The Central Committee sends out this book on Indian girlhood to meet
the young women of America with their high privilege of education, that
often unrealized and unacknowledged gift of Christ.
Miss Van Doren has given emphasis in the book to the privileged young
woman of India; she shows the possibilities, and yet you will see in it
something of the black shadow cast by that religion which holds no place
for the redemption of woman. If you could see it in its hideousness
which the author can only hint at, you would say as two American college
girls said after a tour through India, "We cannot endure it. Don't take
us to another temple. We never dreamed that anything under the guise of
religion could be so vile." And somehow there has seemed to them since a
note of insincerity in poetic phrasings of Hindu writers who pass over
entirely gross forms of idolatrous faith to indulge in noble sentiments
which suggest plagiarism. A distinguished author said recently, "I can
never read Tagore again after seeing the women of India." From sacred
temple slums of South India to shambles of Kalighat it is revolting,
sickening, shameful. It is pleasanter to dwell on the beauties of
Hinduism and ignore the unprintable actualities, but if we are to help
we must feel how terrible and immediate the need is. No one can really
meet that need but the educated Indian Christian women whom God is
preparing in this day for service. They are the ones who are Lighted to
Lighten. They are the Hope of the future. Fifty years ago, after the
Civil war, the light began in the organization of Woman's Missionary
Societies. Through all the years women have gone, never very many,
sometimes not very strong, limited in various ways, but with one stern
determination, at any cost "to save some."
Now at the close of your war, young women of America, a new era is
beginning in which you are called to take your part. You will not be the
pioneers. The trail is blazed. It has been proven that Indian girls can
be educated, their minds are keen and eager, they are Christian, many of
them, in a sense which girls of America cannot comprehend. Their task is
infinitely greater than yours. If they fail, the redemption of Indian
womanhood will not be realized, and so we see them taking as the college
emblem, not the beautiful, decorated brass lamp of the palace, but the
common, little clay lamp of the poorest home and going out with the
flickering flame to lighten the deep darkness of their land. College
girls in America sometimes wear their degree as a decoration. To these
girls it is equipment, armor, weapons, for the tearing down of
strongholds. These girls must be leaders. They cannot escape the
challenge.
Until now the undertaking has seemed hopeless. What could a few foreign
women do among those millions? But the great, silent revolution has
begun Eastern women are seeking self-determination as nations seek it.
They are asserting rights to soul and mind and body. They refuse to be
chattels, and going out to release these millions come these little
groups of Christian college girls who are to furnish leadership. Have
we no part? Yes, as allies we are needed as never before. Unless from
the faculties of our colleges, as well as from our student volunteers
adequate aid is sent at once these little groups may fail. This is your
"moral equivalent of war." To go and help them in this Day which is
their Day of Decision requires vision, devotion, a glorious giving of
life which will count just in proportion as the need is immediate, the
battle in doubt, failure possible. Mission Boards must go haltingly for
lack of women and of funds until groups of women from colleges in
America hear the call of Christ and follow Him, for God Himself will not
do this work alone. He has chosen that it shall be done through you.
From our colleges and medical schools recruits and funds must be sent
until those who are in the new colleges over there are trained and ready
to win India for their Master. To bring them over here for training is
not altogether good. There are dangers in this our age of jazz. It is
not good to send out very young girls to a far country during the
formative years lest a strange language and customs and a new
civilization should unfit them to go back to their "Main Street" and
adjust themselves. The Indian Colleges are best for the undergraduate
Indian girl and are the only ones for the great majority. We must make
these the best possible, truly Christian in their teaching and
standards, in impressions on the lives of students as well as in their
mission to the people of India.
This book is for study in our church societies of older girls and of
women, and very especially for girls in the colleges, who should
consider this as one of the greatest fields for service in the world
to-day. We preach internationalism. Let our churches and colleges
practice it.
Mrs. HENRY W. PEABODY
Miss ALICE M. KYLE
Mrs. FRANK MASON NORTH
Miss GERTRUDE SCHULTZ
Miss O.H. LAWRENCE
MRS. A.V. POHLMAN
Miss EMILY TILLOTSON
NOTE: The Central Committee recommends Dr. Fleming's book, "Building
with India", for advanced study classes and groups who wish really to
_study_. For Women's societies wishing programs for meetings we think
Miss Van Doren's book better as it is less difficult and more concrete.