History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

304 HLSTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. VI.

ing the example of the Hindus and Mahomedans, among whom they dwelt, did not make the least effort to educate their women. They did not see the advantages of doing so. What does a woman want to learn for? they may have asked as others have. She has not to go out like men in order to earn her bread. Tt was thus they replied to any question which might be put concerning female education. In those days people generally thought that the extreme limit to which female education should extend was to teach their wives and daughters to scrawl letters, in order that they might be able to write out a list of clothes before sending them to the washerman or laundress ; to understand the daily bazaar expenses, which, if they exceeded five rupees, would pass the limits of their comprehension; and to read the name and residence of their husbands or fathers on a small bit of paper when it was sent from the market with the fuel or corn. There might have been a few exceptions of clever ladies, but the three acquirements of ‘‘reading, writing, and arithmetic” were luxuries indeed, and the possessor was envied on account of her superior training.

A great change, however, at last began to take place. The young men who had been educated in Government schools and colleges viewed the question of female education in its proper light. They felt the mental inferiority of their better halves. They