to sustain a prolonged soaring flight in the poetic empyrean only when he had an Indian poet by his side, and his best and most enduring work is in the field of interpretation of eastern ideals to the waiting West. The poem however shows that Arnold was no mere rhymester and translator but had "the deep poetic heart," and that he had a true ear for melody, a true eye for beauty, and a true heart for love.

The poet's insight into the social life of India which is revealed only to the sympathetic vision of a true friend and which is quite unknown to casual observers and unsympathetic eyes is clear from the following lines:

Oh and full well I know what happy hearths
Are here in India, and what stainless wives
Live their sweet lives and die their gentle deaths
Under your suns,

There is a sweet and pathetic beauty in the concluding lines:

Life is not life, if we must live thinking

Oh, never come, my Love and Life! or

of love's last day; never go away.

The above are the most important of Arnold's Indian poems. They are of great beauty in themselves and also show how India is yet the true home of romance and idealism despite the stress of materialism and competition. The revelation of the treasures lying unknown in the books, folklore, and customs of India is a great work which can be best done by Indians themselves, and the world is waiting for the great Indian genius who shall reveal the supreme ideals of India in poems, Grateful to hallowed minds, lofty in sound, And couched in dulcet numbers,

(Arnold's Indian Idylls).

ARNOLD'S MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

The volume called With Sa'di in the Garden' consists of a long poem excellently conceived and executed. It opens with a description of the Taj Mahal and introduces us a learned Mirza, two songstresses, and an Englishman who pass the night in the Mosque attached to the Taj, reading the chapter of Sa'di on 'Love' and conversing thereon. The book consists not only of translations from Sa'di but contains various exquisite lyrics and verse-tales full of oriental passion and picturesqueness. The following opening description of the Taj is full of beauty :

Not architecture! as all others are

But the proud passion of an Emperor's love Wrought into living stone, which gleams and soars With body of beauty shining soul and thought In so much that it haps as when some face Divinely fair unveils before our eves Some woman beautiful unspeakab'yAnd the blood quickens, and the spirit leaps, And will to worship bends the half-yielded knees, While breath forgets to breathe; so is the Taj. The volume entitled In my Lady's Praise, contains the poems called 'A Casket of Gems' which have been collected in the volume 'Lotus and Jewel' and which have been reviewed above, and a few other poems. The other poems are mostly elegiac poems in sorrowful praise of his dead wife. I shall quote here but one beautiful stanza from them :

Well! One small word tells all things
'Love!''Love' concludes, begins, !
Defines-explains-exemplifies,
Conciliates, comforts, wins;
Assails the sins we could not 'scape,
Sets right our wrong, and ends

All grief of this with one soul-kiss
Which links us lasting friends.

ARNOLD'S PROSE WORKS.

Sir Edwin Arnold's Wandering Words' is a book of travels which deals more with the interpretation of the soul of the lands he visited than with the recording of mere outer incidents. It is especially valuable as an interpretation of Japanese and Indian life. He says:

To see popular gatherings alive and brilliant with happy colours, and to find the lost repose and delightfulness of daily life extant, and visible, and placidly prized, one must wander to-day among Indian cities and enter the precincts of the temples of their gods and the courts of the Hindu princes.

Sir Edwin Arnold's East and West is a book of traveller's impressions. It contains a few exquisitely narrated stories and some sketches of Indian and Japanese life. The chapter on "The Indian Upanishads" is as remarkable for its insight as for its sympathy. He says:

The days are of gold, and the nights are of ivory, in these natural temples of the Asiatic waste, where the gymnosophists" of Alexander and Arrian-the Maharishis and Mahatmas of Indian philosophy-meditated, to depths of abstraction profounder perhaps than Plato or Descartes, than Kant or Hegel, have ever reached, upon those problems which cannot be solved by mortal man while he lives here below, but which he must nevertheless strive constantly to solve, if he would give due growth and training to his soul.

"India Revisited," from which I have already quoted, is an excellent book of travels, full of picturesque description and sympathetic interpretation of the East. The chapter on "New Bombay" gives a full and glowing description of the queen of the Indian Ocean. The description of the Elephanta caves is very fine. He says of the statue of Ardhanareeswara:

This statue, of colossal size, is nevertheless very delicately cut, and the limbs and features possess an almost tender beauty. But the right half of the deity from head to foot is male, and the left moiety female. On one side of the figure are the knotted hair, the breast, the limbs of a god-like man; on the other the smooth and braided tresses, the swelling bosom, the rounded contour of a goddess.

The following wise words of Arnold to England and India are worthy of serious attention :

The time is gone when we could hold India by mere force. She must be ours' in the days to come because England is hers,' because the basis and purpose of our sovereignty there are her advancement and her benefit; because the best thing for the two populations is that they should dwell sisterly, the stronger protecting the weaker, What is good for India, in the sense of wisely and naturally developing her social and political emancipation, must hencefort be gladly done

There are no longer two policies-one which suits the Empire, and one which satisfies India; there is but one henceforward, to find and to follow-the policy, that is to say, which is best for India.

Sir Edwin Arnold's "The Marquess of Dalhousie's Administration of British India" is in two volumes and was published in 1862. He finely says at the commencement of the work: "He confesses to approach this labour with a conviction that India should be ruled for the Indians and that no imperial necessity can be stronger than imperial obligations." These are wise and weighty words that deserve to be treasured up in all true hearts. Lord Wellington when he was in India said once: "I would sacrifice every political consideration ten times over rather than sanction the slightest infraction of British good faith." There is a serene jubilation dignified by a high sense of duty in the following passage in Arnold's book:

·-

Strength, indeed, is sure to be respected in practice; but it demands the regard of the philosopher also, being of its nature divine; and, at least a presumptive title to

authority. Strength, inspired by benevolence, needs only wisdom to be the earthly analogue of the Divine Government. The two first are present together on all the pages of the history of the English in India, Sordid those pages sometimes are with the contact of money, blotted sometimes with innocent blood, but they always recite a progress to other gain than gold, and to other conquest besides territory. But, when all is conceded that envy or candour can ask, there remains that wherein England may challenge the comity of nations to match her work. The mantle of the Roman is descended upon us; bringing a larger gift, and a better spirit. We have overspread the earth; for our own gain, truly, but not for that alone--nor always for that at first. Where we have come, justice, the best we know, is done; benefits, the best we possessed, have been im parted. If we have not yet gained the affections of India, at least we have never yet despaired of deserv ing them; and the temptation of a military mutiny has failed to enlist against us the accusation and hostility of her working people . . . . we have deserved to keep what we have dared to acquire, and they read history ill, and fail beside in duty to their country, who speak of our Indian annals as fair to apologize for them. Let them be written, extenuating nothing and enlarging nothing, and a record will stand which the future will value and the present may be proud of.

We however see in the book a few traces here and there of lack of sympathy for India and the Indian nature—a defect that disappeared altogether in his maturer work. The history of Dalhousie's administration is narrated with considerable fulness and in a spirit of sympathy. A Government that suppressed Thugge, slavery, and infanticide, and consolidated the administration, and gave peace and justice and progress to the governed certainly deserves every commendation, whatever may have been its mania for annexation and its errors and its shortcomings. Arnold says of Lord Dalhousie: "He visited in person every province of the country which he had added to India; he crossed its rivers; dwelt in its cities; rode over its wild plains; and threaded its winding defiles. Wherever his provident glance observed an opportunity, or detected a want, he registered it for improvement or reform." It used to be said of Lord Dalhousie that he wrote "sixty minutes to the hour." Let all Englishmen remember the following precious words of Arnold :

:

We are introducing in India an idea unknown to the East, as it was unknown to Europe before commerce and the Italian cities taught it the idea of popular rights and equality before an impartial and written law. If in that mission we violate justice, and let our ambi tion get before our duty, we shall spoil our own work; which will else bring the circumference of civilization back to its starting point, and completing the round of human intercourse, repay to the East the heavy debt due to it from the West, in religion, art, philosophy, language in almost everything but the science of government,

HE new Budget is out. It is a deficit Budget, as everybody believed it would prove to be. Many new taxes have been imposed, all but two or three of which will affect the well-todo. As may be expected, the press have criticised some of the "impositions " in more or less strong language, but they are all agreed that the Government had no other alternative open. There is no knowing when the war will end. Supposing it lasts for another year, we may expect another deficit budget next year. To make up the deficit, fresh taxes will be imposed.

The cry everywhere is "curtail your expenditure." Many excellent schemes are hung up for want of funds. How long they will remain in a "state of suspense," nobody can say. It is just possible that many of them will have to be abandoned for ever. This is not desirable.

The people will have to find more money for education, sanitation, etc. They will not pay subscriptions to funds readily, however high their object may be. High interest may induce a few to invest their spare cash; but high interest is not a healthy sign of Government. For a Government like ours, five per cent. is the highest interest that should be paid. Anything more should be deprecated for reasons of State policy.

The

Surely education, etc., must not suffer. people will have to be induced to find money for education, sanitary improvements, etc. The only way of inducing those who are hoarding to invest their spare cash, is to tempt them to invest in Premium Bonds.

Almost all the European countries have their Premium Bonds. Some of them even pay a small interest. These Bonds form an excellent mode of investment, and the big prizes, which are offered, attract the capital of all and sundry.

What I propose is this: The Government of India should arrange to issue Premium Bonds of the value of £100,000,000. The face-value of the bond should be five rupees-to enable the small

investor to buy one or more bonds as he likes. Drawings should be held twice a year. There should be one hundred prizes, the first prize being a lakh of rupees and the second fifty-thousand rupees. Not more than ten lakhs of rupees should be distributed in prizes every year. The bonds may be sold through the port offices and banks only. No commission should be charged on sales, and no transfer fees should be levied. In a word, the bonds must be made easily available and transferable. I have no doubt that Premium Bonds will prove immensely popular in India, if they are issued on the lines indicated above. The help of the Press will have to be taken to impress their utility upon the general public. Foreigners must be allowed to purchase the bonds. As these will have the backing of the Indian Government, they will not hesitate to buy them in large quantities. The fact of the creation of the bonds should be advertised in France, Portugal, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, the United States, and elsewhere. If this be done, the whole amount of issue will be snapped up within a year.

The money thus secured must be spent in the spread of education, sanitary improvements, etc. Thus the Government will be able to spend the people's money usefully without having to pay The advancement of the anything for its use. country will thus be rendered easy, bad times notwithstanding.

I am not in favour of lotteries. There is an element of gambling in them and, therefore, lotteries should not be encouraged. Lotteries are still held in Dholpur and certain other Indian States. Their proceeds are devoted to charitable purposes, and so they e patronised by Indians. Premium Bonds will prove more attractive both to the masses and the classes.

I hope and trust that ny suggestions will be duly considered by the Government of India and adopted at no distant date.

Women's Education in India.

HE following Circular letter, dated the 22nd February 1916, has been addressed by Sir E. McClagan, Secretary to the Government of India, to various Provincial Governments :

I am desired to address you as follows on the subject of female education in this country:

The education of females in India is recognised, in spite of the attention hitherto paid to it, to be in a comparatively backward state. The Education Commission of 1882, while making a number of definite recommendations for the improvement of female education, represented that the difficulties in the way of progress could not be solved except by a growth of public opinion. Certain further suggestions for the encouragement of female education were made by the Government of India in paragraph 27 of their Resolution No. 199-211, dated the 11th March 1904, and the degree of advancement achieved is described in some detail in the Quinquennial Reviews of the progress of education in India for 1902-07 and 1907-12. But in their further Resolution No. 301-C. D., dated the 21st February 1913, the Government of India, while commending certain principles for general consideration, were compelled to acknowledge that the education of girls in this country still remained to be organised.

RECENT DEPARTMENTAL ENQUIRIES.

2. As noted by the Government of India in their Resolution of 1913, the local Governments had already been asked to submit schemes for the improvement of female education in each province. They had been requested in this Department Circular No. 914-922, dated the 1st July 1911, to submit schemes which should take the form of a 10 years' programme for (1) the expansion of girls' education by means of the allocation of funds; (2) the improvement of facilities. for the training of mistresses, and (3) the amelioration of the conditions of service in the case of mistresses and members of the inspecting staff. But before the replies to the above Circular had been received from more than a few of the local Governments, a further enquiry had been made in this Department Circular No. 838-849, dated the 9th May 1913, asking for the submission of a 3 years' programme of expenditure on educational requirements generally, and the previous enquiry of 1911 became absorbed in the subsequent inves

tigation. The local Governments, in reply to the Circular of 1913, intimated that they were ready to undertake very considerable expenditure on female education during the year 1913-14 to 1915-16, but their proposals were not accompanied by any detailed report of the method in which the improvements aimed at would be attained; and the Government of India are not in full possession of information regarding the progress actually made during the three years in question.

THE DEPUTATION TO SECRETARY OF STATE.

3. In the meantime a memorial was presented to the Secretary of State, on the 12th October 1915, by a deputation introduced by Mrs. Henry Fawcett, which asked that a committee might be appointed to enquire into the whole subject in India. In reply to the Deputation, the Secretary of State, while expressing sympathy with the objects aimed at, stated that he considered the present time inopportune for the appointment of a committee, and he has since forwarded the memorial to the Government of India without making any recommendation on it. A copy of the Secretary of State's despatch No. 191, dated the 5th November 1915, together with its enclosures is forwarded with this letter, and from the enclosures of the despatch it will be seen in what terms the deputation presented its memorial and in what terms the Secretary of State made his reply. A copy is also enclosed of a Memorial presented to His Excellency the Viceroy by a meeting of ladies in Bombay held on the 31st December 1915.

REASONS FOR EARLY RE-CONSIDERATION.

4. The Government of India agree in the view that, apart from other possible objections, the present conditions render it out of the question to appoint at any rate at this stage a committee such as has been proposed to the Secretary of State. But they consider that the present opportunity may well be taken for a reconsideration of the whole question of female education in India. The time would appear to have come for taking such forward actions as is possible in the matter.

GIRLS AS HEADS OF FAMILIES.

Apart from the general reasons for the increasing demand for female education, it may be observed where the joint-family system has hitherto prevailed in India, it is now breaking up. Families composed of only the father and the mother and their children are becoming more common. Girls and young women are, therefore, becoming the heads of families without being able to rely,

as in former days, upon the advice and care of older relations, and the duty of bringing up the children devolves upon them. The health and physical efficiency of the latter is a National concern, and it cannot be secured without the education of mothers and their co-operation.

CARE OF WIDOWS.

For the same reason, namely, the breaking up of the joint-family system, widows have not now the care and protection which that system secured them, and their opportunities of social service confined, though these may have been to the circle of their own and related families, have to a large extent disappeared. It is also necessary that women should receive some appropriate education in this period of transition when the old system is passing away which, though it enforced their subordination, secured them a certain degree of protection and comfort.

SEPARATE CURRICULA FOR GIRLS.

There is, at the same time, a general feeling that the present curricula, whether suited or not for the needs of boys, are as a rule unfitted for girls, and it is necessary to re-consider the nature of the education which should be imparted to girls.

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE SINCE APRIL, 1913 ? 5. The Government of India are, therefore, anxious to resume the consideration of the general question of female education and would be glad of the assistance of local Governments to enable them to take stock of the present position in the matter and to focus the opinions of competent persons on the main questions at issue.

They would be glad, in the first instance, if local Governments would submit a brief report to show what has been done for the improvement of female education since the 1st April 1913, the date from which the schemes prepared in compliance with the Government of India's Circular of the 9th May 1913, took their start. The Secretary of State, in his reply to the Deputation of October 1915, has pointed out that comparatively little can be learnt from the statistics at this moment, and in any case statistics on the subject are already at the disposal of the Government of India, but the Government of India are desirous that the statistical information available should be supplemented by brief reports showing what definite steps of importance have been inaugurated in each province since the 1st April 1913, in respect of (1) the increase of facilities for female education: changes in

character of such education given, and the financing and control of such education in primary institutions; (2) the same points with regard to higher institutions; (3) the training of teachers, and (4) the inspection of schools.

NEEDED EXPERIENCED EVIDENCE.

The Government of India are also anxious to obtain the views of local Governments regarding the class of action now to be taken, and they would be glad if, after obtaining the opinion of competent persons on the questions involved, the local Governments would send them to the Government of India an expression of their own views. It is suggested that the opinions of inspectresses, of Indian lady graduates, and of selected local bodies, which are directly engaged in the management of schools for females, would be found of special value, especially if the remarks made by the persons or bodies consulted are confined to the localities, of which they have personal experience, and to the questions which they can answer from their own knowledge or from materials at their disposal. In the case of local bodies, it is thought that the value of the replies given will be enhanced if these bodies have before them a conspectus of the existing state of female education in the areas under their control, and an attempt has been made in enclosure III. of this Circular to indicate certain points, on some of all of which local bodies may suitably provide themselves with data before reporting on the subjects dealt with in this Circular. It is further suggested that, when there is a standing committee on female education, such as has been already constituted in several provinces, the opinion of this committee should also be obtained.

TABULATION OF OPINIONS.

7. It will be convenient if the local Govern ment, in forwarding opinions, would tabulate briefly the results obtained, and will also supply their own views together with their suggestions for securing progress in the immediate future under the four following heads, viz:-(1) The primary education of females; (2) secondary and higher education of females; (3) teachers for females, and (4) inspection of female education. I am to add briefly a few remarks on some points to which the Government of India, as at present advised, would desire to invite the attention of local Governments in connection with each of the above subjects.