Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India | Page 9

school.
In all the larger and more advanced cities and in some towns you will
find Government schools for Hindu girls as well as those carried on by
private enterprise, some of them of great efficiency. Yet this deliberate
turning to the school life of the Christian community is not so arbitrary
as it seems.
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 scant
garment in which she slept, snatches up the pot of unglazed clay that
stands beside the door, poises it lightly on her hip, and runs singing to
the village well, where each house has its representative waiting for the
morning supply. There is the plash of dripping water, the creak of
wheel and straining rope, and the chatter of girl voices.
[Illustration: A TEMPLE IN SOUTH INDIA]
The well is also the place for making one's morning toilet. Arul dashes
the cold water over her face, hands, and feet. No soap is required, no
towel--the sun is shining and will soon dry everything in sight. Next
comes the tooth-brushing act, when a smooth stick takes the place of a
brush, and "Kolynos" or "Colgate" is replaced by a dab of powdered
charcoal. Arul combs her hair only for life's great events, such as a
wedding or a festival, and changes her clothes so seldom that it is better
form not to mention it.
Breakfast is equally simple,--and the "simple life" at close range is apt
to lose many of its charms. In the corner of the one windowless room
that serves for all domestic purposes stands the earthen pot of black
gruel. It is made from the ragi, little, hard, round seeds that resemble
more than anything else the rape seed fed to a canary. It looks a
sufficiently unappetizing breakfast, but contentment abounds because
the pot is full, and that happens only when rains are abundant and
seasons prosperous. The Russian peasant and his black bread, the
Indian peasant and his black gruel--dark symbols these of the world's
hunger line.
There is no sitting down to share even this simple meal, no conception

of eating as a social event, a family sacrament. The father, as lord and
master, must be served first; then the children seize the one or two cups
by turn, and last of all comes Mother. Arul gulps her breakfast standing
and then dashes into the street. She is one of the village herd girls; the
sun is up and shining hot, and the cattle and goats are jostling one
another in their impatience to be off for the day.
The dry season is on and all the upland pastures are scorched and
brown. A mile away is the empty bed of the great tank. A South Indian
tank in our parlance would be an artificial lake. A strong earth wall,
planted with palmyras, encircles its lower slope. The upper lies open to
receive surface water, as well as the channel for the river that runs full
during the monsoon months. During the "rains" the country is full of
water, blue and sparkling. Now the water is gone, the crops are ripening,