The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-11-26


plan to maintain seven colleges for
women in the Far East by Ameri-
! can support, and especially by hav-
ing eacn OF these oriental colleges
adopted by an American women S
college, is now under way. A good
deal of money has already been
raised! and drives in all parts of
the country are planned for this
winter. A Washington drive was
recently held under the patronage
of women Of high position in ON
cial society.
This plan represents an attempt
on the part of western women TO
carry the movement for education
and equal rights for women into
that part of the world where mas
culine domination is most COM
plete. In the Orient higher educa-
ton for women was . thing I'M
heard of until few years ago. In
addition to their seclusion, an al
most hopeless handicap to higher
education for the women of India
and China is found in the early
marriage customs of these coun-
tries. In India 10 per cent of the
girls become mothers by the time
they have reached 10 years of age,
and SO per cent of them are moth
ers under Is years of age. It is to
be remembered too, that this is
in country where high caste wom1
| en- cannot be treated by male ply
sicians, and where women doctors
are almost unknown outside of mis-
sion stations. What the East In
dia women have suffered in con-
sequence need not be dwelt spon
here, nor is it surprising under
these conditions that but 1 per cent
of midas 165, 100000 women can
read.
Chinese Women I1literate.
In China more than 90 per cent
Of the women are iIliterate. In
Japan conditions are brighter, but
unlike the men who go from the
middle school to college and often
from college to university, the Jap
anese girls education often stops
with the middle school or even
earlier. This is not surprising
when it is recalled that the Japa-
nese government supports 80 insti-
tutions of learning of university
grade for men students and but one
Institution Of college grade for all
the girls of Japan
Until recent years the small
schools maintained by church mis-
sion boards were the only educa-
tional provision which was made
for the girls of the Orient. They
began about fifty years ago, at
about the time Vassar college was
started, and at that time the boards
were weak and Insignificant or
CARNATIONS themselves. While the
results of. the schools established
by the mission boards have been
encouraging in the extreme, yet
the individual boards were never
able financially to establish col
leges and high-grade medical
schools. They had not the money
to equip nor to run them. The mis-
sion boards realized the folly OF
trying to run poor sectarian
schools, when by uniting their eff
forts they might establish strong
union Christian colleges and give
the girls of the Orient the same
educational advantages the Ameri-
can girls enjoy. Accordingly the
leading church boards of England,
America and Canada united in
1913 and established the first of
these high-grade Union Christian
colleges at Madras. India
The success which attended the
Madras venture led to the organ
izaticn of a committee for the pur-
pose of securing cooperation among
the women's church mission boards
of the United States and Canada
in their work along educational
lines for the women of China, In