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

I told you once before that I am not here to teach you. I am here to tell you what I have seen and what I still hope for. Let me say it sharper tonight.

At Pasadena in January 1900 I said: "And 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." I said it then because I had read the old books with my own eyes. I say it again because it is still the truth and still needs a voice.

Now, what has come since that day? When I left this body, not one woman in a hundred could read. Today the door of the schoolroom stands open to the daughter as to the son. That is a river that has turned, and no one can push it back. Do not let anyone call it small.

But hear me. A girl who can read a page but cannot stand on her own feet has been handed a lamp without oil. Education is not the cramming of a book into a head that never learns to think. Education is the drawing out of the perfection already in you — strong in body, strong in mind, strong in spirit. I want that for you, not a certificate that leaves you small.

I never married. I have no daughter of my body. But I have daughters of my spirit. And to them I say what I said at Madras in 1897: "Who are you to solve women's problems? Are you the Lord God that you should rule over every widow and every woman? Hands off! They will solve their own problems." I do not come to you with a plan made for you. I come to you with a question: what will you make of the door that has opened?

I said at Pasadena: "Now, the ideal woman in India is the mother, the mother first, and the mother last." That is true. But the mother must also be the teacher, the shaper, the one who builds the nation in the child she raises. A nation is not built in parliaments alone. It is built in the home, in the school, in the heart of every woman who refuses to be small.

What is still undone? In 1897 I called for an order of women — women who serve, who teach, who carry the light to the poorest door. It has begun, but it is not enough that a few become nuns. Every one of you, married or single, mother or student, is needed. I called for a college in Madras to teach comparative religion, Sanskrit, the schools of Vedanta, and some European languages. That stands unfinished. And I said in 1894: if the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him. The poor girl too. That is still unfinished.

So I do not give you a plan. I give you a charge: learn. Teach. Serve. Choose. And when you have chosen, do not ask anyone's leave. The work is yours now.

One image to end with. Think of the river Ganga at Belur where I sit in the evenings. It flows past the monastery, past the villages, past the city, and it does not ask permission. It simply goes. Be like that. The strength is in you. I have seen it.