis
on the burning topics of Primary education and moral teaching.
Lord Hardinge personally visited incognito some of the students’
“Messes”[12] in Calcutta to see the facts with his own eyes. The boon
granted at the Durbar includes an additional expenditure of fifty lacs
of rupees for educational purposes.
Apart from Government there is an expression in Indian circles of
the sense of crisis, and of the need for the extension of popular
education. Though doubtless engineered by a minority, still it is
not without value. The Indian National Congress and the All-Indian
Moslem League have passed resolutions in favour of compulsory Primary
education which show some sense of what education really means. “Its
universal diffusion is a matter of primary importance, for literacy
is better than illiteracy; education is something more than the
mere capacity to read and write. It means a keener enjoyment of
life and a more refined standard of living. It means the greater
moral and economic efficiency of the individual.” In March 1911, Mr
Gokhale introduced his Bill for Compulsory Primary Education to the
Governor-General’s Council, and thereby awakened discussion throughout
the country. Idealistic it certainly is, when the dearth of trained
teachers is considered and the conservatism of the real India taken
into account, but it marks the trend of a certain section of Indian
opinion. There is, moreover, a movement on the part of others for the
establishment of Mohammedan and Hindu Universities, as a reaction from
the secularism of the Government institutions.
It is not the purpose of this book to analyse such criticism but merely
to show its relation to the problem of women’s education. To some
thinkers the most fundamental flaw in the whole system has seemed the
development of one-half of the community far beyond that of the other.
In spite of recent progress the literate percentage is 10.50 for men,
and only 10.4 for women;[13] the removal of this discrepancy might mean
the raising of the whole of social life and go far towards the solution
of other problems. Hence in every district there are ardent advocates
of female education. “A realization of the necessity for an educated
and emancipated womanhood is now no longer confined to those sections
of the community which are directly influenced by Christianity, but
is laying hold of Eastern nations as a whole.”[14] Hardly a Congress
or debating society exists which does not pass resolutions thereon,
hardly an Indian journal which does not emphasize the importance of the
feminine factor. “Upon the condition of women depends the happiness and
prosperity of the homes. Upon their fitness will hinge the evolution
of our character. The schools and universities may make us highly
intellectual, but as for character we must look to the home and the
home alone. Let us frankly say to the Indian girl: ‘Here, child of God,
take this key to the portals of knowledge: it belongs to you by right
of birth. Enter then fearlessly and behold the beauty and the joys it
reveals.’”[15] There is nothing more striking than the emphasis which
is laid in these articles on the sanction found in the Vedic classics
for the education of women and on the modern movement as a renaissance,
and not an overthrow of ancient Aryan ideas. The Mohammedan case is
a more difficult one to prove, but there are writers, such as Ameer
Ali, strongly influenced by the Christian ideas of the West, who
attempt it in spite of the Koran.[16] There is the even bolder spirit
of those who hold that “though all the sacred _mantras_[17] were
against it,” the education of her women is the only solution of India’s
problem. The slow infiltration of the Christian ideal of woman has
had its effect and the influence of missionary educational work has
gained an increased momentum by the change in the Indian attitude.
True, the conservative influence is still there with much of the old
strength, as will be indicated in succeeding chapters, not only amongst
the orthodox but amongst the more advanced. An Indian Reform Journal
can still publish an advertisement of an undergraduate who desires
a wife of eleven years, educated in Hindi and domestic matters. Such
are the strange anomalies and contradictions of a country which defies
generalizations. There is, however, abundant evidence to show that
we have arrived at a highly critical period, in which the whole may
be sacrificed to a part, in which, through lack of considering the
question in all its bearings, the mistakes from which the education of
men in India has not been wholly free may be repeated and intensified
in the case of the women, and in which the opportunity of developing a
national system in line with modern educational science may be lost.
The present volume is an attempt to sift this evidence in the different
localities visited, and to give, in so far as is possible to a writer
who has no expert knowledge of Indian problems, an accurate description
of the conditions of girls’ education, and of the three contributing
factors, the Government, the missionary, and spontaneous Indian
effort. Where other localities have been treated the intention has
been to show that the same factors and, to a certain extent, the same
problems prevail. The survey is in no sense exhaustive; the State of
Bhopal, which doubtless presents many interesting features, is not
included. The great districts of South India and the Madras Presidency,
where women’s education is well developed, have unfortunately had
to be omitted, and any generalization made must be taken with this
reserve. The geographical division has been adopted, not because
the same problems do not to a certain extent repeat themselves but
because of the varying environment in which they are cast through
diverse religious and social influences. A brief historical survey
is included to indicate the general situation as well as certain
outstanding features which are present throughout the whole country. No
constructive theory is offered, but the need of such in relation to the
moving life of the East and the impact of Christianity upon it is made
apparent.
The moral and religious problem lies at the basis of all education and
is at the present moment that most acutely felt in India. A system
perfected in every technical detail and embracing the whole country
would prove a disintegrating and disastrous force if it lacked the
religious basis for the training of character. Yet its provision
through the highest revelation of religion is fraught with immense
difficulty in a country of diverse and conflicting faiths. A secular
policy for the education of boys has already produced its fruits,
and may serve as a warning in the new feminine problem. In a final
chapter this question is touched upon in its relation to the ultimate
Christianization of Indian thought and life.
II
HISTORICAL SURVEY
“We have now before us in that vast congeries of people we call India,
a long slow march in uneven stages through all the centuries from the
fifth to the twentieth.”
The history of the education of women in India must keep in view the
three conflicting ideals of womanhood which have dominated Indian
society at different epochs. These are the Vedic, the Moslem, and
the Christian or Western. While our main concern is with the last, a
brief glance into the early ages is necessary for a full comprehension
of the conflicting currents found in the modern epoch. In the early
Vedic times women apparently enjoyed an equal status with men. There
was no child-marriage, no seclusion in the zenana, no _sati_, no
prohibition of the re-marriage of widows. Ladies of culture composed
hymns and performed sacrifices as men did. Some even remained
unmarried and had their share of the paternal property. There are
many passages in the Brāhmanas which show the high esteem in which
women were held. Gārgā Vāchaknavi, a learned lady, is mentioned as
taking active part in a great assembly of learned men summoned by
Janaka, King of the Videhas, to decide which of them would prove the
wisest. There is a celebrated conversation between Yajnavalkya and his
learned wife Maitreyi on the possible comprehension of the infinite
by the finite.[18] “One poem, the Bhagwan Manu, prescribes a positive
punishment for parents who keep away from school their boys after five
and their girls after ten years of their respective ages.”[19] It would
appear, in fact, that girls had some share in whatever education was
available.
From about the fifth century +B.C.+ in successive Hindu codes
we find limiting laws, many of which were embodied about +A.D.+
200 in the Code of Manu. Their stringency is only weakened by a
general recommendation that men “who seek their own welfare should
always honour women on holidays and festivals with gifts of ornaments,
clothes, and dainty food.” The possibility of education was closed by
the exclusion of girls from the initiatory caste rites, which served as
a prelude to the education of boys.
“The nuptial ceremony is stated to be the Vedic sacrament for women and
to be equal to the initiation, serving the husband equivalent to the
residence in the house of the teacher, and the household duties the
same as the daily worship of the sacred fire.”[20]
“For women no sacramental rite is performed with sacred texts, thus the
law is settled; women who are destitute of strength and destitute of
the knowledge of Vedic texts are as impure as falsehood itself, that is
a fixed rule.”[21]
Fixed rules and settled laws do not always remain so where women are
concerned, and there is considerable evidence that the women of the
upper classes could often read and write, and, though the perusal of
the sacred literature was denied, they certainly read and memorized
the great popular epics, the Rāmāyana and the Mahābharāta, which
embody many Indian traditions and ideals. In the Ajanta caves, which
cover a period from the second to the seventh century +A.D.+,
women are represented as engaged in study with books of palm leaves.
Elsewhere they are referred to as musicians and artists. In the
dramas of Kālidāsa about the fifth century the inevitable jest at the
expense of learned women is current coin. The comic character says
he must always laugh when he hears a woman read Sanskrit or a man
sing a song.[22] Amongst the Rajputs, where status was determined by
courage not literacy, the women held a high position. In the early days
of the nineteenth century the records of these early periods were
carefully searched by Indian enthusiasts to produce evidence of former
literary achievements as an argument for the introduction of Western
education. A lecture by Pyari Chand Mittra, a Government schoolmaster,
offers an interesting list headed by the famous Lilavati, after whom a
mathematical treatise of the ninth century is named. Either she was the
authoress thereof,[23] or it was specially composed for her perusal.
“Besides Lilavati there were many females of literary and scientific
attainments. The Tamils boast of having possessed four female
philosophers: viz. Avyar and her three sisters. Avyar was the daughter
of one Bhaguvan, a Brahman, and outshone all her brothers and sisters
in learning. ‘She was contemporary with Kumbur, the author of the
Tamil Rāmāyana, and she employed her eloquent pen on various subjects,
such as astronomy, medicine, and geography; her works of the latter
description are much admired. Avyar remained a virgin all her life, and
died much admired for her talents in poetry, arts, and sciences.’ I am
given to understand by an intelligent Hindu gentleman, that he knew of
one Hātta Vidyalancar, a female scholar at Benares, who was versed in
Smriti[24] and Nyaya. We also hear of the literary proficiency of the
wives of Kālidāsa and Kornut, Raja of Khona, the latter was conversant
with astronomy and is well known by the sayings she has left behind;
of Gargu, the wife of Yagnya Valkya, who is said to have possessed a
good knowledge of Yog[25] Shastra.”[26]
With the Moslem conquests came the _parda_ system with its
withering influence. Devised by Mohammed, according to modern Moslem
historians, for the protection of women in wild and lawless times, it
has inculcated distrust of their character and capacities. In spite
of the fact that many Indian women to-day look upon the _parda_
as a sign of prestige and of their value in their husbands’ eyes, the
thoughtful observer must reckon it, in its ultimate social influence,
as a symbol of distrust. “A man both night and day must keep his wife
so much in subjection that she by no means be mistress of her own
actions; if the wife have her own free-will, notwithstanding she be
sprung of a superior caste, she will yet behave amiss” runs a later
Hindu code, coupling this statement with minute regulations as to
doors and windows. Isolated Indian women, both Hindu, and Moslem are
prominent in later times, but they by no means represent the common
life. Their chronicle is written because in some way or other they
have been exceptional. In the thirteenth century it is said of Razia
Begum, the only woman ruler in her own right of Moslem India, that the
severest scrutiny of her actions could reveal no fault save that she
was a woman.[27]
The Calcutta School Society ascertained in 1818 that no provision
of any kind existed for the education of women, and an attempted
estimate of their general literacy places the figure at one in a
hundred thousand. The old ideal had so utterly vanished, that it
needed the touch of Western civilization to revive even the conception
of its former existence. This existence, shadowy and faint though it
may appear in our eyes, is an enormous asset to the new movement in
a country where everything Aryan and Vedic counts for much in the
endeavour to create a national consciousness.
The modern epoch is thus in part a Renaissance, in part the
introduction once more of the ideal of another faith. It will occupy
our attention in detail and falls naturally into three periods. The
first dates from 1819, when the Baptist Mission in Calcutta started its
first school for girls[28] till 1854, during which time the influence
was almost entirely that of the women missionaries; the second, from
the famous Educational Despatch of 1854 till 1884, is characterized by
the Government policy of “grants-in-aid” to voluntary associations,
by the first tentative beginnings of direct Government effort, and by
the expansion of Secondary education under missionary auspices; in the
modern period dating from the presentation of the report of Sir William
Hunter’s Commission in 1884, the Government share in girls’ education
is much more direct, the spontaneous Indian element enters more
strongly, and for the first time the question of a differentiation in
the curriculum arises.
The first period is essentially the day of small things. The Danish
missionaries of the eighteenth century had included girls in their
schools but there is little record of their doings, and the schools
organized by Miss Cook in Calcutta (1821) and Mrs Wilson in Bombay
(1829) were in every sense pioneer work. Elsewhere is to be found
the full story of opposition, of fluctuating desire, of tactful
consideration and of careful enlistment of enlightened Hindu men, who
had been touched by Dr Duff’s educational work, as advocates of the
cause. The same discrepancy between theory and practice which marks
the advocacy of some of the Indian social reformers of to-day existed
then, and the movement was by no means an extensive one. By 1840, Miss
Cook (now Mrs Wilson) records about 500 girls at school in Bengal of
whom half were in her own school. Dr Duff in outlining a missionary and
educational policy for India, points to the need of a great development
of the education of men before that of women could possibly follow.
“The education” of the latter “on any great national scale must, from
the very nature of their position, which those only who have been in
India can at all adequately comprehend, follow in the wake of the
enlightened education” of the former.[29] Events have justified this
prediction and in many senses it is true that the present state of
women’s education in India corresponds to that of the men in 1854.
The education given by the women missionaries consisted of such mere
rudiments as were possible under the conditions and for the short
period during which their pupils were available. Simple instruction
in the Scriptures was also given. Madras and other centres followed
slowly on the same lines. The work was in part linked with the ordinary
mission work of the Churches and in part carried on through separate
women’s societies founded for the purpose in Germany and in Scotland.
At first the Government attitude was distinctly negative, except for
the cordial personal assistance given by Lady Hastings to Miss Cook,
and the more nominal support of her successor Lady Amherst. In 1849,
however, Lord Dalhousie informed the Bengal Council of Education that
henceforth its functions were to include female education, and the
Bethune School which had been privately founded by a legal member of
Council, the Hon. Drinkwater Bethune, was brought under the control of
the Government. In the Bombay Presidency things developed more rapidly
and the Parsi influence asserted itself in independent effort. The
first municipal schools for girls were probably started in 1850 at
Ahmedabad. In 1852 a second stage of missionary education was reached
by the establishment in Calcutta of a Normal School for the training
of Christian female teachers under the auspices of the society known
later as the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission. The special method
adapted to Indian conditions was not discovered till 1854, when the
system of zenana-visiting, combined with educational instruction, was
inaugurated in Calcutta by the Scottish Mission with the help of a
clever Eurasian lady, Miss Toogood.
By the great educational charter of 1854, the Government adopted the
policy of fostering and encouraging private effort by a system of
grants-in-aid to all institutions which could comply with certain
stipulations as to buildings, number of teachers, text-books and type
of instruction given. Religious instruction might be given but did
not come within the purview of the Government officials. Departments
of Public Instruction were formed, Inspectors appointed, and the well
known scheme of examinations inaugurated. It is stated in the Despatch
that female education shall be given “frank and cordial support.” “The
importance of female education in India cannot be over-rated, and we
have observed with pleasure the evidence which is now afforded of an
increased desire on the part of many of the natives of India to give
a good education to their daughters. By these means a far greater
proportional impulse is imparted to the educational and moral tone of
the people than by the education of men.” In the main the Government
adhered to this principle, yet considered it prudent to withhold its
hand from direct interference with so delicate a matter. Whereas,
in order to improve the school system as a whole, Government erected
boys’ schools in many places, to serve as models in management and
efficiency, very few girls’ schools were founded. The Circular order of
1868, issued under Lord Lawrence, states that “unless female schools
are really and materially supported by voluntary aid, they had better
not be established at all.” In pursuance of this policy the Bengal
Administration Report for 1881 notes only two Government Primary
schools for girls, 719 aided, and 107 unaided voluntary schools. The
women’s missionary agencies in Calcutta were drawing a monthly grant
of two thousand rupees for educational work. An Inspectress[30] was
at this time in the service of the local education authority for
the inspection of _parda_ schools. Her note that “every day
brings signs that the demand for female education in Bengal is slowly
advancing and extending” marks the rising tide. Two exceptions may be
noted to this policy; the exceptional activity in the district of the
North Western Provinces (as they were then called) round Agra, and
the movement of the Central Government under the influence of Miss
Carpenter.
The Agra experiment was, however, the response of Government to
spontaneous Indian effort, and as the work of the Hindu pioneer who
was its originator is little known, the following account may be
quoted.[31]
“Even in our Asiatic Provinces, before the breaking out of the
troubles, a desire had sprung up among the natives to extend the
blessings of education to women. Gopal Singh, a Hindu gentleman,
holding under Government the post of district Inspector of native
schools, had succeeded, through his own exertions, in establishing
upwards of two hundred seminaries for young ladies in the Province of
Agra which were attended by 3800 girls of the best families. By many of
our countrymen in India, this is regarded rather as a social revolution
than as an educational movement. As a rule, the natives look with
suspicion on everything which comes from a foreigner, for which reason
the great efforts made by the English have not produced corresponding
results. ‘The establishment of a little school,’ observes the Pandit,
‘which my own daughters and those of my immediate friends and relations
attended at first like a charm, dispelled in a great measure the
prejudices of my neighbours, and induced many to send their girls also.
This example and my constant persuasion and reasoning have at last
succeeded in inducing many respectable inhabitants of other villages to
yield.’ And so the movement bids fair to become national. The pupils
are nearly all Hindus belonging to the more respectable classes. The
teachers are all men.”
“‘Want of female teachers,’ says Gopal Singh, ‘was one great obstacle
in the way; but the guardians of the girls composing the respective
schools pointed out men of an approved character, in whom they have
full confidence, and I have appointed such persons only as teachers;
the result is very satisfactory.’”[32] The Government official note
on the experiment is that the lack of the humanizing influence of
trained school mistresses, and the impossibility of supervising the
elderly Pandits were the real causes of the failure of the schools and
not the Mutiny, which hindered the general development of education
in the province but little. Accordingly the attempt was renewed in
1858 by one of the masters of the Agra College, a Jat[33] of good
family, in co-operation with Government. He succeeded in securing
“school mistresses of high-caste and relatives of rich and influential
zemindars,”[34] and by 1863, when he was appointed special Inspector
of female schools, their number had increased to 144. The curriculum
seems to have been somewhat different from that of the boys’ schools,
and the Pandit notes with satisfaction: “Girls are possessed of better
memories and less selfishness than boys.” The success and extent of
the movement seems however to have been due to the personal influence
of this one man, and with the passing of his generation the schools
degenerated in type. The rapid extension of this work under Government
into other districts necessitated the employment once more of men
teachers. Four female Normal schools were established which appear to
have been such only in name. Two British Inspectresses were appointed
whose reports indicate the same problems as those of a more modern
date. “The villagers are not opposed to the schools but they value them
chiefly as a means of support for Brahmans and relatives.”[35] They
could not believe that the Government were in earnest on the subject,
when the girls’ school was accommodated in a place not more attractive
than a cow-shed and the boys’ in a handsome building. In 1876, a
drastic reduction of 212 schools took place and the question of female
education dropped into abeyance for a period. The official comment
thereon was that the State had incurred much expense in founding and
maintaining these schools and that the results had been painfully
disappointing. Historically, the experiment indicates the danger
of extending girls’ schools beyond the desire of the community and
beyond the possibility of constant supervision on the part of British
Inspectresses. The solution of the ever-present problem of a supply
of teachers was only a temporary one, and the failure of the Normal
schools was attributed largely to the lack of a British superintendent.
The influence exerted for the education of women in India by Mary
Carpenter, is a curious episode in a life whose main work in England
was to lead the way to a national system of moral rescue and preventive
discipline for juvenile criminals. During the last decade of her
life (1867-1877), she visited India four times, and by her personal
influence and enthusiasm she greatly affected the Government attitude
and turned the rising conviction of the Indian Theistic movements into
the right channels. Her position at home secured her a direct hearing
in Government circles and the rapidity with which she adapted her
pre-conceived notion of taking some Indian girls home for training
to the wiser one of female Normal schools in India, proved once more
her extraordinary power of vision in social problems. Herself of an
intensely religious temperament, the revolt from the crudity of much of
the orthodox religious teaching of the time led her sympathies largely
in the direction of Unitarianism, and believing, like Mountstewart
Elphinstone and many other Christian Indian statesmen of the period,
that secular education for India was ultimately the more religious
policy, she threw her whole influence into the establishment of schools
which would not in any way interfere with the religious beliefs of the
people. Yet her attitude to the mission schools was warmly sympathetic
and she notes her indebtedness to the accumulated experience there.[36]
Some further provision, however, seemed necessary in the case of
girls, as the boys of the country had larger opportunities and the
social system was in danger of one-sided development.[37] Her whole
energy went towards the foundation of female Normal schools and in 1867
she secured a grant from the Central Government of £1500 per annum
for five years for the establishment of these schools in Bombay and
Ahmedabad on condition that an equal amount was provided by the native
community. This stipulation was in accord with the previous policy that
Government action should not in so delicate a matter be in advance of
native opinion. Mr Dadabhai Nauraji, in a letter to the Secretary of
State for India, following on a memorial from Indians in London, gives
a general survey of the income derived from the native endowments for
female education in different parts of India at this time.
Bombay Rupees 40,000
Punjāb ” 4,321
Madras ” 234
Bengal ” 132
North Western Provinces ” ..
It will thus be seen that a certain response existed even if only
amongst a few advanced sections of the population. Further direct
contributions were not immediately forthcoming, but after various
memorials a Government grant of £1200 for five years to each of the
capitals of the three Presidencies was ultimately given without this
special stipulation. Miss Carpenter’s scheme for the Normal schools
laid special emphasis on the need of experienced English supervision
and instruction as the only means whereby the proper training could
be secured and the dignity of the teaching profession for women
raised. The failure of the so-called Normal schools in the North
Western Provinces and the success of the mission training schools in
Calcutta proves the wisdom of this policy. The new schools passed
through various vicissitudes, but ultimately, Miss Carpenter had the
pleasure of seeing substantial fruit of her labours at Ahmedabad, Poona
and Madras. Much of the interest she had aroused amongst the Indian
community was doubtless sporadic, and many of the schools started
were short-lived, but in the main her influence on the development
of women’s education in India has counted as a dominant factor in
the Government policy, in the establishment of the National Indian
Association and in the permanence of certain institutions.
The activity of Christian missions during this period seems
extraordinary, when the difficulties which hampered Government
efforts are considered. Moreover, all their educational work was
handicapped, so far as numbers were concerned, by the frank and open
avowal of the desire to win their pupils ultimately for Christianity.
The missionaries had, however, at their command the one essential
asset--Western women who were willing to give themselves heart and
soul to the work. Eight new women’s societies, both British and
American, entered India between 1860 and 1870, and educational work
both in zenanas and in schools was their most effective means of
contact with the people. Their pupils in the Primary stages were
drawn both from the non-Christian population and from the orphans and
converts in connection with the missions. As it was possible to retain
the Christian girls, and even some of the others for longer than the
usual period, owing to the exclusion of men teachers from the mission
schools, a Secondary system on identical lines with that for boys began
to be slowly built up.
The Inspectress in the North Western Provinces notes that almost
the only really prosperous Middle girls’ schools are those in large
stations superintended by ladies of the missionary societies.[38]
Miss Carpenter’s testimony to the schools in Madras and Calcutta is
in similar terms. Where village schools were attempted they seem to
have suffered from lack of constant supervision. In 1870, the Isabella
Thoburn School, Lucknow, was founded, and in 1880, the Sarah Tucker
School, in Palamcottah. In 1881, the Free Church Mission School in
Calcutta had the satisfaction of passing a successful candidate for
the First Arts examination. This girl, and a pupil from the Bethune
School who passed in the same year, were the first in all India[39] to
accomplish this feat.
The third period, from 1884 to the present date, is marked by a
definite change in the attitude of Government. The Educational
Commission of 1882 under Sir William Hunter revealed many abuses which
had grown up in connection with the system in vogue for boys, and also
showed how little had really been done for girls. The recommendation
is that girls’ schools should now receive “special encouragement and
liberality.” The further recommendation of the Educational Commission
of 1900 is that girls’ schools should receive liberal grants and that
the fees should be less rigidly enforced. The standards of instruction
in the Primary schools should be different and have special reference
to the requirements of home life and to the occupations open to women.
This policy, emphatically reiterated in the Despatch of 1904, has
worked out differently in the different provinces, as is indicated
elsewhere. Its main features in the last two decades may be said to be
the appointment from home of experienced educators as Inspectresses of
Schools in the Indian Educational Service, the establishment of model
schools for girls like those formerly created for boys, in districts
where the aided schools had not reached the required standard or
did not satisfy the wants of the neighbourhood, and a considerably
increased financial outlay both in grants and direct educational work.
In 1907 the total expenditure amounted to over forty-four lakhs.
There is no desire in any way to supersede the aided schools, on the
contrary, it is recognized that the more their work is extended, so
long as it is really efficient, the better for a country which like
many others groans under its taxation, and where also the limit of
desire for female education is still easily reached. To efficiency and
adequate supply, the Government directs its attention. The proportion
of the schools directly managed by the Public Authority to private or
aided schools may be seen in the accompanying table, being slightly
over 20.41 per cent. of the whole.
Of the aided schools there is no separate official classification
to show what proportion are managed by Indian committees, and what
by missionary agencies.[40] Where possible this has been indicated
from local information in the chapters on the separate provinces. The
Indian spontaneous element has become however much stronger during this
modern period, not only in Bombay, where it has grown steadily since
1847, but also in connection with the various Samājes in the Punjāb,
United Provinces and Bengal. The orthodox Hindu element is seen in the
system of the Mahakali Pathshalas[41] started in Bengal in 1893, while
probably the most remarkable feature in the Indian movement is the
establishment of girls’ schools under committees of Indian gentlemen
representing different faiths. This indigenous movement is due in part
to a desire to provide a good education without direct interference
with the religion of the pupils, and in part to a reaction from the
extreme secularism and the Westernizing influences of the Government
schools.
+MANAGEMENT OF GIRLS’ SCHOOLS+[42]
+------------+---------------------------+-----------------+------+
| |+UNDER PUBLIC MANAGEMENT.+ | +UNDER PRIVATE+ | |
| | | +MANAGEMENT.+ | |
+------------+-------+----------+--------+--------+--------+Total.|
| |Govern-| Municipal| Native | Aided. |Unaided.| |
| | ment. | Board. | States.| | | |
+------------+-------+----------+--------+--------+--------+------+
|Training | | | | | | |
| Schools | 12 | 2 | 1 | 44 | 4 | 63|
|High | 7 | -- | -- | 98 | 7 | 112|
|Middle | | | | | | |
| English | 3 | 1 | 2 | 179 | 6 | 191|
|Middle | | | | | | |
| Vernacular| 56 | 10 | 185 | 11 | -- | 262|
|Primaries | 365 | 1,274 | 250 | 7,041 | 1,053 | 9,983|
+------------+----- +----------+--------+--------+--------+------+
|Total | 443 | 1,287 | 438 | 7,373 | 1,070 |10,611|
+------------+-------+----------+--------+--------+--------+------+
+GIRLS UNDER INSTRUCTION CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO RACE OR CREED+[43]
+-----------+------+------+-------+------+-----+------+-----+-------+
| |Euro- |Native|Hindus.|Moham-|Par- |Buddh-| Oth-| |
| |pean. Chris-| |medans. sis.|ists. | ers.|Total. |
| | tians.| | | | | | |
+-----------+------+------+-------+------+-----+------+-----+-------+
|+SECONDARY | | | | | | | | |
| SCHOOLS+ | | | | | | | | |
| (High and | | | | | | | | |
| Middle | | | | | | | | |
| English) |11,502|10,725| 4,316| 140|1,402| 757| 552| 29,394|
| | | | | | | | | |
|+MIDDLE | | | | | | | | |
|SCHOOLS+ | | | | | | | | |
|(Verna- | | | | | | | | |
| cular) | 11| 6,896| 17,561| 1,104| 5| 6,246| 20| 31,843|
| | | | | | | | | |
|+PRIMARY | | | | | | | | |
| SCHOOLS+ | | | | | | | | |
|(For Boys | | | | | | | | |
|and Girls) | 564|22,776|133,341|27,832| 820|31,379|2,431|219,143|
| | | | | | | | | |
|(For Girls | | | | | | | | |
| only) | 1,547|16,063|214,092|46,876|3,626|10,382|1,519|294,105|
| | | | | | | | | |
|+TRAINING | | | | | | | | |
| SCHOOLS+ | 173| 844| 292| 70| --| 32| 9| 1,420|
+-----------+------+------+-------+------+-----+------+-----+-------+
Missionary work in education during the modern period is marked by
continued expansion. The former success of mission agencies in taking a
proportion of their pupils beyond the elementary stages is redoubled.
Of the forty three High Schools for Indian girls, only five in 1907
were under Government management. “The bulk of female Secondary
education is provided by missionaries.”[44] A glance at the religious
classification table will show that out of some 17,000 Indian girls in
the High and Middle Schools more than 10,000 are Indian Christians,
while a large proportion of non-Christian pupils are also studying in
mission schools and colleges. The Christian Primary schools in the
villages have also greatly improved in type through the introduction in
some places of modern educational methods under the careful and regular
supervision of trained English managers.
As we survey the situation as a whole, certain problems stand out as
common to all India and as indicating how critical is the present
period in relation to the ultimate development of her women. These
are the extension of Primary education, the retaining of pupils in
the higher stages, the nationalizing of the curriculum, the supply of
teachers, and finally the place of the religious element in education.
In spite of the recent rapid increase and the steady progress of the
last twenty years, the percentage of girls of school age attending
school is only 4.6,[45] and though the next Quinquennial Returns will
probably show a marked increase, the desire for education has still in
many places to be created. The proportion of girls in the Secondary
stages is not shown by the number of those studying in High and Middle
English schools,[46] as many of these are in the Primary classes.
Only 1208 girls were actually in the High School departments in 1907.
In that year 178 girls passed the Matriculation examination.[47]
This small proportion indicates, apart from the social and religious
customs which cause it, a lack of balance in the whole system. Are the
circumstances under which higher education is given not such as commend
themselves to the Indian mind? Or is the course of studies pursued not
of sufficiently practical and educational value to prove attractive
to Indian women? Is there any foundation for the popular belief that
the physique of Indian girls is not strong enough for a prolonged
school course? These questions underlie much of the discussion in the
following chapters.
[Illustration: Government Examination of Girls, Calcutta]
Two causes are apparently at work. In India as a whole 42% of the girl
pupils are studying in boys’ schools. These naturally never proceed
beyond the Primary stage, as co-education is not, except in the hill
districts, in accordance with Indian ideas. There seems therefore a
great need for increasing the number of Primary schools for girls only,
whence the transition to the higher stages would be easy. In some
districts there is practically an unlimited field for expansion in this
way. Another cause may possibly be the difficulty of access to really
first-class schools for non-Christian girls. The missionary societies
which have done so much for the higher education of boys have, with
certain exceptions, concentrated their attention on the provision of
excellent boarding-schools for the girls of the Christian community
rather than aiming at developing a parallel system for girls which
would attract the non-Christian element, as it has on the men’s side.
The new Middle and High schools which are springing up under Government
and Indian auspices are an attempt to meet this need, but there is
undoubtedly room for further development.
The problem of the curriculum is a very subtle one. In the early days
of the reform of girls’ education in Great Britain, about 1862,[48]
the greatest need seemed to be the adoption of an adequate test of
knowledge, and that test one already recognized, so that there might
seem to be no lower requirement to suit the supposed lower capacity
of the feminine mind. The same principle worked in the early days of
girls’ education in India and preparation for Matriculation[49] seemed
the only means by which the standard could be raised. Whereas in Great
Britain the leading girls’ High schools have developed a flexibility
and variety of curriculum wherein many a “womanly woman” has found
her training, even if she did not prefer to seek her education in one
of the numerous excellent private schools, the girls’ curriculum for
Indian girls has been stereotyped on masculine lines. If we assume
that education should prepare for future life, it seems clearly wrong
that the preparation for spheres so totally different as those of
Indian men and women should be identical. A highly trained missionary
educator sums up the problem of the Secondary school as follows:--“In
spite of the fact that less than 1% go on to college, the whole plan
of school education is made to lead up to Matriculation and instead
of completing a school course, the aim is to prepare for a college
course that is never entered upon.” The Inspectress in Bombay writes
in this connection:--“Such a course is harmful, and girls leave
these schools with weakened physique and very little in the way of
real culture to compensate for it.” An Inspectress from Madras also
writes:--“The examination shadow is to be seen in every room from
the third form upwards, and it is only with the greatest difficulty
that sufficient time can be snatched for the teaching of a little
recitation, drawing and drill, in view of the annual inspection.” In
the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay a departmental examination is
offered as alternative to Matriculation for girls, and in this such
subjects as botany, hygiene, drawing, dress-making, cooking, appear
as substitutes for algebra and geometry, but the schools prefer to
send up their girls for Matriculation. The further question arises
not only of the differentiation of the girls’ curriculum from that of
the boys’ but also from that of Western girls. How is Indian female
education to be brought into close touch with Indian environment? The
spontaneous Indian movement is in part an attempt to meet this problem,
while on the other hand it inclines to view as a racial affront any
suggestion to adapt the curriculum to the special needs of girls.
The Government Inspectresses are closely considering the matter and
are eager to welcome any constructive policy which will lessen the
danger of creating the “female Babu.” Several missionaries are working
hard against the denationalizing tendencies which in many cases were
introduced before the reformed educational methods prevailed in the
West. A conference of English educators and Indian missionaries was
recently held in London to discuss Indian curricula and the relation
of the educational problems of the East and West. It is true that the
opinion of Indian missionaries is not yet unanimous on the need of
any alteration, and as the bulk of Secondary education is in their
hands their co-operation is essential. There is however good hope of
a sound constructive theory being ultimately produced if women of
sufficient courage, originality and ability can be found to plough for
a while a lonely furrow. The curricula for the Primary schools is a
different question. Some educators hold it to be the saner policy to
accept the fact that the majority of the girls will only be at school
for four years, and to adapt the whole course to this limitation. A
correspondent of the Education Commission of the World Missionary
Conference 1910, writes:--“Under such circumstances, therefore, the aim
should be directed towards a sound elementary education in reading,
writing and arithmetic, a knowledge of domestic economy and hygiene,
and the formation of a strong moral character. The aim, that is, must
be determined by the opportunities offered for education. It is better
to reach a lower aim than to try for a higher aim and fail altogether.
I believe the mistake that is made in regard to the education of Hindu
girls is in attempting to do the impossible. There are many subjects
which it is extremely desirable to teach, but the limited time during
which the girls are teachable makes it imperative to concentrate on
what is attainable. We should aim, therefore, at demonstrating to
the people that the girls who have been to school become superior
housewives and mothers; that what they learn is of real value to them
in the home; and above all, that their moral character is improved and
strengthened.”[50] The Primary curriculum has already been remodelled
to a certain extent. In Bengal, Eastern Bengal, and the United
Provinces separate schemes have been issued. In the two former the
courses follow the method of the Kindergarten in the lower classes, and
include much nature study, also hygiene, domestic economy and sewing.
In the United Provinces and Bombay the reading-books in use for girls
are different. These reading-books are often the only printed matter
which a village girl may ever possess, and they are intended to impart
a large amount of useful information. A reformed curriculum in the
hands of untrained teachers becomes, however, a dead letter, perhaps
hardly less injurious than the mere literacy of former days, and thus
the interdependence of the various educational problems is once again
illustrated. Is it advisable to increase the number of Primary schools,
and to adapt their curriculum without an adequate supply of trained
teachers?
The problem of the teacher can be traced since the first beginnings in
1820, recurring with the same baffling insistency. The modern situation
shows little advance, except that the absolute necessity of having
all teachers to some extent trained is gradually being recognized,
and grants are influenced by the degree in which this ideal is kept
in view. The sources of supply for teachers in Indian schools of all
grades are women from English-speaking countries, Anglo-Indians or
“country born” English girls from the Hill schools, members of the
Brāhma and Ārya Samāj, Indian Christians, Parsis, married women of
some education from the Hindu non-Brahman community and lastly “women
who have learnt to read and write at home.” This last class is still
astonishingly prevalent. Teachers from other sources are sometimes
procured but, except in the case of married women, they are few
in number. There are also a good many elderly pandits teaching in
village schools. The trouble is that the demand enormously exceeds the
supply. Here is a dilemma familiar to missions. A village school has
no teacher; there is at hand a mission pupil, who has finished her
Vernacular Middle Examination, but has not been trained; too often it
ends in the appointment of the girl to the school, as the committee
knows that the interval before she marries will be only too brief. This
illustration applies throughout the mission field. The difficulties,
moreover, attending proper chaperonage of village mistresses are
enormous. The employment of widows, where such are forthcoming, is
subject to the same difficulty, but ultimately they may with proper
training and care become a main source of supply. The hopes which early
theorists have built upon the widows of India are to a certain extent
already justified and may still be confidently cherished. As regards
the opportunities for training, a special circular, issued by the
Central Government, in 1901, has provided a needed stimulus to both
official and private effort. It is difficult to distinguish absolutely
between Secondary and Primary training,[51] as some institutions have
a few students doing more advanced work than the others. On the whole
there is a distinct lack of provision for the separate Secondary
training of women teachers; very few women graduates have taken it and
the creation of the opportunity might create the demand. The students
in training are mostly Anglo-Indian. The provision for Primary training
is more adequate, though there is still in some instances a lack of
that co-operation between missionary societies which would lead to more
efficient work. The details of management and religious classification
of pupils are given on pages 48 and 49. The great difficulty in all
the Primary training work is the lack of preliminary knowledge; in some
of the institutes for widows, indeed, this is a long forgotten minimum.
The influence of the previous curriculum upon those who pass on to the
proper Vernacular Course after the Middle Examination is also felt. An
experienced teacher comments:--“The shadow of prescribed examination
which hangs over the school course before training tends to leave the
girls quite unacquainted with the newer subjects, and they are not
able to acquire these during their training course with sufficient
thoroughness to teach them satisfactorily afterwards.”
The inter-relation of these problems needs to be borne in mind
throughout. It seems in many ways as if the whole reform in women’s
education in India must begin from above downwards, namely in the High
School and College stages combined with Secondary training, till the
impulse imparted thence is felt throughout every grade. This subject is
specially treated in the chapter on the University Education of women.
Reform further can only come through closer co-operation, the need and
opportunity for this will be apparent in the course of our study of
conditions in the different provinces.
III
BURMA
“Thou son of _dewas_; to hear and see much in order to acquire
knowledge; to study all science that leads not to sin; to make use of
proper language; to study the Law in order to acquire a knowledge of
propriety of behaviour; these are blessed things, _Dewa_, mark
them well.”
“Thou son of _dewas_; to be patient and endure suffering; to
rejoice in edifying discourse; to visit the holy men when occasion
serves; to converse on religious subjects; these are blessed things,
_Dewa_, mark them well.”
The _Mingala-thut_. Buddhist Beatitudes.
(Burma--Sir George Scott).
In Burma the ancient ideal of Indian womanhood may still be seen in
a somewhat purified form. The Buddhist faith which gives a touch
of gentleness to every relation of life, has accentuated its best
features and swept away many of the laws which hindered its development
elsewhere. There is thus very little in the position of women in Burma
at which even the most pronounced feminist could cavil. The woman
is, if anything, the predominant partner and yet few realize that
she rules. Gay, blythe and débonnaire, the sunniest spot in a sunny
scene, her rainbow-tinted tamein relieved by a short white jacket, a
coloured scarf across her shoulder, and fresh flowers clustering in
her dark lustrous hair, the Burmese woman is ready any day for any
problem of life you may choose to propound. She is the bargainer,
trader and financier of the family, and as such her legal and monetary
position after marriage is well assured. Marriage is here an affair
of the heart, and it is entered upon when young life flows strong in
the later teens. A woman may not marry without her parents’ consent
before the age of twenty, but then if marriage is her wish, why should
the parents not consent? Why should anyone object to anything which
promises to fulfil the heart’s desire of another. So runs a contented
“laissez faire” policy. And life is not measured in terms of money by
the Burmese. If education has a chance anywhere of being regarded not
as a means of livelihood but as a leading forth of the mind to higher
and nobler thoughts, it is here in Burma, in consequence of the mental
characteristics of the people. Work beyond what is needed for the bare
necessaries of life seems unnatural, and there is no perpetually rising
standard of comfort, nor passion for accumulation to bind the Burmese
to an unceasing wheel of toil. He pauses to be glad and to rejoice.
The art of rejoicing is one of the chief arts of Burma, and there is
perhaps no country in the world where it is carried to such a pitch of
perfection. No generalization can be made about any people unless long
years are spent in their midst, but the first impressions made by the
Burmese on a stranger generally confirm the writers who characterize
them as modern hedonists. There are books which show another side of
the picture, and many sad facts (notably the looseness of the marriage
tie[52]) bear them out, but leaving these aside, and turning to our
particular problem, we find that the girls’ schools of Burma are glad
and happy places. There is an atmosphere of buoyancy and quiet zest in
work which strikes the visitor at once, and this testimony is amply
borne out by the teachers.
[Illustration: Girls at St Luke’s Mission, Toungoo, Burma]
It must, however, be remembered that not all girls in school in Burma
are Burmese. A large proportion of them are drawn from the Karens, who
occupy the tracts of hill country on the frontier of Lower Burma, in
Tenasserim, and in the Delta of the Irawadi. The gradual civilization
and raising of these tribes to the standard of the Burmese in general,
is on all sides attributed to the excellent work of the missionaries,
(the American Baptists and the Anglicans). Where Christianity comes its
special social results follow. There is a Chinese community numbering
over 40,000 and a strong Mohammedan section, not to speak of Hindu
immigrants from South India, Tamils and Telugus, while the variety of
the educational problem may be seen in the official enumeration of
the other races under instruction: “Karens, Talaings, Chins, Shans,
Danus and Inthas, Chinese, Indians, Palaungs and Taungthus.”
The interior of Burma is inhabited by about fifty-seven different
tribes speaking forty different languages. Feminine education however
is not as yet a matter of importance amongst the hill tribes; apart
from the Anglo-Indian (Eurasian) schools, which lie beyond the province
of this book, it affects mainly the Burmese, Karen, Chinese and
Mohammedan communities.
As regards general literacy, Burma ranks high in the provinces of the
Empire; the proportion of girls at school to girls of school-going age
was 9.6% in 1910,[53] as compared with 4% in 1907 in British India as
a whole. This distinction is however mainly in the Primary stages, for
the women graduates of Burma can so far be numbered on one’s fingers.
It is also entirely confined to those areas which have come into touch
with modern civilization. There are large tracts of hill country where
the women are totally uneducated, for the Burmese and Karen women alone
contribute to the high proportion. One would however naturally expect
to find a well developed system of female education throughout the
various stages, offering possibly an example to the other provinces,
and it is surprising to find that this is not the case. On the contrary
there is considerably less organization and no such definite policy
in female education as in Eastern Bengal. The real reasons for the
creditable proportion are the later age of marriage, the bright
temperament and ability of the Burmese girl, the complete absence of
_parda_, and the general social atmosphere, which permits girls
to study unhindered in boys’ schools throughout all the stages. Thus
there are more girls studying in boys’ schools than in separate ones,
viz. 73% as compared with 42% over India as a whole. The system seems
in many ways to work well. Of the three contributing factors, which are
found in every province, the work of Government, the spontaneous Indian
movement, and missionary effort, the last overwhelmingly predominates
in Burma, especially in the higher stages.
The policy of the Government, more especially as regards girls’
schools, has been to encourage, guide, and, to a certain extent,
finance private institutions while undertaking little direct work
of its own. As will be seen from the accompanying table, only four
institutions are directly under the Central Authority. A certain
proportion of girls may also be found in the Government and Municipal
Secondary schools for boys; the Primary schools for boys directly under
public control only number fifteen and the proportion of girls in
them is therefore a negligible quantity. No Inspectress or Assistant
Inspectress has as yet been appointed, partly because funds are lacking
and also because, apart from purely domestic subjects there does not,
seem such a crying need for it as in other parts of India.
+MANAGEMENT OF GIRLS’ SCHOOLS IN BURMA+[54]
+------------+-------------------+----------------------------------+
| | +UNDER | +UNDER |
| |PUBLIC MANAGEMENT.+| PRIVATE MANAGEMENT.+ |
| +---------+---------+-------+------+---------+---------+
| | | Munici- | Aided | |Number of|Number of|
| |Govern- | pal | by | Un- |Scholars | Girls in|
| | ment. | Boards. |Govern-|aided.| on | Boys’ |
| | | | ment | | Roll. | Schools.|
+------------+---------+---------+-------+------+---------+---------+
|College | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 12 |
| | | | | | | |
|High | .. | .. | 9 | .. | 1,523 | 502 |
| | | | | | | |
|Middle-- | | | | | | |
| English | .. | .. | 16 | .. | 1,968 | 1,086 |
| | | | | | | |
| Vernacular| 4 | .. | 48 | .. | 3,312 | 9,456 |
| | | | | | | |
|Primary | .. | .. | 619 | .. | 20,022 | 40,534 |
+------------+---------+---------+-------+------+---------+---------+
| | 4 | .. | 692 | .. | 26,825 | 51,590 |
+------------+---------+---------+-------+------+---------+---------+
_Note_.--Deducting the Anglo-Indian figures it leaves only 676 Indian
girls taking High School Education.
There are also 86 Private Institutions of an elementary character with
over four thousand pupils.
The spontaneous Indian element may practically be identified with
the Buddhist educational movement, except for one small Mohammedan
school in Rangoon where tiny girls learn the Koran. To Buddhism and
the Buddhist monks may be attributed the high standard of literacy
in Burma as a whole. Practically every Burmese boy knows how to read
and write, and he has learnt it at the monastery.[55] In the nature
of things girls are not admitted to these _Kyaungs_, but there
are apparently some parallel schools for girls, conducted by nuns.
“Besides the monastic public schools, there are private schools kept
by laymen and occasionally also by women, in which girls as well as
boys are taught.”[56] The private institutions which do not come under
inspection are mainly of this character. One fruit of the recent
Buddhist revival is the Empress Victoria Buddhist Girls’ School,
which owes its existence and tone to the energies of Mrs Hla Oung.
Her main idea is the combination of modern education with definite
instruction in Buddhism and in this the school differs from all the
other indigenous girls’ schools, where little beyond bare literacy
can be acquired. Excellent education up to “Anglo-Vernacular Standard
VII” can be obtained here under competent mistresses or masters. An
Anglo-Vernacular school has also recently been opened through private
generosity for the girls of the Chinese Colony in Rangoon. There is
naturally no spontaneous and independent effort for girls’ education
among the hill tribes, though in many cases they are ready to meet the
missionary more than half-way.
The missionary influence in the education of girls in Burma is thus a
most important one, and includes every stage from the Kindergarten to
Normal training. The chief agencies at work are the American Baptist
Mission, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the
Methodist Episcopal Church of America. The Roman Catholic educational
schemes exist largely for the Anglo-Indians and the Tamil immigrants
from South India.
[Illustration: Ghurka Girl Boarder at S.P.G. Girls’ School, Mandalay]
The American Baptist Mission dates from the time of Judson (1810),
and has now in connection with it over 70,000 native Christians
speaking eight different languages. The educational scheme for their
Christian girls is very thorough, and leads up through a system of
small village schools to their Burmese boarding-school in Kemmandine,
a suburb of Rangoon, and to an excellent mixed Karen school, also in
Rangoon. There is a separate Normal school, and one or two especially
clever girls are to be found in the Matriculation class of the Baptist
Boys’ High School preparing to go to the Mission College. A large
proportion of the non-Christian girls are drawn into these schools by
the efficiency of the education offered. The centre of the S.P.G.
work is St Mary’s School, Rangoon, which dates back to 1865, and is
a first-class institution in every way. It is satisfactory to note
that several of the staff are former pupils who have returned to teach
here, after training in the S.P.G. Normal School. Some of the staff are
Anglo-Indian, but a good proportion are Burmese Christians. Two English
ladies are in charge. There are about one hundred boarders, mostly
Christian, but including some Buddhists, and nearly an equal number of
non-Christian day scholars. The school works under the Government Code,
and earns an excellent grant. There are three other good S.P.G. schools
for Burmese or Karen girls which lead up to St Mary’s. Those at Toungoo
and Mandalay have a considerable number of boarders. A few of these
are drawn from the immigrant population--as Kansi, the little Ghurka
girl in the accompanying illustration. Her father is a Christian, and
contributes regularly to her maintenance. The policy of the S.P.G.
Mission seems, so far, rather to concentrate on a few good schools
than to develop much village educational work. The Methodist Episcopal
schools, like those of the S.P.G., are partly for the Anglo-Indian
community, and partly for the indigenous population. In Rangoon they
have two good High schools, one of each type, and other schools in the
country. The educational work done by other societies in Burma is not
extensive; but, where every unit counts, it has its own contribution
to make. There are large tracts of hill country round Burma which are
still waiting for missionary advance, and where the women are totally
uneducated.
The pioneer work to be done would be of the type usual amongst
primitive peoples, and might produce the same magnificent results as
amongst the Karens.
Passing from the organizing agencies to the actual pupils, the
religious classification as seen in the accompanying table is of
interest.
The Anglo-Indian pupils pass through the various stages of their
education in the High School, hence their absence in the statistics
of the Primary schools. The proportion of Mohammedan girls in the
High schools is striking, and is possibly due to the fact of mixed
parentage; Buddhist freedom to a certain extent influences Mohammedan
customs in Burma. By the new regulations only 15% of the places in
the “European” schools are available for Burmese or Indian girls, and
these vacancies are eagerly sought after. The curriculum pursued in the
various schools is laid down in the Government Code, and there are no
schools of any importance which stand apart and develop an experimental
curriculum of their own, as occasionally happens in other provinces.
Burma has, as yet, no University of her own, and the curriculum of
the schools with the corresponding departmental examinations is to a
certain extent determined in relation to the Calcutta Matriculation.
Schools are classified as “High” in which after a good vernacular
foundation, the pupils are taken up to Matriculation, English
being used as a medium of instruction in the higher forms; “Middle
Anglo-Vernacular,” in which English is taught orally from the Primary
stages and as a written language from the fourth class, instruction is
given only up to the test of the seventh standard, and in the latter
stages English is used as a medium; “Middle Vernacular,” in which
pupils are taken up to the seventh standard, but no English instruction
whatever is given; and “Primary,” where vernacular education is only
carried to the fourth standard.
+CLASSIFICATION BY RACE OR CREED OF BURMESE SCHOOL GIRLS+[57]
+------------------+------+-------+-----+-------+------+----+----+
| |Euro- |Native |Hin- |Moham- |Buddh-|Par-|Oth-|
| |peans |Christ-|dus. |medans.|ists. |sis.|ers.|
| | |ians. | | | | | |
+------------------+------+-------+-----+-------+------+----+----+
|High School |1,349 | 14 | 9 | 23 | 31| 25 | 72 |
| | | | | | | | |
|Middle | | | | | | | |
| Anglo-Vernacular| 470 | 453 | 6 | 28 | 1,001| 2 | 8 |
| Vernacular | 4 | 543 | 38 | 114 | 2,938| .. | 1 |
| | | | | | | | |
|Primary | 128 | 1,121 | 77 | 208 |18,481| .. | 7 |
+------------------+------+-------+-----+-------+------+----+----+
| |1,951 | 2,131 | 130 | 373 |22,451| 27 | 88 |
+------------------+------+-------+-----+-------+------+----+----+
The curriculum is in many respects very similar to that found in
schools at home, and is open to the usual criticism that its influence
is denationalizing. A recent order limits the teaching of English in
the first three classes to simple conversation lessons, in order that
more stress may be laid on correct vernacular. The advantages of the
oral method in the hands of a skilled teacher are undoubted, but it
is a question whether the Department have not been somewhat premature
in this respect. The Kindergarten classes are excellently conducted
in some schools, and every effort is made to keep them as Burmese as
possible in character. In drawing, a complete series of copies based on
Burmese design and ranging from the most simple to the most elaborate,
has been prepared and is in extensive use. It is when the stage of
optional and alternative subjects is reached that the denationalizing
element enters more strongly. In one High school visited, only about
25% of the girls were taking Burmese, in some forms only one pupil did
so, while many of them take Latin, and a preponderating proportion
choose English history as being an easy examination subject. The number
of Anglo-Indian girls partly explains this choice. Indian history is
a compulsory subject throughout, and the Government Code offers ample
scope for vernacular and classical Oriental study. It is the choice
of the individual pupil or parents which is at fault. Sewing is not a
subject which carries a Government grant, and excepting at a few of
the European schools, it is at a low ebb. The Principal of the S.P.G.
High school acted as Inspectress for the Department in this subject
during 1910 in some twenty-six schools, and through her efforts the
standard has been to some extent raised, but there is a crying need
for a properly appointed Inspectress, who will develop this subject as
well as a sound system of instruction in hygiene and domestic economy
adapted to Burmese conditions. The tendency is for the girls to drop
off in the higher forms at about sixteen years of age, so that very few
really go up for the Matriculation examination, and these mainly with
intent to teach. Others pass after Standard VII. straight to the Normal
school.
In outer circles a strong destructive criticism is directed against
the anglicizing tendency of education in Burma, but amongst the
missionaries actually engaged in it there is not the same realization
of a possible need for change as is found amongst certain sections of
missionary educators in other parts of India. The reason for this may
partly lie in the fact that the Western education of girls--indeed
education at all beyond the mere rudiments--is of later date in Burma
than elsewhere, and that consequently its full effect cannot yet be
traced. Moreover, among the Burmese there is not the same “nationalist”
spirit as exists in India proper, and this directly influences the
educational problem. It must be remembered, too, that there is not the
same gulf between the woman’s life and the man’s as in other parts
of India, and that the system used for boys may in many respects be
excellent for girls. But whether we have here in its early stages a
problem which is destined to become more acute, is a subtle question
and one worthy of close inquiry. At any rate, no constructive theory
has as yet been put forward by any mission school. The general public,
however, criticize, and taking that criticism for what it is worth,
there is a general indictment on the ground of the education given
being mere “cram,” and not really a training of mind and character.
A Burmese Deputy Commissioner writes: “If women have become more
educated, many have also become more frivolous, spending their time in
reading songs, _zats_,[58] and useless trash, instead of doing
more useful work.”[59] A special accusation is also directed against
the general atmosphere of the school, which is too reminiscent of
English to be the natural one for a foreign country.
Both these criticisms are apparently concerned more with the problem
of the teacher than with that of the curriculum. The Government Code
is elastic, the trouble is the lack of emphasis laid on Oriental
subjects. A British or American missionary may often enter at once into
school life in Burma without any opportunity of knowing the people
or the language, and be thus unable to give the Burmese tone, which
in theory she may or may not value. I observed the special case of a
young American at the head of a large Anglo-Vernacular Middle school
who was obliged to interview her new pupils through an interpreter, and
had no means of supervising the instruction given in the vernacular
throughout her school. The educational problem translates itself here
into the mission problem of under-staffing. It may doubtless be argued
that the denationalizing influence in the mission schools is that of
a religion presented in its Western aspects but it is interesting to
note that the same atmosphere is felt in the Empress Victoria Buddhist
Girls’ School,[60] which is constantly under the personal influence
of Mrs Hla Oung, a leading Buddhist. The definite statement, “We wish
to be English in everything except our religion,” affords a striking
contrast to the care with which some missionaries seek to preserve all
that is good and right in national tradition and custom.
Passing from the dominant influence to the staff, through which the
Head-mistress must transmit her ideals, what opportunities of training
have these teachers had? As regards the Normal schools the whole work
is practically in the hands of the missionaries. There are four Normal
schools for girls all under mission management. These included in
1910 eighty-eight pupils, of whom sixty-nine were native Christians.
There are also a few girls in the Government Normal schools for men,
notably two Mohammedan girls in the Mandalay school. The criticism in
the Government Report is that the literary work demanded of the female
students is too severe, especially if they do not aim at teaching
in any institution higher than a Primary school. Some alteration in
the curriculum is suggested. Moreover, many teachers cannot afford
to defer the opportunity of an immediate salary, and do not pass
through the Normal school. Most of those in charge of the mission
schools, however, insist upon Normal training for their teachers.
The type of teacher produced is not, according to general opinion, a
very high one; she is intellectually weary, and looks upon her career
mainly from a pecuniary point of view. There are, of course, marked
exceptions. Teachers’ Associations do not exist, and it is questionable
whether these would be advisable owing to the heat and strain of
the necessary hours of teaching. The material, therefore, with which
the Head-mistress has to shape her school is not of the best quality,
and it is all the more necessary that she should have leisure from
routine for personal contact with both pupils and staff. This is just
what she does not get. A very large proportion of her time is often
taken up by work on Government schedules, and in personally teaching
the higher English classes. In mission schools, which frequently have
non-Christian teachers on their staff, she may also have to teach the
Scripture lessons throughout. So far, we look in vain for Burmese
women who have passed up to the University to train as leaders. Of the
twelve women Arts students in Rangoon, only one is Burmese. She is a
Christian. Even the Anglo-Indian community, from which many of the
teachers are drawn, rests content with the qualification of First Arts
(a two years’ University course), and no graduates have, as yet, to the
writer’s knowledge, taken Secondary training. The ideal for women’s
education in Burma is the production of some fully qualified Burmese
Head-mistresses, who will be able to impress their individuality on
the whole system, and thus make it contribute to the beauty of their
national characteristics.
It will thus be seen that the day of foreign and missionary educators
in Burma has in one sense only begun; they are needed for pioneer work
amongst the untouched hill districts; for the even more difficult task
of guiding the course of higher education into the right channels; and
for the work of training those who will prove in the future its best
interpreters to their own people.
IV
EASTERN BENGAL AND ASSAM
“A woman’s place in the National life will now best be filled by the
realization of herself; she must grow to her full stature, taking
as her due her share of God’s light and air, of the gifts of the
Earth-Mother.”
+C. SORABJI.+
To pass from the sunny smiling country of the Burmese to Dacca, the
capital of Eastern Bengal and Assam,[61] is to enter a scene of strange
contrast, and one marked by monotone and inertia. The brilliant Eastern
sun shines down, but its rays are caught by no golden roofs and domes;
sombre grey stone meets the eye, with here and there traces of the
carving and colouring left by the alerter men of centuries ago; there
are no smiling happy groups of women busy with the day’s work, their
gay garments bright against the background of tropical green, but
only here and there ghostly figures clad in _burqas_,[62] or
some scantily draped “sweeper” women, little heeding, and as little
heeded. A strange town it is, with a strange mixture of civilizations,
and yet possessing withal a certain charm of latent capability. Relics
of a Hindu past are there, almost lost beneath the Moslem dominance
of the thirteenth century, which brought with it some of the glory
of architecture and the learning of Upper India, but seemed to take
on the colourlessness of the land to which it came, winning chiefly
the lower classes; now the new Western influence has come, and has
given to the Bengali, by means of education, a unity which repudiates
its source, thus creating a young India awake and alert. The diverse
characteristics of the capital are in a sense typical of the diversity
of the whole province and of the problems of its administration and
development. The new province created by the Partition in 1905 includes
the territories formerly administered by the Chief Commissioner of
Assam, to which have been added certain districts lying on the Eastern
side of the bay of Bengal, the river regions of the Padua and the
Jumna, and the Chittagong division which borders on the Burmese hill
district. It thus includes large city populations, such as Dacca with
over 90,000 inhabitants, and great river districts such as Sylhet, and
the Padua Meghna Delta, with its intersecting channels, which in the
rainy season multiply by the hundred till the country is a network of
waterways, and in which every brown boy is as much at home as he is
on land--a country of villages and of rich abundant harvests, where
the monsoon fails not, and famine is unknown. Then there are the hill
districts--the Khasi and Garo Hills, the native states of Manipur
and Tippera, and the country bordering on Burma, where a strong and
vigorous people, marked by a hardy independence, are only gradually
being touched by modern civilization. While the educational problem is
mainly a rural one--in 1901 only 2% were enumerated in the sixty one
towns--the urban minority, with its demand for higher education, cannot
be ignored.
[Illustration: A Hill School, Eastern Bengal]
Female education in Eastern Bengal has certain aspects which make
it differ from that in other provinces, and render it a peculiarly
interesting study. Whereas elsewhere we shall trace the development
of the three different influences--the spontaneous Indian movement,
missionary efforts, and the work of Government, the last, in varying
degrees, a unifying and co-ordinating agency--here we have one
well-organized Government Female Education Committee, on which all
these interests are represented, and by which a unified policy is in
process of being worked out. This Committee was appointed after the
Partition in 1907, to work under the Director of Public Instruction,
and consists of those officials directly concerned, of non-officials of
various creeds, of representatives of several missionary agencies, and
of a few Indian and British ladies selected mainly for their interest
in such matters. It is in no sense a popular body, and it has no
executive function; but it has done some extremely useful work.
Its policy has been to survey the field, taking into account the
diverse and complicated nature of the task to be accomplished, to
utilize so far as possible all existing agencies, and to plan a
thorough and scientific scheme embracing all classes. The development
of this scheme must be one of slow and patient labour. No great
social scheme which is to have permanent results can be enforced in a
revolutionary or sudden way, and least of all where prejudice has to be
overcome, where public opinion must be influenced, and where possibly
the passing of generations and the influence of heredity are needed
for its fruition. In a sense the very backwardness of the province
is its opportunity. The possibility before it of laying foundations
on sound educational principles, of using the experience gained by
other provinces in the adaptation of certain types of institutions to
local conditions, of surveying the whole field without haste, and of
making a systematic effort to raise all classes and all sections of the
population, augurs well for the future standing of the province, and
may produce a better type of education than that which has developed
more quickly and more sporadically elsewhere.
A sketch of the present situation must naturally take as its centre
the work of this Committee, the result of its survey of the classes
affected, its utilization of existing agencies, its constructive work,
and the practicable character of its aims.
What, then, of the actual girls to be educated? The classes affected
are many and diverse, education and rank often varying in inverse
proportion; the educational and the social problems are here again
so closely interwoven that the holding of parda parties has a very
definite relation to the statistics of school attendance. The Indian
Christians, of whom there are over 66,000, mostly living in the
Khasi and Jaintia Hills are naturally keenly eager for education,
and contribute considerably to the supply of teachers. About the
non-Christians it is impossible to generalize.[63] From the young
Begum[64] directly descended from one of the Moslem invaders to the
child of some peasant woman, who grudges her from the work of the field
to the seemingly profitless village school, is a far cry, and the gamut
of possibilities lies between. Here is a high-born Moslem girl, whose
male relatives hold University degrees and Government appointments,
and who will allow a certain advance to their women-folk, but no more.
For instance, an English teacher may be admitted for a few hours a
day, or if the family be wealthy and of sufficient rank, an English
governess may be secured to devote her whole time to the pupils. Here
is another still so tied by conservatism that she may not see English
ladies or learn of modern thought. Her male relatives may give her
the smattering of Koranic lore which is necessary for religion. The
Mohammedan women of the upper class can nearly all read Urdu, and are
clever with their needles. Here is a girl of the Brāhma-Samāj, supposed
to be free, and yet one might almost say shy of her freedom, with every
opportunity to take the higher education which would fit her for social
influence, she yet ceases her studies when only some three standards
beyond her Hindu sister. Another girl with the same up-bringing has
sufficient strength and determination to persevere through the whole
course and finish with Normal training or University honours. There
is a strong demand for education up to a certain stage also among the
Brahmans, Kayasths,[65] and Baidyas,[66] a demand which is, however,
limited to the few years before the _parda_ is strictly drawn, an
event which happens between the ages of eight and eleven. Then there
are the lower class Mohammedans, who are anxious only for Koranic
education, the Namasudras,[67] whose intellect is at so low a level
that a whole term may be spent in acquiring a single letter of the
alphabet, and the bill tribes where _parda_ is non-existent, and
where in certain cases the women are more literate than the men. The
whole enumeration shows how very diverse and complex are the classes
for whom education must be planned.
Passing to the agencies at work, there have been in the more advanced
portions of the province, apart from Government and the municipalities,
spontaneous efforts to educate girls. Some of the present village
schools are of this indigenous type, and are kept possibly by an
elderly Hindu pandit and his wife, where little girls are collected
for a few hours daily--not stated hours--and drone over Bengali books
of an archaic type, in an ill-ventilated room. The result of this
education may be the ability to recite certain shlokas[68] and to check
a marketing account, or merely the prestige in the marriage market of
having been to school. Where it is possible to improve schools of this
type or standard, they fall into the general scheme, but as a rule
they are “passed by on the other side.” The Mahakali Patshala,[69]
started in 1907 at Mymensingh, represents again spontaneous effort
of a more advanced type, and is an attempt to give a modern and
strictly religious education on Hindu lines. This institution is much
more advanced than the parent Patshala, described on page 113. The
Mohammedan community have been more backward in organizing schools; a
circular sent out by a Sub-Committee on behalf of the Government to
various Mohammedan associations produced very few replies, including
the following: “But it is not proper time for starting Mohammedan
female education, as the people are not willing to have their girls
educated.” There is, however, a certain number of Muktabs or Koranic
schools, where girls are taught what is necessary for religion, and in
some cases a little secular knowledge.
The most important missionary agencies in the province are the Baptists
from Australia, New Zealand, America, and England, and the Welsh
Presbyterians, all of whom are carrying on good educational work.
The Sisters of the Oxford Mission have also entered the field more
recently. Taken as a whole the missionary contribution is, however,
much smaller than in other provinces. The best vernacular school for
girls in Dacca is that which has a hostel attached of the English
Baptist Mission, and the training of teachers at Nowgong in the hill
districts is proving specially useful to Government. This can be
better considered later in relation to the hill districts as a whole.
The mission schools are a welcome addition to the educational scheme,
and it is satisfactory to note the cordial relations and co-operation
between their organizers and the Government officials. As regards their
extension, if new schools were contemplated in a town or district where
a good accessible school already existed, grants would probably not
be given, but as the field is practically unlimited, the question is
merely academic.
Thus the constructive policy of the Government Committee[70] embraces
these existing agencies and all schools entirely under public control,
whether municipal or directly under Government. The Committee aims
at the ideal of a Primary school in every village, in more populous
centres the raising of a certain number of these to schools of a
rather better type, the establishment of a Government school (Middle
or Anglo-Vernacular) in the headquarters of every division, the warm
encouragement of all private Middle schools, and the development of
some definite system of _parda_ instruction which could reach the
higher and stricter classes. The system is completed by three existent
High schools. Taking these different stages in order we must first
consider the Primary schools.
There were in 1909, 4501 Primary schools in the whole Province, an
increase of about 800 on the preceding year. Assam and the Surma
Valley are scantily provided. The establishment of a sound system of
Primary schools is naturally the chief aim, but its attainment depends
on the development of a thoroughly efficient staff of teachers. The
word “primary” covers a multitude of sins, and is very varied in its
application. Here, for instance, is a school of the aided type in a
village of over 6000 inhabitants. The little girls are crushed together
on ill-constructed benches in an ill-ventilated room, agonizing in
different degrees of shyness under the thrilling ordeal of a visitor.
All of them are Hindus, for the Mohammedans do not go to school in this
village. Apparently there is scarcely any system of classification
except for the broad distinction of “little” and “less.” All are under
eleven years of age and, according to the village custom, have walked
to school in charge of the school servant. The school is supposed to
teach up to Standard III, but every girl who leaves able to read and
write, and not much injured in health from sitting daily for five hours
in a cramped position, may consider herself lucky. The attempts of
itinerant Sub-Inspectors at teaching the venerable pandit how to teach,
have fallen on unscathed shoulders, yet there is a certain pathos in
the owl-like glance with which he fixes the two Sub-Inspectors, who
answer all the visitor’s questions without the least reference to him.
For the pandit knows that his day is done--a new school is in process
of erection, and an energetic Sub-Divisional Officer is on the outlook
for a trained schoolmistress. With the passing of the pandit will go
much of the quaintness of the Indian school, which sentimentally may
be regretted, but which must yield place to the modern demand for
efficiency. It is refreshing to turn to a school of the new order, an
urban one. The day is wet, so only twenty-five out of forty pupils
are present, Hindus chiefly, of the Kayasth caste. The three lowest
classes are happily seated on matting with a tiny desk in front; the
older ones are still swinging their feet on too high a bench--but what
good is there in having Inspectresses if there is nothing to improve?
A tidy time-table on the wall shows the rotation of lessons. There are
shells for arithmetic, maps and object-lesson sheets, there is space
for drill or breathing exercises at the end of every hour, there are
neat specimens of sewing (not perennial ones which have survived many
an inspection) and above all, there is a happy smiling mistress, whose
personality inspires new ideals and new thoughts. A bright little
maiden of eleven in a blue and gold sari, who gaily translates an Urdu
conversation into Bengali, has designs on a scholarship for the Eden
High School, and perhaps some day she, too, may be an “Ustani”[71]
as wondrous wise as her mistress. This is the bright side of things,
but it shows the possibilities which lie under dry statistics. The
recent report of 1910 on Primary schools in the town of Dacca shows
an increase of about 200 girls in one year. Of the sixteen schools,
twelve are now provided with mistresses and the general progress is
satisfactory, although there are still many difficulties to overcome,
especially if the proportional increase in the number of pupils
exceeds, as is probable, that of the trained teachers available, and
proper space is lacking. The problem in Dacca is typical of the urban
problem throughout. Primary education in the hill districts is of a
different type.
The Middle Schools, partly English and partly only vernacular, are some
twenty in number, varying in type from a long established school such
as the Alexandra Girls’ School at Mymensingh, with ten teachers, and a
Head-mistress from the Isabella Thoburn College,[72] to one which has
only six scholars beyond the Primary stage and one mistress, but which
must be raised in standard and type for the sake of the district. The
generosity of the native landowners is to be noted in connection with
these schools; in two cases a whole new building and site have been
acquired in this way.
[Illustration: A High School Class, Eastern Bengal]
All roads lead to Mecca, and all pursuit of higher education in Eastern
Bengal tends to the Eden Girls’ High School, Dacca, where, under the
supervision of Miss Lena Sorabji, the portals of Calcutta University
are successfully reached. This school is the Model High School for the
province, the two others at Chittagong and Mymensingh are not as yet
so efficiently staffed or equipped, though that at Chittagong holds
its own at the Matriculation examination. There are some two hundred
girls in the Eden High School, mostly Hindu, with a fair proportion of
Brāhma-Samāj and Mohammedan girls, including also a few Christians. The
curriculum is that of a first-class English High school in its relation
to the Matriculation subjects. In the lower classes the scientific
principles of education are in full vogue, story and group method,
with an excellent Kindergarten apparatus. The teachers are mostly
Indian with three Anglo-Indians, and there is also a very efficient
music mistress. Moral instruction is given, and there is throughout an
excellent tone. It is possible to attend the school and keep strict
_parda_, a young Begum has recently been assigned to it by the
Court of Wards in order to complete her education. A very important
feature of the school is the Training department, in which teachers
are trained for the Bengali-speaking parts of the province. (Assamese
teachers are trained at Nowgong and the Hill Districts in Shillong.)
Training is given free on condition of teaching in a Government school
for two years thereafter. There is both an English and a Vernacular
course, and the effect of the latter can be seen in such schools
as the Primary school sketched above. There are three students at
present in the English department, and twenty-two in the Vernacular.
Any girls passing the Matriculation examination from here are certain
of Government scholarships, or “stipends” as they are called, to the
University of Calcutta. The only drawback at present is the lack of
space, but plans are already definitely formed, and a site secured for
new buildings, which will ultimately include a College department.
But when all is said, it is only an infinitesimal fraction of the
female community which is touched by the Middle and High schools.
The fourth sphere of the Committee’s work, the organizing of a
definite system of _parda_ instruction, is therefore in some ways
the most important. Many important and far-reaching influences are
at work behind the veil, and it is here, too, that the influence of
the Education Committee must be felt. A comparison of the numbers
attending Primary schools (84,798) with those attending High and
Middle schools (1846), shows how limited is the school period for the
average girl. The _parda_ instruction to a certain extent supplements
the education of those children who are withdrawn for marriage at
about ten years of age. On the other hand, as the number of girls of
school age at school is only 3%, a certain amount of this work is
amongst the absolutely illiterate older women, though the minimum
age of ten prevents overlapping with the Primary schools. A further
aim is to create a more friendly atmosphere in the zenanas towards
the whole question of education. In some cases it is an immediately
fruitful work, in others a sowing of seed for the future. There are
now some 600 girls and women under instruction of this type in seven
different towns, the classes in Dacca being most fully developed. Here
there are four governesses at work, each with six centres to teach.
Two of them are Mohammedans, one Brāhma-Samāj, and one Christian, the
last under missionary superintendence. The education given is of the
simplest type, including, however, in some cases drawing, painting,
history, and geography. Indeed when the circumstances are taken into
consideration it could hardly be otherwise; the classes are held in the
houses of progressive men, rich or poor, and consist as a rule solely
of the women of the household and their immediate neighbours, the
numbers varying from six to about twenty. The ages of the pupils vary
from eight to fifty, all are at different stages, all are irregular in
attendance, many are accompanied by babies, and the class generally
ends in individual instruction. Yet progress is being made, and it is
good to see the group of daintily dressed women awaiting the arrival
of the teacher who forms their link with the outer world. A very great
deal depends on her personality and skill in overcoming prejudice. One
of the teachers is a Mohammedan lady of good position, the wife of a
pleader; she drives in strict _parda_ to and from her work, and has
naturally inspired other strict Mohammedans with confidence in the
scheme. Recently an English governess has begun work in Dacca under the
Committee, but in her case there is a binding fee of five rupees for
every family who employs her. The system is one which is peculiarly
adapted to Eastern Bengal with its strict _parda_ customs, and though
expensive to Government,[73] is in the meantime more than worth while
in its indirect influence in breaking down prejudice and supplementing
the whole system of instruction.
Education in the Hill Districts reveals a somewhat different problem.
There is no _parda_, co-education is frequent, and suits the
customs of the people. A Lushai writer dealing with this says: “The
men and women are all on the same footing, except in some cases,
where the women are master.” In the hill tracts of Assam, some 2551
girls are studying in boys’ schools and 701 in separate girls’
schools, practically all of the latter and a large proportion of the
former are worked by the missions, which are doing excellent service
to education. The schools are much appreciated, and the Government
grant of 4022 rupees to the mission schools is almost equalled by the
contributions of the people themselves. Special arrangements are being
made by Government with the American Baptist Mission at Nowgong for
the training of Government teachers in the Mission Training School.
In some parts education is absolutely at a standstill; for example,
in the Mikir hills, “female education is supposed to have perished
fifteen years ago with the death of its only representative, a young
girl of Nowgong!” In Chittagong Hill District the opposition is that of
a wild uncivilized people. A boarding-school is the only possibility,
but that seems too terrible! The parents are half-civilized, and will
send a child for one month and withdraw her the next; the children,
moreover, have their own way. “If the parents say their girl shall go
to school, and she says ‘I will not,’ she does not go.” There are at
present seven precious pupils in the Mission Girls’ school at Chandra
Ghona. In Tippera there is much opposition. Twenty-five girls are,
however, reported in three mission schools in the latter district. An
interesting account of indigenous schools comes from a lady missionary
working in one of the hill districts: “There are some small Primary
independent village schools taught by Hindu men or women voluntarily.
Some of these receive Government aid, and some do not. The parents of
the scholars contribute a little towards the teacher’s support, and
supply the school-house. It is generally believed that the visits of
a missionary to such schools lend prestige to them, and the children
are encouraged to attend by the small rewards given by the missionary
for attendance and Scripture knowledge. Hence such scholars invariably
welcome regular visits.” The main problems are those of co-education,
the training of teachers, and the multiplicity of dialects. Steps are
also being taken to develop weaving and local industries in many parts
for the less advanced tribes.
Such in brief outline is the Government policy for female education.
How far is it a living reality? “The moment imagination has gone out of
your Asiatic policy, your Empire will divide and decay.”[74] How far is
there imagination in the educational policy? How far is it magnetic,
flexible, and inspiring? A policy, of necessity, is reflected by the
persons who administer it, the inspectorate and teaching staffs, the
organizing Committee, and the general social attitude of the community.
The task of the Inspectorate is no easy one, and the word calls up
visions of many successive nights spent in bullock carts, in trains,
and on horseback to reach the inaccessible parts of an inaccessible
province, a multitude of detail, and little time to relate it
consciously to the underlying principles. To the casual onlooker taking
into account the general social conditions of Indian life, it hardly
seems work which a woman should do, and yet it is work which must be
done by women. Indian girls can only be well taught by women, and this
necessitates a female Inspectorate at least for the upper grades.
From 1908 to 1911 there was only one Inspectress in the province, and
in 1909 two assistant Inspectresses were appointed; an additional
appointment has, however, recently been made for the Chittagong and
Surma Valley Districts. A further increase would greatly facilitate
the development of the work, and would probably repay in efficiency
the extra expense. There is a great deal written and said about the
denationalizing influence of education, and the need for bringing our
system into touch with Indian thought and Indian life. More especially
in the present case, when a new policy is being shaped, there is need
for flexibility in the system and an Inspectorate closely in touch with
the inner side of Indian home life. What should an Indian girl know?
What will fit her best to hold aright her true place; what will render
her happier and more intelligent, retaining her Sita-like devotion and
her gentle bearing? The planning of a curriculum and teacher’s manual
in relation to this aim is no easy task, and it remains to be seen
whether the new manuals, the work of the first Inspectress, will have
fulfilled these demands. Some women are born teachers, and some have
teaching thrust upon them. In India the old ideal of teaching is that
of a vocation; the bread of life is given freely by those who have to
those who have not. Modern conditions have of necessity modified this
ideal to a certain extent, but its spirit is still needed. The great
scarcity of women teachers, and consequent certainty of employment,
tends to lower the standard of character and efficiency. The teacher
who will only do her own “kām,”[75] and not lend a helping hand to
others, who is ever listening for the stroke of the clock, who is quick
to take offence and ill to conciliate, is known in this province as
elsewhere. The lack of a common religious basis as a ground of appeal
is undoubtedly felt; the establishment of Teacher’s Associations in
the urban centres, and, where possible, of the Young Women’s Christian
Association Teachers Union, might be useful. It is to be regretted
that very few of the teachers are not drawn from the families of upper
class; the work done by one of the Mohammedan governesses in Dacca
is an evidence of what can be accomplished in this way even without
scientific training. There are, however, some splendid Indian women
teachers, contact with whom is an inspiration, and it is to be hoped
that the influence of the training classes in the Eden High School at
Nowgong and at Shillong may gradually raise the general tone. Here, as
in Burma, is the great means of counteracting anglicizing influences;
education is the communication of personality, and the ideal Indian
school of the future must have Indian teachers. The instilling of
the principles of educational science and of true culture in Indian
teachers, until these are no longer slavishly reproduced but lived
and worked out in relation to Indian environment, is the task of the
Western educator.
The success of any policy depends upon how closely it is in touch with
the spirit of the community, and the wisdom of connecting a local
committee with the management of every Middle and High school is
unquestioned; these Committees are supposed to consist of equal numbers
of men and women, and indeed the Government grant is often given only
on condition of there being an efficient working Committee. There are
also ladies’ committees in connection with the zenana classes in the
urban centres. It has, however, been exceedingly difficult to secure
the necessary ladies for this work, for the supply of educated Indian
ladies is very limited, and English women, because of the shortness of
their stay in any one district, are unwilling to undertake it. Some of
the officials’ wives have, however, given splendid service in this
way, and even if it is only a passing service it is more than worth
while. The work of these committees in the breaking down of social
prejudice and ensuring the confidence of the community is untold.
There is, as has been already said, a definite connection between
_parda_ parties and school attendance. The _parda_ party as a
social institution in other provinces has come to stay. It is perhaps a
pity that here it has had a certain shadow cast upon it of officialdom
and organization. The spontaneous and individual effort is quickly felt
and appreciated by Indian ladies. It must come also from a genuine and
mutual desire for intercourse and not from any _sous-entendu_
motive of pity or “bridge the gulf” idea. Indian ladies have their
own contribution to make to the unifying of ideals not only between
Indian and English, but between Indian and Indian. “The less said about
_parda_ parties and the more held,” is probably a wise dictum. The
work on some of the educational sub-committees will, however, often
give an English lady the direct contact with Indian life which is so
much needed.
The outlook for women’s education throughout the province is in many
respects a hopeful one; enthusiasts are working at it, there is a
steadily increasing flow of girls coming to the schools; a teaching
staff is gradually being built up, suitable text-books and manuals are
being produced. The generosity of a Government, hampered by finance
in every way, to this scheme, is a stamp of warm approval. No great
social undertaking, however, is fulfilled in haste, and least of all
where sympathy and the silent influence of individual friendship are
needed to pave the way for it.
V
BENGAL
“My Motherland, I sing
Her splendid streams, her glorious trees,
The zephyr from the far-off Vindyan heights,
Her fields of waving corn,
The rapturous radiance of her moonlit nights,
The trees in flower that flame afar,
The smiling days that sweetly vocal are,
The happy, blessed Motherland.”
Translation by W. H. Lee, I.C.S.
One of the subtlest problems of sociology is to trace the relation
of cause and effect in new conditions of life affecting a community.
Here in Bengal is a certain group of people calling themselves “a new
nation”; here is a new thought-centre by turns indefinite, immature,
bombastic, tentative, yet possessing a certain unity and aspiring after
certain definite ideals, and together with it, in part as cause, in
part as effect, is the steady educational advance of certain sections
of the community. There is little geographical unity, for the term
“Bengal” has been of varying content, comprising in the early days all
the East India Company’s possessions in Northern India; after 1836
a more definite and limited area, and finally[76] in 1905 reduced,
broadly speaking, to Bihar, Chota Nagpore, Orissa and the section
of Bengal proper which lies west of the Ganges and the Hooghly.
Ethnically, a mixture of Dravidian, Mongolian and Aryan elements, even
linguistic unity, is lacking, Bengali, Hindi, Bihari and Oriya, with
their corresponding dialects being the languages mainly in use. Yet, in
spite of all, the Bengali claim of unity is there in virtue of their
education, and in virtue of the “high proportion of literacy that
exists in Bengal compared with most parts of India.” Linguistically
again, Bengali, though only the native tongue of some 52%[77] of the
population, has become a modern literary language, and as such is a
strong factor for unity and progress. It is true that those conscious
of this unity who express themselves variously in congresses, in
journalism, in sedition, or in loyal Government service are doubtless
a minority, but they are an increasing element, and one which may
assert itself more in the future. The political side of this movement
is beyond the scope of this book, its existence cannot, however, be
ignored as it is one of the causes of the tide which is slowly setting
in favour of the education of women.
All the same obstacles and difficulties which we have studied in
Eastern Bengal, and some even more hard to surmount, are to be found
here. Seventy-eight per cent. of the population are Hindus and the
consequent custom of marriage below the age of ten years cuts short
the possible period of school attendance for girls. One woman in every
five is a widow, and yet custom and prejudice prevent this numerous
class from entering the teaching profession, as is the case with many
spinsters at home. Ninety-four per cent. of the population live in
scattered villages, and this increases the financial difficulty of
providing sufficient accessible schools for girls whose parents are
unwilling and often unable to pay anything. A strong prejudice against
the whole idea of the education of girls still exists, and though
systematic efforts are made to overcome this, they often lead to no
result, as is testified in the report of a Mohammedan gentleman of
good position engaged by Government to popularize education among his
co-religionists in Bihar. It often seems as if all effort to overcome
this prejudice were unavailing. Yet in the face of all this there is
a strong body of Indian opinion which emphasizes in speech and in the
press the need and advisability of female education. The Brāhma-Samāj,
one of the reform Indian sects much tinged by Christian thought, gives
every opportunity of education to its women, and has thus an influence
out of all proportion to its numbers[78] in the province. By the
extremely orthodox Hindu it is looked upon with the same suspicion
as Christianity, and yet its tenets of liberty and equality for
womanhood have a direct bearing on the general _parda_ conditions,
especially in the cities, so that, while the overwhelming proportion of
girls over twelve years of age in school is Christian or Brāhma-Samāj,
the influence of a new movement is beginning to make itself felt. An
occasional Moslem girl, to whom a Government “stipend” has been awarded
for her encouragement, is to be seen in the higher classes, or a young
Hindu widow, who has been allowed to return to school to fit herself
for a useful life.
Historically this movement in the Indian community is the result of the
work of Christian missions, which have been consistently the leaders
both in producing a high educational standard amongst the Christian
women and in affording facilities to any others who would come to their
schools. The Maharani of Baroda gives a fitting tribute in her recent
book[79] to Miss Cook and Lady Amherst as the two pioneers of women’s
education in all India. Some share of this should also be given to Mrs
Marshman, under whose instigation a society for the Education of Native
Females was founded in Calcutta in 1819. In the same year the first
modern girls’ school in all India was opened under its auspices. By
1821 thirty-two pupils were in attendance. Though the Baptists were the
first to actually start instruction, a parallel movement had been made
by a united committee of British and Hindu men. This Calcutta School
Society was founded in 1818 to advance the education of both boys and
girls, and on its invitation Miss Cook left England to open a school
for Hindu girls in Calcutta. The courage of the Hindu members of the
committee, however, failed them when it came to the actual starting of
the school. “Although they had spoken well while yet the matter was at
a distance and in the region of theory, they recoiled from the obloquy
of so rude an assault on time-honoured custom. The Babus had been
brought up to the talking-point, but not to the acting-point.”[80]
India thus lost the honour of a direct share in the first Western
education of her women. Miss Cook was fortunately able to transfer
her services to the Church Missionary Society, and opened her first
school in 1822. The dramatic circumstances of this are worth quoting in
full:[80]--
“Whilst engaged in studying the Bengali language, and scarcely daring
to hope that an immediate opening for entering upon the work, to
which she had devoted herself, would be found, Miss Cook paid a visit
to one of the native schools for boys, in order to observe their
pronunciation; and this circumstance, trifling as it may appear, led to
the opening of her first school in Thunthuniya. Unaccustomed to see a
European lady in that part of the native town, a crowd collected round
the door of the school. Amongst them was an interesting looking girl,
whom the school pandit drove away. Miss Cook desired the child to be
called, and by an interpreter asked her if she wished to learn to read.
She was told in reply that this child had for three months past been
daily begging to learn to read with the boys, and that if Miss Cook
(who had made known her purpose of devoting herself to the instruction
of native girls) would attend next day, twenty girls should be
collected. Accompanied by a female friend conversant with the language,
she repeated her visit on the morrow and found fifteen girls, several
of whom had their mothers with them. Their natural inquisitiveness
prompted them to inquire what could be Miss Cook’s motive for coming
amongst them. They were told that she had heard in England that the
women of their country were kept in total ignorance, that they were
not taught to read or write, that the men only were allowed to attain
any degree of knowledge, and it was also generally understood that the
chief obstacle to their improvement was that no females would undertake
to teach them; she had therefore felt compassion for them, and had
left her country, her parents, and friends to help them. The mothers
with one voice cried out, smiting themselves with their right hands,
‘Oh what a pearl of a woman is this!’ It was added, ‘she has given
up every earthly expectation, to come here, and seeks not the riches
of the world, but desires only to promote our best interests.’ ‘Our
children are yours, we give them to you.’ ‘What will be the use of
learning to our girls, and what good will it do to them?’ They were
told:--‘It will make them more useful in their families, and increase
their knowledge, and it was hoped that it would also tend to give them
respect and produce harmony in their families.’--‘True,’ said one of
them, ‘our husbands now look upon us as little better than brutes.’
Another asked, ‘What benefit will you derive from this work?’ She was
told that the only return wished for was to promote their best interest
and happiness. Then said the woman, ‘I suppose this is a holy work, and
well pleasing to God.’ As they were not able to understand much, it was
only said in return that God was always well pleased that His servants
should do good to their fellow creatures. The women then spoke to each
other in terms of the highest approbation of what had passed.”
In the course of 1822 eight schools were established, attended more or
less regularly by 214 girls. The Marchioness of Hastings also created a
deep impression by personally visiting many of the back alleys of the
city, and during the last two years of her stay in India her enthusiasm
did much to allay prejudice. In 1824 the Ladies’ Society for Female
Native Education was formed through the efforts of Miss Cook (now Mrs
Wilson), and a handsome central school was erected, to which Indian
gentlemen, notably Raja Buddinath Roy, contributed largely. Lady
Amherst was the first President of the new society. Dr Duff, commenting
on the situation some twenty years later, marks the wisdom of the
middle course between the “impossible” and the “all things possible”
party, the courage of those who were willing to begin with “here and
there a few.” While he held that the education of the men of India
must precede the education of the women, on any great scale, he looked
forward to the time when “there would be a wide and spontaneous demand
for female education by thousands and ten thousands. Then indeed would
dawn upon India the golden age of education.”[81]
It is a far cry from those days to the Calcutta of to-day with its
seven High schools, five of which have college departments, its
Training College, its Female Inspectorate, and a Government eager to
do anything to promote what it regards as a main social factor in the
development of the country. The “rising tide” may be best studied in
comparative percentages.[82] As in Eastern Bengal, three forces are
working here for the education of women, the Government, spontaneous
Indian effort, and the missionary societies, and a brief analysis of
these with their varying types and functions may serve to throw light
on the general situation with its problems and possibilities.
+MANAGEMENT OF SCHOOLS FOR INDIAN GIRLS IN BENGAL, 1909-1910+
+------------+-------------------------------+-------------------+
| | +UNDER | +UNDER |
| | PUBLIC | PRIVATE |
| | MANAGEMENT.+ | MANAGEMENT.+ |
| +-----------+-----------+-------+---------+---------+
| | |District or|Native | | |
| |Government.| Municipal |States.| Aided. | Unaided.|
| | | Board. | | | |
+------------+-----------+-----------+-------+---------+---------+
|High Schools| 1 | .. | .. | 7 | 3 |
| | | | | | |
|Middle-- | | | | | |
| English | .. | .. | .. | 12 | 1 |
| Vernacular| .. | .. | .. | 17 | 2 |
| | | | | | |
|Primary | 86 | 1 | 25 | 2,508 | 429 |
| | | | | | |
|Training | 1 | .. | .. | 14 | .. |
+------------+-----------+-----------+-------+---------+---------+
|Total | 88 | 1 | 25 | 2,558 | 435 |
+------------+-----------+-----------+-------+---------+---------+
_Bengal Public Instruction Report_--Statistics pages 4 and 32.
The Government system is a somewhat different one from that employed
in the newer province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, and may be taken as
the normal one in the various provinces of India. The work is directly
under the Director of Public Instruction, and forms a separate section
of the ordinary Educational Department. There are two Inspectresses,
who are members of the Indian Educational Service, but a large
proportion of the inspection in the country districts is of necessity
done by the ordinary Inspectors. Eastern Bengal has here the advantage
of newer and more plastic organization. The Government policy is rather
to aid voluntary schools than to launch out on schemes of its own;
its influence is mostly felt as a unifying agency by means of Code,
standard of examination and inspection, and as presenting occasionally
model types to which the voluntary schools may or may not think it
wise to conform. Thus less than one in twenty-eight of all girls’
institutions are entirely under public management, as may be seen in
the accompanying table. A slight divergence from this policy may,
however, be noted in the increase of Primary schools directly under
Government control from one in 1907 to eighty-six in 1910.[83]
The Bethune Girls’ College and High School, Calcutta, founded in
1849, may be taken as a type of a model Government institution.[84]
Situated near Hadua Talau in the heart of the native city, like all
city schools it suffers from lack of space. There is a fine pillared
verandah through which one enters into an open court. Into this court
open all the class-rooms. A characteristic feature is a very fine and
spacious library well-stocked with the classics of East and West.
At the time of my visit several girls were sitting at work in it. A
marked difference between Indian girls’ High schools and those at
home is that many of the former in the _parda_ districts aim at
having a College Department, which is affiliated to the University
and in which girls are prepared up to the B.A. stage. The merits of
this system will be discussed elsewhere.[85] In the Bethune College
Department there are about thirty-five students, and in the school
proper some one hundred and fifty, ranging in age from tiny girls
of five or six to the Matriculation candidates of sixteen years and
upwards. The lower classes are extremely crowded, and there is the
falling off in the upper school which is so characteristic of India.
This presents one of the most difficult problems in the education of
Indian women. The aim being to fit the pupils for life, and to train
them to think, how can it possibly be accomplished in the three short
years which in the majority of cases is all the time available? In
the High school proper the assumption is that the girls will stay on,
and the Bethune curriculum is shaped accordingly. There is a good
Kindergarten, and all the modern plant to make an efficient school;
the great drawback, as usual, is the lack of trained teachers, only
one of the whole staff having full qualifications. Indian music is
well taught as an extra subject, and it was a pretty sight to see some
half-dozen girls accompanying the harmonium with violin, _escar_,
and _zitta_. The school owes its success to two factors, first the
personality of its former Head-mistress, Miss Bose, the first woman
graduate of the University of Calcutta, and secondly to the eagerness
with which the Brāhma-Samāj welcomed this move on the part of the
Government. The girls in the higher classes are practically all from
the Brāhma-Samāj, so much so that perhaps this influence is almost too
predominant. A little Moslem girl who had received a special Government
“stipend” on account of her religion, had recently turned Brāhmo,
but the Head-mistress assured us that the change was due entirely to
home influences. There is a good hostel in the school compound, for
which there are always more applications than available vacancies, and
arrangements are being made for the more complete separation of the
school from the College department.
The function of the Inspectress is important, and it is to be
regretted that the word has come to suggest destructive rather than
constructive criticism. “Training” is a more accurate description of
the work, and in a country where a large proportion of the teachers
are untrained, it well repays the money spent thereon. A visit often
means three days spent in a village helping the teacher to a more
scientific system. Suggestions as to improvements in the Code ought
to come from the Inspectress, and she has every opportunity for
studying the conditions of the people and the suitability of the type
of education offered. To consider the relative value of European and
Indian Inspectresses is at the present moment of purely theoretical
interest. However great the advantage of the Indian in intimate
knowledge of the environment and of the mental characteristics of
the people, it is difficult as yet to procure any with the necessary
scientific qualifications and gift of organization. The difficulties of
travel are also accentuated for the Indian woman. The contribution of
Indian thought should be in the meantime rather in the building up of
individual schools, with ultimate constructive influence on the system
as a whole.
The indigenous and spontaneous effort of the Indian community towards
the education of their women is of two types, that of the Brāhma-Samāj
and reform societies, and that of the orthodox sections. The former
is very much in line with the general system: the Code is used, and
where alternative subjects are possible there is more emphasis laid on
Sanskrit than in mission schools, but as a whole it is not strikingly
“National.” The Brāhma Girls’ High School in Calcutta receives a
monthly grant of five hundred Rupees and is a first-class institution.
Their Middle schools are mostly English in contrast to the vernacular
mission schools. There are also a few Hindu Primary schools, which
follow the Government Code. It is to the orthodox communities that we
must turn to find the distinctively Indian note, the retention of which
in any really educative scheme presents so baffling a problem. Here in
the “Mahakali Pathshala” is a genuine Indian attempt at self-expression
in educational ideals. This school was founded in 1893, in Calcutta,
by “Her Holiness Mataji Maharani Tapaswini,” one of those strange
women saints who flit across the pages of Indian history, freed by
their mystical insight and rare wisdom from the shackles of ordinary
Indian womanhood. Hither the dainty little Hindu maiden of the upper
castes is brought in a closed gari with her hands full of marigolds
and other blossoms, to learn that school is but a larger home where
the mysteries and ritual of worship will become clear to her, where
she too will lisp the monotonous chant to the glory of the gods, and
sink her baby soul in meditation. True, there is a printed curriculum
on the wall, which says that Sanskrit, Bengali, Moral Text-Books and
Arithmetic are to be studied in six classes, but what matter! The
effort which these subjects entail is ever and anon relieved by
worship, and by the cooking which is part of worship. Then there is the
picture of Saraswati Devi,[86] on whom “as the Wonder of all Wisdom
one meditateth in the third watch of the night,” and three hundred
babies ranging from three to eight years of age will daily sway their
little bodies before her in the morning _puja_.[87] What musical
drill is in the Kindergarten so is _puja_ to the Patshala pupils.
There is a special prize for the best performer of _puja_--a
sari and a silver pin for every little _Kumari_[88] who has
honoured the school with her presence. The teachers are mostly elderly
pandits, to whom the visit of the Inspectress indicates the desire
of Government not to improve them, but to copy their most excellent
methods in the Government schools! Regarded from a Western point of
view the education is nil; the children can hardly read and write
their own language, geography and arithmetic are practically absent,
and there is no attempt to develop the mental faculties; from the
point of view of the orthodox Hindu, however, it is probably ideal;
the girls have “the ancient and sacred lore of their country infused
into them and their lives are modelled after the ideal Hindu female
characters of old.” Herein lies the real value to the student of
education: there is no gulf between school and home, and the child’s
own environment and its hereditary instincts are utilized as a basis,
but the trouble is that no superstructure is built thereon. Elsewhere
we have superstructure but no basis. The school has no grant, no fees
are paid, and the support is entirely obtained from subscriptions from
the Hindu community. Extensively the influence of these schools is not
great. There are nominally twenty-three branch schools in Bengal and
Eastern Bengal, but a branch notified in the report is not always found
to be in existence. That there is life in the movement is seen by the
fact that the present Head, the Srimati Mataji, undertook a tour in the
Mofussil and districts to organize branches. “She was everywhere well
received, and there was evident sense of relief and sympathy of the
public in the cause of female education under the Mahakali system.”[89]
To behold orthodox Hinduism sending a woman on tour in the interests
of education is indeed to realise the Renaissance of the East! But
“relief” from what? Is it from the non-religious character of the
Government system?
The third and most potent factor in the educational situation is the
missionary one. As this was the first in the field one would expect
their work to be more highly developed, and it must also be remembered
that the Brāhma-Samāj is an indirect fruit of the leavening of
Christian education. The doctrine of equal opportunity for man and
woman is seen at work in the comparative religious statistics of girls
at school.
Primary 5,360 Indian Christians to 126,897 Non-Christians.
Middle 1,382 Indian Christians to 1,430 Non-Christians.
High 448 Indian Christians to 667 Non-Christians.
As the returns of the Bengal census[90] show only 319,384 Christians
in a total population of 52,668,269, these figures referring to their
daughters’ education are striking. The aim of Christian education is
twofold, the building up of the Christian community so that ultimately
the Indian Church may be a strong social factor, and the education
of non-Christians with a view to influencing them either directly or
indirectly in favour of Christianity. These two aims are combined in
most mission-work except in the case of most of the girls’ Boarding
schools where a non-Christian girl is naturally the exception. Of the
eleven High schools for Indian girls in the Province, six are under
mission management and two varying types may be noticed.
The Diocesan High school--a Government-aided institution for girls
under the management of the Clewer Sisters, has the reputation of being
the best girls’ school in Calcutta. The reason for this is easy to
discover in the personality of its Principal, Sister Mary Victoria,
whose aristocratic idealism (if the words may be combined) determines
the tone of the whole school. In India the personal element counts for
everything, and without it, the best of institutions and Government
plans are unavailing. Sister Mary Victoria and her English staff are
constantly with the girls and when the school was first started they
took their meals with the boarders until a tradition of manners was
established. The school is well staffed with trained teachers both
English and Indian, the former predominating. An English lady also
who is interested in the school comes regularly to teach brushwork.
There is an excellent College Department. The Government curriculum is
followed, and in addition systematic religious instruction is given
to all pupils. The ideal of this school is not, however, success in
examinations only and their shadow does not lie heavily. As a small
pupil remarked to the writer: “There are lots of girls in our school
who don’t love examinations, but who do love school.” The pupils are
drawn from various ranks and creeds; the boarders are mostly Christian,
and the majority of the day scholars Hindu and Brāhma. The leading
Indian families in Calcutta send their girls here, and to the Loretto
Convent,[91] rather than to the Bethune School because of the personal
contact with English ladies. The daily religious lesson is not felt
as a deterrent in any way. It is curious to watch these girls drive
up to the school in handsome carriages and to realize that they are
only paying two shillings and eight pence a month for a really first
class education. Many of the richer parents give donations as well,
but the fee is kept low for the sake of the poorer. These fees and the
Government grant practically cover the working expenses of the school
apart from the support of the English staff. There are no separate
schools for the wealthier classes worked on a system of full payment,
partly because poverty is not so much a cause of separation in India as
in Britain and partly because there is not a sufficient number of girls
ready for higher education who could and would pay fees that would
cover expenses. Taken as a whole the fees in mission schools are higher
than in Government institutions.
Of a somewhat different and more usual type is the United Free Church
High school, it exists almost entirely for the girls of this and other
missions who enter it as boarders from the country; the school is thus
predominantly Christian and has little contact with Indian life. Of 122
scholars about 90 are boarders, and accommodation is being built for
more. The day scholars are mostly in the lower classes. The education
given is exceedingly thorough, and if the whole curriculum ending with
a teachers’ diploma is taken it ensures a girl a good post either
in Government or mission service. There is no College Department,
but a special feature since 1889 is the excellent Normal course from
which most satisfactory results have been obtained. Miss Whyte may be
rightly considered the pioneer of efficient training for teachers in
Bengal. The Government curriculum is followed, and in addition the
customary Biblical instruction is given. The school suffers from two
drawbacks customary to all of its type, the lack of space and the
“Westernization” of the pupils. Situated in one of the most crowded
parts of the city, the buildings resemble a huge bee-hive packed with
class rooms and dormitories and redeemed only by the glorious flat roof
so characteristic of life in Calcutta. Below is a pathetically small
playground where the boarders walk or read or play, in so far as the
latter is natural to Indian girls. A splendid effort has been made by
the staff to bring the girls into contact with nature and the historic
monuments of India in order to counteract the cramping influence of the
surroundings. One year a large party of teachers and former and present
pupils visited Agra and Delhi, the wonder and glory of which opened
a new field of thought and imagination to the Bengali girls. Another
year the whole school was transferred for a short time to Deoghur. The
material obtained on these expeditions served as a basis for nature
study throughout the term. The students and elder girls are also
taken once a year for a short mission tour, which serves not only to
enlarge their horizon, but also emphasizes the primary purpose of the
school. In spite, however, of the energy and originality of the staff
in organizing these expeditions, the atmosphere of the school remains
very much that of an ordinary secondary school in Scotland and has no
distinctively Indian note. “Atmosphere” and curriculum are mutually
dependent and their relationship is a problem that does not affect
mission schools only. As a whole the mission High schools are doing a
splendid work and their growing influence in the community is to be
noted in the fact that occasionally Brāhma-Samāj and even Hindu girls
are found amongst their boarders.
[Illustration: Four Scholarship Girls. United Free Church Mission
School for Hindus, Calcutta]
The Middle schools, teaching up to Standard V., have adopted the
sound policy of excluding English, the object being to give a sound
vernacular training to such children as will never have the chance of
getting High school education. “It is these schools which supply the
bulk of pupils to our training schools for mistresses, and as such
their importance in our system of female education in this country
is very great.”[92] The strong point of the mission schools, both
Middle and Primary, is that they are under the direct and constant
supervision of European workers. In one mission visited, all the Indian
teachers were Christians and had had Normal training, and the schools
were constantly visited by a lady holding the highest educational
certificates. This is not the case everywhere, but it is the ideal
aimed at. A mission Primary school is a pleasant place full of promise
and of future possibilities. Shadow and sunshine are mingled, but
on the whole the sunshine predominates.
Take for example one in the vicinity of Calcutta--an old one-storied
dwelling-house off a village lane, which skill has converted into a
passable four-roomed school, with a sandy patch of ground used for
drill and occasional geography lessons. There are about 120 children
from five to eight years of age, the infant department is evidently
looked upon as a sort of crêche by the village, for there are eighty
babies sitting in solemn rows on the matting, but as soon as a girl
becomes useful or marriageable she is withdrawn. Presiding over this
happy family are three white-saried Christian girls, only one of
whom has been trained as a teacher. The girl with the eighty pupils
has only been as far as Standard III. herself; she is however making
a loyal effort; the babies pass their wooden boards with very tidy
hieroglyphics for inspection, but the impossibility of it all makes one
wonder if a Government grant is wisely given. The Head-mistress lends
a kindly eye, but her attention is centred on Standard III. with its
five select girls; this is the last year of Christian influences and
these girls are being taught something not in the Government Code. They
are bright and intelligent and the short Scripture lesson is enlivened
by plenty of question and answer. Once a fortnight or once a week the
school will be visited by an English lady, who will plan, supervise
and if needful, give a model lesson. She has eight schools of this
type under her personal superintendence, and her visits are the pivot
on which they turn. A good Government grant is given; the Code for
vernacular Primary schools is followed, and as there is no competition
the work is warmly welcomed by the Hindu community. The mission Primary
schools hold their own in the educational system; of thirty-eight money
prizes given by Government to Calcutta girls’ Primary schools, all but
three were won by mission pupils. The special characteristics of the
missionary contribution to the educational problem, as a whole, are the
presence of fully qualified European workers, who enter the educational
sphere at salaries which no Government servant would accept, and the
development of Normal work on scientific principles.
This review of the three agencies at work leads to the general
consideration of some of the main problems which underlie the types
and organization described, and which affect the educational outlook;
the supply of teachers, the character of Secondary education, the
development of Primary education and the co-ordination of the whole.
The most crucial is undoubtedly that concerning the teacher.
The school career of the Bengali girl is limited at present in the
large majority of cases to only four or five years, and there is thus
no time for the teacher to waste. If education is to commend itself
at all to the real India (as distinct from “Babudom”) it must be of
the very best type. The Government realize this and are putting forth
every effort to procure trained teachers, but whence are the students
to be obtained, and who is to train them? The unquestioned future for
every Hindu and Moslem girl is matrimony and it is therefore only from
amongst those who have been widowed in childhood that teachers can
be drawn. But in spite of all that has been written and said on this
subject the necessary education is still denied to them, by religion,
custom, and prejudice. In the Hindu Female Training School in Calcutta,
started by Government to surmount some of the initial prejudice in
regard to the training of “_parda-nashin_” women, there are only
seven pupils. They are all widows of above sixteen years and though
they are not admitted unless, when children, they have been through
the fourth standard, their brains have remained fallow for six years
and the problem of their training is a difficult one. In the only
other Government institution for non-Christians there are at present
thirteen Moslems and nine Hindus, and many of them have to be taught
reading and writing as well as the art of teaching. It will thus be
seen that though the ultimate solution of the dearth of teachers may
be found in the utilization of the young widows, public opinion will
have to undergo a considerable change before it is possible.[93]
From the Brāhma-Samāj community more is to be expected, and though
the Brāhma-Samāj Training Class in Calcutta is not at present in a
flourishing condition, they certainly contribute a fair proportion
of teachers. It is, however, from the Christian community that the
teachers are chiefly drawn, and efforts are being made to secure their
efficient training. Of the sixteen Training Institutions in Bengal
thirteen are under mission management, and of 192 Indian pupils, 175
are Christian. A wholesome sign of the growing spirit of unity is the
amalgamation of the training classes of four missions in Calcutta into
one Christian Normal Training College with an excellent staff and a
good modern equipment. So far it is only for mistresses who are to
teach in the vernacular. Even with the large contribution of Christian
teachers, the demand immensely exceeds the supply. Even before her
examination there is hardly one of the candidates who has not secured
a good post. They are in demand in the first instance for mission
schools, in Brāhma-Samāj and non-sectarian institutions, and in Hindu
and Model Primary schools. “The fact that they are Christians in a
large number of cases is not considered a bar to their employment.”[94]
The inference for missionary societies is obvious--that to supply
all the girls’ schools of Bengal with teachers of strong Christian
character would contribute much to the coming of the Kingdom of God.
As regards the type of training given, the drawback is the fact that,
like the Code, it is too Western. A solution may probably be found if
the British educators are allowed to supplement their home-training by
further studies on the spot, before undertaking work--a slower process
but a surer one. Secondary training is yet to be developed both by
missions and by Government. One Indian teacher has taken her degree of
Bachelor of Teaching from a Mission school, but this is an isolated
instance.
The relation of the statistics of Higher education to Primary is
striking; only 11% of the girls at school are beyond the stage of
just being able to read and write, while only 319 girls in the whole
province are beyond the Middle stage. An immediate question is, How
to retain the girls in the higher classes. Social and religious
considerations weigh heavily here, as in the problem of the supply
of teachers, but another influence may be, as elsewhere, the nature
of the curriculum. This question has underlain much of the previous
discussion, and is wide and far-reaching in its scope. Indian education
must have its own “Paradise”; the acme of Western civilization ought
not to be reproduced in India, if diversity and not uniformity is
the higher law. There is something lacking if the Mahakali committee
speak of a “feeling of relief” in an escape from Government education,
and some compromise is surely possible between their system and that
of the Anglicized Boarding School. Destructive criticism is easy and
there is plenty of it in Indian educational circles. On the one hand,
the mission authorities say that they are bound by the hard and fast
rules of the Code which conditions their grant, on the other, there is
a great deal more liberality and elasticity in the Government policy
than is commonly imagined, and a really well thought-out curriculum on
new lines would probably not mean the forfeiture of a grant. It is true
that schools which vary from the type recognized at home are not aided
by Government, but the Indian situation is different and it is probably
for the good of the whole system that they should be under Government
supervision and receive the impetus which comes from sharing in the
educational scheme. Here is the opportunity for private enterprise and
initiative; with co-operation on the part of the missionary societies
in Calcutta it would surely be possible to remove one of their girls’
High schools to the country and to give a practical demonstration of
what modern education on Indian lines might mean. This would be no
easy task and could only be accomplished by a staff who had intimately
studied the conditions of Indian life and thought. This would be the
most effectual “constructive criticism.”
[Illustration: Standards I. to IV. United Free Church Mission School
for Hindus, Calcutta]
The extension of Primary education is a crucial problem throughout
India; here in Bengal 95% of girls of school age are absolutely outside
the educational pale. The wonder is, considering the inveterate
indifference of the majority of parents and guardians to female
education, even when it is freely given, that any progress is made at
all. On the one hand there is the question whether it is advisable to
encourage it too warmly, when the available supply of trained teachers
is so disproportioned to the need; on the other, the multiplication of
schools and the acceptance of female education by public opinion would
create a condition more favourable to the ready supply of teachers.
The new Code for Primary schools introduced in 1910, which is in accord
with modern educational principles, may prove more attractive than the
former. Finance is an important matter. Many villages are too poor
to maintain separate _pathshalas_ for their daughters; there are at
present 69,000 girls in boys’ Primary schools as against 75,000 in
Primary schools for girls only. The result is that in these villages
the stricter castes do not send their girls to school and even the
others are withdrawn after the infant stage. In the Secondary schools
in the cities many girls who can well afford to pay are enjoying a
first-class education for two shillings and eightpence a month at
the expense of Government and missionary societies. This looks as
if a re-adjustment of funds might increase the Primary statistics.
Here again is an unlimited sphere for private enterprise; the mission
school for girls only, staffed by Indian women teachers under European
supervision is welcome and sure of success. The system of Zenana
teaching both by missionaries and Government teachers is, as in Eastern
Bengal, of great use in breaking down prejudice, and though apparently
slow and costly work, it is invaluable.
It might possibly prove to be for the good of the whole system if some
small central Board or consultative committee were formed to promote
co-operation in the development of future plans between the Government
and the various private enterprises.
The future of female education in Bengal is partly a question of
administration, partly that of a greater number of European educators
in sympathy with the genius of the country, partly that of a reformed
curriculum, but more fundamentally it is a question of religious
evolution.
VI
INTERESTING INSTITUTIONS IN THE UNITED PROVINCES AND PANJĀB
“The world exists in order to grow souls under the eyes of a patient,
tireless, yearning Teacher.”
From _Hindustan Review_.
It is not proposed to give in this chapter a detailed account of
general organization and of the forces at work. There is a definite
similarity in the system of administration throughout all India,
though it varies in its adaptation to indigenous institutions: one
policy underlies missionary efforts, though they differ remarkably in
the personal factor; the new Indian spirit is everywhere more or less
articulate. But it is worth while to lay emphasis on certain phases of
the problem of female education in the United Provinces, and on certain
institutions in the Panjāb which are typical of the complexity of the
situation, or present unique characteristics.
In the Quinquennial Survey the United Provinces occupy an
unsatisfactory position at the bottom of the list of comparative
percentages, showing only 1.2 per cent. of girls of school-going age
at school. This percentage has, however, risen in 1910 to 1.33, and
the total number of institutions has increased from 1,067 to 1,266--a
creditable advance in the face of the difficulties to be encountered.
The “impatient idealist” must beware, however, of extravagant hopes
of transformation in a country where progress must of necessity be
slow and of an evolutionary nature. Under more stringent inspection
and regulation, the rapid advance in the early part of the decade
has proved to a certain extent fictitious, and due to an over-hasty
desire on the part of the educational authorities to move with the
times. Local committees had apparently started schools for which there
was no demand and for which they were unable to procure teachers.
One Inspectress reports that in some cases, on a surprise visit, no
teacher was found at all; in others, though the teachers were present,
no work was being done.[95] Artificial efforts to hasten the pace were
attended only by a spurious success; for example, a capitation grant
of four annas a month was given in 1906 for every girl attending a
boys’ school, with a resulting increase of 4000 in the statistics of
attendance; but a careful inspection and subsequent removal of the
grant proved that the girls had simply been procured to sit in the
schoolroom without receiving any attention, and that they left in a
year or two as ignorant as when they entered it. Quite possibly some
of the annas had found their way into the pockets of the parents who
had been so obliging as to lend their girls. The latest statistics
show a drop of 3000 in the total number of female scholars, but this
is entirely among the girls attending boys’ schools, and is due to the
more efficient administration. The slight increase in the Secondary
schools and in the girls’ Primary schools is a sign of genuine
progress and may be welcomed as such. The policy of the Government
is one of slow advance after careful investigation and enlistment of
local co-operation. About the year 1907, every District Officer was
instructed to form a special committee to watch over the interests of
girls’ education in his district, and some of these committees have
done excellent work, while others have been baffled by the difficulties
to be faced and by lack of funds. Others, again, as indicated
above, have tended to make haste too quickly. The fact that Indian
non-Christian men of good social position have been found willing to
serve on these committees is an indication of general advance and of
growing sympathy with every effort for enlightenment and reform.[96]
As regards Inspectresses, the United Provinces are better staffed at
present than any other province excepting possibly Madras, and yet
the overwork is no less, for the districts are very large, and in
many cases the schools are quite inaccessible to the woman traveller.
But in a country where _parda_ is strict, and where registers
may only represent fictitious girls, and where moreover the work of
the Inspectress is much needed for the stimulus and sympathy she can
give, the system well repays the necessary expense, and will probably
admit of yet further expansion. An effort is also being made to
secure voluntary co-operation on the part of both English and Indian
ladies who are willing and able to help. One Indian lady has given a
great deal of her time to the inspection of the Government Primary
schools in her district; another lady, a missionary with exceptional
qualifications, is secretary of a local educational committee.
+TABLE OF SCHOOLS FOR INDIAN GIRLS IN THE UNITED PROVINCES.+[97]
+-----------------------------------------+--------------------+
| +UNDER | +UNDER |
| PUBLIC MANAGEMENT. |PRIVATE MANAGEMENT.+|
+-----------------------+----------+------+---------+----------+
| | Local or|Native | | |
| Government. |Municipal|States.| Aided. | Unaided. |
| | Branch. | | | |
+----------------+------+---------+-------+---------+----------+
|High Schools | .. | .. | .. | 6 | .. |
| | | | | | |
|Middle-- | | | | | |
| English | .. | 1 | .. | 18 | 4 |
| Vernacular | .. | .. | .. | 7 | .. |
| | | | | | |
|Primary | 5 | 355 | .. | 499 | 17 |
| | | | | | |
|Training Schools| 1 | .. | .. | 7 | 3 |
+----------------+------+---------+-------+---------+----------+
| | 58 | 356 | .. | 537 | 24 |
+----------------+------+---------+-------+---------+----------+
The problem of finding teachers is even more acute here than elsewhere.
It seems hardly credible that a teacher could be found in regular
employment who was unable to write words of three letters to dictation,
yet such is a recorded fact. Her ignorance had been concealed by
a memorized knowledge of the Koran. Of sixty-two Primary schools
sanctioned by Government in 1909 it has only been possible to open
twenty-one because of the entire lack of teachers with even the minimum
of qualification.
There are two lines of spontaneous Indian effort: the Ārya Samāj,
whose schools conform to the Government Code and regulations, and
neo-Hinduism,[98] which has produced Mrs Besant’s school for Indian
girls at Benares. The Ārya Samāj have a good training school for
teachers at Dehra Dun, students from which may be found teaching in
their schools in other parts of India. A High school department has
recently been added to it, and every effort is being put forth to make
it a strong educational centre. The school at Benares is in connexion
with the Hindu Central College, and poses as a definite revolt from
the anglicizing tendency of Government and mission schools. It
receives no grant, and as yet has not even applied for inspection. The
Government is considered to “favour Christian and mission schools,” and
therefore, though there is the same lack of funds here as elsewhere,
the promoters will have none of it or its money! Freedom to shape
their own curriculum is also a dominant motive. To enter the school
and see over a hundred beautifully dressed Indian girls, almost all
of the Brahman caste, sitting in groups of six or seven, on bright
carpets, the class-rooms well separated in the spacious airy building,
was certainly to feel that here one might find a solution of the
curriculum problem and a constructive theory of Indian education. “A
training in conduct and religion is what Indians, as a rule, value
most for their women--the work for those going beyond the rudiments is
too bookish in character.”[99] Here the teachers are free to saturate
the instruction throughout with the ethical elements of a religion
acceptable to the parents, to edit their own text-books, to emphasize
the study of the vernaculars and Indian classics without the strain
of examinations. The pupils stay longer than in other schools: many
“married” girls of fifteen and sixteen years are in the upper forms.
One particularly bright child of fourteen told us she was to be there
for four years while her husband studied in England. Thus there is
time really to influence the character and mind of the girls. Yet, on
analysis, from the purely educational point of view the school was
distinctly disappointing. As regards the staff, the Head-mistress, an
English lady, claimed no knowledge of the vernacular, and though her
intercourse with the girls seemed most cordial and sympathetic, it
was necessarily limited, and still more limited was her knowledge of
their studies. An American with the degree of B.Sc., a Brahman, wife
of one of the College professors, who had been educated in a convent,
three mission-taught girls, and sundry other teachers of a nondescript
character, completed the number. English was taught throughout, from
class III. upwards, and used as a medium of instruction in classes VI.
and VII., but the degree of fluency of the girls therein seemed hardly
to justify this method. Many of the ordinary text-books were in use,
and except for the moral catechisms and some stress laid on Indian art
and Hinduism in the drawing lessons, the difference of the curriculum
seemed more theoretical than actual. The theories are, however,
suggestive, and when traced to the basal thought that education must
be founded on the hereditary instinct and natural environment of the
child they are not in reality revolutionary but compatible with the
constructive system and ideals of the Christian religion.
[Illustration: The Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow]
The Crosthwaite High School at Allahabad shows possibilities of a
different nature. It was started privately in Lucknow city some
eighteen years ago by a committee of Indian gentlemen and Government
officials, and was afterwards removed for the sake of a larger site
and fresher air. A long, low, roomy building, with deep verandahs,
forms the central school, with two hostels attached to it, in one of
which twenty Moslem girls were residing, in the other six Hindus. A
considerable number of day pupils, without restriction as to creed,
are drawn from Allahabad. Tuition and conveyance for day pupils are
given free, but the charge for boarders meets the cost. The Government
Code is followed throughout, and the knowledge of English, tested by
recitation and questioning on subject-matter, seemed of a thorough
quality. The school illustrated in miniature most of the usual
problems. It was marvellous that Moslem girls of really good family
should have been allowed to come to a boarding-school, some from far
distant States, and there was a certain pathos in the sight of them
being taught by any kind of woman who had “learnt to read and write
at home,” and who in some cases might almost have been their ayah.
This description applies only to the lower forms, but in these classes
girls are at the most formative age, and many would not stay for the
whole course. One teacher of this type was actually engaged in nursing
her baby while giving an arithmetic lesson, and one wondered which of
the two suffered more--the lesson or the baby! The Head-mistress was
a young Indian Christian graduate from the Isabella Thoburn College,
full of energy and enthusiasm for what seemed so difficult a task. She
herself had to take three lessons a day, which left little leisure for
the superintendence of the lower school with its double vernacular
(Hindi and Urdu) standards throughout. A similar position in a school
at home would have been occupied by a much older woman with many years’
experience of life. A question as to the religious teaching given
elicited the following reply: “The Mohammedan teacher has her own
girls; I teach the few Christians, and the Hindus look after their own
bathings!” There is no question here of Indianizing the curriculum.
In turning to the specifically Christian institutions, it has again to
be noted that the missionaries have been the pioneers of education,
that an overwhelming proportion of the aided schools are under their
management, and that a creditable proportion of Christian girls in the
High stages (552 out of 759 Indian girls) is maintained. No account of
women’s education in India would be complete without a full description
of the Isabella Thoburn College, or, as it is called throughout the
Northern provinces, the “Lal Bagh” (Rose Garden). From a tiny beginning
in 1870 as a bazaar school in Lucknow, with half a dozen Christian
girls, it has grown by successive stages to a splendidly equipped
collegiate institution, the portals of which may be entered by a
child as a tiny “rosebud” for the Kindergarten, and from whence the
full-blown B.A. may emerge some sixteen years later. The College and
its latest additions stand as a memorial to two strong personalities,
Isabella Thoburn, the founder, and Lilavati Singh, whose early death
in 1909, when Vice-Principal of the College, removed one of the Indian
leaders of women’s education. The ideals after which they strove and
the spirit of passionate sacrifice for others which dominated their
lives form a strong tradition in the school. The American sense of
community life which enters so markedly into their schools and colleges
has been transferred with wise adaptation to the Indian environment;
and the former pupils of the “Lal Bagh,” scattered throughout India,
are still under the glamour of their school days and are working
out its inspiration. Self-government in all that regards the common
interest is the rule of the College and Normal departments, and the
same principle is being slowly established in the High school in the
hope of developing the sense of responsibility so greatly needed in
the Indian character. The girls are practically all Christian, but
occasionally a non-Christian girl is found taking advantage of the
splendid education which she could obtain nowhere else. The Zenana
school, opened in 1909, is attended by some Hindu and Mohammedan girls
desirous of a simple course with domestic science, and it is expected
that this department will gradually increase. There is also a special
hostel for Hindu or Mohammedan girls which has not yet been much
utilized. The staff consists of seven or eight American graduates and
about fifteen Indian teachers, some of whom are graduates also. There
are no untrained teachers. This proportion in a school of some 200
pupils, and a College and Normal department of about 40, is refreshing
after other institutions, but it in no way satisfies the standard of
efficiency aimed at by the directors. The Normal department is of
special importance, as teachers are supplied from it to all parts of
Northern India. No student is admitted to the senior course who has not
passed the Matriculation or equivalent examination, and the Government
Report testifies to the thoroughness of the training given. A lower
qualification is accepted for the Kindergarten course. The Government
Code is followed throughout, and there is thus no question of an
experimental curriculum on Indian lines. The College is under a Board
of Directors which includes two prominent Indian gentlemen, and is in
connexion with the American Methodist Mission.
The Church Missionary Society has an excellent boarding-school for
Christian girls at Benares with about 100 pupils. The central schools
for the Christian community form a very important part of the work
of any mission, and it is entirely due to them that the creditable
percentage of Christian girls in the Secondary stages is maintained.
Where a Normal department can be added, their influence on the
non-Christian community and on the general educational situation
is very marked. Unfortunately some mission committees have still a
tendency to appoint a pupil to a post too soon, and the numbers are
not as large as they might be. The Benares class has at present nine
students who entered it with Middle Anglo-Vernacular qualifications;
its special feature, in addition to the ordinary subjects, is an
experimental attempt to give some conception of the Hindu environment
of religious thought to the students. The Indian Christian of the
second or third generation tends to be totally isolated in idea and
thought from other Indians, and this tendency is often accentuated
in mission schools. It is therefore exceedingly important that those
who are to influence Hindu life as teachers in mission or Government
schools should, in the course of their training, form some clear and
correct conception of the religious environment of their future pupils.
Experimental work of this type should prove most useful in any future
developments of Normal training which missionary societies may be
contemplating.
There is throughout a pleasant spirit of co-operation between the
various educational missionaries, and between them and the Government
authorities. There is a Missionary Educational Union for the Province
which the Inspectresses attend officially. An annual Teachers’
Conference is held in February, and it is probable that in the future
co-operation may pass from theory to actual fact in the development of
further work. A striking lack in the missionary contribution is the
absence of any school of really first-class character for non-Christian
girls, such as exist in Bombay and Calcutta. The educational work
for boys has been fully developed, but the parallel opportunity for
girls which the changing times have created has yet to be seized. It
may be argued that the Isabella Thoburn school has arrangements for
non-Christian girls, but even in these changing times there are few
non-Christians who would be willing to risk their daughters in a
boarding-school among such an overwhelming number of Christian girls,
whereas first-class schools starting fresh with no tradition would be
sufficiently in touch with the new movement to attract pupils by their
sheer efficiency. In this direction and in the training of teachers the
standard must be set by the missionary authorities if their reputation
as pioneers is to be maintained.
The situation in the Panjāb differs again only in degree. While there
has been no ebb in the increasing tide of pupils--an increase of 1328
in 1909, and of 3732 in 1910, making a present total of over 42,000
girls under instruction--the problem of administration and inspection
in a strictly _parda_ country is as difficult as elsewhere, and there
are stories of the inefficiency of the teachers which surpass even
those told of other provinces. The municipalities vary greatly in
their enthusiasm for the education of girls--Amritsar, for instance,
being well supplied with thirty-five girls’ schools, whereas Lahore
has only one of this type. The missions have as elsewhere the system
of boarding-schools for Christian girls, and carry on extensive work,
chiefly of a Primary nature, among non-Christians of all races and
creeds. Occasionally a non-Christian girl is found in a Christian
boarding-school. Some of these schools are specially commended by the
Inspectress for their teaching in domestic economy and sewing. “The
Sialkot boarding-school divides the children into families of twelve
girls who each do their own cooking, washing, and housework, even the
little ones helping.”[100] St. Stephen’s Girls’ School (S. P. G.) has
a special lace department where any girl who wishes to learn English
may earn the money to pay the requisite fee. The lace produced is of
a marketable quality, and not of the type which passes from bazaar
to bazaar in Great Britain. The work of the Kinnaird Girls’ High
School, Lahore, is similar to that of the Bombay school[101] under the
auspices of the same society (Z. B. M. M.). It is intended mainly for
Indian Christian girls, but contains a certain proportion of others.
The average age of leaving is about sixteen. Its training class is of
special interest. Women students in the Panjāb are allowed to take the
Junior Anglo-Vernacular training after matriculation, though, in the
case of men the same examination is open only to graduates. In spite of
this the girls generally stand fairly high in the lists, one of them
recently taking the second place. The class, however, averages only
some five students, though the school has over 160 girls. There is
another excellent High school for Indian non-Christian girls in Lahore
under the superintendence of an Indian Christian lady.
[Illustration: Church Missionary Society, Middle School,
Amritsar.--Hoop Drill]
Here, too, slowly but surely, the voice of Young India is making itself
heard in a new desire and a new effort. Lawyers, doctors, Government
servants, are seeking for their wives and daughters an education
which, if not equal to their own, will a least be a sufficient
compromise between the old status and the new ideas to which they give
utterance from public platforms and in the press. The reform sects,
notably the Ārya Samāj, are ready with a definite educational policy
of their own. They have a special orphanage at Ferozepore, and a
considerable number of schools; the Dev Samāj, a new rallying-point,
has two or more schools; there is a Sikh boarding-school near Amritsar;
and, “in opposition to these reforming Hindu societies, at least one
orthodox Hindu girls’ school has been opened lately. Whether the
activity of the reformers will force the orthodox Hindus to take
an interest in girls’ education and to start a network of schools
in opposition remains to be seen.”[102] The Maharani of Burdwar is
noted for her efforts in this direction, and her schools, the Vedic
Putri Pathshala and the Khatri Girls’ School at Lahore, both aim at
having High departments. Absolutely unique in its aim, management,
and curriculum is the Victoria May Girls’ High School, Lahore, now
known as Queen Mary College. The idea of establishing a High school
for Indian girls of good family was put forward by certain Indian
ladies at the _parda_ party held in honour of the visit of the then
Princess of Wales in November 1905, and the possibility of putting
this proposal into effect was attained by the munificence of certain
leading Native States in the Panjāb. The school is under the management
of five leading Indian gentlemen representing different creeds, and
of two of the highest officials in the Province. Its curriculum is,
so far as the writer’s experience extends, the only one in which a
definite constructive theory has been put forth for the education of
Indian girls on such lines as combine excellent modern education with
training suitable to their future environment.[103] Its ideals are
defined in the following extract from the prospectus. “The proposed
education is to be first and foremost womanly, therefore pupils will
not be prepared for Matriculation until alternative courses of study
suitable for girls be framed by the Education Department. The Indian
ideals of self-sacrificing motherhood and simplicity of life will be
held sacred, and the education given, while conducted on the best
modern methods, seeks in every way to guard the ideal of the Indian
wife in her home. For this reason the curriculum includes lessons on
the care of children’s health, simple remedies for ordinary illnesses,
‘first aid,’ invalid cookery, and science as applied to the home, in
the shape of the elementary laws of sanitation, ventilation, etc.”
Great attention is paid to the vernaculars and to the beautiful
Oriental scripts. Advanced pupils may study Persian or Sanskrit. A
speciality is made of colloquial English, but there is no study of it
as advanced literature. Moral instruction is given from the beautiful
stories and poems of all religions, no sacred book being excluded, and
is as effective as can be in an institution necessarily limited in
its religious life and instruction. A great effort is being made to
attract pupils from the families whose sons attend the Chiefs’ College
in Lahore; six or eight special suites of rooms are being reserved for
rajahs’ daughters and their necessary attendants, in new buildings
attached to the Principal’s house, and such facilities may do much to
break down the barrier which has hitherto separated these classes from
modern education. This school may serve not only as an inspiration
to its actual pupils, but may have a reflex influence on the whole
scheme of education. For instance, a course of lectures has recently
been started in connection with it to demonstrate to Indian ladies the
real needs of local girls’ schools, and to induce them to act where
possible as helpers and advisers. To turn what has hitherto proved an
obstructive force into a definitely constructive one would surely be an
excellent policy.
The Land of the Five Rivers has ever been a land of romance and of
stirring life, and the modern movement for the enlightenment of its
woman-kind has still the same elements, and is full of the promise of
the future.
VII
SIDELIGHTS ON SOME NATIVE STATES
“Vulgarity is unknown in India. This alone is education and of the
highest order. Reading and writing are minor to it.”
From the _Indian Ladies’ Magazine_.
To the student of Indian problems the Native States present in many
cases a survival of former conditions which elsewhere have been swept
away under the more direct influence of British rule; in others freedom
from the criticism to which an alien rule is liable has allowed
advanced rulers to experiment on the most modern lines. The term
“Native State” is itself capable of very diverse interpretation.[104]
There are in all about seven hundred districts so-called, with a total
population of over 62 million, and varying in size from the great
southern State of Hyderabad, with an area of over 82,000 square miles,
to parcels of land about the size of an average country estate in
England. The British Government takes direct cognizance of some hundred
of these in varying degrees of relationship. Some States are entirely
responsible for their own internal government with a British Resident
tactfully fulfilling his difficult office; in others the control
is more direct, under an officer appointed as administrator by the
Government till such time as the State finances or internal order may
justify once more the revival of relative independence under an heir
of the dynastic family. There is thus every variety of ruler, from the
rajah who holds the time-honoured doctrine of “L’état c’est moi,” and
whose State recalls the prejudices, barbarities, and general practices
of the Europe of the Middle Ages, to the virtuous chiefs who strive
to rule on modern principles of order and justice for the welfare of
their people. There are rajahs whose women-folk are the strictest of
_parda-nashin_ and others whose daughters may disport themselves
in English society at home to their hearts’ content, a curious
bye-product being the rani who is _parda-nashin_ in her own State
but not when she comes out into the world abroad.
It is natural that only amongst the more progressive States is any
opportunity found of studying the question of female education; in
others even the first beginnings are totally absent. The present
chapter is in no sense a complete survey, and only offers a few notes
which may indicate the general trend. It is difficult in many cases to
obtain exact information, as the British Government are wisely chary
of giving too much. The official reports, as M. Chailley puts it, wrap
up blame in velvet and distribute praise with a liberal hand, and a
letter to a native diwan[105] will not always procure an educational
report with the same promptitude as it would in British territory.
There is also the never-to-be-forgotten fact that “All the world’s
a stage,” and at times the temptation to play a part, to produce a
semblance of things which speak of progress and yet lack reality, is
too strong for the Oriental mind. Thus a school housed in a magnificent
building with four hundred girls on its roll may prove to have less
than two hundred in daily attendance, though each child is in receipt
of a monthly “stipend” from the State for the honour of her attendance;
and “God save the Queen” may be cheerily sung in honour of the beloved
Empress of whose death all India has not yet heard!
Some of the smaller Native States are closely linked educationally with
the adjacent British province; the Inspectors visit them, and their
statistics are included in the Provincial Report. Thus the Quinquennial
Survey includes over 150,000 square miles of Native State territory,
chiefly in the Bombay Presidency. In others, with which the Government
of India maintains direct political relations, the educational policy
depends entirely on the native ruler, and reflects his personality
and enthusiasm. A very striking instance of this is Baroda, a small
state with a population of about two million. A policy of stringent
reform was inaugurated there about 1875, during the minority of the
present Gaekwar, and has had its effect on the position of women. Two
acts, legalizing the re-marriage of widows and raising the marriage
age to twelve, have marked the tide of progress during the last
decade. The educational movement dates from 1871, and there is now a
complete system for boys from free Primary education to scholarships
in Japanese Universities. The scheme for girls is less ambitious, but
there are Primary schools in every village, teaching the ordinary
curriculum up to Standard IV., a fair proportion of Secondary schools
in which cooking is also taught by the teacher or by a Brahman cook,
and a central High school in the capital with a Training college
attached. Any girl of promise can secure a scholarship to it after the
fourth or fifth Standard, and after a five years’ course is certain
of employment. The curriculum is very thorough, including astronomy,
botany, mathematics, and the ordinary Normal course. There are at
present about fifty students in the college, and a steadily increasing
stream of applicants. My informant stated that there was no prejudice
here against widows as teachers, and that even Brahman widows who were
poorly off had entered the profession. The statistics are of special
interest as showing the effect of compulsory education within a limited
area. This experiment was introduced, for the first time in Indian
history, in one district of Baroda in 1893, and was extended to the
whole province in 1904. The age for girls is seven to ten, for boys
from seven to twelve. The numbers in the girls’ case rose from 9% of
school age at school in 1905 to 47% in 1910--an almost incredible rise
in comparison with the slow movement in other parts of India. There is
naturally a good deal to be said as to the wisdom of a policy which
is so far in advance of the desire of the people. Some are said to be
flying from Baroda into the adjacent British territory to escape what
appears to them a meaningless tyranny.[106] The people are very poor
and heavily taxed; they want the children to work, or to take charge
of the other children while the women work in the fields. The richer
parents, again, object to the girls leaving the house, as _parda_
is fairly strict. There are pathetic tales of school mistresses who,
in addition to their scholastic duties, must start an hour and a half
before the appointed time to compel unwilling feet into the path of
knowledge, and stories of children who manage to arrive half an hour
before the closing time in order to kindly swell the statistics of
attendance. Then there is the usual prejudice against the unpractical
nature of the curriculum, and its slavish similarity to the boys’
course. But after all discounting of statistics and allowance for
the undercurrent of revolt, there is evidently a good deal of honest
educational work being done in Baroda, with some measure of success.
There is even some talk of creating a Central Women’s Department, where
special needs might receive full consideration. One Inspectress, a
Parsi lady, is at present working there, and assistants are shortly to
be appointed.
In the great Mohammedan State of Hyderabad progress is naturally
slower. Though the greater proportion of the inhabitants are Hindus,
the Moslem influence, proceeding from the Nizam’s Court, is the
predominating one. The Wesleyan and American Baptist missions began
pioneer work in the Primary education of girls about 1880, and have
steadily developed it by tactful measures to higher stages. Effort on
the part of the Government has been made only in recent years, and is
not yet a very important factor, though the Nizam’s _parda_ school
at the capital is the beginning of better things. In 1905 there were
only 4467 girls under instruction out of a population of over eleven
million![107]
Mysore also owes its first movement towards female education to
missionary influence. In 1840 the first mission school for girls was
opened in Bangalore, and in 1868 the first Government school. As
in other parts of India, girls are to be found in the _hobli_
or local boys’ school, but the usual difficulties prevent this
method from being really effective. A great impulse was given to the
whole enterprise not only in Mysore but in all southern India by
the establishment, in 1881, of the Maharani’s Girls’ School in the
capital. The Maharani has also taken a close personal interest in its
progress. This school, raised to the dignity of a college, ranks
as a first-class institution; its Head is a student from Newnham
College, and the rest of the staff has proportional qualifications.
The education is entirely free, but entrance at first was limited
only to high-caste families, and its extension now to Christians and
respectable girls of low caste is under various restrictions. As a
result the college has done much to break the barrier which exists
between high-caste women and education. The curriculum includes the
Kindergarten stage and a department of domestic science. There are
at present some 400 pupils, including many Brahman widows, who are
being trained as teachers, and also some former pupils who return to
complete their course, bringing their children with them. Besides
this splendid effort in the capital, the Government has encouraged
the formation of local committees for the development of education in
the different districts. By 1904 there were 243 girls’ schools and
colleges, with a creditable percentage of four girls in the hundred at
school. The London Missionary Society and others have extensive work
here, and contribute considerably towards these statistics. Probably
the most striking feature in the educational situation in Mysore is the
introduction, in 1908, of definite religious teaching in the Government
schools. This subject is more fully treated in a subsequent chapter.
Next to Baroda, the southern State of Travancore has the highest
percentage of girls at school, namely, 23.3%. This is largely due to
the fact that 31% of the population are Christians, and to the thorough
work of the London Missionary Society; but the present Maharaj stands
for educational reform, and an official effort is also made for the
advancement of women. A somewhat similar impetus to that lent by the
Maharani’s College was given to the education of girls in Travancore
by the establishment there of the Maharajah’s College for girls under
a fully qualified English Head-mistress, who has since been succeeded
by an Indian lady. These two Indian institutions stand out beyond all
others as examples of progressive native policy on wise lines.
The great group of Rajput States in the heart of which the British
Government holds under its direct control the key lands of
Ajmer-Merwara, have a history of romance and chivalry which might
well have augured a leading place for their women in the modern
movement, and yet it is just this very chivalry which shields them
from its touch. The Rajput princesses of the ancient days were no
pale, languishing maidens. They sallied forth armed and on horseback
to lead a forlorn hope, or closed the gates of the castle against
a lord who returned without the spoil of victory from the field.
When the doom of their tribe was at hand and the Moslem hosts surged
round the sacred city of Chitore, they passed in solemn procession
to one common nuptial fire, while their lords perished in the wild
holocaust of _johār_.[108] What wonder that, where the women
were of this temper, their husbands and sons were able to defy all
odds![109] Children of the sun and of the moon with all the glory
of a mythic ancestry, the Rajputs have held apart from the seeming
decadence of literary culture. True, there is the story of Jey Singh
of the one hundred and nine virtues, whose mathematical calculations
in the seventeenth century rank with those of European scholars, but
he stands alone and reveals by contrast the prevalent conditions. The
character of the rulers has thus in modern times influenced educational
progress amongst their people, though only a very small percentage
of these are actually of Rajput descent. Alwar was the first State
to move in 1842, and three years later Jaipur. It was not till some
twenty years after that any official movement was made on behalf of
women. The first girls’ school was opened at Bharatpur in 1866,[110]
but the progress has been very slow with little headway. In 1901 only
two women out of every thousand could read. In 1905 there were, over
the whole group of States, only fifty-three girls’ schools, including
the mission schools, and some of these were in a very poor state of
efficiency. In Jaipur, which may be taken as the most advanced State
educationally, the Government supports some eleven schools for girls.
The principal one of these in the capital is supplied with splendid
quarters. What money can do apart from personality has been done. The
school, however, suffers most acutely from the prevailing difficulty
of an inefficient staff. Some of the assistant teachers themselves are
barely beyond the stage of being able to read and write, and thus the
school as a whole lacks the attraction which is necessary to popularize
education in a community where the hereditary tendency is against it.
The marvel, however, is not that the school is not thoroughly modern,
but that it is there at all; and if we remember the rapid strides which
have been made in other parts of India from even smaller beginnings,
it augurs well for the future of Jaipur. Mission-work in Native States
depends greatly on the personal relations which the pioneers succeed
in establishing with their rulers, and the United Free Church Mission
has, since its first entrance in 1866 to the Native State of Rajputana,
been exceedingly tactful in this matter. Its educational work for boys
has been well developed and has helped very considerably in the general
advance; on the women’s side a great deal of careful pioneer work has
been done by means of small schools and zenana-visiting. There are at
present sixteen of such schools with a total register of four hundred
in six different States, also in Jaipur and elsewhere there is a
considerable number of women under regular instruction in the zenanas.
The efficiency of the schools varies according as they are more or less
accessible to the regular visitation of an English lady worker. The
work is entirely Primary as the _parda_ custom is strict, and the
children are withdrawn at about eight years of age.
[Illustration: The Alphabet Class, Nasirabad]
The British District of Ajmer-Merwara does not, strictly speaking, fall
within the purview of this chapter, but as it is essentially the key to
all Rajasthan, its conditions have a reflex influence on the States,
and the relation of the educational problems is a very vital one.
The Government, while upholding the necessity of women’s education,
is greatly hampered in its efforts by financial considerations. The
office of Inspectress, held since 1871 by a European lady educated in
India, lapsed in 1892, and since then there has been no systematic
effort to train teachers or effectually to supervise and co-ordinate
the Government and independent schools. There are in all seven
schools directly maintained by the Government, all of primitive type,
quartered in rooms and courtyards rented in the bazaar, and of the
140 pupils only twelve are in the second Standard. The Government
Report frankly acknowledges the inefficiency of these schools and
urges the re-appointment of an Inspectress. The energies of the United
Free Church Mission have been largely devoted in the past decade to
the education of their famine orphans and the girls of the Christian
community. Their Girls’ Boarding-School in Nasirabad is a well-equipped
institution, and Normal work is under consideration.
The tradition of Primary schools for non-Christians, since the first
was founded in 1862, and of systematic zenana teaching, has been well
maintained, and there are now about thirteen such with over four
hundred pupils. There is, however, no really first-class education
provided for the women of the non-Christian community, nor any attempt
to meet the educational need of the changed times. The new spontaneous
element is to be seen in the educational scheme of the Ārya Samāj,
which has apparently a more religious aspect here than in other
provinces. They have two schools for girls in Ajmer: one an orphanage
with twenty-eight pupils under an honorary mistress; another, the Ārya
Putri Pathshala, is an excellent vernacular Primary school with some
provision for further instruction. The Head-mistress is a fully trained
teacher brought from another province, and the school throughout
showed evidence of order and system. There are over sixty girls on the
roll, and it seemed in every way the most efficient institution for
non-Christians in the district. The most striking testimony to the new
spirit and the new desire for progress was found in a private school
conducted in her own house by the widow of a former leader of the
Ārya community. It is true that in Ajmer the saying is still current
that there cannot be two pens in one house, meaning thereby that to
educate a girl is either to compass her own death or that of her future
husband; but here some thirty-five girls, drawn not entirely from the
Ārya Samāj but also from the leading orthodox castes, came daily at
their own expense to get such learning as might help to fit them for
life in its newer aspects. The Head-mistress, who had studied with her
former husband, was a highly cultured Indian lady with a beautiful and
attractive grace of manner, full of enthusiasm for her work, but almost
pathetically conscious of the failure of her school to attain the
ideals she had set before her. “I know geography ought to be taught but
I cannot procure a teacher.” “I have never even had an opportunity of
learning English.” “All my teachers teach for nothing; it is voluntary
work, and education should not be otherwise.” The school to a large
extent reflected the personality of the Head. The attendance nearly
equalled the number on the roll; far from reward being given, any
children who did not come were fined for absence; several older girls
were there, including some who were married, and whose husbands were
away from home also studying. The school is strictly _parda_, for the
Ārya community itself is only gradually advancing to freedom in this
respect, and in any case the older pupils from the orthodox families
would necessitate it. The education given is a thorough grounding in
the Hindi and Urdu vernacular, with a limited amount of Sanskrit and
careful instruction in needlework.
The whole situation in Ajmer, taken as an index to the future
development of the States of Rajasthan, points to the need for the
establishment there of a first-class girls’ school with an English
Head-mistress to set the standard for the whole district, and this is
strongly advocated in the Government Report, without, however, any
prospect of immediate action. The class from which its pupils would
be drawn would be at first a limited one, but its presence would to a
certain extent increase the demand which is slowly but surely coming
from men who realize the new need, and who know an efficient school
when they see it.
This very inadequate survey of the conditions in some of the leading
Native States will have served its purpose if the reader has gathered
from it that the modern movement for the education of women is felt
throughout the whole of our vast Indian Empire, varying in degree, but
commending itself to the best Indian thought of every phase. It is not
now a question of sporadic missionary effort or of a policy enforced by
Government, but of a stream which is influencing the life of the people
with an ever increasing momentum.
VIII
BOMBAY
“The true reformer has not to write on a clean slate. His work is more
often to complete the half-written sentence.”
--+RANADE.+
The problem of women’s education in the Bombay Presidency is to a
certain extent that of the whole of India in miniature. Nothing is
better calculated to impress the mind with the variety of races and
social conditions, the conflicting ideals and different stages of
progress throughout the whole Indian Empire, than a study of these in
a smaller area at close quarters. Under the rule of the Governor are
some 20,000,000 souls,[111] 75% Hindus, 20% Moslem, 1% Jains, rather
over 1% Christians, and some 81,000 Parsis, whose social influence is
out of all proportion to their numerical importance; a territory of
123,000 square miles, embracing the sun-beaten deserts of Sind, the
fertile plains of Gujerat, the Deccan districts ever subject to the
spectre of famine, the Carnatic regions with their glorious forests,
and the low-lying tract below the Ghāts with its well-watered, broad
reaches of alluvial soil--climates offering almost every variety of
Indian possibilities except perhaps that of extreme cold. About a third
of this territory belongs to Native States with a varying relation to
the Presidency Government, and politically linked, though not strictly
speaking attached, is the important State of Baroda with its 2,000,000
inhabitants. Linguistically considered, the province has four main
languages, Marathi, Gujerati, Kanarese, and Hindi, with numerous linked
dialects, and English will by no means take you everywhere, as some
Anglophiles fondly imagine. Like all the rest of India it is a land
of villages, only 19% of the people living in towns of more than 5000
inhabitants; a land of child-marriage, only 50% of the girl children
under ten being unmarried, and a land therefore of young widows. These
three facts involve a great difficulty in the distribution of schools,
a brief curriculum, and a dearth of teachers. From a historical point
of view the province presents stratum upon stratum; early records point
to an Aryan settlement on the Indus amongst a people of Dravidian
stock; Persian, Bactrian, and White Hun invasions have left their
mark, but always the prevailing element is the Hindu--absorbing and
Hinduizing the successive streams. The peaceful dominance of Asoka[112]
is felt, and the Buddhist establishments whose records are left in the
rock caves and temples must have been numerous and far-reaching. There
are tales of chiefs who honoured alike Siva, Buddha, and Jaina. In the
seventh century +A.D.+ trade brought the Parsis, a people of a
book and a faith which still preserves them as a unity. In the eighth
century came the first wave of the Moslem tide which was destined
in later centuries to overrun the Deccan. In the fifteenth century
came the Portuguese in search of “spices and Christians”; there are
caves to-day where the ruins of Catholic altars lie side by side with
Buddhist semi-reliefs, mingled with the ever-present Hindu forms and
figures. The romance of the province, however, lies in the history
of the Mahrattas, whose forts dominate the frowning eminences of the
Ghāts, memorials of the gradual consolidation of the scattered Hindu
chieftains, of prolonged struggle with Delhi, of internal strife, of
defeat, of victory, until finally a new power from the West came to
impose the dominance of the Pax Britannica upon the conflicting forces.
The Presidency assumed something like its present form between 1803 and
1827, and the history of Western education may be said to begin with
Mountstuart Elphinstone (1819-1827), in whose Governorship the first
schools were opened.
The same factors which we found to be present elsewhere, working in
favour of female education or against it, are felt in the Bombay
Presidency. In some places, especially in the country districts, there
is strong opposition to the establishment of any kind of schools at
all, and most of all to girls’ schools. To the zemindar or villager the
establishment of a school merely means that educational and revenue
officers will come round worrying him to support it. The children are
wanted for work in the fields, and where the margin of subsistence is
so small it is no wonder that every mite of labour is needed. In sixty
villages out of every hundred there is no school at all. The women are
conservative; they have not been educated themselves: why should their
daughters be educated? Above all it is not _dustūr_ (custom),
and with that the would-be recruiting agency strikes against a solid
argument which it will take decades to remove. But to set against this,
there is the fact that, speaking broadly, it is not a _parda_
country. Except for the Moslems, who are in considerable minority, and
a small proportion of the Hindus influenced by tradition and contact
with Mohammedanism, especially in the district of Sind, the women of
both high and low caste have a certain degree of freedom, and their
general position is greatly influenced by the presence of the Parsi
ladies, who mingle in society very much as do their sisters of the
West. To see an Indian lady walking on the streets of Bombay is no
strange sight, as it still is in Calcutta, in spite of the half-shy
efforts of Christian and Brāhma-Samāj women. The indigenous Indian
feeling in favour of education is stronger than in the district round
Calcutta, and there is more of the orthodox element in it. Poona, the
centre of the Deccan Brahmans and of cultured Hinduism, stands for a
certain well-defined attitude towards education in which women share.
The Prabhu Brahmans especially are noted for the many cultured women in
their ranks; they do not marry young, and as a rule afford almost equal
opportunity to boys and girls. The Prārthanā Samāj,[113] an unorthodox
meeting-ground for the “multitudes in the valley of decision,” throws
its emphasis on women’s education, and the general impression given is
that, while all educated India has talked about this crucial problem,
here much honest effort has been made to solve it. It is a very pure
form of patriotism which leads a Hindu student to give up two hours
daily of his college time to voluntary teaching in a girls’ High
school, yet this is by no means rare in Bombay. The Parsi element and
influence has also been a very potent one. The leading Parsi men in the
early days spared neither money nor personal trouble, with the result
that to-day out of 1465 girls receiving higher education, 1054 are
drawn from the Parsi community, and their contribution to the supply of
teachers is a very important one.
But this leads us to a detailed study of the early history of the
movement, and its present conditions in relation to the different
communities. Owing to the influences described, it is not surprising
that, at the last Quinquennial Survey, Bombay stood second only to
Burma in its percentage of girls at school, and a glance at the
gradually increasing number shows the steady upward progress.
1881--1.2 per cent. of girls of school age at school.
1896--3.75 ” ” ” ”
1901--4.74 ” ” ” ”
1907--5.9 ” ” ” ”
1910--7.2 ” ” ” ”
In earlier days it is impossible to get separate figures. Where girls
shared in education it was incidentally in the boys’ schools, or
separately in mission schools, and they owed nothing to any special
effort on their behalf; even to-day 21% of the girls at school are
studying in boys’ schools. The initial impulse came from Mrs Margaret
Wilson and other workers of the Scottish Mission, who from 1824
onwards gradually gathered together a few girls for instruction. The
first step taken by Indians was due to the Students’ Literary and
Scientific Society connected with the Elphinstone College in Bombay,
when five leading Indian members volunteered in 1849 to open schools
for girls in their own houses. One of these was Mr Dadabhai Nauraji,
India’s “Grand Old Man,” who may be regarded as the pioneer of women’s
education in the Presidency, if not in all India, and who still, in his
eighty-sixth year, advocates their cause by his pen. A description of
the celebrations in honour of his birthday organized recently by the
“Gujerati Stri Mandal,” a women’s society founded in 1909 to further
the educational and social progress of women, may give some idea of
the distance which has been traversed since these early days. Some
thousand women in their graceful Indian dresses, diaphanous draperies
and brilliant jewels, gathered together in a hall which they themselves
had garlanded and cross-garlanded with sweet-scented wreaths in his
honour, while on the platform the Rani of Gondal presided, surrounded
by all the leading Indian women in Bombay who were interested, either
as organizers or teachers, in women’s education. A short, terse
speech was made by Miss Cursetji, whose main interest and energy for
the last twenty-five years have been devoted to the Alexandra Girls’
High School, founded by her father in 1863; another by the Hindu
Head-mistress of the High School under the auspices of the Scientific
and Literary Society; another by a young Parsi B.A., Head-mistress of
the first Hindu Girls’ High School; another, in the general interests
of education, by a Saraswat Brahman lady, whose husband is Prime
Minister in an adjacent Native State--and the one European member of
the audience realized that India has initiative and purpose of her own,
and women of whom she may well be proud. The progress in the different
communities and the share which is borne by the Government and private
efforts respectively can best be seen by the accompanying tables.
Private effort divides itself naturally, as elsewhere, into the work
of Christian missions and of the Indian community, but a further
sub-division is necessary in the latter in consequence of the special
position of the Parsis.
1909-1910
+TABLE OF SCHOOLS FOR INDIAN GIRLS IN BOMBAY PRESIDENCY+
+----------------+------------------------------+-------------------+
| | +UNDER | +UNDER |
| | PUBLIC | PRIVATE |
| | MANAGEMENT.+ | MANAGEMENT.+ |
+----------------+-----------+-----------+------+---------+---------+
| Type of | |District or|Native| | |
| School |Government.| Municipal |State.| Aided. | Unaided.|
| | | Board. | | | |
+----------------+-----------+-----------+------+---------+---------+
|High Schools | 2 | .. | .. | 9 | 2 |
| | | | | | |
|Middle[114]-- | | | | | |
| English | .. | 1 | 2 | 30 | 4 |
| Vernacular | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. |
| | | | | | |
|Primary[115] | 6 | 573 | 249 | 257 | 19 |
| | | | | | |
|Training Schools| 4 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 2 |
+----------------+-----------+-----------+------+---------+---------+
| | 12 | 575 | 252 | 301 | 27 |
+----------------+-----------+-----------+------+---------+---------+
This Table has been formed by the subtraction of the Anglo-Indian
schools from Statistical Table III., _Public Instruction Report,
Bombay Presidency_, 1910.
+TABLE SHOWING RACE OR CREED+[116]
+---------+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+-------+-------+
| Type |Eura- |Native |Brah- |Non- |Moslems.|Parsis.|Others.|
| of |sians. |Christ- |mans. |Brahmin | | | |
|School | |ians. | |Hindus. | | | |
+------- +-------+--------+------+--------+--------+-------+-------+
|Primary | 4 | 2,905 |15,329| 42,185 | 10,077 | 3,934 | 492 |
| | | | | | | | |
|Middle | 636 | 1,656 | 74| 447 | 15 | 252 | 31 |
| | | | | | | | |
|High | 1,492 | 151 | 107| 77 | 42 | 1,095 | 86 |
| | | | | | | | |
|Training | | | | | | | |
| Colleges| 16 | 83 | 97| 115 | 21 | 2 | 11 |
+---------+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+-------+-------+
| | 2,148 | 4,795 |15,607| 42,824 | 10,155 | 5,283 | 620 |
+---------+-------+--------+------+--------+--------+-------+-------+
Of the Hindu effort first:--the Scientific and Literary Society, after
its initial private efforts, proceeded with a definite educational
policy in the founding of schools, and, though at present only one
school in Bombay is directly under its auspices, its influence in
combating prejudice is considerable. This school is exceedingly
popular, as the girls are passed quickly into the higher stages, thus
earning a certain matrimonial prestige, though it is unfortunately true
that a girl from the Matriculation class on transference to a mission
school had to be placed three classes lower to find her proper level.
In consequence of the amateur staff of voluntary teachers who supply
the upper forms, this school does not rank as one of the eleven High
schools. This feature is interesting, as it shows the earnestness of
purpose in the members of the Society, but from an educational point
of view the system does not seem very effective. As a whole the school
presents no specially Indian features, except that French is excluded
and Sanskrit is compulsory as a Matriculation subject. Religion is
taught by a special teacher, and there are daily prayers. One Hindu
school in Poona ranks as a genuine High school, and one other in Bombay
hopes shortly to be classed as such. This Chanda Ramji School owes its
foundation to a legacy left for the building of a huge gilded idol.
The idol was indeed built, but the times have advanced, and only
some 10% of the funds were thus utilized. The school is excellently
staffed with fourteen mistresses, four of whom are graduates, and with
additional pandits for Sanskrit and mathematics for some two hundred
girls; there is a splendid hall for drill and games, a well-stocked
science museum, and practically every modern apparatus. Religion
is taught from a book of Hindu Moral Maxims by a special teacher.
The Gujerati Stri Mandal, mentioned above, has its own functions in
endeavouring to secure the attendance at its afternoon classes of
young married girls and others from the _parda_-keeping sections.
Educationally, their influence is probably important rather in the
direction of making the next generation accessible to proper education
than in much actual attainment on the part of the present pupils.
They also organize regular lectures on such subjects as “The Aim of
Life,” “The Advantages of a Spiritual Temperament,” and “The Duties of
Motherhood,” from which may be seen the close connexion in the mind
of the Indian woman between religion and education. The Prārthanā
Samāj, though they have a weekly women’s meeting for the discussion of
ethical subjects, and a “Sunday School,” do not organize any separate
secular education, and their girls are to be found wherever the best
education seems obtainable. In Hyderabad there are five large girls’
Primary schools, managed by the Hindu Reform Association, which the
Government Report notes as doing useful work. It will thus be seen
that the actual Hindu contribution to organized education is not an
extensive one, nor has it, as in Bengal, any special characteristic;
but it should be borne in mind that the Hindus take good advantage of
the mission and Government schools, and are even found in some of the
Parsi High schools. Though their percentage of girls in the High school
stage is small in comparison with their overwhelming majority in the
community, it is probably true that every orthodox girl venturing to
continue her school career beyond the Primary classes, does so in spite
of the opposition, if not of her own immediate family, at least of her
grandmother and cousins.
The Mohammedan factor is numerically a small one; the girls belonging
to families of the better class are educated at home or in one of the
mission “English-teaching”[117] schools, and it is interesting to note
one Mohammedan lady of good social position guiding a school for poor
Moslem girls in her own house. Two Mohammedan schools are also on the
Government list of Primary schools, but the pupils are mostly in the
lower Primary stage.
The Parsi contribution is, as has already been indicated, a very
considerable one, and in its extent, thoroughness, and modern
character, it is quite what one might have expected of the “French
of the East.” A few notes on their general position are needed to
show their attitude towards education. The Parsis are one of the most
adaptable races of the world, and in Bombay, where 46,000 of them
reside, they have been the leaders in women’s education. Lady Frere
speaks of a time in her remembrance when not a single Parsi lady
could speak English, whereas to-day it is almost as much a common
tongue among the wealthy families as Gujerati, which they adopted
on their original immigration to India. In 1842 Lady Arthur opened
Government House for the first time to Indian ladies, and the Parsis
were naturally the first to respond. To-day all the larger social
functions in Bombay are attended by Indian ladies, the large majority
of whom are Parsi.[118] They are to be seen daily at the Princess Mary
Gymkhana, a ladies’ club, playing Badminton and croquet, and discussing
matters of interest with their friends, some wearing the orthodox
_sari_ and sacred shirt symbolic of their ancient faith, others
in modern European dress. Socially they have been much affected by
the hedonism of the West. Religiously their evolution has been rather
negative than positive. Zoroastrianism as a cult had survived only in
curious forms and ceremonies, and the sacred language of its books was
unknown even to the priests; the educated Parsi inclined to agnosticism
or theosophy while retaining his ceremonial adherence to a religion
which was the binding tie of his community. Under the influence of the
modern Renaissance and general revival of the ethnic faiths, the sacred
books have been translated; brief extracts published in dainty vellum
volumes, together with the Lord’s Prayer and Christian hymns (with
significant omissions), are used as manuals of devotion. When the Parsi
girls’ schools were first started no religious instruction was given,
but now a special Zoroastrian committee exists for preparing literature
and sending an instructor to each. Quick to perceive the general
bearing of British rule and modern education on their position as a
wealthy minority in an alien land, the Parsi leaders adopted, in 1857,
a definite educational policy for their women. They separated from the
Scientific and Literary Society and formed one of their own, the Parsi
School Association, to which they gave most liberally both in money and
personal service. Other leading Parsis founded special schools, and
it is difficult when looking down the Government list to know which
to select for description. Two perhaps may be taken as typical, one
of the three Association schools and the Alexandra Native Girls’ High
School. The former owes its special characteristics to the Honorary
Secretary of the Association, Khan Bahadur Chichgar, who visited the
best schools in Europe in order to study the Herbartian principles
of education in actual practice. He was the first to introduce this
method in the Bombay Presidency, and has done so without imitation
of detail, and with the most wonderful adaptation to the environment
of Parsi children. The school is kept continually supplied with the
latest appliances and the newest books, and Mr Chichgar has for many
years visited the school on Saturday afternoons to train the teachers
in the use of them. The result is that, though the teachers may hold no
Normal certificates, the school is alert and keen, from the youngest
baby rejoicing in plaiting its neighbour’s hair, to the girls of the
fifth form, whose curriculum is varied by ambulance work, cooking, and
dress-cutting. On the occasion of the writer’s visit every child had
some practical handwork of its own to exhibit; the action songs were
definitely related to the subsequent lesson on weights and measures,
while the mud modelling of the Bombay water-system done by one of
the higher forms showed a thorough sense of neatness and proportion,
with an intelligent knowledge of the principle involved. The shadow
of an examination never falls upon this school; it aims at providing
a thorough training for life for middle-class Parsi girls, and its
success in doing so in entirely due to the unsparing devotion and
labour given to it by its founder--a man engaged in ordinary business.
The Alexandra Native Girls’ High School dates from the early days
of pioneer work and of unsympathetic criticism. Some 20 pupils were
registered for its first opening in 1863, and to-day there are about
120, practically as many as the staff of the institution is meant to
deal with. Its aim is to give Parsi girls of respectable families the
“blessings of an English education upon sound moral principles,” and
though the blessing may be a doubtful one, the school is certainly
thoroughly English in every way. Since 1890, Matriculation candidates
have been sent up with a good record of success. There is no higher
teaching of the vernaculars, and French is taken as the alternative
Matriculation subject. The Head-mistress is from England and is fully
qualified, but the rest of the staff are Parsis, only one of whom had
Normal qualifications. The school is managed by a committee of leading
Parsis, and though it is under Government inspection it receives no
grant, as the income from fees and the endowment is sufficient. This
school may be taken as fairly typical of a first-class Parsi High
school. Moreover, education has advanced so far in the community that
private enterprise is no longer an impossibility, and can even as in
the case of the Girton High school, be made financially successful
without the Government grant. The dividing line between business
and philanthropy may at times be difficult to draw, but the spirit
is much to be commended which keeps a school of this type alive and
efficient, when in some cases the net profit to the proprietress is
barely a living wage. Taken as a whole, the Parsis have provided most
thoroughly for the education of their girls, both rich and poor. Of the
eleven High schools under private management in the Presidency, seven
are Parsi; of the Middle schools four, and of the Primary schools,
whether separate or forming departments of the High schools, fifteen.
Of this provision ample advantage is taken, and the proportion of daily
attendance to the numbers on the roll is amazing in comparison with
Upper India.
Wherein, then, does the system fail, or is it perfect? Criticism seems
ungracious where so much energy and thought have been expended, but
in the main there are two things which strike a visitor--the lack in
the teachers of a sense of the dignity and responsibility of their
profession, with the consequent effect of such a lack on the outlook
of their pupils, and the deorientalizing curriculum. These problems
are, however, common to the whole educational situation, and one could
hardly expect even the Parsi community to be quite immune.
It is difficult to turn from the indigenous Indian element, which
has naturally something in it very spectacular and attractive to
the Western visitor, to the quiet record of the immense and steady
contribution of Christian missions to education in the Bombay
Presidency, and to realize that the main inspiration of the former
came from the gradual and unconscious infiltration of the Christian
ideal of womanhood. For more than twenty years the missionaries were
the sole pioneers in the face of much opposition. The pupils were
gained at first through the influence of Hindu and Parsi gentlemen
interested in the Scottish mission. Progress was naturally slow, there
was a lack of continuity in the British workers, and continuity is
essential in a country where personality counts for so much; but by
1827 three hundred girls, some of good caste, were attending school in
the Konkan district, where the Scottish pioneers first started. After
the transference of the mission Mrs Wilson had managed, by 1830, to
organize six little schools in Bombay with 120 pupils, the story of
the winning of each individual girl being almost a romance in itself.
For some time the children were given weekly _paisa_[119] as a
reward, and would demand their wage like weary labourers, a practice
still extant in some of the Native States, and a great contrast to
the sum of 407 rupees now received as fees in one of the mission
institutions which traces its origin to these very schools. The Parsis
in one street asked the mission to instruct all the children therein,
including sixteen girls. The Beni Israel also proved an accessible
community, and thus gradually the number of girls increased. The
second stage of missionary education was reached when boarding-schools
were created for Indian Christian girls who could be retained for a
reasonable time, and some of whom could be utilized as teachers. About
1885 the first systematic attempt at Normal training is noticed, a
line of work which is perhaps at present the most important missionary
contribution to the whole scheme, and capable of further development.
Mission schools, as might be expected, form an overwhelming majority
in the list of aided schools. Of the 11 High schools they have 2, of
the 34 Middle schools 14, and of the 276 Primary schools, practically
all except those indicated above and a few others. Certain societies
educate, as yet, mainly the children of their own communities;
others, such as the American Board for Foreign Missions, the United
Free Church of Scotland, and the Irish Presbyterian Mission, have a
considerable number of schools, both in the cities and in the villages,
for non-Christian children. The Zenana Bible and Medical Mission makes
work of this kind a special feature.[120] The small proportion of High
schools is partly accounted for by the fact that the Victoria High
School at Poona, founded by Mrs Sorabji, and still carried on most
effectively by her daughter as a Christian school, is classed as a
boys’ school. It is attended by the children of many of the leading
Parsi families, and is a curious example of successful co-education
up to an advanced stage. Also both in Bombay and Poona there is a
considerable number of good European schools in connection with Roman
Catholic and Episcopal sister-hoods, to which 15% of Indian girls may
be admitted on payment of double fees. These places are always eagerly
sought. The Girgaum High School, under the auspices of the Z.B.M.M.,
may be taken as typical of a first-class “English-teaching” mission
High school. About 150 girls can be seen gathered together at morning
prayer, two-thirds of whom are non-Christian (Parsis, Moslems, Beni
Israel, and a few Hindus); some have come in their motor-cars, others
from quite poor homes. The curriculum extends from three Kindergarten
classes to the seventh English standard, in which the girls go up for
Matriculation. English is used as a medium throughout, which makes the
school popular with Indians who desire purely English education, but
it is naturally very difficult for the pupils in the early stages, in
spite of the Government regulation that the teacher must be able to
translate into Marathi. There are four English mistresses and several
well-qualified Anglo-Indians. A new department has recently been added
for the training of English Kindergarten students for the Froebel
examination, but this is not yet sufficiently staffed to ensure good
success. Two-thirds of the income are derived from fees and one-third
from the Government grant.
The Ambroli School of the United Free Church Mission is Hindu
throughout, and at present takes its pupils only as far as the fifth
Anglo-Vernacular standard. All the instruction in the lower forms is
in Marathi, and it is a stiff battle that Marathi babies have to fight
with their letters. There are three scripts to learn--one printed,
one cursive, and one abbreviated--and it is no wonder that, with this
task to master, Indian parents tend to look on Kindergarten expedients
for “time wasting” as a diversion from the royal road to knowledge.
The teachers here, with the exception of one Anglo-Indian for English
in the upper forms, are all Indian, and some are non-Christians, but
the school is continually visited by a fully trained Scottish lady,
who divides her time between this and another school. Fees are paid
regularly, and there is a good municipal grant. An interesting feature
of the American Mission is the stress laid at their orphanage and
boarding-school upon independence in character. Each pupil must do two
hours’ industrial work, and may in addition work longer for payment,
which is credited to her account for payment of fees. Thus some of
the pupils in the Matriculation class were beyond the usual age, but
had contributed considerably to their own maintenance. The industrial
training of this mission is very highly developed, both in Bombay and
at Ahmednagar. The Primary schools in the villages have the usual
characteristics which we have studied elsewhere, and it has only to be
noted that this work is capable of practically unlimited extension.
No account of women’s education in the Presidency would be complete
without reference to the work of Pandita Ramabai,[121] which stands
outside all mission control, and is the unique contribution of an
Indian woman to the future victory of the Christian ideal among her
own people. Since the _Sharada Sadan_ (the abode of wisdom) near
Poona was started in 1892, thousands of Indian widows have been given
the opportunity of a self-supporting, self-respecting life, and a
vision of what self-sacrifice may mean. The education given on strictly
intellectual lines is naturally not carried to a High stage, but is
thorough in type. The Pandita dreads the Westernization of her girls,
and stands for all that is good in simple Indian life.
Though mission education bulks so largely in the statistics of
voluntary schools, and has been the pioneer, it must be realized
that it does _not_ hold the same position in this as in other
provinces, nor influence the districts as a whole. A brief glance at
the figures of Primary schools (Table, page 168) supported by other
public bodies, both in British territory and in the Native States, will
prove the contrary to those who imagine the mission factor still to be
the dominant one.
The Government function is here, as in the other provinces, largely
a co-ordinating and directing one as regards the girls’ schools. The
six important Government institutions--two High schools with Primary
schools attached, at Poona and at Ahmedabad, and four Training
schools--are a direct outcome of the effort to standardize and raise
the general tone of education in the Presidency. They are linked by
the system of “stipends” to all the Primary schools. The institution
at Poona under an Indian lady, Miss Bhore, is excellently housed,
and had at the time of my visit 200 girls in the High school, 200 in
the vernacular practising school, and about 88 Normal students. The
Inspectress regrets that there is not a Government High school in
Bombay to raise the general standard. Apart from these institutions
directly under the Central authority, a great deal has been done
with public funds under the Municipalities and Local Boards. It has
been impossible to ascertain exactly when these schools under public
authority were first started, but the system must have grown up
somewhere in the “eighties.” At first the girls of the lower castes
went, as they still go in many villages, to the boys’ schools; in
other places separate schools gradually sprang up wherever there
were enlightened Indian members of the Municipalities to welcome the
official suggestion. In 1901, the number of girls’ Primary schools in
Bombay necessitated the appointment of an Indian Inspectress to work
under the Municipality, and shortly afterwards an English Inspectress
was appointed from home to the Indian Educational Service, in order
to develop women’s education in certain portions of the Presidency.
Her time was largely occupied in the inspection and examination of
Training colleges and High schools (European and Anglo-Vernacular) and
in dealing with questions of general educational policy as “expert
adviser” to the Department. Since Miss Ashworth’s retirement, no
English Inspectress has been appointed in the Indian Educational
Service to this Presidency. The value of the municipal and local
board schools, if viewed from the numerical standpoint of increasing
the women literates in the district, is unquestioned, but when all
allowance has been made for exceptions, the real gain to the community
when the schools are not well staffed and lack constant supervision is
very questionable. Miss Corkery, the present Inspectress, emphasizes
the need for constant inspection. “I believe that if the Municipalities
employed a trained supervisor to visit each school daily the work would
be carried on more methodically. From my twenty-five years’ experience
of the Hindu female teacher I have come to the conclusion that she
has no power of initiative and no administrative capacity. She will
work hard and faithfully under supervision, but as soon as that is
withdrawn her natural apathy asserts itself.”[122] When in addition
to her own “natural apathy” the teacher has possibly had no Normal
training herself, and suffers from untrained assistants, the spirit of
the school is apt to flag. Adequate inspection of these schools would
undoubtedly necessitate the appointment of women Deputy-Inspectors.
The question of premises is also a very vital one. The Indian child is
accustomed to be one of a crowd, to eat and sleep, to live and die as
one of a crowd; but, in school, if it is to attain to individuality, it
must learn the value of space. Yet in one of the best Bombay municipal
schools which takes its brighter pupils up to the Anglo-Vernacular
sixth Standard, I found some 300 girls crowded into the space really
needed for about half that number. Several crowded pens were to be
seen round a bit of flat roof, too wet in the rains and too sunny at
other times for drill, one of the pens so crammed with infants that it
was almost impossible to step from one division to another, infants in
different classes within touch of one another, and the whole pervaded
with a pungent odour from the fruit market below--surely this is not
for the good of the city or of the children. “In Ahmedabad the girls
are compelled to sit amid insanitary and evil-smelling surroundings,
to study the advantages of pure air.”[123] It would not be difficult
to multiply instances. On the other hand some municipal schools are
well housed and staffed, and the system must not be condemned when
it is capable of improvement. The problem is partly a financial one,
and partly once more the question of the supply of teachers and of
the future Inspectresses. These children pay a few _paisa_, in
fair proportion to the income of their parents, whereas in many High
schools receiving a Government grant the fees might with advantage be
raised.[124]
When the situation in the Presidency is viewed as a whole the present
need is seen to be not so much to secure more girls by artificial means
or to induce more to stay to the higher stage, for there is a steady
current in favour of education which is slowly acquiring momentum, but
rather to raise the standard of teaching as a whole and so to adapt
the curriculum that those children who do pass through the schools
will, in intellectual attainment and character, commend the system and
prove a force attractive to others.
The problem of the teacher is one that is apparent throughout, alike
in Indian, mission, and public authority schools. Taking the Primary
teacher first, from what ranks is she usually drawn, and what are
the attractions to the profession? In consequence of the shortness
of supply the schoolmistress is very often found to be, in fact, an
elderly man. This, however, is becoming less frequent. A glance at the
table on page 168 shows that the majority of students in training are
lower-caste Hindus, and that native Christians form about a fourth
of the whole. Of the 1200 women actually engaged now in the teaching
profession, I have been unable to obtain a religious classification,
but presumably the proportion holds good. In the Ahmedabad Training
College 15 of the students are wives or daughters of masters, 19 are
wives of students, 15 are wives of other men, 42 are unmarried, and 36
are widows. Taking this college as typical, and assuming the certainty
of marriage on the part of the spinsters, it means that in many cases
teachers will be available in couples for the village schools. Those
whose husbands are not teachers are often difficult to locate, and in
many cases may drop out of the work. It is questionable whether the
employment of married women in the schools is advisable: on the one
hand, it seems at present the only method to secure the necessary
female teachers; on the other hand, the British Government is facing
even at home the complications which the element of married women’s
work introduces into the labour market. True, Indian life is different,
for the babies come with their mothers to school, and a kind Government
supplies the necessary cradles and ayah, but there are undoubted
hardships. “The life of the village schoolmistress has not many
compensations; in addition to the long hours at school she has arduous
home duties to perform. In many cases she is the sole breadwinner for
five or six, none of whom consider it incumbent on them to help her
with the household work. Rising at five in the morning or earlier,
she has to begin her daily time-table, which extends over seventeen
hours. It is marvellous that she is able to work as cheerfully as she
does.”[125] The permanent hope is in the widow, and it is encouraging
to see a better proportion of them here. The spinster is at best
available in mission schools for a short period till her marriage. Many
trained Christian girls teach for several years, often living under the
superintendence of the missionary, and make most efficient teachers.
The supply of such, however, is in no way equal to the demand. It is
difficult for one not fully acquainted with the Indian standard of life
to judge of the financial aspect, but the impression gathered from the
Government Reports is that increased salaries might attract a better
class. There is a proverb that when begging fails it is well to learn
to be a teacher. The salaries paid by mission agencies are, as a rule,
slightly less than those paid by municipal authorities, just as the
salaries of educational missionaries are less than the corresponding
salaries at home. As regards training, a great effort is being made on
all sides to secure that all the teachers either take a preliminary
course or go up for the qualifying examination: at present the
proportion is 44%. Any girl in a municipal school who shows any ability
or desire can pass free of charge as a “stipendiary” to the Government
Training Colleges with the stipulation that she shall teach thereafter
with a salary for at least two years. Five mission schools have Normal
divisions attached in which much the same conditions prevail. The city
of Bombay has, however, no proper provision of opportunity. None of
the Government Training Colleges are situated there, and, apart from
Mr Chichgar’s work, which is limited to the Parsi School Association,
there is only a Saturday morning training class under the auspices of
a United Missionary Committee, which is not largely attended. Poona,
on the other hand, has two if not three Training institutions, and
the circumstances seem to point towards redistribution. A Hindu girl
is much more likely to continue her education if it does not entail
leaving her relatives. Miss Wilson, Head-mistress of the Girgaum High
School, in a paper recently read at the Bombay Missionary Conference,
emphasized the need of more funds to aid existing institutions, and
of fixing a definite rate of salaries and a date after which none but
trained teachers would be allowed in any school receiving a Government
grant. The latter suggestion is possibly somewhat premature, as it
might mean the closing of many schools or letting them lapse into
the worse state of “unrecognized” institutions. The training of the
Secondary teacher is a different problem. The impression current in
Great Britain a decade ago that only people who knew nothing, or who
could not teach, went to training colleges, seems still to prevail;
moreover, there is no college where women teachers can receive a
thorough Secondary training. The Inspectress’ reply to an official
inquiry as to the possibility of raising the general standard indicates
the need of a central Government Training College with a graded system
in the aided schools, and special salary grants to all Secondary
schools staffed by trained teachers.[126] There does not, however, seem
any prospect of direct action, either on the part of Government or of
missionary societies. There are few vacancies in the Government Normal
College, and though one woman, a Goanese student, has recently been
studying there, the course is not adapted to women students. A few of
the teachers go up for the Secondary Examination without a qualifying
course or after attendance at a series of lectures given at the convent
in Bombay. There is also a great lack of enthusiasm for the profession
as such; teaching is felt to be more or less a trade finishing at
certain definite hours and limited in its influence to these. A most
attractive set of lectures on various educational problems arranged
by the Principal of the Government Normal College, had an average
attendance of some seven out of possible hundreds. In the case of the
women this is perhaps largely due to the enervating influence of the
climate and the consequent lassitude after a long day’s work, but there
is undoubtedly a lack of some unifying and inspiring influence which
would have a strong reflex effect on the tone of the schools.
The variation of the curriculum has to a certain extent been solved
in this Presidency as regards the Primary stage. Bombay was the first
province to issue a different set of readers for girls, and those
now in use, comprising the study of heroes and heroines from a moral
point of view, simple natural phenomena, domestic economy, etc., seem
admirably adapted to them. The Code prescribes the usual elements with
a study of forms, colours, familiar objects, drill, games, native
accounts, and geography beginning in the third form, and Indian history
in the fourth. The difficulty begins after the fourth Vernacular stage,
corresponding to the first Anglo-Vernacular. After that stage the
shadow of the Matriculation begins to fall, and so heavily that in the
departmental schedule of studies, the highest Standard (VII. A.-V.) is
left blank. Formerly this august portal could be passed very quickly by
a well-crammed child. I met one Parsi girl who entered the University
at the age of thirteen. The age was raised by the Universities
Commission to sixteen. A great controversy has recently raged round the
place of the vernaculars in the University, and the question of the
use of English as a medium of instruction in the school. In regard to
the latter, the real educators argued the impossibility of the proper
comprehension of a difficult subject through a foreign medium, and
the tendency to parrot-like repetition of formula or fact, while the
actively “Indian” party, failing to see the real point at issue, held
that any other method would weaken the standard of English and handicap
the Indian in public service. The Department have sanctioned the use
of the vernacular till a later stage, but though some teachers spoke
warmly in favour of this method, it has not yet gone beyond experiment.
Certainly the teaching of history throughout the Matriculation forms
seems exceedingly weak. The Code for the Anglo-Vernacular Standards in
relation to the Matriculation, and the possible substitution for it
of the School Final Examination, a more practical test, is, however,
under Government consideration and the defects of the present Code need
not be enlarged upon. The variation of the Code for girls is a further
question, and the planning of a suitable curriculum is a matter which
eminently lends itself to private enterprise. The deorientalizing
influence with Parsi girls is not so dangerous as with other Indian
girls, but there is surely something wrong when “once a certificate,
no more books” is a not infrequent cry. Some schools already vary their
curriculum for girls: one mission report speaks of an alternative
course better calculated to fit the girls for home life, leaving
advanced mathematics, etc., to such only as have the necessary mental
ability and physical strength. This effort has met with the approval of
the Inspectress and of the more thoughtful parents. Matriculation has,
however, in certain circles a distinct matrimonial value, and it is
pathetic to see older girls, struggling at a distance of two forms from
the desired goal, who would bitterly resent a change to a curriculum
more suited to their diverse but not inferior powers.
It is here that the opportunity lies for English educators who can
help Indian women through an exceedingly difficult transitional period
to realize the meaning of modern culture, which, while possessing
universal elements, must be evolved by every nation on the lines of
its own genius and characteristics. In Bombay and in Poona there are
Indian women who think deeply on these things, and who await as yet
some constructive policy in the success of which, though the energy
and initiative must be of the West, their share would not be lacking.
If this constructive policy is to start from the Christian standpoint,
if the Spirit of Christ is to dominate the new culture, the women of
Anglo-Saxon countries must let their religion dominate them as never
before, and win them out to the larger service.
IX
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
“Travellers all in the land of the living,
In quest of the self it is best to be;
Comrades all in the getting and giving,
Prythee, tell us, what else are we?
Girls who go hopefully forth to the morrow,
In quest of the Women they wish to be,
Friends who look down on the fair, flying present,
Wistfully, lovingly--this are we.”
From the _“Lal Bagh” Chronicle_.
A firm and steady step on the lower rungs of the ladder is a fair
promise of the ultimate ascent, and after a time incredibly short since
the first beginnings of Western education for women in India, the girl
graduate is found issuing from the portals of the University.
Pioneer in many senses, with a world of idealistic possibilities
surrounding her career, the Indian woman has proved the quality of
her mental capacity; she has successfully stood the most strenuous of
tests, and is prepared to take her part as a leader of her sex and as
a contributor to the Feminist Movement. The member of Congress sees in
her a political factor; the papers which advocate social reform hail
her as a new force which will influence circles far beyond the reach
of their propaganda; the educator trusts that here at last is someone
with the brain power and insight to indicate the true lines for the
education of Indian women; the missionary ponders on her possibilities
for the Indian Church and the Indian home--while India, the real
India, the silent multitude of India’s women, knows little and cares
less. This strange phenomenon seems no longer of their number; she has
stepped away with her new and dazzling robes from the old tradition,
from the memories of the twilight and its tales to a new and untried
world. And yet in a true sense she is still one with them, one with
them in instinct, in thought, in hereditary traits, and fitted, as no
Western could ever be, to act as the mediator betwixt the old and the
new. The possibilities of the Indian woman graduate have to a certain
extent been proved in subsequent careers; on the other hand, the
results of the whole system, as regards the average student, have not
entirely justified the hopes built upon it. A brief examination of the
actual facts and conditions will prove the best introduction to the
problems which underlie them.
The five Universities of India--Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Allahabad,
and Lahore--the constitutions of which resemble that of the University
of London, are open to any woman who can pass the qualifying entrance
examination. Their subsequent studies must be conducted in a college
duly recognized by Government and in affiliation with a University.
These colleges vary as first and second grade according to the stage,
Intermediate or Final B.A., to which they are able to take their
students. Of the 175 colleges scattered over India 10 are specially
women’s colleges, but women are also found studying in mixed colleges
under mission boards or Government. Of Government institutions it may
practically be said that no sex barrier exists, except where a separate
provision is made, as in the case of the Bethune College, Calcutta,
and the same is true to a less extent of the mission institutions.
Thus women students are found in the Elphinstone College, Bombay,
in the Presidency College, Madras, and in the Government College,
Rangoon, studying side by side with men under the same conditions. The
Wilson College, Bombay, is an important example of the mixed mission
college. The ten women’s colleges in affiliation with one or other
University[127] are as follows:--
Number
of
Students.[128]
The Bethune College, Calcutta (first grade) 40
The Diocesan College, Calcutta (first grade) 32
The Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow
(first grade) (A.M.M.) 20
The Sarah Tucker College, Palamcottah
(second grade) (C.M.S.) 6
The Maharani’s College, Mysore
The Maharajah’s College, Trevandrum
St Bede’s Convent College, Simla (first grade)
Auckland House School, Simla (second grade)
European Girls’ High School, Allahabad
(second grade)
Woodstock Girls’ School, Landour (second
grade)
Of these, the last four are mainly for Eurasian girls, and fall outside
the scope of our inquiry. With the exception of the Bethune and the two
institutions in Native States, they are all under Christian management.
The word “college” is highly misleading. The English reader pictures
an institution parallel to Girton or Somerville, with a full staff
of women tutors, supplemented by University lectures, whereas these
colleges consist in most cases of small groups of girls, sometimes
only one or two, who remain after Matriculation in their old school,
studying for the most part under the same mistresses, and with little
or no sense of any transition in their career. If no girls are fitted
to proceed to the higher stages, the college as such may lapse for the
time being; thus only students in training as teachers are returned in
the Panjāb report for 1910, in spite of the two “colleges at Simla,”
whereas the Diocesan School appears officially for the first time
in the Bengal report as a college with a most creditable number of
students and an efficient staff. The one outstanding exception is the
Isabella Thoburn College, where the college department is rigidly
separated from the school, and where the collegiate atmosphere and
sense of corporate life are dominant. A similar arrangement is being
made in the new buildings of the Bethune College. Even in these two
cases there is the linked High School under the same Principal, sharing
in the interest of the staff. A women’s college in the English sense of
the word does not exist.
Passing to the students, the differences of creed, as indicated in the
Quinquennial Returns of 1907, are seen in the annexed table. (See page
197.)
This proportion is on the whole maintained to-day, with the addition of
a few Buddhist girls studying in Rangoon, and an increased proportion
of Parsis in Bombay. The actual numbers show a remarkably small
fluctuation within the last decade, and have not justified the hopes
of those who expected a continuation of the fourfold increase of the
preceding decade. In 1891 there were 45, in 1901, 177 Arts students.
Taking some figures from local returns, we find the following:--[129]
------------------+-------+-------+------
Arts Students. | 1901. | 1906. | 1910.
------------------+-------+-------+------
Bengal | 55 | 24 | 47
United Provinces | 49 | 38 | 45
Burma | 8 | 2 | 12
Bombay | 30 | 57 | 76
Madras | ? | ? | 37
------------------+-------+-------+------
+CLASSIFICATION OF COLLEGE STUDENTS BY RACE OR CREED+
+----------+-------+--------+------+------+-------+-------+------+
| |Eura- |Native |Hindu.|Moham-|Parsis.|Others.|Total.|
| |sian. |Chris- | |medan.| | | |
| | |tians. | | | | | |
+----------+-------+--------+------+------+-------+-------+------+
|Arts | | | | | | | |
| Colleges | 48 | 43 | 31 | 1 | 33 | 4 | 160 |
|Medicine | 40 | 19 | 4 | ... | 11 | 2 | 76 |
|Teaching | 34 | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... | 36 |
|Law | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1 | ... | 1 |
|Medical- | | | | | | | |
| School | 30 | 110 | 15 | 12 | 1 | ... | 168 |
+----------+-------+--------+------+------+-------+-------+------+
| | 152 | 174 | 50 | 13 | 46 | 6 | 441 |
+----------+-------+--------+------+------+-------+-------+------+
A marked increase is shown only in the Bombay Presidency due to the
influence of the Parsis. The students are drawn from varying ranks of
society. Of the Hindu students about a quarter are Brahmans. Some are
drawn from the new professional classes, who highly value education
for their women, and can afford to pay for it; others from the poorer
members of the Brāhma-Samāj, who see in college education a prospect of
a career for their daughters more in accordance with their enlightened
ideas. Of the system of stipends it is difficult to form a judgment.
Whereas in Britain a scholarship indicates special ability tested
by competition, in India a Government or private stipend is in most
cases available, at any rate in Bengal, for any girl who can pass the
required average test. With luck she may possibly also secure another
stipend to cover her board. The “average” girl is therefore apt to
predominate far more largely than in the early stages of college
education in Britain or America. There is also a lack of the element
of hereditary culture, which has a very definite contribution to make
in Indian life, and which may be the inheritance of the daughter as
well as of the son. But where it is impossible to secure a genuinely
competitive system and the only alternative is the closing of the
college career to the really brilliant girl of the poorer classes,
the question is a difficult one. In Calcutta, practically all the
Bethune students belong to the Brāhma-Samāj; in Bombay, where the
line of separation between the Prārthanā Samāj and orthodoxy is very
indefinite, and _parda_ almost non-existent, orthodox Hindu
students are to be found. It must be remembered, however, that these
are essentially pioneers, and that the custom of early marriage or
secluded widowhood still practically prevents any marked Hindu element
amongst women students. In 1903 two Brahman ladies passed the Madras
B.A. from the Maharani’s College, Mysore, being the first of their
caste there to do this.
The Parsi woman student needs no comment. Independent, bright, and
alert, she holds her own in the mixed colleges of Bombay with the
utmost equanimity, and has an unparalleled zest for examinations.
In 1886, the first women students entered Wilson College, Ratanbai
Ardeshir Vakil and her sister Meherbai, daughters of a leading Parsi
solicitor. Several years before, the University had given women the
right to go up for examination, but only one had made use of the
permission. Ratanbai specialized in French, and was elected a Fellow in
1890. From then, till her early death in 1895, she taught French in the
college, and warm testimony to her influence in the college and at home
is borne by the Principal. “One could see how the education and culture
of women, instead of creating a cleft in the life of the family, as is
so often erroneously imagined by those who oppose the cause of female
education in India, proves a means of strengthening its unity and
elevating its whole character.”[130] Her sister, Meherbai Vakil, is
a much-respected medical woman in Bombay, and is typical of a growing
number of Parsi students who have entered professional life with great
credit. The brilliant career of Miss Cornelia Sorabji, a Christian
Parsi, who holds the post of Legal Adviser to the Bengal Government for
women in _parda_, is too well known to need emphasis. Two of her
sisters are Head-mistresses of important Indian schools.
The Indian Christian woman student figures largely in the returns,
and the pioneers of the movement were drawn from their ranks. This
is the natural result of the educational policy pursued by the
various missionary societies, and of the later age of marriage among
Christians. Some of them are mentally very well fitted for their
studies; there are others again who are largely subsidized by public
or private funds, and possess ability to pass the average standard,
but not sufficient mental power to gain full benefit from their
training. Here, for instance, are two girls, daughters of an Indian
clergyman, both passing well, and taking employment, one as a Mistress
in a Government school, the other as an Inspectress in the Provincial
Service; contrast with them a trembling, shrinking girl from a Native
State who has received a scholarship from her State because she has
matriculated and because she is one of an impoverished family of
twelve, a particularly urgent case! Throughout her career the fear
of failure and poverty intensifies the strain already possibly too
great for a delicate constitution, and a girl who might have made an
excellent Primary teacher is sacrificed on the altar of so-called
higher education. And yet, as has already been indicated, the system
affords the needed opportunity for the clever girl, and possesses this
justification. The Christian students are mostly to be found in the
Isabella Thoburn College, in Madras, and a few in Calcutta, chiefly at
the Diocesan School and College. Since the latter was founded, about
fifteen years ago, five B.A.’s have passed out and several F.A.’s.[131]
New college buildings have recently been added with boarding
accommodation for forty-five resident students. It is managed by the
Community of St John Baptist, known generally as the Clewer Sisterhood.
Miss Chunder Mukki Bose, M.A.,[132] to whose guidance the Bethune
College has owed much of its prestige, and the late Lilavati Singh,
M.A., Vice-Principal of the Isabella Thoburn College, stand out as the
most prominent Indian Christian graduates, while the dramatic episode
of Mrs Nvimabala Shome’s graduation as B.A. at the same time as her
husband in Calcutta, gave an object-lesson in matrimonial equality.
She subsequently took her M.A. in England, and devoted much of her life
to the organization of one of the mission High schools in Calcutta.
Indian Christian graduates are to be found all over India undertaking
responsible work with great credit.
The Mohammedan girl graduates cannot be discussed as a class, for even
if we go back to the “glory of women,” the Sheikha Shuhda of the Middle
Ages, who lectured at Bagdad on literature and rhetoric, they are
only found here and there as isolated figures. One Mohammedan girl of
a well known Bombay family passed first among girl candidates in the
Bombay Presidency in 1910, and is now studying at Wilson College.
It will thus be seen that the women students of India are a very
heterogeneous body, representing almost every shade of religious
opinion, and varying possibly in their mental capacity to a greater
extent than the women of other lands.
+UNIVERSITY OF BOMBAY+
-----+-------+---------+--+---------+---+---------------------------+
Engi-|Agri- | | | | L | |
neer-|cul- | | | | a | |
ing. |ture. |Science. | | Arts. | w.| Medicine. |
-----+-------+---------+--+---------+---+---------------------------+
M.D. M.S. M.D. M.S.
+---+ +---+ +---+ +---+
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
+---+ +---+ +---+ +---+
^ ^ ^
| | |
| | |
M.B. B.S. |
+----------+ |
| | |
| | |
M.A. | | L.M.S.
+---------+ +----------+ +----------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
B.Sc. | B.A. | | 2nd Exam.| | |
+--------+ +---------+ +----------+ +----------+
| | | | | | | |
|Inter- | | | | | | |
|mediate.| | | | | |2nd L.M.S.|
+--------+ +---------+ +----------+ +----------+
| | | | | | | |
| | | Inter- | | Preli- | | |
| | | mediate.| | minary. | |1st L.M.S.|
+--------+ +---------+ +----------+ +----------+
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | |Previous.| | | | |
+--------+<--+---------+ +----------+ +----------+
| | | |
| | | |
| |------------------>| |
+---------+ +----------+
Matriculation (age 16).
-----+-------+---------+--+---------+---+--------------------------+
+NOTES.+--The course in the other universities is somewhat
similar.
Calcutta offers a degree as Bachelor of Teaching.
The degree of L.M. and S. is abolished in Calcutta and the Panjāb, but
retained in the meantime in Bombay and in Madras after a six years’
course.
Matriculation age in Madras and the Panjāb is fifteen.
_Quinquennial Review of Progress of Education in India_,
vol. ii. p. 65.
[Illustration: Missionary Settlement for University Women Students’
Hostel, Bombay]
The question of the curriculum and of the nature of the studies
required for the degree examinations has a very definite relation to
the numerical problem stated above. Are these of a nature to attract
increasing numbers? Are they sufficiently in accord with the Indian
ideal of womanhood or with the aspirations of the reformers? The facts
are worth analysis. From the first, the courses for men and women have
been identical; no temporary expedient of a women’s examination such as
the Cambridge Higher Local, and the St Andrews L.L.A., has been adopted
by any of the Indian Universities; women must cover the same ground
as men or none at all. The various courses in Bombay are indicated in
the accompanying diagram. The range of subjects is somewhat similar to
that of the University of London; for the B.A. examination, the average
candidate presents himself in English, Philosophy, or History, and
one Classical or Modern language. There is a corresponding scientific
course, English remaining compulsory throughout. The Intermediate
examination covers a wider range of subjects. The details differ in
different Universities, but the standard on the whole is similar.
Calcutta alone requires a compulsory essay in the vernacular for the
B.A., and the emphasis laid on Sanskrit and Arabic is not the same as
that laid on Latin and Greek in the Western Universities. The Panjāb
University has a separate Oriental Course, for which as yet no woman
has entered. The M.A. is given on the results of further examination,
and, in some Universities, after a fresh course of study. The
proportion of students who go through the whole course is small: for
every seventeen who pass the Intermediate, only five become Bachelors
of Arts, and only one a Master.[133] I have been unable to procure
separate figures for women, but apparently the proportion is even less,
and there are very few women who have obtained the degree of M.A. The
examination system of the Universities has been subjected to severe
criticism, both by enlightened Indians and by Europeans, the chief
indictments being embodied in Lord Curzon’s Universities’ Commission
Report of 1904, and we find tentative reforms in the subsequent Act.
The “yattering” graduate who knows nothing and can decide nothing,
but who can repeat yard after yard from any prescribed text-book,
is the byword of those who wish to taunt India, and there is a germ
of truth in the reproach. The effort to impart the highest Western
culture through Indian teachers who have only partially assimilated
it themselves, must prove to some extent unsatisfactory. Since the
Public Service Commission in 1886, Indians have been admitted to
the Educational Service in much larger numbers: for example, the
Presidency College in Calcutta had in 1880 a complete staff of English
professors and Oriental specialists; in 1911, only eight are English
and twenty-three Indian, though in the meantime the number of pupils
has increased from 350 to 700.[134] It is possible that here real
efficiency has been sacrificed from the commendable motives of economy
and a desire to utilize the Indians in their own Universities. To
command a supply of the best men from home would involve a heavy
financial strain, and yet, unless the Oriental, who can live on a
smaller salary, has spent some years in Europe, he is hardly fitted to
guide a University where the curriculum largely consists of Western
subjects. It is interesting to find Mr Gokhale emphasizing the need
of studying in a foreign University as a preliminary to professional
work in India.[135] It is the presence of a fully equipped English
staff (who are there for other reasons than the mere acquisition of a
“living” wage) which forms the attractive force of a Mission college
to the ambitious young Indian. The whole question is an exceedingly
difficult one, and has been fully discussed recently by both Mr
Chailley and Sir Valentine Chirol; it is raised here only in so far as
it affects the women who study in mixed colleges. It should also be
noted that there is no English lady on the staff of Bethune College,
the only Government college for women. The feminine counterpart of the
typical graduate indicated above is apparently his decided superior,
for the Indian feminine virtues of modesty and reticence come to her
aid, and she does not air her acquired knowledge. Still her knowledge
is only acquired, not yet assimilated, and there is a lamentable lack
of books in her study. The library at Bethune College is not utilized
to the same extent as one in a corresponding English institution.
Actual personal contact with some of the Indian students is a pathetic
experience, as we are forced to realise how little real grit there is
behind their text-book knowledge. They have gained no broad outlook
on life: a tired brain has struggled through so many hours a day of
lecture work and book work, and no energy is left for thought! Climatic
and constitutional conditions account, to a certain extent, for this
result; lack of hereditary culture to a still greater degree; but
it is fostered largely by the conditions under which the girls have
studied, and by the failure of Anglo-Saxon women to give them of their
best. Where the women study apart in the additional classes of their
former High schools they certainly receive individual attention, which
results in creditable passes, and this is possibly the chief merit of
a system which has little to be said for it from other points of view.
The complete staff of the Isabella Thoburn College, the well-utilized
library, and the reputation which its graduates have won throughout
India, are facts which should be noted in this connexion. The Diocesan
College is establishing a similar tradition.
There is another side to University life than the purely intellectual,
namely, the human and personal. This, with all its varied
manifestations in the common pursuit of sport or of music, in the
discussion of social problems and of mental difficulties, or still more
in the gentle art of doing nothing, lends the charm to college days
and is perhaps the more dominant factor in after life. The influence
of certain personalities, men or women, who can be trusted, who can
look at life’s problems from the same point of view as their students,
and are able to throw light on their difficulties with the ripeness of
experience and to lead them to a new moral or religious outlook, is
often in the long run more powerful than that of the actual literature
studied. If the University or college fails as a school of character
it has failed of its _raison d’être_. Precisely on this ground has
the strongest indictment recently been made against the Indian system.
“There has been no more deplorable feature in the recent political
agitation than the active part taken in it by Indian schoolboys and
students.”[136] A University course inevitably shakes the foundations
of their thought, and in many cases has resulted in a revolt from all
former moral or religious standards of conduct without providing a new
basis for life. Under a stricter _régime_, with liberal grants
and every possible encouragement of private hostels where religious
instruction is possible, an effort is being made to combat this lack in
the training of character. The case of women students presents certain
parallel features, and also difficulties peculiarly its own.
The larger proportion of women students in Bombay in attendance at the
mixed classes are living in their own homes; a few from the country
are in residence at the Students’ Hostel of the Missionary Settlement
for University Women,[137] where, though the majority are Christian,
students of other faiths can be received under special arrangements.
A Jain lady was at one time in residence there. This hostel is in
close proximity to both the Wilson and the Grant Medical Colleges,
and supplies a real need, but its residents so far have not been very
numerous.
The women students of Bombay as a whole have no corporate life of their
own; they may attend some of the joint debating societies and kindred
meetings, but do not as a rule take part. Their common rooms offer
rather a geographical _pied-à-terre_ than a means of social unity. As
regards athletics, badminton is pursued in a somewhat spasmodic way in
one college, and by invitation to the Principal’s house in another, but
the question of exercise in relation to non-resident students is always
a moot point in a tropical climate. Some attempt to develop social life
is made by the women graduates from British or Colonial Universities
who are in charge of the students’ hostel; they visit the common rooms
of two of the colleges, and occasionally organize debates or kindred
functions at the hostel, to which the residents may invite other
students. The writer was present at one such debate on the question of
educating men and women on similar lines, and the opinions expressed
by some of the Indian girls are embodied in much of the foregoing.
This influence is also of a religious nature, being in connexion with
the Students’ Branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association, and
indirectly counts for much. It is, however, an extraneous one, and
therefore many of the students, especially in the Government colleges,
are beyond its reach. With their actual lecturers they can have, in the
nature of the case, little or no personal contact, and the real need
seems to be the introduction of women on the staff of these colleges,
together with the tutorial system, which has proved itself so useful
in mixed non-residential universities in Britain. The case is very
strongly put by Mr Covernton, who was till recently Principal of the
Elphinstone College.
“It is becoming a problem how to provide accommodation and adequate
supervision for these girls. It is ridiculous to expect that young
unmarried graduates, fresh from Oxford and Cambridge, can mould the
minds and characters of Parsi, much less of Brahman girls; while the
training of Eurasian girls is still more difficult. Moreover, the close
association of male and female involved in a mixed education is so
totally opposed to the traditions of the East, as well as so fraught
with possibilities of evil, that in my opinion the system is rather a
barrier than an encouragement to female education.--A special lecturer
and tutor of female students should be appointed to the Elphinstone
College. She should be a British graduate, and a member of the Indian
Educational Service. Her subject should preferably be English, because
it is very easy to get women well-qualified to teach that subject.
She would take complete charge of the girls’ studies in that subject,
and would in addition supervise their general reading, their games,
and most important of all their manners and conduct.”[138] As regards
conduct the general bearing and influence of these girls in the mixed
colleges has been most creditable in very trying circumstances,
but there is certainly a need to relax the evident tension of the
position, which is little in accordance with Oriental ideas.
The condition of the women students in Madras who attend the mixed
colleges is somewhat similar. There is an excellent hostel managed by
the Students’ Branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association, where
students of all faiths can reside, and former pupils of the mission
schools can still remain in connexion with them. I understand that the
same strain exists here, with the consequent lack of energy for any
corporate life. An English woman graduate writes from Madras of the
great need in South India of a first grade women’s college.
In Calcutta conditions are entirely different; there is a good hostel
in connexion with the Bethune College, and the Christian girls who
attend it are resident in their former schools. There are only a few
non-residential students, but as the colleges attended by the Arts
students are very small, the system assimilates to the tutorial, and
there is ample opportunity for contact between student and lecturer.
In the Bethune College, however, where the majority of teachers are
men, the conflict with Oriental ideas arises again, and one is not
surprised, apart from other reasons, at the absence of Moslem or
orthodox Hindu girls. Here again it seems unfortunate that there is no
corporate life or unity amongst the women students as a whole, or even
in the Bethune hostel itself. In the latter it would depend entirely
on Indian initiative, and though one would expect it to assume a
different form from the customary Saxon one, its entire absence can
only be accounted for by unfavourable conditions.
The corporate life of the Isabella Thoburn College has already been
emphasized; a glance at the students’ _Lal Bagh Chronicle_
is enough to convince the reader of its reality, and of its
characteristically Indian nature.
The case of the Indian woman medical student must be considered
apart from the life of the Arts colleges. As a rule few women,
except an occasional Parsi, pass from the one to the other, and
there is little contact. It is unnecessary here to emphasize the
need for every possible encouragement for Indian women to take up
the practice of medicine. The sorrows and sufferings of Indian women
behind the _parda_, who would rather face death than admit a
male practitioner, are well known. If to some the statements made
by missionary writers seem exaggerated, they have only to turn to
the petition presented to the Viceroy in 1890 by the medical women
practising in India to find evidence of the saddest facts. Indian
medical students are divided broadly into two classes, those who
study in one of the four Government colleges affiliated to one or
other of the chief Universities, and those who study in the medical
schools for a very much lower qualification.[139] Of the first class
again some are genuine University students going up for the degrees
indicated on page 204, while others are content merely with the college
diploma which qualifies for practice in India. The medical schools,
of which there are twenty-seven in different parts of India, are
“intended primarily for the instruction of candidates for employment
in Government Service as hospital assistants, but many of their
pupils also go into private practice.”[140] They confer the title of
sub-assistant-surgeon. A few women students are to be found in the
former class: in 1907 it included thirty-four Indian women in all,
and there has not been any marked increase in recent years. An even
smaller number of these take the highest qualification. All that has
been said of the strained life of the women Arts students applies
even more strongly to the medicals. It is a very hard and difficult
life, and there is little in the environment to lessen the burden.
The statistics of the medical schools on the other hand show a larger
figure, 138 in 1907, with a considerable increase in recent years.
It is in these schools that the administrators of the Countess of
Dufferin’s Fund,[141] which has done so much for the medical treatment
of women, place most students, though some are also to be found
studying in the Universities. Three of these schools are specially
women’s schools--the North India Medical School for Christian Women
at Ludhiana, the female branch of the Agra Medical School, and one
centre in the Bombay Presidency with some half-dozen pupils. The work
of the former, as it illustrates by contrast the serious problem of
the mixed medical schools and colleges, is worthy of special notice.
This school, which is under the management of a private committee,
including members of the Indian Medical Service, was originally founded
in 1894 through the agency of seven missionary societies working in
the United Provinces and the Panjāb. Its aim was to secure “that the
young Christian women who pass through a medical course, and then go
out to Government or Native State or Mission Hospital work, should be
so safeguarded and trained that they shall be worthy representatives
of the religion they profess.”[142] The dangers of the joint-system of
instruction in all subjects, with unlimited association in hospitals
and museums, is apparent in every centre, with its consequent effect
in some cases of bringing “female education and emancipation into
discredit.” A letter of application to the Ludhiana School throws some
light on prevalent conditions:--
“I require a Female Hospital Assistant for my Hospital, and am very
anxious to get one who has been trained under Medical Women. As your
School is the only one in India of this sort, would you be kind
enough to let me have one? This is not a Mission Hospital but one
for _parda_ Moslem women only, under the Dufferin Fund, and it
is essential that the Assistant be respectable. (This I find rather
difficult to get amongst the class trained under males.) It is perhaps
against your rules to supply Dufferin Fund Hospitals, but I hope you
will stretch a point and oblige me by letting me have one, as I have
had a great deal of trouble for the past year with Assistants.”
The students of the Ludhiana School flock from all parts of India for
the benefit of this tuition under qualified medical women. There are at
present some twenty-seven Indian Christian students and five Eurasians,
taking the four years’ course, while some thirty others are training as
“compounders.” The linked women’s hospital,[143] with a record of 1300
in-patients and 26,000 new out-patients in 1910, affords the necessary
opportunity for practice. The staff is drawn from India, Britain, and
America, and consists of eight fully qualified medical women. The
record of the school is one of slow and steady progress in efficiency
and numbers, and the latest stage is the proposed affiliation to
the Panjāb University, the negotiations for which are progressing
favourably. Under these conditions the school would be able as a
college to send students up for the M.B., B.S. examination, and the
Government students would be transferred to it from Lahore.
The hostel life of the students is under careful superintendence, and
arrangements are being made for the accommodation of non-Christian
students. The contrast between the life here and that of women medical
students in Bombay or Calcutta is marked; and if it be argued that
the highest professional ability cannot be obtained with so limited
a hospital roll, there is surely need for modifying in some way
the conditions at these centres. Two Government hostels for women
medical students exist in Calcutta in close proximity to the two
hospitals;[144] the question, however, concerns not only hostel life
but professional training under circumstances which will not injure
character. The complete separation in the London and Edinburgh Schools
of Medicine for Women affords a striking contrast. A certain number of
Indian students, perhaps one or two a term, come over for a full or
supplementary course in British colleges, as this qualification secures
a better post on return.
[Illustration: Ludhiana School of Medicine--Hospital Court Yard with
Patients]
To sum up, the problem respecting Indian women students, in both
Arts and Medicine, arises, apparently, from the need of a numerical
increase, from the lack of conditions so adapted to Oriental ideas
that the highest courses shall be open without difficulty to women of
all ranks, and from the lack of a curriculum calculated to raise the
standard of the intellectual work done. Moreover, mental training must
be combined with such opportunities for the development of character as
shall ensure to Indian women the leaders they require.
These needs interact, and affect one another; the numerical problem
depends, as we have seen, on certain conditions of Indian society,
and also on the attractive force of the education offered and its
appeal to Indian ideas, as well as on the possibility of pursuing
it under conditions which shall not be too utterly opposed to the
tradition of the country. With the increase in the numbers receiving
Secondary education there has not been a corresponding increase in the
college courses. Mr Covernton, in the quotation given above, further
emphasizes this, and points to the real need of Bombay, for which the
appointment of a woman tutor would only be a temporary expedient. “If
the conditions of University education were in accord with Oriental
ideas of women’s functions, the number would go up by leaps and bounds.
I am confident that the time is ripe for the creation in Bombay of
a women’s college managed by a staff of Oxford or Cambridge women
graduates.”[145] The spontaneous movement amongst Indian gentlemen to
organize high-class schools, where, if desired, _parda_ can be
kept, points to further possibilities. At present, if a Mohammedan or
Hindu girl of high-caste, who had been educated in some such school,
or privately, desired to take a University course, there would be
no opportunity for her doing so. A Mohammedan lady, whose daughter
was being educated in one of the mission schools in Bombay, told the
writer she could not think of letting her attend any college in that
city, though she was anxious for her to have University education. The
only possible course was an English college, such as Cheltenham. The
migration to England of Indian women Arts’ students has, so far, not
been extensive; about a dozen have studied at Cambridge, Oxford, and
Cheltenham; a larger number may have gone to America. The missionary
societies which struck out a bold policy for attracting men by their
great Christian colleges have not made any corresponding move to meet
the new situation in women’s education. The one or two women’s colleges
which exist are created so predominantly for Christian girls that they
attract only isolated pupils of other faiths, and these not of the most
influential classes.[146] It seems strange that in Great Britain the
highest education for women should be to a certain extent apart, with
the necessary contact carefully chaperoned, whereas in India, with a
very different tradition of womanhood, one girl may sit alone in a
class of over a hundred students. It may be argued that the best way
to overcome this tradition is to ignore it, and that it should not be
yielded to in any way, least of all in the case of Higher education,
where the students have presumably risen above it. Some English women
of experience in India take this bold attitude. On the other hand it is
of the highest importance in any transitional stage to secure leaders
from every stratum of the population; and if education be the only safe
lever for the uplift of women in India, it seems a strategic mistake
practically to close its highest stages to those whose families hold by
a certain type of decorum which prohibits co-education.
By adaptation of the curriculum is not meant in any sense the lowering
of the intellectual standard nor the introduction of the element of
domestic economy and so-called “feminine subjects” which are necessary
at a lower stage, but rather a re-arrangement of studies which shall
ensure more individual research and a fuller comprehension of the
material studied. The revision of the curriculum is at present under
consideration in at least one of the Universities, and is a matter for
experts. The action of the University of Cambridge in permitting women
candidates to go up for Honours courses only, and the success which has
attended women candidates for the Triposes, suggest the advantage of
specialized studies in the case of women. Mrs Satthianadhan’s opinion
of the effect of University education on women is illuminating. “It
will make women more methodical, more orderly in their arrangements,
more precise, and better able to weigh causes and results.”[147] A
three years’ specialized course would tend in many ways to develop
these qualities, and would possibly produce the new and more thorough
type of teaching which is so greatly needed in the schools. The
intellectual strain which is so marked a feature at present might in
this way be lessened without detrimental effect upon real intellectual
development.
Towards the end of last century, it seemed as if the goal of the
women’s educational movement in Great Britain might be reached
by the formation of a Women’s University with federal colleges.
Various reasons have led rather to their taking a parallel place in
the existing Universities, though still under somewhat anomalous
conditions, so far as Oxford and Cambridge are concerned. The
American solution is a different one. Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley,
Mount Holyoke, and others have their separate degrees and completely
separated life. It is possible that the solution of the Indian problem
will rather follow these latter lines, and there are indications of
this ideal, somewhat nebulously outlined, in the writings of leading
Indian women. Such a Women’s University with affiliated colleges
in the different large centres might establish a new era and a new
tradition in the education of women. A competent staff of Indian
women graduates, whose presence would secure the students from
deorientalizing influences, and of English women graduates competent
to teach on specialized lines, would raise the educational standard.
The complete separation of such colleges from the High schools
would render a corporate life possible, and give to the Indian girl
graduates the opportunity of carrying on their studies in congenial
and stimulating surroundings. “To them, too, college life might bring
that joyous spring-time of youth, friendship, and unfettered delight of
study and leisure which have hitherto been withheld from them.”[148]
The Maharani of Baroda notes in her recent book[149] the tendency of
women’s education in Europe to take a too exclusively literary form,
and the consequent overcrowding of certain professions. While there is
no danger that the teaching profession will be overcrowded in India
for decades to come, the warning is not without its value. Such a
University might have affiliated with it colleges of Indian Domestic
Science and Economy, but the theory for this has yet to be worked out.
It may seem to some readers, especially to those rightly imbued with
the Eastern principle of _festina lente_, that the day for women’s
colleges in India has not yet come, and that all available strength
should be concentrated on Secondary education; and yet, on the other
hand, the crux of the whole educational problem may be found here. Miss
Emily Davies, who by universal consent stands as the chief pioneer of
the movement in Britain, realized from the first that the reform in
girls’ education must begin at the top. The same principle is seen in
the history of Cheltenham Ladies College (founded 1853), and the early
efforts of Miss Beale to face the same problem of the need of teachers,
which is felt in every Indian school to-day. “Her efforts show how
hard it was to found a school before the reformation of the higher
education had given the necessary stimulus from above. It was a case
of making bricks without straw.”[150] The proximity of certain dates
is suggestive. In 1869, the “Girton Pioneers” first met at Hitchin to
read for the examinations of the University of Cambridge. In 1872,
the Girls’ Public Day School Company was founded, and in 1879 the
Oxford Women’s Halls were opened. The two movements are of necessity
contemporaneous, and cannot be viewed as successive stages towards the
same end.
The beginning exists in India; much excellent pioneer work has been
done, and it now remains to raise the whole movement to a status from
which its future development on Indian and womanly lines would be
assured.
X
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION
“Education, education--education about what? Education about matter,
mere material things, thoughts and ideas. Education, according to the
Vedas, is the opening of the petals of the mind-lotus to the rays of
the spiritual sun, and that is what we now want first.”
--Swami Baba Pramânand Bhârati.
The analysis of the religious element in education is a deep and subtle
problem, and yet, at the same time, this element is the touchstone by
which all systems of education are ultimately tested. The formation
of independent thought and judgment, and of an upright character,
spontaneously moral, may lead in adolescent years to the attainment
of some unifying philosophy of life which shall dominate and satisfy
the religious nature. The successful quest of this during the “silent
period,” and the re-interpretation of it during a college career,
must be the aim of all education. How is this aim to be achieved?
The separation of religion from education in a Christian country,
where morality is under the corporate sanction of inherited religious
tradition, may be a dangerous experiment, but it is made under the
supposition that the influence of home and Church will supplement the
teaching at school. In India, a country of conflicting faiths, all in a
period of transition, and withal a country of deep religious instinct,
the case is different. There is no corporate sanction: religion and
moral principles are not necessarily kindred terms; the influence of
school and of home are often diverse, and thus the former, if it is
in any sense to be the builder of character, must include religion as
the only unifying educational factor. Theoretically, this statement
is justified and endorsed, not only by missionary enthusiasts, but by
official opinion and by Indian sentiment in so far as it is articulate;
its practical endorsement, on the other hand, is one of the most
difficult problems of Indian administration. A brief sketch of the
attitude of Government in the past, and of the modern desire for its
modification may serve to show the relation which this question bears
to the present development of women’s education.
The great educational Charter of 1854 established the Indian system
on the only basis which seemed in accord with our whole Indian
policy--that of religious neutrality; but it was not, as is sometimes
erroneously supposed, an endorsement of a wholly secular policy. The
Government could not of itself undertake direct religious teaching
in its own schools, but the system of “grants-in-aid” with which it
endowed the voluntary schools was “based on an entire abstinence
from interference with the religious instruction conveyed in the
schools assisted.” “The framers of this Despatch entertained the
hope that under its provisions Hindu, Mohammedan, and Christian
managers would supply, each class in its own particular way, what was
already known to be a great defect of the course of instruction in
Government institutions. The same hope was one of the chief reasons
that led the Education Commission to make and the Government of India
to adopt the recommendation that ‘the improvement and extension of
institutions under private management be the principal care of the
Department.’”[151] At the same time many of its members believed that
even the more secular instruction given in the Government schools
would remove ignorance and superstition, and ultimately pave the way
towards the acceptance of Christianity. Moreover, definite provision
was made for the inquiring mind. “The Bible is, we understand, placed
in the libraries of the colleges and schools, and the pupils are freely
able to consult it. This is as it should be; and, moreover, we have no
desire to prevent, or discourage, any explanations which the pupils
may of their own free-will ask from the masters on the subject of the
Christian religion, provided that such information be given out of
school hours.” The agitation of those who wished a more definitely
Christian attitude to be adopted aimed at voluntary teaching of the
Bible, where a suitable teacher could be procured, and a suggestion of
teaching the Indian religions parallel with it is scarcely found. The
argument, as it might be presented to an Indian expostulating in favour
of neutrality, is thus put in Sir John Lawrence’s Despatches:--“We
offer you the Bible in our Government schools because we believe it
to be for your inestimable good if you choose to listen to it. We
do not wish you to study it unless you do so voluntarily. But you
cannot expect us to help in teaching your religion, which we do not
believe to be true. That you can do for yourselves.”[152] “The Indian
religions ought not to be taught; they have ample means of their own
for doing this.” It should be noted that at this time the Samājes
had not arisen, nor the Hindu reform movement, and that the Western
comprehension of things Indian and religious was much more limited than
it is now. The Despatch of 1859, after reviewing the various arguments
for the modification of the “secular” policy, finally sums up--“They
[Her Majesty’s Government] are unable, therefore, to sanction any
modification of the rule of strict religious neutrality, as it has
hitherto been enforced in the Government schools, and it accordingly
remains that the Holy Scriptures being kept in the library, and being
open to all the pupils who may wish to study them, and the teachers
being at liberty to afford instruction and explanations regarding
them to all who may voluntarily seek it, the course of study in
all Government Institutions be, as heretofore, confined to secular
subjects.”[153] The emphasis on the place of the aided school and
the Government school has varied in the different periods of Indian
administration and in different localities, but in the main in the
education of boys the Government or municipal school has predominated.
Its possible religious influence has been negative; and while there
is no record of the English teacher expounding the Bible to inquiring
minds after school hours, as the Despatches fondly picture, there
is ample evidence that the Western education introduced sapped the
foundations of ancient belief and substituted no new positive sanction
of moral principles. The Hindu and Mohammedan effort of the early days
on Western lines was also, with the exception of Aligarh College,
largely on a secular basis. Thus, the place of definite religious
teaching was confined to the schools under missionary management, and
though their influence, especially in South India, has been enormous,
it can in no sense be considered conterminous with Western education in
India. A predominantly secular education has therefore produced its own
fruits, and a discussion of it when so much literature already exists
on the subject is superfluous.
The modern reaction is manifest in popular speeches, in the Press,
and in Government reports. An Indian writer pleads that the Durbar
boon of additional grants for education is no boon, but a curse, if
it perpetuate only the “nauseatingly materialistic, all-intellectual,
and soul-killing system,” and is not in consonance with the
“natural ideals, national aspirations, and the world-old mental
characteristics”[154] of the Indian people. It would be easy to
multiply quotations in grandiloquent language, which, for all their
quaintness, have a strong element of truth. Parallel with the plea
for religious instruction, and to a certain extent confused with
it, is the plea for moral instruction, either apart from or based
on religion. The most trustworthy evidence as to the extent of this
demand and its somewhat incoherent nature was given at the Government
Educational Conference held recently in Allahabad, when a whole day was
devoted to the subject of Moral and Religious Education. The preceding
questionnaire inquired (_a_) how far moral lessons were included
in the ordinary Primary readers, (_b_) whether special moral
text-books were in use, (_c_) whether direct moral instruction
was given and appreciated, (_d_) whether the trend of public
opinion was really in favour of moral instruction in the schools, and
finally (_e_) whether any divergent views thereon were based on
differences of creed. Most of the provinces reported a certain element
of moral instruction in the shape of stories and poetry in the readers,
with the comment that these were mainly used as reading or grammar
lessons, or else were too didactically taught to have any lasting
effect. Certain moral text-books are in use, but these are mainly of a
religious nature and found in the newer Indian schools. The “Sanatana
Dharma” series, issued by the Central Hindu College, Benares, which
attempts to deal only with basal principles of religion, is used by
the Surat municipality, in Mysore, in Baroda and elsewhere, but is not
generally acceptable to orthodox Hindus. The classic Bhaghavat Gita--an
eclectic synopsis reconciling different systems of Hindu philosophy
and religion--is also taught as a class-book in the higher classes
of certain schools in Bengal which were started as rivals to mission
schools. The Anjuman-i-Islamia, Lahore, also prepares books for both
Primary and Secondary classes in Mohammedan schools, and in these again
moral instruction is imparted through religious references. Moral
text-books pure and simple are not used except occasionally those of
the International Moral League in some of the hostels in Baroda and
elsewhere. As regards lessons in direct moral teaching, apart from
religion, there seem to be exceedingly few. A few debating societies
exist for this purpose. One school reports a weekly lecture thereon,
but the boys of the school are credited with stoning a visiting cricket
team which had defeated them! Moral instruction combined with religion
is more common than it is thought in the Indian aided schools, and
various instances are on record. The old-fashioned Koranic schools and
Sanskrit “_tols_” are steeped in religion. “To describe the system
of moral training in such institutions would be to write an account
of the rites and tenets of the Hindu and Mohammedan religions.”[155]
With two exceptions the reports show in detail a general state of
dissatisfaction with things as they are, and a desire for definite
moral instruction combined with a strong preference for a religious
basis where such could be made possible. The words “moral instruction”
seem also to have become a sort of shibboleth. “People are also rather
vague as to what comes under the head of religion or morality.” A
Brahman student is instanced as having devoted much time to religion,
which was found to mean “breathing exercises.” “There are a few of
exceptional intelligence who hold that the teaching of morality must
be based on religion. These would advocate the teaching of a religion,
or rather a combination of religious truths that all men could agree
on.” “The public mind in Bengal is not ripe for the idea of moral
instruction totally severed from religion.” At the same time it is
noticed that little advantage has as yet been taken of the opportunity
to teach religion in the Government schools in the United Provinces
and in Burma. The restrictions which surround it in the former and the
recent date of the permission for it in the latter may possibly account
for this.
The bulk of the answers to the questionnaire issued by the Conference
may be summed up in respect of moral instruction as follows: it is
inefficient, unless impressed by the personality of the teacher, and
unless based on religion; a merely moral system can be accepted only
in circumstances which completely prohibit the religious element.
Combined with the desire for it is a certain healthy scepticism as to
whether moral instruction can be imparted in small doses, and whether
the more effective influence is not the general discipline and tone of
the school. The discussions at the Conference, which represented every
shade of official and religious opinion, followed the same line. The
emphatic testimony of Christian and Mohammedan dwelt on the need for
the religious sanction, the Hindu testimony on the same need, but also
on the impossibility for Hindus of finding a common ground amongst
themselves. “No teaching which rests merely upon the basic principles
of religion will be accepted by Hindus as taking the place of directly
orthodox religion.”[156] The incorporation of moral teaching in the
Government system by means of a general text-book seemed at best only a
makeshift, and did not meet with universal approval.
The evidence of the Allahabad Conference reveals a need and a deadlock.
The country needs morality taught under religious sanction, but how
can a Government pledged irrevocably to religious neutrality provide
this? The granting of equal opportunity in the Government and
municipal schools for parallel instruction in the various faiths, as
Sir Valentine Chirol suggests,[157] would not meet the special case of
the Hindus, and might possibly complicate the position of the mission
schools. The disintegration of a school where rival influences were
at work would further render impossible the unity necessary to tone
and discipline. The solution of the problem seems rather to lie in the
_religious influence of a single kind_, and this is possible only
in the aided schools. The development of these, and the allocation of
a greater proportion of public funds to them, especially now that the
indigenous Indian schools of the newer type are developing religious
instruction, would be in historical continuity with the principles of
1854, and would not contradict the principles of neutrality.
The problem of female education was not considered separately at
Allahabad, and there was no reference throughout the discussion to
girls’ schools. But though girls’ education may be assumed to be some
fifty years behind that of boys, a great deal of the report has a very
direct bearing on our subject as indicating dangers to be avoided and a
more profitable course to be pursued. The whole question is even more
vital in their case, as the removal of religious and moral principles
would be fraught with consequences even more serious to the community.
How far is the education of women in India undermining their religious
beliefs? How far is this influence being counteracted by moral
teaching, or by definite instruction in the principles of their own
religion or of Christianity?
As regards the vast proportion of girls who attain a mere literacy
in the Primary schools, the disintegrating influence can scarcely be
said to have begun; on the other hand, in the Government and municipal
schools there is a lack of constructive influence guiding them towards
that which is true, honest, and of good report. Exceptional women
amongst the few trained teachers may use the opportunity afforded by
the moral lessons in the readers, but only the exceptional women.
Schools started for girls by Indian societies have arisen mostly in the
later period of religious revival, and some of their Primary schools
are saturated with religion. In so far as an outsider can judge, this
tends mainly to the abnormal development of the repetitive faculty. In
the Christian Primary schools the influence of the Biblical instruction
given naturally varies enormously according to the method of the
Indian teacher and according to the frequency of the visits of the
English missionary. The writer has watched a Scripture lesson given
by an Indian teacher to a group of Bengali girls aged about eight
years; their attention, response, and independent questions compared
favourably with those of English children of the same age. It is also
part of the ordinary experience of the zenana visitor to find the
influence and memory of these school lessons still alive amongst those
who have long left school.
In the Secondary and Training stages, the question is totally
different, and the beginning of the influence which has proved
so disastrous on the men’s side is already felt. The Head of one
Government Normal school stated, “Our education cannot fail to
undermine their previous ideas,” and then commented afterwards on the
ineffectiveness of the moral instruction she was trying to introduce.
In some of the Government schools where the Principal is a woman
of special ability and tact, moral instruction is given, but as a
rule it is not attempted. In the Government mixed colleges there is
naturally no influence of this nature. In the Indian schools religious
instruction is the rule, its character, as indicated in the reports to
the Allahabad Conference, differing enormously in different places. In
some it is carefully thought-out moral instruction, linked with those
ideas in the particular religious faith which bear it out. The Benares
school is a typical example of this; the whole school join in morning
_puja_, to Sarasvati, the goddess of learning, and there are
special times during the week for instruction from the Sanatana Dharma
series. The new Hindu High school in Bombay is visited once a week for
the purpose by a Brahman, and a small catechism of a more orthodox
nature is in use. The only Buddhist girls’ Anglo-Vernacular school
in Burma is marked by a strong religious tone. Instruction is given
daily by an elderly priest to the whole school together, “in order that
they may feel religion is the most important thing in daily life and
therefore must be daily.” A specimen of the catechism used is typical:--
“What are the three things to seek daily?
Truth, Knowledge, Righteousness.”
“What will you do when you go home?
We will do salutation to our parents.”
“And afterwards?
We will do our work.”
“And in the morning?
Our first thought will be of righteousness.”[158]
Religious and moral instruction is now given in most of the Parsi
schools of Bombay under the auspices of a special Zoroastrian
Association. This is, I understand, an innovation of the last ten
years. In the schools under committees of different faiths the same
difficulty is felt as in the Government schools. It is solved in one
case by carefully prepared moral instruction on an eclectic basis, in
another by parallel religious observances. There is no uniformity in
practice, but the universal attempt is a clear proof that the Indian
desire for education on a religious basis for their daughters is
genuine.
The Christian factor so far has been the predominating one,
for the “bulk of female Secondary education is provided by the
missionaries.”[159] The religious atmosphere is one of unity and
simplicity. It is part of the wonderful tolerance of Hinduism and
its desire to embrace other faiths in its pervading atmosphere, that
Hindu girls can share outwardly in Christian worship without apparent
realization of its incompatibility with their ancestral religion. The
daily instruction is given in class groups, and where the non-Christian
element enters largely there is usually a separate classification for
this. Its bearing is stated in simple direct terms by a teacher. “The
education of any child is not complete which has not led it consciously
to realize the supernatural, and the revelation of God in Christ.”
In the few schools where a “conscience clause” exists, it is not as
a rule taken advantage of. The girls in one convent who were thus
exempted sat in the back row quietly and were not asked questions;
they also attended chapel, but might take their own books with them.
Another curious instance of the working of the Hindu mind is seen in
the case of an Indian gentleman who withdrew his daughters from the
regular school lesson by virtue of the conscience clause, but sent
them back voluntarily to a special Scripture class held once a week.
Caste prejudice was possibly justified by this arrangement. The tone
and influence of the Christian schools is greatly appreciated; it is
this which fills the Diocesan School in Calcutta with pupils, although
a thorough education is available in the Bethune School. A high-caste
Brahman lady in Bombay testified in the warmest tones to the wonderful
character and spirit of the Catholic sisters who had educated her,
and to whom she had sent her daughters. It is not only the English
education which attracts, it is something more. It would be invidious
to multiply instances, but the testimony is practically universal to
the acceptability of educational work done in the name of Christ.
The three factors contributing to the education of women in India have
thus a varying contribution to make to the most fundamental element in
education, and it is this diversity which supplies the keynote to the
whole problem, and indicates the line for Western action in the future.
The share of the Government, as indicated by the present policy in
Eastern Bengal, Madras,[160] the United Provinces, and elsewhere will
of necessity become an increasing one in the direct establishment of
schools, if there is not a sufficient development of aided schools to
meet the rising tide. Its contribution to religion will be a negative
one. The spontaneous Indian schools which attempt to supply the need
are at their best--and they are not always at their best--only an
imperfect solution. It would be but a poor form of Christianity which
failed to recognize the diverse manners in which God has revealed
Himself to the world, and the truth of permanent value in the great
ethnic faiths of the world which finds its final interpretation in That
which is Perfect. There is nothing more striking in the modern reform
movements of India than the reflection in them of Christian thought and
idealism, and this is specially seen in the instruction given in the
girls’ schools. Christian hymns are used with certain specific verses
left out, the Lord’s Prayer is printed in a Parsi manual of devotion,
verses from Watts and Charles Kingsley are in the Benares series, and
the hope of Christ as the Lode Star of Indian thought can be read
in many a school manual. Together with all this is the perpetual
allegorizing of such facts in Indian literature as will not bear the
pure ethical light. Principal Paranjpe of the Fergusson College at
Poona, in arguing at the Bombay Educational Conference for a secular
basis for moral teaching, held that to make morality depend upon
religion is dangerous if the religious sanction comes to be no longer
regarded as binding. His speech is so illuminating as to be worth while
quoting in full:--“In times like ours where landmarks that were but
yesterday regarded as perennial are being removed to-day and are likely
to be forgotten to-morrow, it is best not to cling to too many rocks.
The one solid rock on which we can rest is our own reason. If eating
pork is a heinous sin with one set of people, beef with another, and
any meat at all with a third, how can the alleged basis of morality be
regarded as absolute! Especially when, as in India, there are various
religions, each religion divided into innumerable sects, and each sect
divided into many separate sections; when the feeling aroused by any
religious question is of a pitch which can hardly be conceived in
Western countries; when the respectability of a man is in inverse ratio
to the number of people he is able to associate with without coming
into conflict with the prevailing religious ideas--it will be seen that
the less we have to do with religion in moulding the character of young
children the better for our national being. Let boys be taught to see
that there are some principles which they can all believe irrespective
of the fact that they belong to one religion or several. It is only in
this way that our various races can be brought closer together.”[161]
To bring morality into relation with a religion which is ethical to
the core, and which has attained with modern science and historical
criticism only a fuller and deeper content, is to place it on a new
footing and to endow it with spiritual power. While full sympathy
must be extended to the Indian effort, the emphasis must fall on the
Christian schools. They alone can supply in full the religious element
so needed in Indian education. The present situation offers to them
in increasing measure an opportunity for a voluntary contribution of
the needed spiritual force and power to the educational development
of India. Their contribution, as already indicated, has been great,
but modern conditions demand something more. Old schools must be
remodelled, new schools started; independent work must be done in
adapting curricula to Indian ideas and the special needs of girls; the
whole educational machinery must be raised to the level of the standard
required for men if the opportunity for imparting this spiritual power
is to be retained.
No social or religious problem can bear isolation, and if this book has
treated the question of the education of women in detail and in its
technical bearings, the relation of that question to the Christianizing
of Indian life and thought is the main interest in its composition.
The problem is a question of character, but of character built upon
personal contact with the Christ-life in God--a question of environment
and curricula, but also of showing that Christianity is of the East,
and Eastern in its spiritual appeal; a question of womanhood, but
also of that more perfect human fellowship where Christ is all and
in all. “Jesus Christ, by the silent action of a lifetime, laid the
first emphasis on the identity of woman’s humanity rather than on the
difference of her sex, thus both dignifying her and man in his attitude
to her.”[162] The solution of India’s social problem lies in the
fulfilment of the Christian ideal, and the progress towards it must be
a united one, in which both sexes share alike. The negative influence
of the home is often found to be the strongest in the student life of
the great Christian colleges, and many an earnest man has fallen back
from what he seemed to have gained because of a silent, unseen woman.
The work of Christian education in leavening thought and producing
the atmosphere in which there is hope of the ultimate acceptance of
Christianity is regarded by many as the most potent influence for
the Kingdom of God in India. The great majority of converts in later
life, who belonged to the high-castes, have been drawn from the ranks
of those who have been educated in Christian schools, and in spite of
intense opposition there are actually men to-day who seek for baptism
during their college career.[163] There is the further, and perhaps in
the sure Providence of God the greater, result in the permeation of
Hindu society by Christian thought and sentiment, which may yet pave
the way for a movement of the higher castes to Christ. At the recent
anniversary services of the Prārthanā Samāj in Bombay, the sermon
preached by a Justice of the High Court, on the present day as “The
Age of the Holy Spirit, the Age of Education,” throbbed throughout
with the reverence of one who had studied at the feet of Jesus. The
long open hall was packed from end to end with young men who had been
touched by the new ideas; in one corner sat some twelve Indian women
whose sympathies were with them. The disparity of the two sexes in the
audience indicted how the leavening influence of Christian education
will be deprived of half its power unless it touches the family as
the unit of civilization. The “direct result” longed for by those
who teach in Christian schools is not lacking. It is unnecessary in
these days to contradict once more the impression that the baptism of
children and girls of immature age is attempted. There are some cases
of the baptism of mother and child together, where careful zenana
visiting has followed up the school pupil; others--and these are the
majority--are secret disciples whose whole environment is massed up
against an open confession. One Moslem girl in the higher classes of
a Christian school is convinced of the truth of Christianity; every
vacation her parents inquire whether she is a Christian yet, and she
knows that if she replies in the affirmative all the advantages which
her younger sisters are enjoying in another Christian school will
cease. The case is not an extreme one. There is a different story of a
girl in Burma who was found teaching the children of her jungle village
daily, and gathering them on Sundays for Bible stories and hymns,
“until,” as she put it, “some one comes who can do it better than I.”
Her former school knew nothing of it, and but for the chance visit of a
Commissioner’s wife the tale would never have been told. Surely this is
direct result.
Christian educational work has also its place in the problem of the
Indian Church. Ultimately the interpretation of Christ to India
must be through the Indian, and the building up of a strong Indian
Christian community is strategically necessary. The power of the Indian
Christian home is in proportion to the power of the woman. Yet only 43%
of the Christian community are being educated. The dangers of mass
movements and of illiterate, uninstructed Christianity on one side,
of europeanizing the convert and educating him beyond his capacity on
the other, show at the same time the necessity and the difficulty of
action. The less romantic educational work of industrial orphanages has
its place in the building up of a strong, true community. The training
of Christian girls as teachers, through whom the leavening process
will again work on the non-Christian village life, is perhaps the most
definite and most direct form of influence.
There is no more subtle problem than the lack of any characteristically
Indian note in the Indian Christianity which is now assuming some
numerical importance. “There is no doubt that the lack of vitality,
the half dead and half alive spirituality which is the present
characteristic of the Indian Church, is due to enforced conformity to
Western standards of what is Christian and what is not Christian.”[164]
It may be that this problem too has its relation to the education on
Christian and Oriental lines of the women, who have been from all time
the custodians of religion, the upholders of traditional custom, and
conservative rite.[165]
From whatever point the larger question of the whole country is viewed,
it seems to attain perspective and reality in relation to the education
of its womanhood, and it is only thus as part of one great Christian
movement that the feminist problem receives its right emphasis and
value.
XI
CONCLUSION
“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
the fulness of Christ.”
+EPHESIANS+ iv. 13.
The spiritual heritage of the twentieth century is marked by extreme
diversity and yet by a deep inward reality. The march of science and
commerce, and the development of international relationships have
given a new content and width to the world’s thought. Isolated life
is powerless, and a larger synthesis links the human race together.
All such relationship must inevitably have spiritual content. The
social upheaval, the claim of the individual for recognition, have a
determining influence on the interpretation of our faith. Pragmatism
in modern philosophy tests religion by its results. The religious
evolution necessitated by the play of international forces is all the
more critical in that it is to a certain extent unconscious. There is
a deep Christianity apart from the Church as it is, which has yet to
make the Church its own. The demand is now for reality--an embodiment
of religious principles in modern social conditions; for charity--a
sympathy with the ethnic faiths which is the surer for belief in the
finality of the Christian revelation; for unity, since the modern mind
cannot accept a Christianity which does not transcend and interpret all
political, social, and intellectual life. “It is not our duty to-day to
fight for a new religion; we have but to awaken into freshness of life
the fathomless depths of Christianity. In so far as we succeed in doing
this, we can completely satisfy the requirements of the new situation;
we can seek to realize a Christianity that shall be at once more
universal and more active and intent on disengaging itself from its
anthropomorphisms; at the same time we shall view as our very own the
wealth of religious profundity and inward experience which the older
Christianity has gathered through its centuries of service, and shall
seek to realize them in our own life.”[166]
The growth of the desire to make Christianity universal is perhaps the
most wonderful phase in the advance of thought; while in one sense
it is very old and a return to the primitive times of the faith, its
modern phase thrills with fresh content by the ever-present working
of the Spirit of God. The fresh light which criticism has shed on
the historical Jesus has thrown once more into relief His wonderful
doctrine of the brotherhood of men in the Fatherhood of God. The desire
is not so much to bring salvation to those whom a rigid theology long
condemned as “heathen,” as to give freely of the fulness received in
clear consciousness of the solidarity of the human race. The world’s
best thought must be in terms of Christian philosophy; the Kingdom is
conceived as present now in power; Christ is seen as the Fulfiller of
all that is true and eternal in the ancient Faiths, and essentially the
Saviour of the corporate life.
The appeal of this book is thus for the Christianizing of every factor
in the education of women in India. None of the three contributing
forces need be alien to the Spirit of Christ; their unity, their mutual
relationship, and the necessity of their presence in a transitional
period must be felt and realized. Can all this educational advance be
made, if not directly in the Name of Christ, at least in the power
of His Spirit? The Government influence must determine the tone and
character of the whole frame-work. Can the Educational Service be
supplied in all its branches with women who, while absolutely loyal to
the great principle of neutrality, yet seek through it the spiritual in
the material, and whose whole work in Empire-building is consciously
related to the Kingdom of Christ? India has known men of this type
in the Government Service, and has esteemed their strict neutrality
the more because of the Christian conviction which lay behind it. The
influence of Christian ethics in the Government schools behind such
moral instruction as is possible is enormous, and it naturally enters
into the teaching of secular subjects. The direct influence permitted
out of school hours is a matter of great difficulty and calls for the
utmost discretion. If the Government policy were ultimately modified so
as to permit of parallel religious instruction, the direct opportunity
would be present, but in the meantime indirect religious influence has
a very definite place.
The spontaneous Indian element will have an important contribution to
make in the determining of the curricula. Will the Indian committees,
who need the help of English women, be able to secure those of the
highest talent and educational qualifications, who for the sake of
Christ will give them of their best and remain, if silent, yet strong
in the Faith? This is hard and perplexing work, and calls for strong
personalities, but it is fraught with endless possibility. India will
never be won if she does not behold Christianity in her midst lived in
the lives of those who pursue their ordinary vocation in the Spirit of
the Master.
These suggestions are made with hesitation lest their attraction should
weigh with those who could take the more definite line of associating
themselves with the educational work in India which is done directly
in the name of Christ. The development of this work on sound lines
by women of experience and of the highest educational qualifications
is, as has been indicated in the preceding chapter, the keynote to
the whole problem. In no work is there such a magnificent sphere of
influence as in this. A spiritual heritage involves responsibility and
opportunity. Nearly a century of patient work for the women of India
is written in the annals of the Church: the task of the present day is
to enter into this work with the same earnest patience. The need for
action is urgent. It is not only that there are endless opportunities
for new work which are not being utilized, but that schools with an
excellent tradition are not being raised to the modern standard of
efficiency. They are inevitably handicapped by shortage in the English
staff. A young girl of little experience may find herself almost at
once at the head of some most complex institution, long before she
would ever have had such a position of responsibility at home. The
perpetual strain on those who work on at such tension prevents the due
result. In other cases the needed and desired expansion is checked by
lack of the trained educator who could supervise village schools and
their teachers, or who could put her energy and talent into building
up a first-class school for non-Christian girls in the centre of
some district where the new spirit is manifest. Facts indicate the
appointment in the future of women to act as Tutors or Directresses
of Studies to the girl students in the mixed mission colleges. There
is the possibility also of women’s Christian colleges. On every side
the need is apparent, and the power to meet it lies with the women
of the English-speaking countries. It is work which makes demands on
intellect, on character, and on the religious nature. The hesitation
to respond to it springs in part from the sense of reverence for
things sacred. There are women in educational circles at home who hold
the truth of Christianity and its sufficiency to meet the need of the
whole world, but have not offered to share in educational missions
lest their contribution be not of the required type. There is need in
India for every type of worker. Christianity gains there, as at home,
by interpretation through diverse personalities, and there is room
for all who can reflect, it may be silently, its spirit and power in
the daily routine of work. A sense of vocation is a sense of personal
relationship to Him Who calls, and therein lies the motive power for
all educational work done in the name of Christ.
Appendix A
+CURRICULA+
Matriculation subjects of the five Universities of Calcutta, Madras,
Bombay, Panjāb, and Allahabad:--
English and Mathematics, compulsory in all.
History and Geography, compulsory in all except Calcutta.
Science, compulsory in Madras and Bombay; elective in the other three.
Classical language, compulsory in Calcutta, Bombay, Panjāb;
alternative with vernacular in Madras; elective in Allahabad.
Vernacular compulsory in Calcutta and Bombay; alternative with
classical in Madras; elective in Allahabad and Panjāb.
Drawing, elective in Allahabad and Panjāb.
+TEXT-BOOKS+
State Schools.--No choice.
Aided Schools.--Choice among authorized alternatives.
Unaided but recognized Schools.--Abstention from books disapproved by
Government.
Text-book Committees.--In every case appointed by Government, and
include official and non-official members; in some provinces places
are reserved for members of the staff of mission schools.
From Analysis of Educational Codes in British India.
Appendix B
+COURSES FOR THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS+
Training colleges and classes:--
(1) Graduate Course--one year. } Both in
(2) Undergraduate Course--two years. } English.
(3) Vernacular Course--after Middle examination--two years.
(4) Lower Vernacular Course--after
Upper Primary examination (women only)--two years.
Courses (1) and (2) are pursued in the Universities, in special English
Training schools for men, or in the Training Department of some
European schools.
Courses (3) and (4) in Government or mission Vernacular Training
schools for women. These consist frequently of very small groups in an
ordinary Middle or High school. A few students are also found in mixed
schools.
Appendix C
Diagram showing INCREASE OF FEMALE EDUCATION in India.
[Illustration:
In Burma 9.6% of girls of school age are receiving education.
” Bombay 7.2% ” ” ” ”
” Madras 6.8% ” ” ” ”
” Bengal 4.3% ” ” ” ”
” Punjāb 3.1% ” ” ” ”
” United
Provinces 1.3% ” ” ” ”
]
Bibliography
+BARODA+, Maharani of. _Position of Women in Indian Life_.
+BRADLEY BIRT, F. B.+ _Romance of an Eastern Capital_.
+CARPENTER, J. E.+ _Life of Mary Carpenter_.
+CARPENTER, M.+ _Six Months in India_.
+CHAILLEY, J.+ _Administrative Problems in British India_.
+CHIROL+, Sir +VALENTINE+. _Indian Unrest_.
+DAVIES, E.+ _Questions relating to Women_.
+DUTT, R. C.+ _Ancient India_.
+DUTT, R. C.+ Translation of _Ramāyana and Mahabhārata_.
+FESTINÉ, G.+ _From the Land of the Princes_.
+FRASER+, Sir +ANDREW+. _Among Rajahs and Ryots_.
+JAMES, H. R.+ _Education and Statesmanship in India_, 1797-1910.
+LOW, SIDNEY.+ _A Vision of India_.
+LYALL+, Sir +ALFRED+. _Asiatic Studies_.
+MITRA, S. C.+ _Indian Problems_.
+NEVINSON, H. W.+ _The New Spirit in India_.
+PURSER, W. C. B.+ _Christian Missions in Burma_.
+POOLE, F. F.+ _Woman’s Influence in the East_.
+RICE, B. L.+ _Mysore_.
+RULERS OF INDIA SERIES.+ Edited by Sir William Hunter.
+RICHTER, J.+ _History of Missions in India_.
+SCOTT+, Sir +GEO.+ _Burma_.
+SMITH, GEO.+ _Life of Alexander Duff_.
+SORABJI, C.+ _Between the Twilights_.
+STEELE, F. A.+ _India through the Ages_.
+STRACHEY+, Sir +JOHN+. _India_.
+ZIMMERN, ALICE.+ _Renaissance of Girls’ Education_.
_Imperial Gazetteer of India_.
_Quinquennial Report on Progress of Education in India, 1907_.
_Public Instruction Reports, 1860-1910_. Selections
_Statistical Abstract relating to British India, 1911_.
_Reports of Various Missionary Societies_.
Index
+AHMEDABAD+, 181
Ahmednagar, 180
Ajmer-Merwara, 156
Alexandra School, 173
All-Indian Moslem League, 24
Allahabad Conference, 231
Alwar, 154
American Baptist Mission, 67, 151
American Board, 178
Amherst, Lady, 36, 103
Anglo-Indian (Eurasian), 63, 69, 76, 90, 180
Anjuman-i-Islamia, 229
Ārya Samāj, 15, 133, 157
+BAPTISTS+, 67, 85, 151
Baroda: Maharani of, 15, 103, 221;
---- schools in, 148, 229
Benares, 133, 229
Bengali, 101
Besant, Mrs, 133
Bethune School and College, 36, 45, 110, 194, 206
Bharat Stri Mahamandal, 17
Bhopal, 27
Bhore, Miss, 181
Bombay, 160 ff.
Bose, Miss, 111, 201
Brāhma-Samāj, 14, 89, 102, 111, 123, 198
Buddhist, 60, 66, 196, 234
+CALCUTTA, SCHOOL SOCIETY+, 34, 103
Capitation grant, 130
Carpenter, Miss, 38, 42
Chanda Ramji, 167
Chichgar, 173
Chiefs’ College, 145
Christian students, 197 ff.
Church Missionary Society, 104, 139, 142, 194
Clewer Sisters, 116
Compulsory Education, 24, 149
Conversion, 242
Cook, Miss, 35, 103
Covernton, 210, 217
Curriculum, 53, 71, 95, 125, 144, 189, 203
Cursetji, 166
+DACCA+, 78
Danish missionaries, 35
Davies, Emily, 221
Dehra Dun, 133
Diocesan High School, Calcutta, 116, 194
Duff, Dr Alex., 35
Dufferin Fund, 212
+EDEN GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL+, 89
Education: Despatch, 1854: 34, 224;
---- Commission, 1884: 34, 46;
---- Despatch, 1904: 46
Elphinstone, Lord, 162;
---- College, 194
Eurasian, cp. Anglo-Indian
+FRERE, LADY+, 172
+GĀRGĀ+, 29
Gokhale, G. K., 20, 24
Gondal, Rani of, 15
Government, system of education, 22 ff.
Government: attitude to female education, 37, 46, 64, 109, 130, 156,
181, 193, 216;
---- Female Education Committee, 80
Grant Medical College, 208
Gujerati Stri Mandal, 17, 166, 170
+HASTINGS, LADY+, 36, 106
Hindu, 15, 17, 30, 35, 39, 87, 113, 143, 166 ff., 198, 230
Hindu Female Training School, 123
Hostels, 85, 208, 211, 216
Hyderabad, 151
+IDEALS OF WOMANHOOD+, 26, 29, 113, 144, 216, 240
Indian Church, 242
Indian National Congress, 24
Indian schools, 47, 66, 145, 167
Inspectress, 41, 46, 95, 131, 151, 156, 182, 246
International Moral League, 229
Isabella Thoburn School, 45, 137, 194
+JAIPUR+, 154
+LADIES’ SOCIETY FOR FEMALE NATIVE EDUCATION+, 106
Lawrence, Lord, 38
Learned ladies, 31 ff.
Lilavati Singh, 137, 201
Literacy, 25, 63, 150, 165
London Missionary Society, 152
Ludhiana, 215
+MADRAS+, 27, 36, 54, 194, 211, 237
Mahakali Pathshalas, 47, 84, 113 ff.
Maharani’s College, 194
Maitreyi, 30
Manu, Code of, 30
Marathi, 179
Marshman, Mrs, 103
Medical students, 212
Methodist Episcopal, 67
Minto, Lord, 22
Mission schools, 44, 50, 67, 93, 103, 115, 137, 141, 151, 155,
176, etc., 233
Missionary Settlement for University Women, 208
Mohommedan, 14, 17, 69, 82, 89, 111, 163, 171, 202, 229
Moral instruction, 223 ff.
Municipal schools, 36, 87, 182
Mysore, 151, 194
+NASIRABAD+, 156
National Indian Association, 18
Native States, 146, 195
Nauraji, 165
Neo-Hinduism, 133
Nivedita, Sister, 21
Normal schools, cp. Training
+OXFORD MISSION+, 85
+PARANJPE, PRINCIPAL+, 238
Parda: absence of, 163;
---- introduction of system, 33;
---- party, 18, 98;
---- schools, 90, 113, 123, 135, 158, 167
Parsi, 17, 36, 164, 171 ff., 198, 235
Poona, 167, 178, 181
Prabhu Brahmans, 164
Prārthanā Samāj, 170, 241
+QUEEN MARY COLLEGE+, 143
+RAJPUTANA+, 153
Ramabai, 180
Rangoon, 67, 194
Religious instruction, 225 ff.
Results, 241
Roman Catholic, 67, 117
+SARAH TUCKER SCHOOL+, 45, 194
Secondary training, 58, 125, 188
Seva Sadan, 17
Social life, 17, 207
Society for Propagation of the Gospel, 67, 142
Sorabji, Cornelia, 200
---- Lena, 89
---- Mrs, 178
Specialization, 219
Stages of education, 51, 125, 164
Stipends, 198
Students Literary and Scientific Society, 165 ff.
+TEACHERS+, 57, 74, 96, 122, 185
Training schools, 58, 75, 90, 93, 118, 123, 142, 149, 157, 174,
177 ff., 194
Travancore, 152
Trevandrum, 195
+UNITED FREE CHURCH MISSION+, 45, 118, 115, 179
University, 192 ff.
Unrest, political, 20, 208
+WELSH PRESBYTERIANS+, 85
Wesleyan, 139, 151
Whyte, Miss, 118
Widows, 58, 123, 149, 157
Wilson College, 194, 199
Wilson, Mrs, cp. Cook
Wilson, Mrs Margaret, 35, 165, 177
Wilson, Miss, 187
Women’s colleges, 194
---- University, 220
+Y.W.C.A+., 96, 209, 211, 216
+ZENANA BIBLE AND MEDICAL MISSION+, 37, 142, 178
Zenana, cp. parda
FOOTNOTES:
[1] An Indian Theistic sect eclectic in character, founded by Raja
Rammohan Roy in Calcutta, 1828. _Cp. New Ideas in India_--John
Morrison, D.D.
[2] Or Vedic Theistic Association, a patriotic and religious sect,
chiefly in the United Provinces and the Punjāb. Founded in 1875 by
Dyanand Saraswati. _Cp_. as above.
[3] Women who remain behind the curtain.
[4] _Among Indian Rajahs and Ryots_--Sir Andrew H. L. Fraser, K.C.S.I.
[5] _Between the Twilights_--Cornelia Sorabji.
[6] _Women in the Modern National Movements of the East_ (S.C.M.
Pamphlet), by A. de Sélincourt.
[7] Seva Sadan Report.
[8] _Ruler of India Series_--Lord Amherst.
[9] Speech at the Education Congress, 1897--G. K. Gokhale.
[10] _Among Indian Rajahs and Ryots_--Sir A. H. L. Fraser, K.C.S.I.
[11] _Cp_. Diagram, Appendix C.
[12] Lodgings.
[13] 1911 Census Returns. In 1901, 9.8 per cent. men, 0.07 per cent.
women.
[14] _Women in the Modern National Movements of the East_ (S.C.M.
Pamphlet, 1912), A. de Sélincourt.
[15] _Vedic Quarterly_, 1911.
[16] _Koran Sura IV_. (Rodwell’s edition, _Sura_, C.).
[17] A secret phrase or password used for initiation into Hindu sects.
_Cp. Primer of Hinduism_--J. N. Farquhar (C.L.S.).
[18] _Cf. Ancient India_. R. C. Dutt.
[19] _Vedic Quarterly_, 1911.
[20] Manu, ii. 67. S.B.E. The Vedic Sacrament had for its object the
study of Vedic texts.
[21] Manu, ix. 18. S.B.E.
[22] _India through the Ages_. F. A. Steele.
[23] _India through the Ages_. F. A. Steele.
[24] Smriti=tradition (of philosophy).
[25] System of philosophy.
[26] _Calcutta Review_, September 1855.
[27] _India through the Ages_. F. A. Steele.
[28] _History of Missions in India_. J. Richter.
[29] _Biography of Alexander Duff_. George Smith.
[30] Appointed to the Subordinate Educational Service in 1876. India
Office Note.
[31] Popular Education in the North Western Provinces.--_Government
Report_, 1860.
[32] Popular Education in the North Western Provinces.--_Government
Report_, 1860.
[33] An agricultural caste.
[34] Landowners.
[35] _North Western Provinces Report on Education_, 1875.
[36] _Life and Work of Mary Carpenter_. J. E. Carpenter, 1879.
[37] _Six Months in India_. Vol. I., p. 278. M. Carpenter.
[38] _North Western Provinces Report on Education_, 1877.
[39] _Ibid_.
[40] The Madras Report alone gives separate figures:
Secondary schools, Government, 2 Mission, 35 Indian, 0 Primary schools,
” 208 ” 523 ” 331
[41] Pathshala = school.
[42] _Quinquennial Survey of Progress of Education in India_, 1907.
Vol. II. Tables 181-184. These statistics include Eurasian Schools.
[43] _Quinquennial Survey_, 1907. Vol. II. Table 180.
[44] _Quinquennial Survey_, 1907. Vol. I., p. 257.
[45] Comparative Percentages. In 1886--1.6 per cent.; in 1896--2.1 per
cent.; in 1901--2.2 per cent.; in 1907--3.6 per cent.; in 1910--4.6 per
cent.
[46] Schools are classified as
(_a_) Primary, including Standards I to IV.
(_b_) Vernacular Middle, including Standards I to VII.
(_c_) Anglo-Vernacular Middle or Middle English, including Standards I
to VII. English taught from Standard IV.
(_d_) High, including Standards I to X. English taught from Standard IV
and used as a medium in the higher stages.
This classification varies somewhat in the different provinces,
especially as to the age for using English as a medium. (_b_) is
entirely absent from some returns. (_c_) and (_d_) are often grouped
together as secondary schools.
[47] _Quinquennial Survey_. Vol. I., p. 255.
[48] _Renaissance of Girls’ Education_, A. Zimmern.
[49] _Cf_. Appendix A. for curriculum.
[50] _World Missionary Conference Report_. Vol. III. p. 51.
[51] _Cf_. Appendix B.
[52] “Marriage in Burma is simply concubinage, which may terminate at
the desire of either party.” _Christian Missions in Burma_. W. C. B.
Purser.
[53] _Public Instruction Report, Burma_, 1910.
[54] _Public Instruction Report, Burma_, 1910.
[55] _Missions in Burma_, p. 13. W. C. Purser.
[56] _Burma_. M. and B. Ferrars.
[57] _Report of Public Instruction in Burma_, 1910, p. 41.
[58] Dramatic tales with pointed moral. The “Pyazats,” the modern
development thereof are popular burlesque plays, performed at
festivals. _Cf_. _Burma_. Sir George Scott.
[59] _Public Instruction Report_, p. 18.
[60] _Cf_. p. 66.
[61] This was written before the Durbar Proclamation on the further
re-adjustment of Bengal areas. Calcutta is now the capital of the
Bengali-speaking districts.
[62] White veil with eye-holes, enveloping the whole person.
[63] Mohammedans, 18 millions. Hindus, 11½ millions. Animists, 1¼
millions. 1901 Census.
[64] This title is used of a Mohammedan woman of a ruling family, or
who can prove direct descent from the Prophet.
[65] A literary caste.
[66] A literary caste, about 25 per cent. of their women are literate.
[67] Descendants probably of the original inhabitants of the district.
[68] Shloka, a particular type of Sanskrit metre, often used loosely to
mean any verse of Sanskrit poetry.
[69] Patshala = school.
[70] Information throughout is chiefly drawn from _Proceedings of
Female Education Committee_.
[71] Teacher.
[72] _Cf_. p. 137.
[73] 50 rupees per month in addition to 25 rupees gari-allowance is
given to each governess and the pupils do not contribute much.
[74] _Indian Speeches_. Lord Curzon.
[75] Work. “It is not my work” is a common excuse.
[76] _Cf_. Note Chap. IV, p. 78.
[77] _Imperial Gazetteer of India_--Volume _Bengal_.
[78] Only 3171 in the 1901 Census.
[79] _Position of Women in Indian Life_. Her Highness the Maharani of
Baroda. _Cf_. also Chap. II, p. 36.
[80_1] _Calcutta Review_, 1855.
[80_2] _Calcutta Review_, 1855.
[81] _Address on Female Education in India_, 1839, delivered by Dr Duff
at the First Annual Meeting of the Scottish Ladies’ Association.
[82] Percentage of girls of school age at school.
1881 0.87
1891 1.61
1901 1.8
1910 4.3
The total number of girls under instruction is now 171,569.
_Imperial Gazetteer. Bengal Public Instruction Report_, 1910.
[83] _Imperial Gazetteer_.
[84] _Cf_. Chap. II, p. 36.
[85] _Cf_. Chap. IX.
[86] The Goddess of Learning. On her festival, students will pile their
books and inkpots before the shrines in their colleges for special
blessing.
[87] Worship.
[88] Lady, a title of respect.
[89] _Report of the Mahakali Patshala_.
[90] 1911 Census. _Statistical Abstract of British India_.
[91] A school under the English Code, where only 15 per cent. of the
pupils may be of Indian parentage.
[92] _Bengal Public Instruction Report_, 1910.
[93] _Cf_. Chap. VIII.
[94] Inspectress’s Report.
[95] _Public Instruction Report, United Provinces_, 1910.
[96] _Cf_. _Young India and the Education of Girls_, E. R. M’Neile
(C.M.S.).
[97] Formed from Statistical Tables III and IIIA. _in Public
Instruction Report for United Provinces_, 1910.
[98] _Cf_. _The Renaissance in India_, C. F. Andrews.
[99] _Public Instruction Report, United Provinces_, p. 34.
[100] _Public Instruction Report, Panjāb_, 1910.
[101] _Cf_. p. 178.
[102] _Female Education in North India. East and West_, January 1911.
M. P. Western, Principal, Victoria May School.
[103] The prospectus of the Conjeevaram School (South India) presents
several unique features. The Hindus consider it their best school. A
visit was, unfortunately, impossible.
[104] _Administrative Problems of British India_, book ii., chap. i. J.
Chailley.
[105] Chief minister.
[106] _Public Instruction Report, Bombay_, 1910, p. 24.
[107] _Imperial Gazetteer of India_.
[108] The great “war-sacrifice of honourable death” practised by the
Rajputs. When resistance was unavailing, they chose death in battle
rather than surrender.
[109] From _The Land of the Princes_, Gabrielle Festing.
[110] _Imperial Gazetteer_.
[111] _Statistical Abstract of British India_, 1911. Approximate
figures.
[112] Asoka, ruler of India, +B.C.+ 272-231. He is known as the
Constantine of Buddhism.
[113] A society similar to the Brāhma-Samāj, but less organized and not
so strong numerically. _Cf_. _New Ideas in India_. Morrison.
[114] There are also 190 girls studying in the High Stage of 12 of the
schools classified for various reasons as Middle.
[115] High and Middle schools which have a Primary Department are
included again in the returns of Primary schools.
[116] _Public Instruction Report, Bombay_, Table IIIA.
[117] “English-teaching” schools form a special category in the Bombay
Presidency. There is no limitation to the number of Indian pupils, and
they are not bound by the Anglo-Vernacular Code. _Cf_. p. 179.
[118] Hindu ladies attended first about 1863 in response to special
efforts made on their behalf by Lady Frere.
[119] Farthings.
[120] Detailed information can be obtained in the reports of the
various societies. There are 26 Protestant societies in the Presidency,
most of whom have educational work for girls.
[121] _Cf_. _Life of Pandita Ramabai_, Helen Dyer.
[122] _Public Instruction Report, Bombay_, 1910, p. 27.
[123] _Public Instruction Report, Bombay_, p. 27.
[124] _Ibid_., p. 18.
[125] _Public Instruction Report, Bombay_, p. 29.
[126] _Public Instruction Report, Bombay_, p. 16.
[127] There are in addition three Training Colleges.
[128] Approximate number only.
[129] _Cf_. also _Statistical Abstract, British India_, Table 105.
[130] Dr Mackichan, in Preface to Ratanbai’s Translation of _Les
Parsis_.
[131] F.A.--title given to those who have passed the First Arts
examination, corresponding to “Intermediate.” It is abolished by some
of the Universities. _Cf_. p. 116.
[132] Now married to Pandit Keshavan.
[133] _Administrative Problems of British India_. J. Chailley.
[134] _Indian Unrest_. V. Chirol.
[135] _Administrative Problems_. J. Chailley.
[136] _Indian Unrest_. Chirol.
[137] _Cf_. Report from Secr. M.S.U.W., 74 Denison House, Vauxhall
Bridge Road, London.
[138] _Public Instruction Report_, Bombay, 1910.
[139] There are at present in hospital work in India 47 women medicals
of the first grade (including English women), 92 assistant surgeons,
and 67 hospital assistants, practitioners, etc. _Cf_. _Report of the
Countess of Dufferin’s Fund_, 1911.
[140] _Quinquennial Report_, vol. i.
[141] Founded in 1884, the total value of hospital buildings connected
with the Fund is now 50 lakhs. 90 students are in receipt of stipends.
_Cf_. Report.
[142] _A Problem and its Solution_, E. M. Brown, M.A., M.D. (Procurable
from 36 Fairfield Road, Bromley, Kent.)
[143] Further hospital practice might be available in Ludhiana.
[144] The Y.W.C.A. has student branches in these hostels.
[145] _Bombay Public Instruction Report_, 1910.
[146] Exceptions exist in the Diocesan College, Calcutta, in the case
of non-residents.
[147] _Indian Ladies’ Magazine_.
[148] Alice Zimmern on the aims of the Girton pioneers in _Renaissance
of Girls’ Education_.
[149] _Position of Women in Indian Life_, by Her Highness the Maharani
of Baroda.
[150] _Renaissance of Girls’ Education_. A. Zimmern.
[151] _Unrest and Education in India_. Wm. Miller, D.D., LL.D., C.I.E.
[152] Despatches on Christianity in India--Sir John Lawrence (_Times_
Reprint).
[153] Despatch of the Secretary of State, 1859.
[154] “King George and the Hindoos,” _XIX Century_, January 1912.
[155] _Allahabad Conference Report_, 1911.
[156] G. K. Gokhale.
[157] _Indian Unrest_. Sir Valentine Chirol.
[158] The quotation is from a verbal translation given during the visit
to the school.
[159] _Quinquennial Report_, vol. i. p. 257.
[160] _Unrest and Education in India_. Wm. Miller, D.D., LL.D., C.I.E.
[161] _Allahabad Conference Report_, 1911.
[162] _International Review of Missions_, January 1912. Article by T.
Gairdner.
[163] The Aim of Educational Missions. _East and West_, January 1912.
W. E. S. Holland.
[164] _Student Movement_, 1911, Article by S. K. Rudra.
[165] Cp. on this _The Renaissance in India_, C. F. Andrews.
[166] _Christianity and the New Idealism_, Rudolf Eucken.
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