day
when the spiritual structure they are erecting will be expressed in a
suitable material form. Schools vary also as to social standing,
discipline, and ideals; yet there are common features and problems, and
one may be more or less typical of all. Most include under one
organization everything from kindergarten to senior high school, so that
the school is really a big family of one or two or four hundred, as the
case may be.

The girls come from many grades of Indian life. The great majority are
Christians, for few Hindu parents are yet sufficiently "advanced" to
desire a high school education for their daughters, and those who do
usually send their girls to a Government school where caste regulations
will be observed and where there will be no religious teaching.

Some of the Christian girls come from origins as crude as that of Arul.
To such the simplest elements of hygiene are unknown, and cleanly and
decent living is the first and hardest lesson to be learned. Others are
orphans, waifs, and strays cast up from the currents of village life.
Uncared for, undernourished, with memories of a tragic childhood behind
them, it is sometimes an impossible task to turn these little, old women
back into normal children. But the largest number are children of
teachers and catechists, pastors, and even college professors, who come
from middle class homes, with a greater or less collection of Christian
habits and ideals. With all these is a small scattering of high caste
Hindu girls, the children of exceptionally liberal parents. The
resulting school community is a wonderful example of pure democracy.
Ignorant village girls learn more from the "public opinion" of their
better trained schoolmates than from any amount of formal discipline;
while daughters of educated families share their inheritance and come
to realize a little of the need of India's illiterate masses. So school
life becomes an experiment in Christian democracy, where a girl counts
only for what she can do and be; where each member contributes something
to the life of the group and receives something from it.

What the Girls Study.

Schools are schools the world over, and the agonies of the three R's are
common to children in whatever tongue they learn. An Indian kindergarten
is not so different from an American, except for language and local
color. Equipment is far simpler and less expensive, but there is the
same spontaneity, the same joy of living; laugh