DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22900#0350
CHAP. VI.]
FEMALE EDUCATION.
303
they have fully succeeded in awakening in the minds
of their countrymen a perception of the necessity
of a general and rapid advance in the paths of
knowledge and enlightenment, if they desire to
rank among the civilised nations of the earth.
The Parsis are now acting in this spirit, and they
have only to continue to do so for another age to
produce, under God's blessing, no insignificant results.
Even to-day those seeking instruction and enlighten-
ment are not confined within the Avails of the schools.
At the meetings of the literary societies, at public
lectures, and in libraries large numbers of Parsis
are always to be seen acquiring information in every
shape, and from whatever source it can be obtained.
Much good is expected from this thirst for know-
ledge, as the effect of English education upon the
Parsis generally will be to raise them still higher in
the scale of civilisation.
The history of female education among the Parsis
is very interesting. We have said already that the
exertions of the educated Parsi youth have worked a
great change in the condition of Parsi society. Fore-
most among these we place the establishment of girls'
schools in the year 1849, from which date female
education among the Parsis can only be said to have
commenced. Before that Parsi ladies of the upper
classes knew how to read and write a little Gujarati,
which is their vernacular. The Parsis of old, follow-
FEMALE EDUCATION.
303
they have fully succeeded in awakening in the minds
of their countrymen a perception of the necessity
of a general and rapid advance in the paths of
knowledge and enlightenment, if they desire to
rank among the civilised nations of the earth.
The Parsis are now acting in this spirit, and they
have only to continue to do so for another age to
produce, under God's blessing, no insignificant results.
Even to-day those seeking instruction and enlighten-
ment are not confined within the Avails of the schools.
At the meetings of the literary societies, at public
lectures, and in libraries large numbers of Parsis
are always to be seen acquiring information in every
shape, and from whatever source it can be obtained.
Much good is expected from this thirst for know-
ledge, as the effect of English education upon the
Parsis generally will be to raise them still higher in
the scale of civilisation.
The history of female education among the Parsis
is very interesting. We have said already that the
exertions of the educated Parsi youth have worked a
great change in the condition of Parsi society. Fore-
most among these we place the establishment of girls'
schools in the year 1849, from which date female
education among the Parsis can only be said to have
commenced. Before that Parsi ladies of the upper
classes knew how to read and write a little Gujarati,
which is their vernacular. The Parsis of old, follow-