EDUCATING THE INDIAN WOMAN
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It has often been said that India to-day stands in greater need of social reform than of political reform. .Those who are most anxious to place Indian politics on a stable basis are also the most keenly aware that " the condition of the people question " is the tcuchstone of progress and that political institutions arc a sterile gift unless the people who enjoy them are awake to their own social and economic needs. The key to that awakening is education—in its widest sense ; and the key to Indian education, in its turn, is the Indian woman. Without her awakening, progress is arrested at its very source.
Now, the education of the Indian woman is no easy enter. prise ; for she is usually inaccessible behind the Purdah— the curtain of seclusion which shuts her off from ordinary life. For this reason, and for others equally valid, the true and effective agents of reform must be Indian women themselves who have added a Western scientific equipment to their own knowledge of India's domestic needs. Institutions which offer the necessary training exist in fair numbers, but the field they can cover is only a very small part of the whole. Five of them, supported by seven different missionary bodies, now unite in an appeal to the generosity of the Spectator and its great circle of readers.
The Kinnaird College, Lahore, the only Arts College for Women affiliated to the Punjab University : the Women's Christian College, Madras (both Arts and Science), opened in 1915 to serve a wide region in. South India : the Women's Medical College, Vellore, whose title speaks for itself : St. Christopher's Training College, Madras, a post-graduate institution for training teachers : and the Missionary Settle- ment for University Women, Bombay ; these combine their appeal under the title of the Four-and-a-Half Colleges Fund. It is a fund, Christian in motive, and non-sectarian in spirit ; and this fundamental unity of its effort gives it a first claim on British generosity and its first assurance of success in India, £50,000 are needed : a large sum to collect, but none too large for the destined purpose. The Secretary, Four-and-a_ Half Colleges Fund, 12 Palmer Street, Westminster, S.W. 1; will be glad to receive cheques and answer enquiries.—I am,
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