Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/174

 I desire to press forward along all the lines, but I am averse to spasmodic onslaughts in isolated directions and I believe that for our entire v^^ork, and a fortiori for each fragmentary portion thereof, festina lente is the true motto.

Having alluded to female education, pardon me if before closing I say a few words on a subject too generally over- looked, viz., the intimate connection that exists between the elevation of the status of our women, and that political enfran- chisement for which alone so many of our ablest co-workers think it worth while to labour ; it will illustrate my previous contention as to the essential one-ness of the cause of national reform. I will not argue with my Native friends, who twit me with Divorce Courts and Hill-station scandals, whether our modern so-called education does render European women as a whole less liable to fall. I will not argue with them as to whether, taking households by the million, there is more chastity in the East or the West. Thank God, I have known of thousands of pure households in both — and everywhere so long as this race of man exists, there will be weak women whom no education can touch, and wicked men, and whether there be more of these in this or that nation no mortal man is really qualified to judge ; and this moreover is wholly beyond the present question, since all will admit that a properly educated woman, whose mental and moral faculties have been thoroughly developed, must necessarily be less liable to err than one who remains uneducated. I by no means set up the average education of European girls as all that could be desired — all I ask for is a really good education for all Indian girls, and if the European system is defective let us improve upon it and adopt a more perfect one.

But what I do desire to make plain is that without the proper education of our females, without their elevation to their natural and rightful position, no great and permanent political progress can be hoped for. It is by such education alone that the national intellect can be completed and the East put in a position to compete fairly with the West.

As in the individual there are two brains whose har-