Page:Report on public instruction in the lower provinces of the Bengal presidency (1850-51).djvu/34

xxii "I would have you all, but especially the more advanced students among you, and those who formerly belonged to this College and to similar Institutions, lay well to your hearts this praise of the learned judge, one of the most zealous friends which the cause of education possesses in India; and study to deserve the like commendation from your President here. Do not be satisfied with merely gaining knowledge for yourselves. Be teachers as well as learners: do not think your task ended when you leave the walls of your College, when in fact it is then only rightly beginning. You should consider that, when you were privileged to enter this Institution, you, as it were, enrolled yourselves the soldiers of enlightenment and civilization, and became bound to war against ignorance and prejudice to the death. Be ever ready and bold in the cause you have embraced. I consider the educated young men of this country as placed in a truly enviable position. There is not one among them, who may not hope to win for himself a great name in the future history of India, if he will aim a powerful and successful blow at any of the social evils by which his country is now enslaved. These young men at Bombay, as you see, have set themselves earnestly and zealously to work in elevating the character of the females of their native land. I have seen the recent report of their schools, which is full of hope and good promise. I think there are three instituted for Parsee girls, and one for Hindus. Probably, they could not have selected any work more directly conducive to the happiness and improvement of their countrymen.

"For, you may be assured of this, that you will never fully understand what is meant by domestic happiness, until you have in your families virtuous, intelligent, well-educated women: your children will never be thoroughly well taught, until they have been accustomed to lisp out their first lessons of virtue and wisdom at their mother’s knee; to find in her encouraging advice their strongest inducement to early industry and exertion, in her intelligent and approving smile their best and sweetest reward. Further, you must be prepared to find that, until you consent to give woman her proper place in society, that which her Creator intended for her, when He endowed her with the same reason, the same power of apprehension and intellect, which He has bestowed on yourselves, you will be considered by the whole civilized world as little better than a nation of barbarians.

"I know that a great number of you are deeply penetrated with the truth of what I say: nevertheless, I practically know the difficulties in