Sister Nivedita on Education of Indian Women -4

But let it be remembered that the true heart of education is in its ideals. There ought to be interaction between school and home. But the home is the chief of these two factors. To it, the school should be subordinated, and not the reverse. That is to say, the education of an Indian girl should be directed towards making of her a more truly Indian woman. She must be enabled by it to recognize for herself what are the Indian ideals, and how to achieve them; not made contemptuous of those ideals, and left to gather her own from the moral and social chaos of novels by Ouida.

Fathers and mothers must not suppose, when their children go to school, that their own task is ended. Rather must the thought of Dharma increase daily in the household. Indian ideals of family cohesion, of charity, of frugality and of honour; the admiration of the national heroes; the fund of poetic legends, must be daily and hourly discussed and commented on. All that makes India India, must flow through the Indian home to make it Indian. The family is something of a club, it must be remembered, and the true school of character, and the best education of children is the conversation of their parents. When the home-duty is done in this way, there is no doubt whatever as to the ennobling effect of school on the womanly, as much as on the manly character. Let us all beware of the danger of leaving our own duties undone, and charging the results to the account of some great cause, like that of the modern education of the Indian woman.