LUCKNOW

Lal Bagh.

A dusty journey of a night and almost a day brings you from Calcutta

across the limitless Ganges plains to Lucknow, capital of the ancient

kingdom of Oudh. Every tourist visits it, making a pious pilgrimage

first to the Residency, where in the midst of green lawns and banyan

trees the scarred ruins tell of the unforgettable Mutiny days of '57;

and then to the nearby cemetery, where the dead sleep among the

jasmines. Then, if his hours are wisely chosen, the traveler drives back

to the town at sunset when palace towers and cupolas, mosque minarets

and domes are silhouetted against the blazing west in an unrivalled

skyline.

The tourist returns to the bazaars and in the midst of them, amid the

dust and clatter of _ekkas_ and _tongas_, probably passes by a sight

more interesting than Residency ruins and abandoned palaces--inasmuch as

it deals with the living present rather than the dead past. It was in

Lal Bagh, the Ruby Garden of hid treasure, that the Nawab Iq

bal-ud-dowler, Lord Chamberlain to the first king of Oudh, hid,

according to report, great caskets of silver rupees, with a huge ruby

possessed of magic virtues, and left behind him a sheet of detailed

directions for finding the treasure, with, alas, a postscript to explain

that all the careful directions were quite wrong, being intended to

mislead the would-be discoverer. It was again in Lal Bagh that Isabella

Thoburn founded her school for Indian girls, and in 1886 opened the

classes of the first women's college for India to possess residence

accommodation and a staff of women teachers. The buried rupees and the

magic ruby have never been unearthed; instead these years of Lal Bagh

history have witnessed the discovery of richer treasure in the minds and

hearts of young women, set free from age-long repressions and sent out

to share their riches with a world in need.

You enter Lal Bagh's gates and find yourself before a stretch of dull

red buildings whose wide-arched verandahs are built to keep out the

fierce suns of May In November the sun has lost its terrors, and you

rejoice in its warmth as it shines upon the gardens with their riot of

color--yellow and white chrysanthemums, roses, and masses of flaming

poinsettias, surely a fair setting for the girls who walk amid its

changing loveliness.

Cosmopolitan Atmosphere.

As you leave the setting and for a few days merge yourself into the life

that is going on within, there are a few outstanding impressions that

fasten upon you and persistently mingle with Lal Bagh memories. Of

these, perhaps, the foremost is the cosmopolitan atmosphere. Here you

have on the one hand a group of American college women representing no

one locality, no narrow section of American life, but drawn from east

and west, north and south. On the other side, you see a body of nearly

sixty Indian students whose homes range all the way from Ceylon to the

Northwest frontier, from Singapore to Bombay.

What of the result? It is an atmosphere where East and West meet, not in

conflict, but in a spirit of give and take, where each re-inforces the

other. It is probably due to this friendly clash of ideas that the

"typical" student at Isabella Thoburn strikes the observer as of no

"type" at all, but a person whose ideas are her own and who has a gift

for original thinking rare in one's experience of Indian girls. In the

class forums that were held during my visit the most striking element

was the difference of opinion, and its free expression.

Scholarship. Lal Bagh is no longer satisfied with the production of mere

graduates. Her ambition is now reaching out to post-graduate study, made

possible by the gift of an American fellowship. The first to receive

this honor are two Indian members of the faculty, one of them Miss

Thillayampalam, Professor of Biology, whose home is in far-off Ceylon at

the other end of India's world. Henceforth, America may expect to find

each year one member of the Lal Bagh family enrolled in some school of

graduate work. Such work, however, is not to be confined to a

scholarship in a foreign land, for this year the college enrolls Regina

Thumboo, its first candidate for the degree of M.A. Her parents,

originally from the South, emigrated from Madras to Singapore. There

Regina was born, the youngest of five children. The father, a civil

engineer in the employ of a local rajah was ambitious for his

children, and, seeing in Regina a child of unusual promise, sent her

first to a Singapore school, then on the long journey across to Calcutta

and inland to Lucknow. At Lal Bagh she stands foremost in scholarship.

When she has completed her M.A. in history and had her year of advanced

work in some American university, she plans to return to the faculty of

her _Alma Mater_.

Social Questions.

Scholarship at Isabella Thoburn College does not deal exclusively with

the dusty records of dead languages and bygone civilizations. It is

linked up with present questions, and is alive to the changing India of

to-day. Among the matters discussed during my visit were such as: the

substitution of a vernacular for English in the university course; the

possibility of a national language for all India; the advisability of

co-education; and the place of the unmarried woman in New India. To

report all that the girls said and wrote would require a book for

itself, but so far as space allows we will let the girls speak for

themselves.

Co-education.

The Senior Class of eight discussed co-education with great interest,

and when the vote was taken five were in the affirmative and only three

in the negative.

[Illustration]

The following paper voices the objections to co-education as expressed

by one especially thoughtful student:

"Co-education is an excellent thing, but it can only work successfully

in those highly civilized countries where intellectual and moral

strength and freedom of intercourse control the lives and thoughts of

the student bodies. Unfortunately these fundamental principles of

co-education are sadly lacking in India.

"Although woman's education is being pushed forward with considerable

force, for many years to come the girls will still be a small minority

in comparison with the number of boys. Besides, in two or three cases

where Indian girls have had the privilege of studying with the boys,

they have told me that, in spite of immensely enjoying the competitive

spirit and broadminded behavior of the boys, they always felt a certain

strain and strangeness in their company. One student attended a history

class for full two years and yet she never got acquainted with one

single boy in her class. There is no social intercourse between the two

parties. If each side does not stand on its own dignity in constant fear

of overstepping the bounds of etiquette and courtesy, their reputation

is bound to be marred."

The arguments for the other side are presented as well. The American

reader may be interested to see that the Indian college girl does not

consider Western ways perfect, but is quite ready to criticize the

manners and morals of her American cousin.

"Co-education cannot burst upon India like lightning. It has to grow

gradually in society; and until there is a perfect understanding and

sympathy between the sexes, this system will not work.

"Again, co-education should not begin from college. The girls come in

from high schools where they are locked up and have no contact with the

outside world; and if they come into such colleges when many of them are

immature, there will be not only a complete failure of the system, but

the result will be fatal in many cases. So the system should be

introduced from the primary department and worked up through the high

schools and colleges.

"First, there is the question of chivalry, which is a problem that

Indian men should solve for themselves. But how are they to solve it? If

they study with women, chivalry would become natural to them.

"On the other hand, a woman has to learn how to receive a man's

attention--how far to go in her behavior. The question now is, where can

she learn this? Isn't it by mixing and mingling in a place where she

feels that she is not inferior to man? It is in an educational

institution that this equality is most keenly felt.

"Closely allied with chivalry is the question of modesty. It is commonly

said that Indian women have a poise, quietness, and reserve different to

that in Western women.

"Boldness in women is another fact connected with the above. Indian men

and women should not try to follow Western manners. They have hereditary

manners which should not be deserted. Indian women can keep their

modesty and reserve even while mixing with men. If co-education is made

a slow development this difficulty will not appear.

"Secondly, this system will give more facilities to woman for various

kinds of occupation. She will then realize that her education is not

confined to her home merely, but that she has a right to contribute to

humanity just as big a share as any man. With this realization there

will come efforts on her part to better the condition of her country by

doing her little share. How much a woman can do who has a firm

conviction that she is not inferior to any one in this life, but that

she is a contributor to her country, whichsoever vocation she follows in

life, in that she can do her share!

"The third point is that early marriage and widowhood will be lessened

in a large degree. While education will teach men and women to reverence

their parents and always consult them, at the same time they will learn

to choose for themselves. By coming in contact with the opposite sex,

they will learn to decide their marriage themselves; and choosing does

not come at an early and immature age. Thus child widowhood, too, will

be decreased. Then, too, the widows will be able to work for their

livelihood if they don't wish to marry again."

Purdah.

To the North India girl, perhaps the most vexing social question is that

of _purdah_. How can education reach women who live shut away from the

sky and the sun and the lives of men? On the other hand, if after the

seclusion of a thousand years freedom were suddenly thrust upon women

not even trained to desire it, who can measure the disaster that would

follow? Where can the vicious circle be broken, and how?

Tiny arcs of its circumference have been broken already. Lal Bagh

includes in its family not only its majority of Christian girls, but

also a scattering of Hindus and Muhammadans who have made more or less

of a break with ancestral customs.

One among these is a member of the Sophomore Class, Omiabala Chatterji

of Allahabad. Of Brahman parentage, she was fortunate in having a father

of liberal views, who was ambitious for his daughter's education. He

died when Omiabala was but three years old, but not before he had passed

on to his wife his hopes for the future of the little daughter. The

mother, with no experience of school life herself, but only the limited

opportunity of a little teaching in her own home, yet entered into the

father's ambitions. From childhood Omiabala was taught that hers was not

to be the ordinary life of the Brahman woman--she was set apart by her

father's wish, dedicated to the service of her people. So the years came

and went, and instead of wedding festivities the child was sent away on

the journey to Lucknow, to enter into a strange, new life. There

followed weeks of homesickness and longing, then gradual adjustment,

then glad acceptance of new opportunity. Omiabala now talks

enthusiastically of her future plans for work among her own

people--plans for the education of Brahman girls, and for marriage

reform such as shall make this possible.

[Illustration: VILLAGE PEOPLE.]

The Freshman Class had a spirited discussion as to the benefits and

evils of the purdah system. Opinions ranged all the way from that of the

zealous young reformer who wished it abolished at once and for all;

through advocates of slow changes lasting ten, twenty or even thirty

years; all the way to the young Hindu wife, who would never see it done

away with, "because women would become disobedient to their husbands."

Here are some of the pros and cons. A Hindu student writes:

"I maintain that the purdah system should not be done away with

altogether, for it will upset the whole foundation of the Hindu

principle of 'dharm' or how a woman should act and behave before she is

called a good and honorable woman. Sometimes, when a woman is given much

freedom and liberty and is allowed to go wherever she pleases, she

begins to take advantage of such opportunities and does those things

which might bring disgrace to the family. The question of education

should not be brought up in connection with the purdah, for even the

educated ladies are apt to fall in the same temptation as the uneducated

ones when the purdah system is removed altogether. The purdah system has

done much to maintain the honor and respect of the higher class ladies.

The low class women who are always abroad working among men and in the

midst of throngs of people are not educated at all and have as much

freedom as their men have. So we can conclude that the purdah system

only exists among higher classes of people and those who care much for

the honor and respect of their family. The higher a family is the more

it will be particular about this system."

The following paragraph expresses the views of a Muhammadan Freshman:

"Among us, that is the Muslims, purdah is very strict. Ladies need

purdah at present, for the men are not civilized enough. Besides, the

purdah system should be gradually abolished. If too much freedom is

given all at once, ladies won't know how to behave and they will be an

hindrance in further progress. Education is at the back of progress.

Girls should first be educated and given liberty gradually. Though we

Muslim girls have come to Christian colleges and don't observe purdah,

yet we are very careful of how we should make the best of it and show a

good example by our personality and behavior so that the people who

criticize us may not have anything to say. I think if all of us try hard

to abolish this system it will take us at least twenty years to do it.

No matter what happens I don't approve of ladies mixing _very_ much with

gentlemen.

"There are certainly many disadvantages in the purdah system. For

instance, it makes ladies quite helpless and dependent. They cannot go

out to get any thing or travel even if they are in great necessity. They

do not know the streets and roads, so they cannot run away to save their

honor or life. Men seem to become their right hand and feet. They do not

know, often, what is going on outside their homes and do not enjoy the

beauty of nature, and live an uneventful life. This seems to make the

ladies lazy and they always keep planning marriages. This is the chief

reason of the early marriage of girls among the Muslims. The girl

herself has nothing to do, so they think it best for her to get

married."

With these it is interesting to compare the views of a Christian

student, a young pastor's wife, who along with the care of home and

children is now receiving the higher education of which she was deprived

in her schoolgirl days.

"The genius of the East will take some time to be taught the social

customs of the West. To an Indian it would be a horrible idea if his

sister or daughter or wife will go out to tea or supper or dance with a

young man who is neither related nor a close friend of the family. India

will fondly preserve its genius.

"Indian leaders look with alarm at the possibility of a female India of

the type of the West. They would like the purdah system to be removed,

females to be educated, to get the franchise, and still for them to keep

their modesty. There are many who would like to break this barrier, but

it would be disastrous for India to arrive at such a state within

fifteen or twenty years when ninety-nine out of one hundred women are

illiterate. Education is essential and as long as Indian women, the

future mothers of India, do not realize their responsibility, it is much

better and wiser that they should remain behind the scene.

"The help we can give in bringing about this great reform is to show by

our example. Freedom does not mean simply coming out of purdah and

taking undue advantage and misuse of liberty. We who have done away

with our purdah should not be stumbling blocks to others. Freedom guided

and governed by the Spirit of God is the only freedom and every true

citizen ought to help to bring it about."

Social Service.

Lal Bagh students are interested not only in the theories of social

reform; they are taking a direct part in the application of these

theories through the means of social service, not put off for some

future "career," but carried on during the busy weeks of college life.

Nor is such service merely social; through it all the Christian motive

holds sway. We will let one of the students tell in her own words what

they are attempting.

"'Cleanliness is next to godliness' is the first lesson we teach in our

social and Christian service fields. Both in our work in the city and in

our own servants' compound, we emphasize personal cleanliness and that

of the home, and have regular inspection of servants' homes.

"Religious instruction is given to non-Christian children and women in

various sections of the city in separate classes. Side by side with

these, they are given tips about doctoring simple ailments, and taught

how to take precautions at the time of epidemics like cholera, typhoid,

etc. Lotions, fever mixtures, cough mixtures, quinine, etc., are given

to the poorer depressed classes, as also clothes and soap to the needy

ones.

"In the servants' compound plots have been provided for gardening, and

provision made for the children's play, and pictures given to parents as

prizes for tidy homes. Soap and clothes and medicines are given here

also; a special series of lectures on diseases and the evils of drink

has been started. A lecture a week is given--cholera, malaria, typhoid

fever, dysentery have been touched on--lantern slides and charts and

pictures have been used for illustration. On Saturday nights the

Christian servants have song-service and prayer meeting, and on Sunday

noon a Bible class. Each of these is conducted by a teacher assisted by

girls of the College.

"There is opportunity for service for people of all tastes--those who

prefer teaching how to read and write, for sewing, for care of the

health, care of the baby, avoiding sickness, nursing the sick ... but in

every case devotion, enthusiasm, and a sympathetic Christian spirit are

needed. Our motive both among our own Christian servants and those who

reside in the city and are non-Christians is to serve the least of our

needy fellowmen according to the wishes of our Master, and to enlighten

and uplift our less fortunate neighbors through the avenues of Christian

social service."

An interesting practical suggestion is the following:

"In our Social Service class, which is held every Thursday, there has

come up a suggestion about opening up a few Purdah Parks for Indian

ladies. It is very essential that Indian women should have some places,

where they can take recreation and have some social intercourse with one

another, also that the rich and poor may all meet and be brought into

sympathy with one another.

"There is a Park right in front of our College, and we have suggested

that, if this particular Park is made into a Purdah Park once a week,

then we college girls interested in social service work can form a

committee and look after the different arrangements, such as the water

supply, games, playthings for children, etc.

"We have drawn up a petition and this will be signed by the influential

ladies of this place, such as the wives of the Professors of our Lucknow

University, and then it will be presented to the Lucknow Improvement

Trust Committee.

"We all hope that this petition will be granted, and our sisters will

have more of social life and hygienic advantages, to help make stronger

mothers and stronger children."

Nor do the girls of Isabella Thoburn College forget all these interests

when vacation days come round. This tells something of holiday

opportunity. How do our summer vacations compare with it? "How apt one

is to slacken and get a little selfish in planning out a programme for a

holiday. One is not tied down to the usual duties and routine of school

work, and plans are made as to the best possible way of spending the

days for one's own pleasure and relaxation. The many little things that

one's heart longs for, and for which there is no time during the busy

days, are now looked forward to; a particular piece of needlework, a

favorite book, some excursions to places of interest; all these and

other things are likely to crowd out thoughts of our duties to others in

making life a little better and some one a little happier each day.

"And yet a holiday is the time when one can more freely give oneself to

others, for opportunities of helpful service offer themselves in the

very holiday pursuits, if one has eyes for them.

"Rooming in a home where many mothers have still many more children, one

would feel at first like escaping from the noise and commotion caused by

crying babies, and yet here are some opportunities of service. It is

never a wise plan to leave children to the entire care of ayahs. A very

profitable hour may be spent in directing games when the little people

build with their bricks gates and bridges, houses and castles, and the

older ones listen with interest to some story of adventure. An hour

spent in the open air under shady trees in this way would draw many a

grateful heart, for there would be less crying, fewer quarrels, and a

little more peace for all around.

"In these days when strikes are so common, many opportunities for social

service offer themselves. It may be a postal strike. Now, not many of us

like to be kept waiting for our mail, and, if the postmen are not

bringing us our letters, we very soon contrive some means of getting

them. I grant it isn't a very enviable job to be standing outside a

delivery window awaiting the sorting of letters by a crew of girl guides

and boy scouts, who are not any too serious about their work. But once

the letters are secured and delivered at the neighboring homes of

friends and others, it is something done, besides the satisfaction of

being able to sit down and read your own letters as well as having the

grateful appreciation from others.

"Again, a picnic has been planned to some far away hill. The party

arrives; tiffin baskets are placed in some shady spot. One of the party

wanders away to a little village not far off. She is soon surrounded by

a group of scrubby children, who watch her with eyes full of curiosity

and wonder. She dips her hand into the bag she has been carrying and

brings out a handful of nuts and oranges, and, before sharing them with

the children, she invites them to wash their scrubby, little hands and

faces in the sparkling stream of clear, crystal water that is flowing

through the valley. She gets to talking to them, and asks about their

homes, and one little child leads her to a meagre, little, grassy hut in

which her sick sister is lying. She hasn't any medicine with her, but

she opens wide the door of the hut and lets the bright sunlight in. She

strokes the little one's feverish brow, and sets to, and fixes up the

bed and soon gets the sickroom, such as it is, clean and tidy. The

mother is touched by the gentle kindliness of the stranger and confides

her sorrows to her. Other homes are visited. People expecting the kind

visitor brush up and tidy their huts.

"So the picnic excursion ends leaving a cleaner and happier spot

nestling in among those mountainsides. Several visits are paid to the

little village. The stranger is no longer a stranger, for she is now

known and loved and is greeted by clean, happy, smiling children, and

blessed by grateful mothers. And so in the home and in the office and in

God's out-of-doors we can find opportunities for helping others."

[Illustration: GIRLS OF ALL CASTES MEET ON COMMON GROUND IN THE

CHRISTIAN COLLEGE.]

Eminent among the student body for maturity of thought and depth of

Christian purpose is Shelomith Vincent. Many of these characteristics

may be accounted for by her splendid inheritance. Her father was of the

military caste, the son of a Zemindar, or petty rajah. At the time of

the Mutiny he, a boy of ten years, ran away in the crowd and followed

the mutineers on their long march from Lucknow to Agra, where he was

rescued by a missionary and brought up in his family. Later, longing to

know his past, the young man returned to Lucknow, found his relatives,

weighed in the balance the claims of Hinduism and Christianity, and of

his own accord decided for the latter. Later we see him a Sanskrit

student in Benares, where he married his wife, a fifteen-year-old

Brahman convert.

The Christian couple moved soon to the Central Provinces, where Mr.

Vincent entered upon his twenty-five years of service as a Christian

pastor, using his Sanskrit learning to interpret the message of

Christianity to his Hindu friends. Yet it was in lowlier ways that his

life was most telling. Settling in a peasant colony of a thousand

so-called converts, only half-Christianized, the story of his labors and

triumphs reads like that of Columba, or Boniface in early Europe.

Through perils of robbers and perils of famine he labored on, building

villages, digging wells, distributing American corn in famine days,

reproving, teaching, guiding. All this I am telling, because it

explains much of the daughter's quiet strength. One of ten children,

she has spent many years in earning money to educate the younger

brothers and sisters, and she is finishing her college course as a

mature woman. Miss Vincent hopes that the American fellowship may one

day be hers; and already her plans are developing as to the ways she

will contrive to pass on her opportunities to her fellow countrywomen.

Her heart is with those illiterate village women among whom her

childhood was passed; her longing is to share with them the truth, the

beauty, and the goodness with which Lal Bagh has filled her days.

Has Lal Bagh been a paying investment? One wishes that every one whose

dollars have found expression in its walls might come to feel the

indefinable spirit that pervades them, filling cold brick and mortar

with life energy. For centuries philosophers searched for that

Philosopher's Stone that was to transmute base metals into gold. In the

world to-day there are those who have found a subtler magic that

transforms dead gold and silver into warm human purposes and the

Christ-spirit of service. That is the miracle one sees in daily process

at Lal Bagh.