In the first place, the proportion of literacy among Christian women is
far higher than among the Hindu and Muhammadan communities. Again,
because a large proportion of Christians have come from the depressed
classes, the "submerged tenth," ground for uncounted centuries under the
heel of the caste system, their education is also a study in social
uplift, one of the biggest sociological laboratory experiments to be
found anywhere on earth. And, lastly, it is through Christian schools
that the girls and women of America have reached out hands across the
sea and gripped their sisters of the East.


The School under the Palm Trees.

"And the dawn comes up like thunder Outer China 'cross the Bay." Far
from China and far inland from the Bay is this South Indian village, but
the dawn flashes up with the same amazing swiftness. Life's daily
resurrection proceeds rapidly in the Village of the Seven Palms. Flocks
of crows are swarming in from their roosting place in the palmyra jungle
beside the dry sand river; the cattle are strolling out from behind
various enclosures where they share the family shelter; all around is
the whirr of bird and insect as the teeming life of the tropics wakes to
greet "my lord Sun."

Under the thatch of each mud-walled hovel of the outcaste village there
is the same stir of the returning day. Sheeted corpses stretched on the
floor suddenly come to life and the babel of village gossip begins.

In the house at the far end of the street, Arul is first on her feet,
first to rub the sleep from her eyes. There is no ceremony of dressing,
no privacy in which to conduct it if there were. Arul rises in the same