to be very great, and
donations last year are credibly reported to have exceeded 300,000
rupees.
Life in the _gurukuls_ is simple and even austere, the discipline
rigorous, the diet of the plainest, and a great deal of time is given to
physical training. As the _chelas_ after 16 years of this monastic
training at the hands of their _gurus_ are to be sent out as
missionaries to propagate the Arya doctrines throughout India, the
influence of these institutions in the moulding of Indian character and
Indian opinion in the future cannot fail to be considerable. Some five
years more must elapse before we shall be able to judge the result by
the first batch of _chelas_ who will then be going forth into the world.
For the present one can only echo the hope tersely expressed a few
months ago by Sir Louis Dane, the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, in
reply to assurances of loyalty from the President of the Arya Samaj,
that "what purports to be a society for religious and social reform and
advancement may not be twisted from its proper aims" and "degenerate
into a political organization with objects which are not consonant with
due loyalty to the Government as established." But neither the spirit of
Dayanand's own teachings nor the record of many of his disciples,
including some of those actually connected with the _gurukuls_, is in
this respect encouraging.
There has been, however, no recurrence of serious disturbances in the
Punjab since 1907, and if the native Press lost little of its virulence
until the new Press Act of this year, and numerous prosecutions bore
witness to the continued prevalence of sedition, the province has been
free from the murderous outrages and dacoities which have been so
lamentable a feature of the unrest in Bengal and in the Deccan. None the
less there is still a very strong undercurrent of anti-British feeling.
It has partly been fostered in the large cities by Bengalee immigrants
who have come into the Punjab in considerable numbers, and thanks to
their higher education have acquired great influence at the Bar and in
the Press, but it is rife wherever the Arya Samaj is known to be most
active, and the Arya Samaj has already proved a very powerful
proselytizing agency. Its meeting houses serve not only for religious
ceremonies, but also as social clubs for the educated classes in all the
larger towns where they congregate. Access to them is readily given to
Hindus and Sikhs who have not actua
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