entered classes which no
woman had invaded before.

[Illustration: BABY ON SCALES]

Then came the suggestion of an American college, and Dora started off on
a voyage of discovery that must have been epoch-making in her life. It
is, as I have said, a far cry from Lahore to South Hadley. It means not
only physical acclimatization, but far more delicate adjustments of the
mind and spirit. Many a missionary, going back and forth at intervals of
five or seven years, could tell you of the periods of strain and stress
that those migrations bring. How much more for a girl still in her
teens! New conventions, new liberties, new reserves--it was young David
going forth in Saul's untried armor. Of spiritual loneliness too, she
could tell much, for to the Eastern girl, always untrammelled in her
expression of religious emotion, our Western restraint is an
incomprehensible thing. "I was lonely," says Miss Maya Das, "and then
after a time I reacted to my environment and put on a reserve that was
even greater than theirs."

So six years passed--one at Northfield, four at Mt. Holyoke, and one at
the Y.W.C.A. Training School in New York. Girls of that generation at
Mt. Holyoke will not forget their Indian fellow student who "starred" in
Shakespearian roles and brought a new Oriental atmosphere to the pages
of the college magazine. Six years, and then the return to India, and
another period of adjustment scarcely less difficult than the first.
That was in 1910, and the years since have seen Miss Maya Das in various
capacities. First as lecturer, and then as acting principal of Kinnaird
College at Lahore, she passed on to girls of her own Province something
of Mt. Holyoke's gifts to her. Now in Calcutta, she is Associate
National Secretary of the Y.W.C.A.

It was in Calcutta that I met Miss Maya Das, and that she left me with
two outstanding impressions. The first is that of force and initiative
unusual in an Indian woman. How much of this is due to her American
education, how much to her far-northern home and ancestry, is difficult
to say. Whatever the cause, one feels in her resource and executive
ability. In that city of purdah women, she moves about with the freedom
and dignity of a European and is received with respect and affection.

The second characteristic which strikes one is the fact that Miss Maya
Das has remained Indian. One can name various Indian men and some women
who have become so denationalized by foreign education