These are the dreams that wove a network round my wakeful life for many
years past. The outlook is endless, for the goal is at infinity. The
realisation cannot be through one life or one fortune but through the
co-operation of many lives and many fortunes. The possibility of a
fuller expansion will depend on very large endowments. But a beginning
must be made, and this is the genesis of the foundation of this
Institute. I came with nothing and shall return as I came; if something
is accomplished in the interval, that would indeed be a privilege. What
I have I will offer, and one who had shared with me the struggles and
hardships that had to be faced, has wished to bequeath all that is hers
for the same object. In all my struggling efforts I have not been
altogether solitary while the world doubted, there had been a few, now
in the City of Silence, who never wavered in their trust.
Till a few weeks ago it seemed that I shall have to look to the future
for securing the necessary expansion of scope and for permanence of the
Institute. But response is being awakened in answer to the need. The
Government have most generously intimated their desire to sanction
grants towards placing the Institute on a permanent basis the extent of
which will be proportionate to the public interest in this national
undertaking. Out of many who would feel an interest in securing adequate
Endowment, the very first donations have come from two of the merchant
princes of Bombay, to whom I had been personally unknown.
A note that touched me deeply came from some girl students of the
Western Province, enclosing their little contribution "for the service
of our common motherland." It is only the instinctive mother-heart that
can truly realise the bond that draws together the nurselings of the
common homeland. There can be no real misgiving for the future when at
the country's call man offers the strength of his life and woman her
active devotion, she most of all, who has the greater insight and larger
faith because of the life of austerity and self-abnegation. Even a
solitary wayfarer in the Himalayas has remembered to send me message of
cheer and good hope. What is it that has bridged over the distance and
blotted out all differences? That I will come gradually to know; till
then it will remain enshrined as a feeling. And I go forward to my
appointed task, undismayed by difficulties, companioned by the kind
thoughts of my well-wishers, both far and near.