“This is the week of prayer of the Y.W. and Y.M.C.A.  I am sure you are remembering us,—­the young women of India and our girls who are to lay out the future in India; also our young men and boys.

“The Student Federation has its conference in P——­ during Christmas, and four of our college students are going.  If only the men would be open hearted and less prejudiced and brave enough to stand alone and reform society.  I think the time is coming.

“Isn’t it strange that you should also feel the thirst for Bible study just as I am doing here.  I never felt the lack of Scriptural knowledge as now while I teach our girls.”

EXTRACTS FROM A TEACHER’S JOURNAL IN MADRAS COLLEGE

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