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40 forming the old ideas of religious and secular education. In the first place, Froebel's system enables a child to think; all his senses are trained by it, and this is just what education means to do. In the second place, an intelligent thinker will not accept or submit to any belief without taking time to think whether it is profitable, or whether it is true. Truth is the spirit of Froebel's teaching, and I think if the Kindergarten system were introduced into India, in secular and religious schools, it would give to the people not only an advanced mode of thinking, but would also dispel the illusion of many superstitious beliefs, the wrong ideas that now keep women and children in subjection. My idea is to reach the minds of the mothers. You know that nothing will attract the mother's attention so strongly as the welfare of her children, and if there are some women in our country, as I know they are to be found everywhere, who are opposed to their own progress and education, the Kindergarten system, when presented to them in its true light, will convince them that the welfare of their children depends mostly upon themselves, and if they are not as intelligent and judicious in training as they are in loving, they will do more harm than good."

With the enthusiasm and thoroughness characteristic of her nature, Ramabai was not content with studying the Kindergarten system from the outside;