Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/164

138 does not for their wives. Poor creatures! degraded they now are truly, and degraded they must be while kept in ignorance, and treated only as if made for the pleasure and service of man. They will not have self-respect, while even their own sons are taught to revile and disobey them; and they cannot have that delicacy of sentiment, refinement, and gentleness so characteristic of the Christian female, while treated as drudges, both by husbands and sons. The power of Christianity alone can raise them from their degradation. It is the privilege of the Christian female in heathen lands to gather into Christian schools the young of her own sex, who could not be reached by the missionary if alone, and to infuse into their tender hearts the elevating, purifying, and refining principles of the gospel.

The boarding-school, which removes the child from the influence of heathen friends for a series of years, and places her constantly under the influence of the Christian teacher, affords the most favourable opportunity for training girls to ways of piety. But this involves a necessity of expense, accommodation, and teaching which cannot be incurred at every station. Yet, the day-school, though an humble, is not a useless,