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Rh completely emancipated their women from purdah traditions, and have accepted for them the advantages of learning quite as unreservedly as for the boys. Madras has, however, been the centre of Indian mission efforts far longer than any other part of the dependency, and indeed we may go back for its commencement to 1542, when St. Francis Xavier's name was first associated with Madura and the Páravás tribes of the Tinnevelly district. The earliest two of the Protestant mis-

sionaries, who by the way were Lutherans, began their efforts at Tranquebar, and to two of them, Ziegenbalg and Schutze by name, is due the credit of having translated the Bible into Tamil and Hindustani. Even the sternest critics of modern missionary methods are compelled to admit how much the evangelizing agencies have done in the direction of female education. Going back to the year 1850, I find that the Protestant societies then