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Lighted to Lighten: the Hope of India by Alice B. Van Doren
page 34 of 167 (20%)

Seeta loves her home, but before a month is over its close confinement
palls and she writes back, "I am living like a Muhammadan woman. I wish
it were the last day of vacation." Her father is shocked by her desire
to be up and doing. He calls on the school principal and complains, "I
don't know what to make of my daughter. Why is she not like her mother?
Are not cooking and sewing enough for any woman? Why has she these
strange ideas about doing all sorts of things that her mother never
wanted to do?" Then the principal tries to explain patiently that new
wine cannot be kept in old bottles, and that unless the daughter were to
he different from the mother it was hardly worth while to send her for
secondary education. So, when the long holiday is over, Seeta returns
with a fresh appreciation of what education means in her life; and we
know that when _her_ daughters come home for vacation, it will be to a
mother with sympathy and understanding.

The girls' loyalty to their school is at times almost pathetic. An
American teacher writes, "One moonlight night when I was walking about
the grounds talking with some of the oldest girls, one of them caught my
hand, and turned me about toward the school, which, even under the magic
of the Indian moon, did not seem a particularly beautiful sight to me.
'Amma' (mother), she said, in a voice quivering with emotion, 'See how
beautiful our school is! When I stand out here at night and look at it
through the trees, it gives me such a feeling _here_,' and she pressed
her hand over her heart.

"'Do you think it is only beautiful at night?' one of the other girls
asked indignantly, and all joined in enthusiastic affirmations of its
attractions even at high noon,--which all goes to show how relative the
matter is. I, with my background of Wellesley lawns and architecture,
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