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  As the Principals of both the Women’s Colleges opposed the suggestion, it was withdrawn, but this little incident shows two things, the sympathetic feeling of men toward the studies of women, and the distance that women have travelled since the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.