  1. I am very fond of going about the streets with your uncle. The Indian children always amuse me. 2. When Indians grow up they are rather grave and sad. The children, however, are always bright and merry. Indian fathers and mothers are very fond of their boys. They care very little for their girls. 3. Boys soon become men in India. They begin work at an early age, and they are married when they are about sixteen. Girls are married a few years younger. 4. Almost every boy follows the trade of his father. A farmer's son becomes a farmer, a weaver's son becomes a weaver, and so on. 5. Many of the boys go to school, but not many of the girls. They, poor things, begin to work in the house or in the field almost as soon as they can walk. Much of the hard rough work in India is done by poor women and girls. 6. A rich father keeps his girls shut up in the back part of his house. Their faces are never seen by any man except those of their own family. If they go out of the house, they cover themselves from head to foot with a thick veil. Sometimes they are carried from place to place in a closely shut box on poles. 7. Are you not sorry for these poor rich girls? I am. They can never play merry games with boy friends, or go for long walks in the country. 8. They know nothing of the beautiful world in which they live. Their rooms are fine, their dresses are grand, and their jewels are lovely; but they are only poor prisoners after all. 9. Yesterday I went with your uncle to see a village school. There were only twenty boys in it. The roof was off the schoolhouse, so the classes were held in the open air. 10. The boys sat on forms, just as you do. The teacher wrote on a blackboard, and taught the children to do sums with a ball frame. Each boy had a reading-book. It was not printed in English, but in the tongue spoken in that part of the country. 11. Some of the boys wrote in copy-books, but most of them wrote on thin boards, which they used instead of slates. Instead of a pencil they used a pen made of a reed. 12. Chalk was ground up and wetted in a little cup. The boys dipped their reed pens into the cup, just as you dip your steel pen into the ink. The letters and figures which they wrote were very different from ours. 13. Some of the boys read their books very well, and worked hard sums. They sang "God save the King" for me in their own tongue. 14. In the towns there are large and good schools. Some of the scholars are very clever indeed. I think Indian boys are much fonder of their lessons than our boys. |
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