style="margin-top: 2em">Co-operative Housekeeping.

Co-operation is needed not only in "being good," but also in eating and drinking and keeping clean. There are school families in India where every member from the "queen" to the most rollicking five-year-old has her share in making things go. The queen takes her turn in getting up at dawn to see that the "water set" is at the well on time; five-year-old Tara wields her diminutive broom in her own small corner, and each is proud of her share. There is in Indian life an unfortunate feud between the head and the hand. To be "educated" means to be lifted above the degradation of manual labor; to work with one's hands means something lacking in one's brain. Not seldom does a schoolboy go home to his village and sit idle while his father reaps the rice crop. Not seldom does an "educated" girl spend her vacation in letter writing and crochet work while her "uneducated" mother toils over the family cooking.

Girls, however, who have spent hours over the theories of food values, balanced meals, and the nutrition of children, and other hours over the practical working out of the theories in the big school family, go home with a changed attitude toward the work of the house. Siromony writes back at Christmas time, "The first thing I did after reaching home was to empty out the house and whitewash it."

Ruth's letter in the summer vacation ends, "We have given our mother a month's holiday. All she needs to do is to go to the bazaar and buy supplies. My sister and I will do all the rest."

On Christmas day, Miracle, who is spending her vacation at school, all on her own initiative gets up at three in the morning to kill chickens and start the curry for the orphans' dinner, so that the work may be well out of the way before time for the Christmas tree and church.

Golden Jewel begs the use of the sewing machine in the Mission bungalow. All the days before Christmas her bare feet on the treadle keep the wheels whirring. Morning and afternoon she is at it, for Jewel has a quiver full of little brothers and sisters, and in India no one can go to church on Christmas without a new and holiday-colored garment. One after another they come from Jewel's deft fingers and lie on the floor in a rainbow heap. When Christmas Eve comes all are finished—except her own. On Christmas morning all the family are in church at that early service dearest to the Indian Christian, with its decorations of palm and asparagus creeper, its carols and rejoicings and new and shining raiment. In the midst sits Jewel and her clothes to the most seem shabby, but to those who know she is the best dressed girl in the whole church, for she is wearing a new spiritual garment of unselfish service.

[Illustration: Tamil Girls Preparing for College]

[Illustration: The Village of the Seven Palms]

The Indian Girl's Religion.

To the Indian schoolgirl religion is the natural atmosphere of life. She discusses her faith with as little self-consciousness as if she were choosing the ingredients for the next day's curry. She knows nothing of those Western conventions that make it "good form" for us to hide all our emotions, all our depth of feeling, under the mask of not caring at all. She has none of that inverted hypocrisy which causes us to take infinite pains to assure our world that we are vastly worse than we are. What Lotus feels she expresses simply, naturally, be it her interest in biology, her friendship for you, or her response to the love of the All-Father. And that response is deep and genuine. There is a spiritual quality, an answering vibration, which one seldom finds outside the Orient. You lead morning prayers and to pray is easy, because in those schoolgirl worshippers you feel the mystic quality of the East leaping up in response. You teach a Bible class and the girls' eager questions run ahead so fast that you lose your breath as you try to keep pace.

The following letter was written by a girl just after her first experience of a mountain climb with a vacation camp at the top. "Now we are on Kylasa, enjoying our 'mountain top experience.' This morning Miss —— gave a beautiful and inspiring talk on visions. She showed us that the climbing up Kylasa could be a parable of our journey through this world. In places where it was steep and where we were tired, the curiosity we had to see the full vision on the top kept us courageous to go forward and not sit long in any place. She compared this with our difficulties and dark times and this impressed me most, I think.

"When we came up it was dark and I was supposed to come in the chair, but I did not wait for it, because I was very curious to go up. When I came to a place very dark, with bushes and trees very thick on both sides, I had to give up and wait until the others came. When I was waiting I saw the big, almost red moon coming, stealing its way through the dark clouds little by little. It was really glorious. I thought of this when Miss —— talked to us, and it made it easier to understand her feeling about that.

"So much of that, and now I want to tell you about the steep rocks I am climbing these days," and then follows the application to the big "Hill Difficulty" that was blocking up her own life path.

God in Nature.

Love of nature is not as spontaneous in the Indian girl as in the Japanese. Yet with but a little training of the seeing eye and understanding heart, there develops a deep love of beauty that includes alike flowers and birds, sunsets and stars. A High School senior thus expressed her thoughts about it at the final Y.W.C.A. meeting of the year.

"Nature stands before our eyes to make us feel God's presence. I feel God's presence very close when I happen to see the glorious sunset and bright moonlight night when everybody around me is sleeping. I think Nature gives a much greater and more glorious impression about God than any sermon.

"Whenever I felt troubled or worried, I did not often read the Bible or prayer book, but I wanted to go alone to some quiet place from where I could see the broad, bright blue sky with all its mysteries and green trees and gray mountains with fields and forests around them.

"I think Nature is the best comforter and preacher of God. When we are too tired to learn our lessons or to do our duty, we can go alone for a safe distance where God waits for us to strengthen us. It is hard for me to sit and think about God in the class room, where everybody is speaking, and the class books and sums on the board attract my attention, or make me feel useless because I was not able to do them as nicely as others in my class. But, if we go away from all these, our friend Nature jumps up and greets us with new greetings. The cool wind and the pretty birds and wonderful little flowers and giant-like rocks help us to feel the presence of God. We cannot appreciate all these when we are walking with the crowd and talking and playing, but, if we are left alone when we go out to see God, then even the stones and tiny flowers which we often see look like a mystery to us. In thinking about them we can feel the wisdom of God."

Crude as the English may be, the spiritual perception is not so different from that of the English lad who cried,

     "My heart leaps up when I behold
      A rainbow in the sky."

Religion Made Practical.

Religious feeling and expression may be natural to the Indian mind, but how about its transfer to the affairs of the common day? It is a hard enough proposition for any of us, be we from the East or the West; to make the difficulty even greater, the Indian girl is heir to a religious