The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-11-26
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HASKLN. Director.
Washington. d. @.
TAKING FEMuNIsM TO ORIENT.

washington, -. C,s NOV. IA pan
to maintain seven colleges for women
in the Far East by American support,
and especially by having each of these
Oriental colleges adopted by an Amer
lean women's college,. is now under
way. A good deal of money has al
ready 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 official So
ciety.
This plan represents an attempt on
the part of western women to carry
4 the movement for education and
| equal rights for women into that part
| of the world where masculine domi-
nation is most complete. In the Orient
higher education for women was q
thing unheard of until a few years
ago. In addition to their seclusion, an
almost hopeless handicap to higher
! education for women of India and
| China is found in the early marriage
| customs of these countries. In India
| 10 per cent of the girls become moth
erse by the time they have reached 10
| years of age, and so per cent of them
| are mothers under IS years of age. It
is to be remembered, too. that this is
| a country where high caste women
| cannot be treated by male physicians.
! and where women doctors are almost
unknown outside of mission stations.
| What the East Indian women have
| suffered in consequence need not be
dwelt upon here. nor is it surprising
cent of midas 165,O0Os000 women
can read.
Chinese Women uHterate.
In China more than 80 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 Japanese girls eduea-
ton often stops with the middle school
or even earlier. This is not surpris-
ing when it is recalled that the Jap
anese government supports 30 insti-
tutions Of learning of university grade
for men students and but one insti-
tuition of college grade for all the girls
Of Japan.
Until recent years the small schools
maintained by church mission boards
were the only educational provision
which was made for the girls of the
Orient. They began about SO years
ago, at about the time Vassar col
lege was started, and at that time the
boards were weak and insignificant
organizations themselves. While the
results of the schools established by
the mission boards have been encour-
aging in the extreme. yet the indi-
clally to eSta blish colleges and high
grade medical schools. They had not
the money to equip nor to run them.
The mission boards realized the folly
or trying to run poor sectar;an schools
When by uniting their efforts they
might establish strong union Chris
tan colleges and give the girls of the
orient the same educational adVan-
tages the American girls enjoy. Ac-
cordingly the leading church boards
or England, America and Canada
united. in 1913, and established the
Iirst or these high-grade Union Chris
tan colleges at Madras India.
The success which attended the
Madras venture led to the organiza-
ton of committee for the purpose
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 af China, India and Japan.
From these boards a joint committee
on the Union Christian Colleges for
the Women of the Orient was formed.
Seven colleges were accepted to be
the beneficiaries of the cooperative
boards, but before their final accept
ance Miss Pendleton, Welles1ey's presf-
dent, at the invitation of the commit
tee, went to China and Japan and
made a thoro study of the colleges,
Upon her return Miss PendIeton gave
ment and they were accordingly ac-
cepted by the cooperating boards
The sene colleges are Ginning col
lege, Marking, China; Yenching col
lege, Picking, China; Woman's Union
Medical college, Picking, China; Wo-
mans Christian college, Madras, In
dia; Union Missionary School for
Women, Vellore, India; Isabella Tho
burn college, Lucknow, India; Wo-
| mans Christian college, Toxic, Japan.
Plan to Raise Money.
Mrs. Henry w. Peabody, of Boston,
Mass. was made chairman of the
building committee. for the co-operat-
| ing boards, and after careful consid-
| Grafton of what native governments
had done for the colleges-it should
| be stated that in every instance the
| native governments have given thekr
Warmest support to the embryo col
| 1eges-Mrs. Peabody and her commit
| tee found that it would require So
| 600, 900 to establish and equip the in
stitutions on self-running basis. The
matter was then laid before the trus-
| tees of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller
Memorial fund-a fund T@Icn was
! created by John D. Rockefeller IN.
memory of his wife. The trustees OF
the memorial fund took the PROPOSE
ton of the colleges under considera-
| ton, and later proposed to the com
mittee that if that body would raise
| 100000 the memorial fund would
contribute 100000 to the colleges.
! The offer was accepted, and $500, 600
] of the $4,000, 900 has already been paid
| in. which amount was increased by
| gift of S250,O0O from the memorial
| fund.
The building committee Is now
planning thru the church and club
women of the country to raise the re-
naming S1,500,OO0 by a swift and
/ oorcer+ad effort The xyomen's COL
leges of the United States have taken
| a keen interest in the seven oriental
| colleges. Wellesley has adopted as
sister college the Yenching college at
Picking. Vassar has adopted the coll
| lege at Tokyo, Smith has adopted
| Chilling college, at Marking, and
Mount Holyoke has adopted the coll
leges of Madras, Vellere and Ginning
The college and church women thru
out the country are cooperating with