Her Influence and Responsibilities
There are but few, we venture to think, of those assisting to carry on, in its various branches, the Government of this great country, who are not oppressed, if even only occasionally, by a sense of the magnitude of the undertaking, and who do not, in a greater or minor degree, recognise their own share in their country’s responsibilities. Recognised or not, these are in fact enormous. Collectively and individually the trust that has been reposed in us of shaping the destinies of India’s millions, is a tremendous one, nor need we doubt that a very large proportion of our civilians and other officers are alive to the fact, and bring to the discharge of their work an energy and zeal as well as earnestness of purpose, for which perhaps a parallel can scarcely be found in history. Compared with the conquering nations of the past, whether for the mildness of its administration, the purity of its intentions, and the equal justice that it seeks to deal to all classes as well as races, and to every creed alike, the rule of the English in India stands out on the page of history as a phenomenon that really appears unique. We are inclined sometimes to wonder in reading the criticisms of the native press, notably of the Bengalee Babu, on the Government to which he is entirely indebted for his very ability to write, by what previous training he has sought to qualify himself to pronounce an opinion on so remarkable a problem. Has he acquainted himself with the histories of the great dynasties that have in turn over-shadowed and trodden in the dust the nations of the earth? Is he familiar with Egyptian, Assyrian and Roman history? Has he enquired how the monuments they have left to posterity were erected? Has he marked the tracks of the conquerors of the ancient world, their ruthless indifference to human misery, and the waste of human life that ministered to their glory? These are the data from which his conclusions are to be drawn, and not from the ideas of liberty, borrowed at second hand, which the English have known how to win for themselves by centuries of dogged perseverance and endurance. His comparisons must be drawn between the India of the past and of that of to-day, and of nations wearing a foreign yoke in past ages. It is sometimes laid to our charge as a reproach, that were we to leave India to-morrow no trace of our presence would remain a century hence. Rather let us take this as a high testimony to the disinterestedness of our rule. Not great and useless monuments, wrung out of the groans and sweat of a down trodden people have we given India. But works of practical utility, such as roads, railroads, and canals, by which her internal resources may be developed, and the evils of drought and famine minimized as far as practicable. In addition we have secured to harassed and distressed millions the inestimable blessings of peace within their borders, and we think our Bengalee friend would be better employed in studying the past history of Hindoostan, and comparing it with the present, than in inditing wordy diatribes on subjects of which at present he appears to be profoundly ignorant.
While, however, the Indian official is honestly striving to further the objects of a philanthropic Government in benefiting its people, he must not fall into the error of imagining that it is only by his more public functions that he can exert a beneficent influence. Physical prosperity is, after all, but an item in human happiness: and it must be by its moral results that the success of our administration must be judged. The Englishman in India is closely watched, and his character keenly canvassed, not alone in public, but in private life equally. It is by that silent atmosphere with which each man unconsciously surrounds himself, the tone of his thought and life, the influence of his personality, that he will in reality mould, for good or evil, his Hindoo ‘brother:’ and it is in failing to grasp the importance of this truth that our great danger lies. The value of truth and rectitude, of honour and honesty, we are all apt to recognise; but gentleness, kindness, consideration and sympathy, are graces we seem often in danger of underrating, and of seeing ourselves surpassed, at least in outward seeming, by our darker fellow subjects: these are, however, qualities the more careful cultivation of which would be fruitful in happy results in our intercourse with Hindoos of every grade, One cannot help observing, with more or less amusement or regret, that an era of imitation has set in: and this tendency, flattering as it may be considered, must often engender in us the wish, that our imitators could mingle with their emulation of our customs, more discrimination as to. what is really admirable.
There are, however, points on which we think we are fairly entitled to claim indisputable superiority: and among these we place in distinct relief our domestic institutions. When we find on a great occasion that a picked élite of ten thousand of our countrymen and women are moved to tears at the sympathetic rendering by one woman’s voice of the popular little song “Home, Sweet Home,” we must feel convinced that both the sentiment and the music appealed to one of the strongest and most deep rooted of our national passions. Must not such a spectacle have offered a profound problem to foreign visitors—especially strangers from this country? We pride ourselves much, as Teutons, that to us alone belongs that sweet and magic word—“Home—Heim!” On no other race can it exert so potent a spell! Thus, looking out on our Hindoo friends, we draw a contrast wholly to our own advantage, Our highest sensibilities are shocked by the thought that two young lives should be irrevocably united long before they are, or can be, capable of appreciating the gravity of the event. We feel not only that thus manhood is robbed of one of its most sacred rights—the right of choice,—but we are painfully oppressed by the sense of the possibility of happiness precluded, and of misery entailed, by such a custom; and, in her enforced marriage being denied a voice in the disposal of her own hand, the fate of the little Hindoo bride appears to us pathetic. Again it is with something akin to horror that we shrink from the thought, that so large a proportion of our fellow subjects should be doomed, without a hearing, to the same fate, imprisonment for life—which our laws reserve for our blackest criminals: her only crime being the involuntary one of being born a woman! We cannot wonder at the perversion of maternal love, that leads so many to seek an outlet from their own hard lot for their innocent babes, and renders the crime of infanticide so awfully common as it is. In the same way all that is best in us awakes in indignant protest against the fate which inexorable custom, in its stern relentlessness, has decreed for the Indian widow.
That a being, perhaps, still in the artless innocence of childhood,* or in the earliest bloom of maidenhood, or perhaps at the very moment when the hope of maternity is awakening for the first time her heart to rapture, should fall under this terrible blight, and be doomed to a lifelong penance more rigorous than that set up by the most bigoted of ascetics, thrills us with horror, Nor can we wonder at the eagerness with which the young and ardent widow embraced her only chance of escape from her misery, viz., the brief but for her glorious agony of Suttee. We, ourselves, can only marvel that all that a beneficent and enlightened Government has been able to do on her behalf, is to close to her this, her sole door of hope, and leave her the helpless victim of a fate, than which none more harshly cruel has ever stained a nation’s annals, The Hindoo widow is as practically beyond the reach of the law, as the Pariah dog of which, in her degradation, she is but the human antitype. Hunger, thirst and weariness are her lifelong companions. In sickness, as one under the bann of the gods, none will tend her: in health, she is the despised drudge. In the midst of the family, she lives alone, shunned and unpitied. When at last starvation, sickness, and sorrow have done their work, and she gathers up her poor shrivelled form to die on the cold stone floor, none will weep for her or lament!
These facts hem us in, their evidences confront us, on every side. Each time we drive abroad we are reminded of them. Those luxurious equipages that crowd our maidans or public promenades* are filled, we observe, with native gentlemen only. Yet we know that by Hindoo law they are each and all compelled to marry, many of them doubly and trebly! Where, then, we may well ask, are their wives? Where their daughters, their sisters? After the weary, stifling hours of a tropical summer’s day, have the swift drive in the cool evening air, the softened tints of sunset skies, the mingled perfumes from a thousand flowering shrubs, no charm for them? Is it the men only who appreciate these delights? To argue thus, would be to misapprehend completely the situation. In some cases, of these familiar things the secluded zenana lady can form no conception; in others she retains only the faint impressions of infancy. From the hour of her marriage she has been as dead to the world around, and the world to her, as ever nun within her cloistered cell!
Or, again, we pass some huge unwieldy conveyance. Not only are its doors and windows hermetically sealed, but it is entirely shrouded in a cotton pall. It is, indeed, but a hearse for the living. It is guarded jealously on every side, and the uninitiated might easily mistake it for a convoy of desperate criminals on their way to the gallows. It is however merely a native lady journeying from one of her husband’s residences to another. Of the scenes through which she is passing she is as completely ignorant as when immured in the seclusion of the zenana, and we must conclude that only centuries of habit could enable her, with her companions and attendants cooped up with her, to survive the deprivation of breathing space to which they are necessarily subjected during the dangerous transit. But it may with reason be asked, what is the connection of all this with the immediate subject of this paper? We hope to be able to shew that it bears to it a very close relation. When we remember that it is among a people of whom these are a few of the accredited customs, that our exotic homes are planted, may we not infer that the immense contrast between our respective social and domestic institutions must be one of the earliest reflections forced on the minds of our Hindoo friends, when admitted, as they now are, in numberless instances, to a sufficient degree of intimacy to afford them this opportunity. Can their amazement be inferior to our own, at the different position occupied by the ladies of our families, at their freedom from restraint, their culture, their education? And observing to them so astonishing a phenomenon, may we not suppose that a very rigid comparison is likely to be set up between our respective systems. What if the future of India’s women is but waiting on the verdict given? What if the only advocate, on behalf of these silent millions, be the unsuspected influence of the lives and characters of their more privileged English sisters? The thoughtful reader can pursue to its legitimate conclusion this reflection: it would seem to throw around the lives of Anglo-Indian ladies a significance startling in its gravity. The levity of modern thought has substituted, for the good old fashioned phase, man’s helpmate, that of his “better-half.” The idea that a wife was a fellow worker with her husband, taking up and sharing with him cheerfully the burdens of life, would appear to be somewhat exploded, the modern idea seeming to favour the supposition of her being but an elegant and somewhat costly appanage. We think woman occupied the more honorable and dignified position, when in good old Saxon and scriptural phrase, she regarded herself as indeed his helpmate. Nor shall we do her such injustice as to doubt that a vast number cling to the ancient ideal. For their benefit we might then suggest the following inference. If husbands or Englishmen generally hold themselves deeply responsible for the good of India, can their wives or Englishwomen possibly believe, that with them none of this responsibility rests? If the men are helping, or retarding by their influence and example, India’s progress, must not woman be doing the like though perhaps within a narrower sphere? And if we are persuaded that our own moral standards and beliefs are as far in advance of Hindoo standards as our religion is in advance of Hinduism, is it not natural to suppose that the native, who knows little or nothing of either theoretically, will draw his own conclusions as to their value, from the interpretations he reads in our lives. The Englishman and the Englishwoman alike, will wittingly or unwittingly, embody, to the native mind that standard of moral excellence which we owe to centuries of possession of the purest faith that has ever blessed mankind. We believe there are still very many in high, as well as in less influential places, who would not willingly place stumbling blocks in the way of those, who, finding the beliefs of ages slipping from their grasp beneath the inexorable facts of positive knowledge, and yet appreciating the disastrous results to nations as to individuals of the loosening of all faith, and the drifting of society amid the wreck and chaos of all creeds, would naturally turn with an intelligent interest to examine the claims of that religion which has been introduced among them by the nation which, along with her scriptures, has brought to them the blessings of justice and of peace. Yet such must surely be the result if the higher mandates of our religion are practically discredited in our lives: and it is a danger to which our women as well as our men are exposed. Each Englishwoman, in her own Bungalow, is the centre of an influence, and the cynosure of an argus-eyed criticism, even to her most insignificant acts, to which her English life offers no parallel. The smallest establishment will contain from ten to a dozen, the larger, from a dozen to twenty or thirty servants. With every one of these the Mêm Sahib is more or less in contact, and the happiness and comfort of their lives depends largely on her supervision. From her they receive their orders, and very often their pay, and they recognise the link to the breadgiver in a way that, to her, is sometimes, to say the least droll, and address her, not infrequently, as at once “their father and mother.” Can it be believed that it is not within her power, in the immediate circle of her own dependants, to do an infinity of good? When it is remembered that they are from infancy lapped in ignorance and prejudice; that of what we understand by moral training they have had none; and what to them stands for religion is gross superstition; surely here alone is scope for all her energies and faculties, Yet how many, we would sorrowfully ask, have recognised the trust Providence has placed in their hands? What is done by the English mistress to dispel the ignorance, combat the superstition, raise the moral tone, or replace by instruction in the tenets of a nobler faith, the degrading superstitions of her household? To this reproach the usual reply is, “Oh! I do not know enough of the language to do more than just give my orders.” In saying this she furnishes indeed a reason, but one can scarcely say an excuse. The Hindee or Urdoo languages offer absolutely no difficulties to the student that any lady of ordinary linguistic ability may not easily overcome. And were it once acknowledged or admitted that no lady can be a good mistress, even in the ordinary sense of the word, without a knowledge of the vernacular, we are convinced that not a few would, with the spirit and energy for which our countrywomen when aroused are so conspicuous, tackle a difficulty that a little perseverance on their part could so easily overcome. Almost all have spent years of study in acquiring European languages: yet to not a few the advantages of these acquisitions are purely theoretical. But to the lady in India, Hindoostanee is the language in which she is compelled to conduct her domestic affairs for the best part of her life. What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well, is a wise if homely axiom, which with advantage might here be applied. If speaking the language be a necessity, why not do it well, that is to say grammatically, idiomatically, but above all intelligibly? We are convinced our English ladies can have little idea of the distressing effect on the ear of that peculiar lingo with which they address their servants, and which may not inaptly be compared to the pigeon English of the Chinaman. Nor can this be matter of surprise since they will generally volunteer the information, that it has been acquired by the mysterious process of “picking up!” At the risk of being tedious, we venture to quote another homely saying, that in this as in other things we fear there is no royal road to knowledge, and that the more usual method of giving it a little study will unquestionably be productive of happier results!
We might, as an inducement to try the latter method, hold out to them the hope, that half their domestic difficulties will disappear with the process. Our Hindoo servants are certainly a little exasperating occasionally; but if only the fair “Cherisher of the poor” could know the precise nature of the order she issued, when honestly intending something quite different, she would certainly be less surprised, and probably much less indignant, at the unexpected results! Rather, we might say, her indignation would be amusingly diverted. Our servants are not brutally indifferent to our displeasure, nor, as a rule, desirous of contravening us. We should not greatly err, if we conclude that when our orders are misinterpreted, a considerable margin was left for the imagination in the way they were given. It must be observed that very many mistresses in India indulge in a tone of irritation and command when addressing their native servants, that would not be tolerated by our household servants at Home. The evil is to be deplored, though not inexcusable. The strain on nerve and temper of the climate is often intense, and when to this is super-added an apparently dogged obtuseness in taking in her orders, exasperation is apt to explode in a way that must cause much after humiliation and self reproach. The habit of giving full and clear instructions to servants on the nature and manner of the duties expected of them, which is impossible where the command of the language is defective, would do much towards remedying this regrettable tendency and with the linguistic difficulties, the other impediments to a mild and gentle, yet firm régime, would be minimized if not altogether disappear.
Great scope for all that is most loveable and best in woman may be realized within her own compound. Her dominion is a conglomerate not of individuals as in England, but of families. Cases of sickness will arise where medicines, nourishing food, and a little sympathetic interest will go a long way to win confidence and gratitude. There will be quite a little tribe of children growing up around her, in whose education she may interest herself: and, if at all gifted in that way, by herself forming a little Verandah School, she may do much to mould the rising generation. The experiment has been tried with encouraging success of assembling the servants, so disposed, on Sundays for religious instruction. When it is fully understood that no privileges or disabilities are incurred by attendance or non-attendance, which should be entirely optional, it will be found that all creeds and castes will readily join in a simple service of prayer and song to a common Creator, and listen with great interest to Bible histories intelligibly rendered.
These simple suggestions, with others that will readily occur to each individual mind, will add a zest to domestic administration, and will tend to weld into one community the servants of our families, giving to them and us a bond of kindly feeling and good will, that we are quite sure would go far to reconcile many an English lady in India to the unhomelike surroundings of her domicile. She will feel the internal satisfaction that her life is not barren of practical benefit to those around her; and though still exposed to occasional disappointments, she will, by the course we have indicated, gradually attract and keep a superior class of attached servants, who are far from indifferent to the consideration and the repose they meet with in a well ordered establishment.
The advantage of having acquired a good conversational knowledge of the language will be no less keenly realized by the lady, who desires to do, graciously and with dignity, the honours to her husband’s guests, who, thus received, will always appreciate the privilege of being admitted to intercourse with the female members of his family. What can be more melancholy than the spectacle of an English lady in her own drawing-room unable to exchange ten consecutive ideas with natives of rank and distinction, and therefore reduced to silence or dumb show? Her visitor, no less embarrassed than herself, can carry away no other impression than that the ideas of the Sahib’s better-half, notwithstanding her greater opportunities, are as circumscribed as those of his own in the zenana; and in comparing the two, may be inclined to prefer the gracious complaisance of the latter, to what to him appears the distant and haughty reserve of the former. This is in fact the case. Very frequently have we heard the native nobles of our acquaintance remark—“So-and-so is a very nice lady; she is so kind in her manner, and she understands our language. When we converse with her we are quite delighted, and come away improved and encouraged. Mrs. So-and-so is also very nice: but she cannot speak our language, and we feel ashamed and embarrassed. Some ladies also make us feel that they look down on us too much to enter into conversation with us.”
One more instance amongst many, where a knowledge of the language would be found of essential importance, we will venture on suggesting. As the houses of the native gentry are more and more thrown open to the zenana teacher, a great and increasing desire is evinced by their inmates to receive the visits of English ladies. Their eagerness is, in fact, sometimes touching. It is as if the caged bird, who has never tried its wing, invited its feathered compeer to alight but for a few seconds on its narrow home, and reveal to it some of the secrets of the universe from personal contact with which it is for ever debarred. It is to be hoped that English ladies will widely respond to this desire. Not only may they in this way give valuable help to those who have undertaken the arduous task of carrying, within the narrow compass of their homes, the light of knowledge, but they would encourage their pupils in their hardly less difficult one, of ascending the steep ladder of learning. To do this effectually, it is, however obvious, that a knowledge of their language is essential. The eagerness with which the Indian lady will ply with questions her English visitor, will in itself sufficiently demonstrate how unsatisfactory to both parties would prove a visit passed in silence.
The few hints we have given will, it is hoped, fully suffice to shew that there is ample inducement to the earnest minded to study and master the language of the country. It has been truly said, “our knowledge of men and things is in proportion to the number of languages we have acquired.” In India the principle holds equally good. Ignorance of the language means ignorance of the people, and ignorance of the people, if it be productive of no positive harm, must at least render attempts at good abortive: but where knowledge and good will go hand in hand, the good within the scope of all cannot be overrated.
Female education at home is making prodigious strides: it may almost be said to be keeping pace with education in all its various branches. It seems impossible, but that sooner or later it must raise the tone of Indian society. It can hardly be, and it is to be devoutly hoped for, that men of so high a culture as our civilians and others, will long rest satisfied with companionship for life with those whose soul dwells in dress, lawn-tennis, or the waltz.* The importance attached to the first of these cannot fail to strike the thoughtful observer of its phenomena, any more than the variety and richness of the costumes. One would naturally conclude that the majority of Government officials were enormously wealthy, and that after all there was a wide foundation for the prevalent opinion, that their lives are passed in unbounded luxury. Yet, a closer inspection will often lead to the bewildering conclusion, that very often the costliness of a lady’s dress, is in inverse ratio to her husband’s income. It is not the bari but the choti Mem Sahib who is most conspicuous for the magnificence of her attire. Failing to arrive at a satisfactory solution of the problem unaided, we referred ourselves to one of these little ladies herself for an explanation, and herewith we furnish the reader, who may have shared our difficulties, with the result.
In a moment of confidence she was bewailing the precarious nature of her husband’s profession, and in the event of accident, the fact that “she and her babes would be left on the world to starve without a penny.”
We not unnaturally glanced somewhat incredulously at her handsome costume of costly materials.
“Then why on earth are you dressing as you do? The money you spend on your fine clothes would be better laid by to secure at least bread for yourself and your children.”
“Qh! You see, everyone dresses so well, and one is looked down upon if one is not a swell as well as the rest! But we are really dreadfully poor, and to tell the truth my dresses are not paid for, and I doubt much if ever they will be! We can barely make ends meet, and as a matter of fact, towards the end of the month I never have a rupee in the house. It is quite dreadful: you would hardly believe it!”
“No, indeed, who would, seeing you dressed like this. But what do you do under these distressing circumstances?”
“Oh! I borrow from my Ayah, if she happens to have any money left.”
“And if not?”
“Oh! then she pawns her jewellery, and when pay day comes round, I repay her with interest.”
What impressed us most in this revelation was the fact, that the finery necessary to keep up our friends self-respect in society was not paid for! If ladies in general were equally frank, we wonder if this would prove to be the missing link in the social problem; and if so, what a train of reflections must follow in its wake?
How many of the ladies of our society are mothers with little ones faraway. If the dresses necessary to feed their vanity are not paid for, where will the far heavier item of travelling expenses be found, which is essential to their restoration to their children? Is the consolation to be found in glorious apparel sufficient to outweigh their maternal instincts? And if their means are inadequate to meet their actual expenditure, how will they be made to fit the possible exigencies of a break down in health of the breadwinner, and many other disasters only less ominous, with which our Indian experience has rendered us but too familiar? As with the depreciation of the rupee, the entire Anglo-Indian community find their incomes steadily decreasing, the duty of rigid economy will become an increasing necessity; and while every other item in domestic expenditure is reduced within its narrowest limits, will that of her personal vanity be the only sacrifice that our Indian lady will refuse to undergo?
Extravagance in dress is telling very imperiously on the matrimonial market. Man, as a rule, is but very slightly impressed with magnificence of toilet, and his masculine mind, when it reflects on the subject at all, will be found to be drawing conclusions very different from those with which his lady friends are crediting him.
Mrs. A. catches the eye of Mr. B. with thoughtful seriousness roaming over the toilet which has cost her husband so many rupees and herself so much anxious concern. She reflects something after this fashion: “Ah! he cannot help admiring my dress: it is really a success; I am quite the best dressed woman in the room!” while in reality his thoughts are somewhat on this wise. “How is it possible that B, on his income, can afford to dress his wife thus? It is quite evident I must give up all thoughts of matrimony. Ladies seem to want so much; and how, on my income barely sufficing for my personal wants, could I risk the chances and responsibilities of marriage!” The influence of dress over the feminine mind and the importance she attaches to it, are problems men find it hard to understand. They do understand and appreciate the importance and implied flattery of ladies trying to look well: and good taste in dress is of equal value with good taste in everything—one’s house, one’s garden, one’s table, but it is something perfectly distinct from extravagance. How few ladies would feel satisfied with simply looking well, if they were not buoyed up with the knowledge that their dress is of actual marketable value! This feeling is really worth analysing: but it is one on which men are quite at sea!
“Why do you not marry?” we asked a friend who complained loudly of his need of home comfort.
“Marry; my dear fellow, what on earth can a man find in India to marry?
“Girls now-a-days seem to have but two ideas, their dress and lawn-tennis. What man in his senses would link himself for life to a being who had no soul for any thing else?”
Our friend was severe, but a few of us will perhaps grant he had some shew of reason for his severity. Indian officers are intelligent men, and they naturally seek intelligent companions, and if ladies were to spend but one-half the care in furnishing their minds they do on their persons, they need not fear but that they will be appreciated. They are also naturally, as men who work hard for their living, prudent, and they seek prudent wives, wisely to spend and save their earnings. Many of them are still God-fearing, and they need wives who can partake of their hopes of immortality. Among them are hardworking, home-loving men—and their ideal of bliss is to consort with one to cheer them in health and nurse them in sickness, and who will tend their houses and administer their homes with discretion. All are Englishmen, and they love in their wives what is essentially English, and not that mongrel hybrid of French finery and English dulness into which, alas! it would sometimes appear to be the ambition of our society ladies to transform themselves. Too often their eyes roam over the waste of mindless matter, and they seek their soul’s complement in vain. If in the keenness of his disappointment man feels tempted to accept the Arabian prophet’s dictum, and deny woman that soul of which she herself seems to deprecate the imputation, can she blame him very severely?
We fear that from the foregoing cursory survey of her influence in her home, on society, and on the native population, the conclusion must, however reluctantly, be arrived at, that in a great majority of instances the women of England have not done justice to the high prestige of their country’s position, nor have they very generally been awake to the responsibilities thus entailed. In India, pre-eminently, where as one who as well qualified to judge remarked, “deterioration so rapidly and surely does its work on the moral no less than the physical constitution,” woman’s influence in initiating what is noble and discouraging what is base, is eminently needed. Vanity, and the love of display, have too often robbed her of her claim to our reverence; and while her selfish love of ease and pleasure makes many an Indian so-called home but the phantom of its English antitype, to the great work of India’s enlightenment she stands in a position of absolute neutrality. Can we exempt her from blame. if the general tone of society is degenerating, if contributions to benevolent objects become ever increasingly scant, and religious enthusiasm seems to die a natural death in the stifling atmosphere of Indian life?
This seems a heavy bill of indictment, but it is for our English sisters to cast the stigma from them by lives devoted to noble ends, and a courageous resolve that neither the enervating influences of climate, shall frighten them from their post of duty by their husband's side on the plains, nor the syren voice of pleasure lure them, The highest lady in the land is leading the van, and now, if ever, will their right to work for India be acknowledged.
We hope we have said enough, on a subject really inexhaustible, not only to stimulate the earnest but also to point the way in which practical usefulness is within the reach of all, To mothers and fathers about to introduce their young unsophisticated daughters to the country, we would fain say one word of advice:—Forewarned is forearmed. You whom experience has taught where the pitfalls for her innocent feet lie, guard her on her first entry into society from its baneful influences. Be ever at her side as she looks out with wistful eye on its living drama, and teach her to discriminate between the evil and the good. Supply her with objects worthy of her interest, at the outset of her career; encourage her to study the language, history, and customs of the races among whom her lot is cast. Foster within her a sense of personal responsibility as regards them. Place within her reach opportunities, and carefully shield her from frivolous companionships. Abstain in her presence from the degrading avariciousness that too often stamps Anglo-Indian conversation, and give her your hearty co-operation in any plan she may originate for good. Make her a sharer in your own pursuits as much as possible, and above all, your personal convictions as to life and duty. Do not degrade her to the level of a spaniel by foolish indulgence, but rather let her learn from your example that pleasure sought as an end is illusive, and ever follows in the wake of faithful devotion to duty.
In this way we think our daughters may cherish a confident ambition that they will prove worthy of their great country, their higher culture, and their ennobling faith. Thus they may aspire to become pioneers not of civilization only, but of religion. And thus they may with hope expect the day when India’s daughters as well as sons will, with some shew of reason, call them their “cherishers”—their “protectors” and their “mothers.”