Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/509

466 may be acceptable to the bulk of the Hindu community and worthy of their confidence. Indeed, the more I think about it the more am I convinced that I cannot conscientiously advise the Government to take the direct responsibility of setting in motion a project which, in the present state of the native society and native feeling, I feel satisfied, will be attended with failure. You can easily conceive whether respectable Hindus will allow their grown up female relatives to follow the profession of tuition and necessarily break through the present seclusion, when they do not permit the young girls of ten or eleven years to quit the zenana after they are married. The only persons, whose services may be available, are unprotected and helpless widows, and apart from the consideration whether morally they will be fit agents for educational purposes, I have no hesitation in saying that the very fact of their dispensing with the Zenana seclusion and offering themselves as public teachers will lay them open to suspicion and distrust and thus neutralize the beneficial action aimed at.

"I think the Government cannot pursue a better course on this subject than what has been indicated in the India Government's letter lately published in the papers. The best test of popular feeling will be the application of the grant-in-aid principle. If the people are willing to carry out Miss Carpenter's idea, they should be assisted with