It is fitting that the sunflower should bloom in a garden, and so it does.  This time it is not a walled garden like that of Lal Bagh; the Women’s College is situated out from the city in a green and spacious suburb, where the little River Cooum wanders by its open spaces.  The ten acres have much the air of an American college campus,—­the same sense of academic quiet, of detachment from the work-a-day world.  The whole compound is dominated by the tall, white columns of the old main building, which confer an air of distinction upon the whole place, as well they may, for have they not guarded successively government officials and Indian rajahs?

Nearby is the new residence hall, as modern as the other is historic.  Three stories in height, its verandahs are in the form of a hollow square, and look out upon a courtyard gay with the bright-hued foliage of crotons and other tropical plants.  Beyond is the garden itself, filled not with the roses and chrysanthemums of winter Lucknow, but with the perpetual summer foliage of spreading rain trees, palms, and long fronded ferns, with fluffy maidenhair between.  In their season the purple masses of Bougainvillea, and the crimson of the Flamboya tree set the garden afire.  In the evening when the girls are sitting under the trees or walking down the long vistas with the level sunbeams bringing out the bright colors of their draped saris, it brings to mind nothing so much as a scene from “The Princess” where among fair English gardens

     “One walked reciting by herself, and one
      In this hand held a volume as to read.”

Student Organizations.

Yet life in the Women’s College is not a cloistered retreat such as “The Princess” tried to establish, nor are its activities confined to the study of classics in a garden.  Student organizations flourish here with a variety almost as great as in the West.  There is, first of all, the College Committee, which corresponds roughly to our Scheme of Student Government.  Its members are chosen from the classes and in their turn elect a President known as “Senior Student.”  She is the official representative of the whole student body.  Communications from faculty to students pass through her, and she represents the College on state occasions, such as visits from the Viceroy or other Government officials.  Various student committees are also elected to plan meetings for the Literary and Debating Societies, to organize excursions for “Seeing Madras,” and to plan for athletic teams and contests.  How well the last named have succeeded is proved by the silver cup carried off as a trophy by the College badminton team, which distinguished itself as the winner in last year’s intercollegiate sports.