This report on Indian social reformer Pundita Ramabai discusses her plans to establish a school in India for high-caste Hindu widows. She aims for high-caste women because they are the only women for whom such a plan is likely to succeed, and for widows because their life is made intolerable in Hindu society. Widows are blamed for the death of their husbands, and at times they even opt to be burned on their husbands' funeral pyres or drown in sacred rivers. The school will require seven thousand dollars a year for ten years. The money must be obtained in America and by an organization who accepts that the school will have no denomination. Accordingly, Cornell has formed a Ramabai Circle of students who pledge themselves to send one dollar per year for ten years.
Sep 1887
