Lighted to Lighten: the Hope of India Part 8

"I have seen many women in the villages, though not educated, showing the capacities of a good lawyer. I think that women have a special talent in performing this business, and hence would do much better than men. Tenderness and mercy are qualities greatly required in a judge or magistrate. Women are famous for these and so their judgments which will be the products of justice tempered by mercy will be commendable. A man cannot understand so fully a woman, the workings of her mind, her thoughts and her views, as a woman can; so in order to plead the cause of women there should be women lawyers who could understand and put their cases in a very clear light."

Another feels the need of women in politics:

"According to the present system in India, the government is carried on by men alone. Thus women are exclusively shut off from the administration of the country. The good and bad results of the government affect men and women alike. Therefore, it is only fair that women also should have an active part in the government of the country.

Women should be given seats in the Legislative Council where they would have an opportunity to listen to the problems of the country and try to solve them.

"From ordinary life we see that women are more economical than men.

Therefore, it would be better for the country if women could take a part in economic matters. When the rate of tax is fixed men are likely to decide it merely from a consideration of their income without thinking about small expenses. Women are acquainted with every expense in detail.

If women could take part in economic affairs, the expenditure of a country would be directed in a better and more careful way.

"In national and international questions also women can take a part.

Women are more conservative, sympathetic, and kind than men. Great changes and misery which are not foreseen at all are brought by wars between different countries. Women, too, can consider about the affairs of wars as well as men. Their sympathetic and conservative views will help the people not to plunge into needless wars and political complications.

"Women know as well as, and perhaps more than men, the evils which result from the illiteracy of people and their unsanitary conditions.

Men spend much of their time outside home, while women in their quiet homes can see their surroundings and watch the needs of people around them. So women can give good ideas in matters concerning education and sanitation. In this way, women can influence the public opinion of a place and the government of a country depends much on the nature of public opinion."

But with all these "new woman theories" the claims of home are not forgotten:

"Among the many possibilities opening out to women, we cannot fail to mention _home life_, though it is nothing new.

"According to the testimony of all history, the worth and blessing of men and nations depend in large measure on the character and ordering of family life. 'The family is the structural cell of the social organism.

In it lives the power of propagation and renewal of life. It is the foundation of morality, the chief educational inst.i.tution, and the source of nearly all real contentment among men.' All other questions sink into insignificance when the stability of the family is at stake.

In short, the family circle is a world in miniature, with its own habits, its own interests, and its own ties, largely independent of the great world that lies outside. When the family is of such great importance, how much greater should be the responsibilities of women in the ordering of that life? Is it not there in the home that we develop most of our habits, our lines of thought and action?

"Even while keeping home, woman can do other kinds of work. She can help her husband in his varied activities by showing interest and sympathy in all that he does; she can influence him in every possible way. Then also she may do social and religious work, and even teaching, though she has to manage a home. But _the_ work that needs her keenest attention is in the home itself, in training up the children. Happiness and cheerfulness in the home circle depend more or less on the radiant face of the mother, as she performs her simple tasks, upon her tenderness, on her unwearied willingness to surpa.s.s all boundaries in love. She is the 'centre' of the family. The physical and moral training of her children falls to her lot.

"Now, the developing of character is no light task, nor is it the least work that has to be done. The family exists to train individuals for members.h.i.+p in a large group. In the little family circle attention can be concentrated on a few who in turn can go out and influence others.

The family, therefore, is the nursery of all human virtues and powers.

"In conclusion, expressing the same idea in stronger words, it is to be noted that whether India shall maintain her self-government, when she receives it, depends on how far the women are ready to fulfill the obligations laid upon them. This is a great question and has to be decided by the educated women of India."

[Ill.u.s.tration: In the Laboratory, Madras]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tennis Champions with Cup AT WORK AND PLAY]

One Reformer and What She Achieved.

Of the wealth of human interest that lies hidden in the life-stories of the one hundred and ten students who make up the College, who has the insight to speak? Coming from homes Hindu or Christian, conservative or liberal, from the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the modern Indian city, or the far side of the jungle villages, one might find in their home histories, in their thoughts and ambitions and desires, a composite picture of the South Indian young womanhood of to-day. Countries as well as individuals pa.s.s through periods of adolescence, of stress and strain and the pains of growth, when the old is merging in the new. The student generation of India is pa.s.sing through that phase to-day, and no one who fails to grasp that fact can hope to understand the psychology of the present day student.

In Pushpam's story it is possible to see something of that clash of old and new, of that standing "between two worlds" that makes India's life to-day adventurous--too adventurous at times for the comfort of the young discoverer.

Pushpam's home was in the jungle--by which is meant not the luxuriant forests of your imagination, but the primitive country unbroken by the long ribbon of the railway, where traffic proceeds at the rate of the lumbering, bamboo-roofed bullock cart, and the unseemliness of Western haste is yet unknown. Twice a week the postbag comes in on the shoulders of the loping _tappal_ runner. Otherwise news travels only through the wireless telegraphy of bazaar gossip. The village struggles out toward the irrigation tank and the white road, banyan-shaded, whose dusty length ties its life loosely to that of the town thirty miles off to the eastward. On the other side are palmyra-covered uplands, and then the Hills.

The Good News sometimes runs faster than railway and telegraph. Here it is so, for the village has been solidly Christian for fifty years. Its people are not outcastes, but substantial landowners, conservative in their indigenous ways, yet sending out their sons and daughters to school and college and professional life.

Of that village Pushpam's father is the teacher-catechist, a gentle, white-haired man, who long ago set up his rule of benevolent autocracy, "for the good of the governed."

"To this child G.o.d has given sense; he shall go to the high school in the town." The catechist speaks with the conviction of a Scotch Dominie who has discovered a child "of parts," and resistance on the part of the parent is vain. The Dominie's own twelve are all children "of parts" and all have left the thatched schoolhouse for the education of the city.

Pushpam is the youngest. Term after term finds her leaving the village, jogging the thirty miles of dust-white road to the town, spending the night in the crowded discomfort of the third cla.s.s compartment K marked for "Indian females." Vacation after vacation finds her reversing the order of journeying, plunging from the twentieth century life of college into the village's mediaeval calm. There is no lack of occupation--letters to write for the unlearned of the older generation to their children far afield, clerks and writers and pastors in distant parts; there are children to coach for coming examinations; there are sore eyes to treat, and fevers to reduce.

One Christmas Pushpam returns as usual, yet not as usual, for her capable presence has lost its customary calm. She is "anxious and troubled about many things," or is it about one?

Social unrest has dominated college thinking this last term, focussing its avenging eyes upon that Dowry System which works debt and eventual ruin in many a South Indian home. Pushpam has seen the family struggles that have accompanied the marriages of her older sisters; the "cares of the world" that have pressed until all the joy of days that should have been festal was lost in the counting out of rupees. In neighbor homes she has seen rejoicing at the birth of a son, as the bringer of prosperity, and grief, hardly concealed, at the adversity of a daughter's advent. Unchristian? Yes; but not for the lack of the milk of human kindness; rather from the incubus of an evil social system, inherited from Hindu ancestors.

Pushpam's father is growing old; lands and jewels have shrunk. Married sons and daughters are already gathering and saving for the future of their own young daughters. Three thousand rupees are demanded of Pushpam in the marriage market. The thought of it is marring the peace of her father's face and breaking his sleep of nights. But Pushpam has news to impart, "Father, I have something to say. It will hurt you, but I must speak. It is the first time that I, your daughter, have even disobeyed your wishes, but this time it must be.

"All this college term we girls have been thinking and talking of our marriage system and its evils. Husbands are bought in the market, and in these war years they, like everything else, are high. A man thinks not of the girl who will make his home, but of the rupees she will bring to his father's coffers. Marriage means not love, but money. My cla.s.smates and I have talked and written and thought. Now three of us have made one another a solemn promise. Our parents shall give no dowries for us. We have no fear of remaining unmarried; we can earn our way as we go and find our happiness in work. Or if there are men who care for us, and not for the rupees we bring, let them ask for us; we will consider such marriages, but no other. Do not protest, Father, for our minds are made up."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NEW DORMITORY AT MADRAS COLLEGE]

The old man, for years autocrat of the village, bows to the will of his youngest child, fearing the jeers of relatives, yet unable to withstand.

No, Pushpam did not remain single. In men's colleges the same ferment is going on, and when a suitor came he said, "I want you for yourself, not for the gold that you might bring." He married Pushpam, and their joy of Christian service is not shadowed by the financial distress brought upon the father's house.

Mary Smith asked to be shown the justification of college education for Indian girls. Is it good? The College of the Sunflower has its home in dignified and seemly buildings set in a tropical garden. Does its beauty draw students away from the world of active life, or send them with fresh strength to share its struggles. Pushpam has given one answer.

Another one may find in the college report of 1921 with its register of graduates. Name after name rolls out its story of busy lives--married women, who are housemakers and also servants of the public weal; government inspectresses of schools, who tour around "the district,"

bringing new ideas and encouragement to isolated schools; teachers and teachers, and yet more teachers, in government and mission schools, and schools under private management. Only six years of existence, and yet the Sunflower has opened so wide, the Lamp has lighted so many candles in dim corners. Will the Mary Smiths of America do their part that the next six years may be bigger and better than the last?

The spirit of Madras Students is shown in the following extracts from personal letters written to former teachers:

FROM A GRADUATE OF MADRAS CHRISTIAN COLLEGE

"Last week we had the special privilege of hearing Mr. and Mrs. Annett, of India Sunday School Union. The last day Mr. Annett showed how we can lead our children to Christ and make them accept Christ as their Master.

That is the aim of religious education. My heart thrilled within me when I heard Mr. Annett in his last lecture confirm what I had thought out as principles in teaching and training the young, and I found my eyes wet.

But the very faith which Jesus had in people and which triumphs over all impossibilities I am trying to have. I have patiently turned to the girls and am trying to help them in their lives. The Christ power in me is revealing to me many things since I surrendered to Him my will. He is showing me what mighty works one can do through intercessory prayer which I try to do with many failings.

"Politics have lately been very interesting to me. Rather I have been forced to enter in. You will have read or heard of the new movement in India that sprang up early in September. Gandhi is the leader. I have some clippings to send you. It is not about that I wish to write, but about the remarkable way India is repressing the movement. The Panjab, the province for which sympathy is called for and the one which affords the cause for non-co-operation, has thrown up Gandhi's scheme and her sons are standing for council elections. No Indian can help being thrilled over the nominations and elections for legislative councils and councils of state, which are to a.s.semble in January according to the Reform Act. Our girls are taking a keen interest in the affairs of the country and earnestly praying for her.

"This is the week of prayer of the Y.W. and Y.M.C.A. I am sure you are remembering us,--the young women of India and our girls who are to lay out the future in India; also our young men and boys.

"The Student Federation has its conference in P---- during Christmas, and four of our college students are going. If only the men would be open hearted and less prejudiced and brave enough to stand alone and reform society. I think the time is coming.

"Isn't it strange that you should also feel the thirst for Bible study just as I am doing here. I never felt the lack of Scriptural knowledge as now while I teach our girls."

EXTRACTS FROM A TEACHER'S JOURNAL IN MADRAS COLLEGE

November 12, 1921.

We had nine graduates to garland last night and should have had more if Convocation had followed closely on their success in April. But now one is at Somerville College, Oxford (we have five old students in England now and one in America), one at her husband's home in Bengal, one serving in Pundita Ramabai's Widows' Home at Mukti near Poona, and three kept away by some duty in their families. Among our nine were two who had been among our very earliest students; in fact, one bears the very first name entered on our student roll in April, 1915, when we were looking round in trembling hope to see whether any students at all would entrust themselves to our inexperienced hands. These two, of course, left some years ago, but have since taken the teachers' degree, the Licentiate in Teaching, for which they have prepared themselves by private study while serving in schools.

This L.T. is a University degree open to graduates in Arts only, and a B.A., L.T., is regarded as a teacher fully equipped for the highest posts in schools. The preparation for it has been carried on hitherto chiefly at a Government Teachers' College, where the few women students, though very courteously treated, have naturally been at a great disadvantage among more than a hundred men. Such of our graduates as have spent the required year there have been considerably disappointed, feeling that their work has been too easy and too theoretical. In any case it is impossible that much practical work could be found for so large a number of students, and the belief is growing that the ideal training college is a small one. That it must be a Christian one is from our point of view still more important. The women B.A., L.T.'s will hold positions of greater influence than any other cla.s.s in South India. They will be Government Inspectresses, Heads of Middle Schools and High Schools, lecturers in Training Colleges, in fact, the sources of the inspiration which will permeate every region of women's education.

Before long the missions will be unable to keep pace with the rapid increase of available pupils for girls' schools. Their success in originating and fostering the idea of educating girls has now produced a situation with which we cannot personally cope, but which we can indirectly control by concentrating effort at the most vital spot, that is the training of the highest rank of women teachers. These will set the tone and, to a great extent, determine the quality of the women teachers who have lower qualifications, and these will have in their hands the training of ever-increasing numbers of girl pupils and will hand on the ideals which they have themselves received. It was an honor which we felt very deeply when the Missionary Educational Council of South India entrusted to the council of our College the task of inaugurating an L.T. College for Women, and we have been very busy about it.