increasing in India.
"These years of actual experience have proved that the scheme is no mere vision, inviting the compassionate to well-meant but fruitless labour, but can be made a living fact. It is proved that enormous abuses, though deeply rooted in centuries of habit can be successfully attacked. A solitary woman, consumed with love and pity, endowed with insight and tact, knowing through and through the temper of the people among whom she must work, unfaltering in purpose, unfailing in resource, excelling in patience, undaunted by whatever adversity of conditions, has been able to inaugurate a reform, and in face of a most bitter and relentless prejudice, has been able to maintain and advance it through nearly ten years. It is a marvel that she and her school have not been annihilated by the violent hands of the hostile multitude about them. But though the conflict has been fierce, she has not suffered defeat. Her school has been established and maintained and it accommodations are already overtaxed. In a movement opposed to fanatical prejudice the most difficult and dangerous part is gaining a foothold. Ramabai has gained a foothold and has kept it. The possibility of ultimate success is assured thereby".
The foregoing extracts go to prove that Ramabai is not only an inspirer of her countrywomen but also an inspirer of the world at large. The wealth of providence which has fallen like raindrops along the vast watershed of her singular experience has been the means of fertilizing wherever her story is told not only her own people, but the peoples of the world. The following are some of the results which have already followed on her espousal of the cause of the child-widows of India :
1. "An increased sentiment in the Hindu community in favour of re-marriage of Hindu widows in all parts of India in large numbers. 2. The interest in the kindergarten system and female education which is daily increasing in India. 3. The desire which Ramabai's institutions have created in the hearts of Hindu men for the education of their wives. 4. The Hindu people who live in Kedgaon and the surrounding country are more careful not to ill-treat their little wives and windows lest they should run away and go to Pandita Ramabai. 5. The impetus which Pandita Ramabai's example has given to the Indian Christian Church. Mrs. Shewantibai Nikambe's School [This school still exists and is known as the Princess
High School for Girls situated at Grant Road, Bombay.] which was started in Bombay for high caste child wives, child widows and unmarried girls. Godubai's Home [Godubai (alias Anandibai alias Baya) writes in her autobiography Maze Puran (Marathi) that she had determined to start a similar institution and Maharshi Annasaheb alias Dhondo Keshav Karve admits in his autobiography that he too had received inspiration from Pandita Ramabai and thus they both together established their world-renowned institution for women at Hingane, near Poona-now developed as S. N. D. T. Women's University] for Hindu Widows in Poona and Miss Shorat Chuckerbutty's orphanage at Allahabad are the direct outcome of Pandita Ramabai's work. The chief agent in this great development is a daughter of India. This is not the work of missionary Society or of European missionaries but an Indian widow, moved by the spirit of God, as His instrument in this mighty work. It shows something of the possibilities of Indian Christians. When hundreds more are actuated by the same spirit which moves Ramabai and are led to similar efforts what may we not expect to see?" One extract from an American Ramabai Association Report will close these remarks upon Ramabai's work :
"During the ten years of her work in the Sharada Sadan this one woman reformer, by her silent influence, and by her object lesson to the educated young men, showing them the difference between an educated wife of twenty and an ignorant wife of none or twelve, has done more towards
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