A Talk to the Young Women of India: What I Hoped for You.

My sisters, sit close. I have come a long way to say this, and I have waited years to say it plainly.

I stood before a club of ladies in Pasadena, in California, in the January of 1900, and I told them of you. I told them that our religion does not prevent a woman being educated at all. In this way the girl should be educated; even thus she should be trained; and in the old books we find that the universities were equally resorted to by both girls and boys, but later the education of the whole nation was neglected. That is what I said there, and I say it again here, to your faces.

Do not let anyone tell you that your faith or your birth has shut the door of learning to you. The door was never shut. It was we who let it fall. And it is you who will push it open again.

Now, the ideal woman in India is the mother, the mother first, and the mother last. I said that too, in that same hall. Some of your grandmothers heard those words and wept. But hear me: I do not mean a mother who is weak. I mean a mother who is strong enough to shape a nation. The mother who has never read cannot teach her child to read. The mother who has never stood on her own feet cannot teach her child to stand. So when I speak of the mother, I speak of the woman who is educated, who is free, who is strong — because she will make the whole country strong.

Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas. I said that in Madras, and I say it to you: do not let anyone stuff your heads like sacks. Learn, but digest. Learn so that you walk taller, so that your voice is clearer, so that your hand is steadier. That is education.

I asked once for a real lioness to work for the women of India — a woman, not a man, to do this work. And one came. But one lioness is not enough. I want a hundred. I want you.

Some of you are told, even now, that your place is the kitchen, that books are not for you, that your brothers must study and you must wait. I tell you: your place is wherever your mind can grow. If the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him — and I say the same of the girl. The school must come to your door if you cannot go to the school. Let no one tell you that your mind is smaller. The soul is not male or female. The soul is divine. And that divinity is in you, waiting to be drawn out.

I know what some of you carry. I have seen the girl who hides her books under her sari. I have seen the widow who is told she is a curse. I have seen the wife who is told to be silent. I have seen all of you, because I have walked through your villages and your cities, and I have eaten in your homes. And I tell you: you are not a curse. You are not a burden. You are the mother of the future, and the future will be what you make it.

Do not wait for someone to come and free you. No one can free you but yourself. I can tell you that you are strong, but you must believe it. I can tell you that you are worthy, but you must act as if you are. And when you do — when you read, when you write, when you teach, when you stand — you will find that the chains you feared were only shadows.

I left much unfinished when I went. I planned schools. I planned an order of women who would teach and serve. I planned a college where every faith would be studied, where Sanskrit and science would sit side by side. Some of that has been done, some has not. But the work is not mine to finish. It is yours. I am only the one who pointed the way.

So here is my charge to you, young women of India. Learn. Read everything you can lay your hands on. Ask questions. Do not be afraid to be wrong — I was wrong a thousand times, and I am still wrong sometimes. But I never stopped asking. And that is all I ask of you: do not stop asking. Do not stop learning. Do not stop standing.

And when you have learned, teach. Teach your sister. Teach your neighbour. Teach your daughter. That is how the light spreads — from one lamp to another, and the first lamp does not grow dim. That is the work. That is the worship. That is what I hoped for you, and I hope it still.

I bless you. I bless your mothers and your daughters. Rise, and do not look back.