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.