Where the Girls Come from.
If the girls of India could pass you in long procession, you would need
to count up to one hundred before you found one who had had Arul's
opportunity of learning just to read and write. Infinitely smaller is
the proportion of those who go into secondary schools. American women
have been responsible for founding, financing, and teaching many of the
Girls' High Schools that exist. They are of various sorts. Some have new
and up-to-date plants, modelled on satisfactory types of American
buildings. Others are muddling along with old-time, out-grown
schoolrooms, spilling over into thatched sheds, and longing for the day
when the spiritual structure they are erecting will be expressed in a
suitable material form. Schools vary also as to social standing,
discipline, and ideals; yet there are common features and problems, and
one may be more or less typical of all. Most include under one
organization everything from kindergarten to senior high school, so that
the school is really a big family of one or two or four hundred, as the
case may be.
The girls come from many grades of Indian life. The great majority are
Christians, for few Hindu parents are yet sufficiently "advanced" to
desire a high school education for their daughters, and those who do
usually send their girls to a Government school where caste regulations
will be observed and where there will be no religious teaching.
Some of the Christian girls come from origins as crude as that of Arul.
To such the simplest elements of hygiene are unknown, and cleanly and
decent living is the first and hardest lesson to be learned. Others are
orphans, waifs, and strays cast up from the currents of village life.
Uncared for, undernourished, with memories of a tragic childhood behind
them, it is sometimes an impossible task to turn these little, old women
back into normal children. But the largest number are children of
teachers and catechists, pastors, and even college professors, who come
from middle class homes, with a greater or less collection of Christian
habits and ideals. With all these is a small scattering of high caste
Hindu girls, the children of exceptionally liberal parents. The
resulting school community is a wonderful example of pure democracy.
Ignorant village girls learn more from the "public opinion" of their
better trained schoolmates than from any amount of formal discipline;
while daughters of educated families share their inheritance and come
to realize a little of the need of India's illiterate masses. So school
life becomes an experiment in Christian democracy, where a girl counts
only for what she can do and be; where each member contributes something
to the life of the group and receives something from it.
What the Girls Study.
Schools are schools the world over, and the agonies of the three R's are
common to children in whatever tongue they learn. An Indian kindergarten
is not so different from an American, except for language and local
color. Equipment is far simpler and less expensive, but there is the
same spontaneity, the same joy of living; laughter and play have the
same sound in Tamil as in English. Besides, Indian kindergartens produce
some charming materials all their own--shiny black tamarind seeds, piles
of colored rice, and palm leaves that braid into baby rattles and fans.
So, too, a high school course is much the same even in India. The
right-angled triangle still has an hypotenuse, and quadratics do not
simplify with distance, while Tamil classics throw Vergil and Cicero
into the shade. The fact that high school work is all carried on in
English is the biggest stumbling block in the Indian schoolgirl's road
to learning. What would the American girl think of going through a
history recitation in Russian, writing chemistry equations in French,
or demonstrating a geometry proposition in Spanish? Some day Indian
education may be conducted in its own vernaculars; to-day there are
neither the necessary text-books, nor the vocabulary to express
scientific thought. As yet, and probably for many years to come, the
English language is the key that unlocks the House of Learning to the
schoolgirl. Indian classics she has and they are well worth knowing; but
even Shakespeare and Milton would hardly console the American girl for
the loss of all her story books, from "Little Women" and "Pollyanna"
up--or down--to the modern novel. To understand English sufficiently to
write and speak and even think in it is the big job of the High School.
It is only the picked few who attain unto it; those few are possessed of
brains and perseverance enough to become the leaders of the next
generation.
School Life.
It is not unusual for an Indian girl to spend ten or twelve years in
such a boarding school. An institution is a poor substitute for a home,
but in such cases it must do its best to combine the two. This means
that books are almost accessories; _school life_ is the most vital part
of education.
To such efforts the Indian girl responds almost incredibly. Whatever her
faults--and she has many--she is never bored. Her own background is so
narrow that school opens to her a new world of surprise. "Isn't it
wonderful!" is the constant reaction to the commonplaces of science. No
less wonderful to her is the liberty of thinking and acting for herself
that self-government brings.
Seeta loves her home, but before a month is over its close confinement
palls and she writes back, "I am living like a Muhammadan woman. I wish
it were the last day of vacation." Her father is shocked by her desire
to be up and doing. He calls on the school principal and complains, "I
don't know what to make of my daughter. Why is she not like her mother?
Are not cooking and sewing enough for any woman? Why has she these
strange ideas about doing all sorts of things that her mother never
wanted to do?" Then the principal tries to explain patiently that new
wine cannot be kept in old bottles, and that unless the daughter were to
he different from the mother it was hardly worth while to send her for
secondary education. So, when the long holiday is over, Seeta returns
with a fresh appreciation of what education means in her life; and we
know that when _her_ daughters come home for vacation, it will be to a
mother with sympathy and understanding.
The girls' loyalty to their school is at times almost pathetic. An
American teacher writes, "One moonlight night when I was walking about
the grounds talking with some of the oldest girls, one of them caught my
hand, and turned me about toward the school, which, even under the magic
of the Indian moon, did not seem a particularly beautiful sight to me.
'Amma' (mother), she said, in a voice quivering with emotion, 'See how
beautiful our school is! When I stand out here at night and look at it
through the trees, it gives me such a feeling _here_,' and she pressed
her hand over her heart.
"'Do you think it is only beautiful at night?' one of the other girls
asked indignantly, and all joined in enthusiastic affirmations of its
attractions even at high noon,--which all goes to show how relative the
matter is. I, with my background of Wellesley lawns and architecture,
find our school a hopelessly unsanitary makeshift to be endured
patiently for a few years longer, but to these girls with their
background of wretchedly poor village homes it is in its bare
cleanliness, as well as in its associations, a veritable place of
'sweetness and light.'"
Athletics.
Organized play is one of the gifts that school life brings to India. It,
too, has to be learned, for the Indian girl has had no home training in
initiative. The family or the caste is the unit and she is a passive
member of the group, whose supreme duty is implicit obedience. One
Friday when school had just reopened after the Christmas vacation, one
of the teachers came to the principal and said, "May we stop all classes
this afternoon and let the children play? You see," as she saw
remonstrance forthcoming, "it's just _because_ it's been vacation. They
say they have been so long at home and there has been no chance to
play." Classes were stopped, and all the school played, from the
greatest unto the least, until the newly aroused instinct was satisfied.
Basket ball had an interesting history in one school. At first the
players were very weak sisters, indeed. The center who was knocked down
wept as at a personal affront, and the defeated team also wept to prove
their penitence for their defeat. But gradually the team learned to play
fair, to take hard knocks, and to cheer the winners. They grew into such
"good sports" that when one day an invading cow, aggrieved at being hit
in the flank by a flying ball, turned and knocked the goal thrower flat
on the ground, the interruption lasted only a few minutes. The prostrate
goal-thrower recovered her breath, got over her fright, and, while
admiring friends chased the cow to a safe distance, the game went on to
the finish.
Dramatics.
The dramatic instinct is strong and the school girl actress shines,
whether in the role of Ophelia or Ramayanti. In India among Hindus or
Christians, in school or church or village, musical dramas are
frequently composed and played and hold unwearied audiences far into the
night. Among Christians there is a great fondness for dramatizing Bible
narratives. Joseph, Daniel, and the Prodigal Son appear in wonderful
Indian settings, "adapted" sometimes almost beyond recognition. They
show interesting likeness to the miracle and mystery plays of the Middle
Ages. There is the same naive presentation; the same introduction of the
buffoon to offset tragedy with comedy; the same tendency to
overemphasize the comic parts until all sense of reverence is lost. In
some respects India and Mediaeval Europe are not so far apart.
A high school class one night presented part of the old Tamil drama of
Harischandra. The heroine, an exiled queen, watches her child die before
her in the forest. Having no money to pay for cremation on the burning
ghat, she herself gathers firewood, builds a little pyre, and with such
tears and lamentations as befit an Oriental woman lays her child's body
on the funeral pile. Just as the fire is lighted and the corpse begins
to burn, the keeper of the burning ghat appears and, with anger at this
trespass, kicks over the pyre, puts the fire out, and throws the body
aside. Just at this moment Chandramathy sees in him the exiled king, her
husband and lord, and the father of her dead child. There are tearful
recognitions; together they gather again the scattered firewood, rebuild
the pyre, and share their common grief.
The play was given in a dimly lighted court, with simple costumes and
the crudest stage properties. But one spectator will not soon forget the
schoolgirl heroine whose masses of black hair swept to her knees. She
lived again all the pathos, the anger and despair and reconciliation of
the old tale, and her audience thrilled with her as at the touch of a
tragedy queen.
Student Government.
Co-operation in school government and discipline is one of the most
educational experiences that an Indian girl can pass through. To feel
the responsibility for her own actions and those of her schoolmates, to
form impersonal judgments that have no relation to one's likes and
dislikes, these are lessons found not between the covers of text-books,
but at the very heart of life-experience. Under such moral strain and
stress character develops, not as a hothouse growth of unreal dreams and
theories, but as the sturdy product of life situations.
Some schools divide themselves into groups, each of which elects a
"queen" to represent and to rule. The queens with elected teachers and
the principal form the governing body, before which all questions of
discipline come for settlement. Great is the office of a queen. She is
usually well beloved, but also at times well hated, for the "Court"
occasionally dispenses punishments far heavier than the teachers alone
would dare to inflict and its members often realize the truth of
Shakespeare's statement, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
[Illustration: PRIESTS OF THE HINDU TEMPLE.]
The "Court" is now in session and has two culprits before its bar.
Abundance has been found to have a cake of soap and a mirror, not her
own, shut up in her box. Lotus copied her best friend's composition and
handed it in as hers. What shall be done to the two? Discussion waxes
hot. The play hour passes. Shouts and laughter come in from the tennis
court and the basket ball field. Every one is having a good time save
the culprits and the four queens, who pay the penalty of greatness and
bear on their young shoulders the burdens of the world. Evidence is hard
to collect, for the witnesses disagree among themselves. Then there are
other complications. Abundance stole _things_ which you can see and
touch, while Lotus's theft was only one of intangible thoughts.
Furthermore, Abundance comes from a no-account family, quite "down and
out," while Lotus is a pastor's daughter and as such entitled to due
respect and deference. And still further, nobody likes Abundance, while
Lotus is very popular and counts one of the queens as her intimate
friend. Much time passes, the supper bell rings, and the players troop
noisily indoors, but the four burdened queens still struggle with their
dawning sense of justice. At last, as the swift darkness drops, the case
is closed and judgment pronounced. Much time has been consumed, but four
girls have learned a few of life's big lessons, not found in books, such
as: that thoughts are just as real as things; that likes and dislikes
have nothing to do with matters of discipline; that a girl of a "way up"
family should have more expected of her than one who is "down and out."
Perhaps that experience will count more than any "original" in geometry.
Student Government also brings about a wonderful comradeship between
teachers and pupils. Out of it has grown such a sense of friendly
freedom as found expression in this letter written to its American
teacher by a Junior Class who were more familiar with the meter of
Evangeline than with the geometry lesson assigned.
Dear Miss----:
We are the Math. students who made you lose your temper this morning,
and we feel very sorry for that. We found that we are the girls who must
be blamed. We ought to have told you the matter beforehand, but we
didn't, so please excuse us for the fault which we committed and we
realize now. Our love to you.