11. EDUCATION IN INDIA.--For the education of the Brahmins and of the higher classes, there was founded, in 1792, a Sanskrit College at Benares, the Hindu capital. The course of instruction embraces Persian, English, and Hindu law, and general literature. In 1854 universities were established at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Of late public instruction has become a department of the government, and schools and colleges for higher instruction have been established in various parts of the country, and books and newspapers in English and in the vernacular are everywhere increasing. As far back as 1824 the American and English missionaries were the pioneers of female education. The recent report of the Indian Commission of Education deals particularly with this question, and attributes the wide difference between the extent of male and female acquirements to no inferiority in the mental capacities of women; on the contrary, they find their intellectual activity very keen, and often outlasting the mental energies of men. According to the traditions of pre-historic times, women occupied a high place in the early civilization of India, and their capacity to govern is shown by the fact, that at the present day one of the best administered States has been ruled by native ladies during two generations, and that the most ably managed of the great landed properties are entirely in the hands of women. The chief causes which retard their education are to be found in the social customs of the country, the seclusion in which women live, the appropriation of the educational fund to the schools for boys, and the need of trained teachers.
Notwithstanding all these disadvantages, the first Asiatic writer in the languages of the West who has made a literary fame in Europe is a young Hindu girl, Tora Dutt (1856-1877), whose writings in prose and verse in English, as well as in French, have called forth admiration and astonishment from the critics, and a sincere lament for her early death.
12. THE BRAMO-SOMAJ.--In 1830, under this name (Worshiping Assembly), Rammohun Roy founded a religious society in India, of which, after him, Keshub Chunder Sen (died 1884) was the most eminent member. Their aim is to establish a new religion for India and the world, founded on a belief in one God, which shall be freed from all the errors and corruptions of the past. They propose many important reforms, such as the abolition of caste, the remodeling of marriage customs, the emancipation and education of women, the abolition of infanticide and the worship of ancestors, and a general moral regeneration. Their chief aid to spiritual growth may be summed up in four words, self-culture, meditation, personal purity, and universal beneficence. Their influence has been already felt in the legislative affairs of India.