The education of the women of India #984311

O write a book on the education of Indian women is a prosaic action impelled by Western devotion to matter of fact; it would be more fitting to write of the veil of mystic romance which has hidden the sorrows and the joys of Indian women from the world; of the Rajput women who issued from the royal zenana to lead a forlorn cause against their country’s foes, or passed by hundreds to a fiery death rather than touch the conqueror’s hand; of those whose intrigue and strategy were redeemed from falseness by underlying devotion to others, of those who rose above the symbols of ritual and worship to the true perception of the Divine in life. But the modern world of the East has its own romance, that of the meeting of diverse civilizations, of[Pg 14] the craving for truth and reality, of multitudes in the valley of decision.