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INTRODUCTION

sometimes almost against my will, to recognise his courage and his steadfast principle. He has repeatedly stood against a popular clamour from his own countrymen as stiffly as against any Government action, refusing to bow to the storm.

The father's whole life has been one of battle and political journalism. Yet the reader of his daughters' stories will be struck by the way they avoid politics. The centre of interest has shifted inward, to Hindu social life. This change of interest is a natural development from the father's effort, and completes it. Ramananda Babu is one of those Indians who cherish the name of Rammohan Ray, and, amid the insolent abuse recently flung at that name, as standing for the introduction of a denationalising foreign influence, he has proclaimed its outstanding greatness. Like Rammohan Ray, he has especially made the cause of women his own, and has never let pass any reasonable opportunity of protest againt wrongs inflicted by society. No man living has a more flaming anger at cruelty than Ramananda Chatterjee. The latest negro-burning in Georgia and the latest instance of a child-wife in Bengal committing suicide appear in his magazines, no less than the treatment of Indians in East Africa or Fiji, and go out into the bazaars and homes of all India. He carried his convictions into action in his own family. His daughters were educated at home in the usual subjects, including English, and then sent to Bethune College, Calcutta. From the earliest days their father gave them the fullest intellectual freedom, never seeking to censor their reading. Both passed the B. A. with great credit, at Calcutta University. In 1912, while still students, they published a volume of stories translated from English, which were immediately popular. They introduced Brer Rabbit to Bengali nurseries. They trained themselves by study and translation of George Eliot's work, and of a few stories from the French; they kept in close touch with their own