Chapter (অধ্যায়): X CALCUTTA AND THE HOLY WOMEN PAGE-117Page: 117 of 336

created. And thus enveloped by his interpretation, thus dominated by his passionate love of his own race, it was like walking in some twilight of the gods, where the forms of men and women loomed larger than their wont.

It had been taken for granted from the first, that at the earliest opportunity I would open a girls' school in Calcutta. And it was characteristic of the Swami's methods, that I had not been hurried in the initiation of this work, but had been given leisure and travel and mental preparation. To myself it was clear that this school, when opened, must at first be only tentative and experimental. I had to learn what was wanted, to determine where I myself stood, to explore the very world of which my efforts were to become a part. The one thing that I knew was, that an educational effort must begin at the stand-point of the learner, and help him to development in his own way. But I had no definite plans or expectations, save to make some educational discovery which would be qualitatively true and universally applicable, to the work of the modern education of Indian women.*

 



Foot Note:

* It must here be pointed out that the school in question proved even more tentative than I had imagined. In the autumn of 1903, the whole work for Indian women was taken up and organised by an American disciple, Sister Christine, and to her, and her faithfulness and initiative, alone, it owes all its success up to the present. From the experiment which I made in 1898 to 1899, was gathered only my own education. – Nivedita.