e and widowhood will be lessened
in a large degree. While education will teach men and women to reverence
their parents and always consult them, at the same time they will learn
to choose for themselves. By coming in contact with the opposite sex,
they will learn to decide their marriage themselves; and choosing does
not come at an early and immature age. Thus child widowhood, too, will
be decreased. Then, too, the widows will be able to work for their
livelihood if they don't wish to marry again."

Purdah.

To the North India girl, perhaps the most vexing social question is that
of _purdah_. How can education reach women who live shut away from the
sky and the sun and the lives of men? On the other hand, if after the
seclusion of a thousand years freedom were suddenly thrust upon women
not even trained to desire it, who can measure the disaster that would
follow? Where can the vicious circle be broken, and how?

Tiny arcs of its circumference have been broken already. Lal Bagh
includes in its family not only its majority of Christian girls, but
also a scattering of Hindus and Muhammadans who have made more or less
of a break with ancestral customs.

One among these is a member of the Sophomore Class, Omiabala Chatterji
of Allahabad. Of Brahman parentage, she was fortunate in having a father
of liberal views, who was ambitious for his daughter's education. He
died when Omiabala was but three years old, but not before he had passed
on to his wife his hopes for the future of the little daughter. The
mother, with no experience of school life herself, but only the limited
opportunity of a little teaching in her own home, yet entered into the
father's ambitions. From childhood Omiabala was taught that hers was not
to be the ordinary life of the Brahman woman--she was set apart by her
father's wish, dedicated to the service of her people. So the years came
and went, and instead of wedding festivities the child was sent away on
the journey to Lucknow, to enter into a strange, new life. There
followed weeks of homesickness and longing, then gradual adjustment,
then glad acceptance of new opportunity. Omiabala now talks
enthusiastically of her future plans for work among her own
people--plans for the education of Brahman girls, and for marriage
reform such as shall make this possible.

[Illustration: VILLAGE PEOPLE.]

The Freshman Class had a spirited discussion as to the benefits and
evils of the purdah system. Opinion