November 12, 1921.
We had nine graduates to garland last night and should have had more if
Convocation had followed closely on their success in April. But now one
is at Somerville College, Oxford (we have five old students in England
now and one in America), one at her husband's home in Bengal, one
serving in Pundita Ramabai's Widows' Home at Mukti near Poona, and three
kept away by some duty in their families. Among our nine were two who
had been among our very earliest students; in fact, one bears the very
first name entered on our student roll in April, 1915, when we were
looking round in trembling hope to see whether any students at all
would entrust themselves to our inexperienced hands. These two, of
course, left some years ago, but have since taken the teachers' degree,
the Licentiate in Teaching, for which they have prepared themselves by
private study while serving in schools.
This L.T. is a University degree open to graduates in Arts only, and a
B.A., L.T., is regarded as a teacher fully equipped for the highest
posts in schools. The preparation for it has been carried on hitherto
chiefly at a Government Teachers' College, where the few women students,
though very courteously treated, have naturally been at a great
disadvantage among more than a hundred men. Such of our graduates as
have spent the required year there have been considerably disappointed,
feeling that their work has been too easy and too theoretical. In any
case it is impossible that much practical work could be found for so
large a number of students, and the belief is growing that the ideal
training college is a small one. That it must be a Christian one is from
our point of view still more important. The women B.A., L.T.'s will hold
positions of greater influence than any other class in South India. They
will be Government Inspectresses, Heads of Middle Schools and High
Schools, lecturers in Training Colleges, in fact, the sources of the
inspiration which will permeate every region of women's education.
Before long the missions will be unable to keep pace with the rapid
increase of available pupils for girls' schools. Their success in
originating and fostering the idea of educating girls has now produced a
situation with which we cannot personally cope, but which we can
indirectly control by concentrating effort at the most vital spot, that
is the training of the highest rank of women teachers. These will set
the tone and, to a great extent, determine the quality of the women
teachers who have lower qualifications, and these will have in their
hands the training of ever-increasing numbers of girl pupils and will
hand on the ideals which they have themselves received. It was an honor
which we felt very deeply when the Missionary Educational Council of
South India entrusted to the council of our College the task of
inaugurating an L.T. College for Women, and we have been very busy about
it.
December 15, 1921.
More than a month has passed since I began the Journal and I am now
sitting in the junior B.A. class-room watching over nineteen students
(the twentieth happens to be absent) who are writing their terminal
examination papers. I was a false weather-prophet; rain did not come,
and still keeps away. Instead there is a high cool wind, and every one
of these students is firmly holding down her paper with the left hand
while her fountain pen (they all have fountain pens) skims all too
rapidly over the page. The great principle of answering an examination
paper is never to waste a moment on thought. If you do not know what to
say next, repeat what you said before until a new idea strikes you. As
it is not necessary to dip the pen in ink it should never leave the
page. This method enables them to produce small pamphlets which they
hand in with a happy sense of achievement, but the examiner's heart
sinks as she gathers up the volumes of hasty manuscript.
Sometimes, however, the answers err on the side of conciseness. "We
believe them because we cannot prove them," was the truthful reply of a
student in Physics to the question, "Why do we believe Newton's Laws of
Motion?" Or sometimes an essential transition is omitted; "At the period
of the Roman conquest the Greeks were politically hopeless, economically
bankrupt, and morally corrupt. They became teachers." But sometimes it
is the caprice of the English language which betrays them. "The events
of the 15th century which most affected philosophic thought were the
founding of America and the founding of the Universe." Occasionally they
administer an unconscious rebuke. I was just starting out to give an
address at a week-night evening service from the chancel steps of a
neighboring church, and having a minute or two to spare I took up one of
my 120 Scripture papers and read, "St. Paul's chief difficulty with the
Corinthians was that women insisted on speaking in church. It is wicked
for women to talk in church."
The nineteen students before me are very representative of our student
body, which now numbers one hundred and thirty. Eleven are writing on
Constitutional History, two on Philosophy, four on Zoology and two (a
young Hindu married girl and a Syrian Christian) on Malayalam
literature. Ten of them speak Tamil, eight Malayalam, and one Telugu.
They vary in rank from high official circles to very low origins, but
most belong to what we should call the professional classes. All are
barefooted and wear the Indian dress, which in the case of the Syrians
is always white.
Through the open door I look into the library where the fifty-three new
students of this year are writing an English paper. There are eight
Hindus and one European among them, also two students from Ceylon, two
from Hyderabad, and one, differing widely from the rest in dress and
facial type, from Burma. The lecturer in charge is Miss Chamberlain, the
daughter of our invaluable secretary in America. She arrived only three
weeks ago to take the place of Miss Sarber who has started on her
furlough and already the dignity of the philosopher and psychologist is
mingling with the gaiety which makes her table a favorite place for
students.
The debate on the conscience clause[*] which took place in the new
Legislative Assembly in November shows that the party now in power, the
non-Brahmin middle-class, realizes the value to the country of Christian
education. Man after man rose to express his gratitude to the Christian
College and to point out that missionaries alone had brought education
to low-caste and out-caste people. The proposal was rejected by 61 votes
to 13, a most unexpected and happy event.
One proposal, perfectly well meant, was made at the Government Committee
on Education which aroused great indignation among our students. It was
that various concessions should be made to the supposed weakness of
women students and that the pass mark in examinations should be lowered
for them. As the Principals of both the Women's Colleges opposed the
suggestion, it was withdrawn, but this little incident shows two things,
the sympathetic feeling of men toward the studies of women, and the
distance that women have travelled since the time when they would
themselves have requested such concessions.
In the recent agitation in favor of Nationalism finding that the only
constructive advice given was to devote themselves to Indian music, to
the spinning wheel, which is Mr. Gandhi's great remedy for social and
political ills and to social service, I did all that I could to promote
these ends. I asked the Senior Student to collect the names of all who
wished to learn to play an Indian instrument, I presented the College
with a pound of raw cotton and spinning wheel of the type recommended by
Mr. Gandhi, and the social service begun some months before was
continued This last consists of our expedition led by Miss Jackson,
which twice a week visits an unpleasant little village not far from our
gates. The students wash the children, which is not at all a delightful
task, attend to sore eyes and matted hair and teach them games and
songs, and chat with the village women about household hygiene and how
to keep out of debt. One of our Sunday Schools is in this village, too,
so by this time the students are welcome visitors, and whether they do
much good or not, they learn a great deal of sobering truth. Of course,
only a few can go at a time, but others find some scope in the other
Sunday Schools and in the little Day School which Miss Brockway
instituted for the children of our servants. This last means real
self-denial, as the work must be done every day. Still, it remains one
of our greatest problems to find channels for the spirit of service
which we try to inspire, and without which the current of their
patriotism may become stagnant.
But I am being disappointed about the music and the spinning wheel. Not
one student was willing to undergo the toilsome practice of learning an
instrument, and though the spinning wheel was received with enthusiasm
the pound of cotton has hardly diminished at all. Nor will they take the
trouble to read the newspapers regularly. So that they might not feel
that too British a view of events was presented to them they are
supplied with some papers of a very critical tone, but I need not have
feared the risk, the papers remain unread. They much prefer the medium
of speech, and are keenly interested in almost any topic on which we
invite an attractive speaker to give an address, but they do not follow
it up by reading. They are decidedly fonder of books than they were, and
use the library more, but their taste is for the better kind of domestic
fiction more than for anything else. There is one important exception,
they all love Shakespeare and there is no one whom they so delight to
act. Whenever they invite us to an entertainment, which they do on many
and various occasions, we are fairly sure of seeing a few scenes of
Shakespeare acted much better than I have ever seen English girls of
their age act.
The students have been collecting a fund for our new Science building, a
great and beautiful enterprise, which, also, is still in its proper
stage. The drawing of plans so large and detailed has occupied many
months. We are looking to America for the generous gift which shall
bring these plans into actuality, but help from other sources is
welcome, too, and particularly help from the students. They have made
many efforts and reached a sum of more than Rs. 500. Their most
important undertaking was a performance of "Everyman" most solemnly and
beautifully carried out before an audience of our women friends, and
there was also a dramatic version written by one of the students of the
parable of the prodigal son and performed before the college only. This
last was remarkable in its adaptation of the story to Indian conditions
and for the characteristic introduction of a mother and a sister.
[Illustration: THE OLD INDIA
No Chance--No Hope]
"If she have sent her servants in our pain,
If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword,
If she have given back our sick again
And to the breast the weakling lips restored,
Is it a little thing that she has wrought?
Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought."
_Kipling's "Song of the Women"_
The Medical School at Vellore is still without a permanent home and is
lodged in scattered buildings--without a permanent staff except for two
or three heroic figures who are performing each the work of
several--without a certainty of a regular income in any way equivalent
to its needs--but it has an enthusiastic band of students and it has Dr.
Ida Scudder, and so the balance is on the right side.
[Footnote *: Opposing the study of the Bible in our schools.]