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TWELVE MEN OF BENGAL

far-reaching, and it did much not only to bring home to a very wide public the lessons which Keshub sought to teach but succeeded further in advancing the cause of cheap and popular journalism.

Nothing had impressed Keshub as more sharply in contrast with conditions in his own country than the high position occupied by women in English life. Coming from the midst of his own community, in whose public life women played no part, he was greatly struck by the fact that in England not only had women taken their place on an equality with men in social life but that they were everywhere actively participating in all public and philanthropic movements of the day. In spite of their unrestricted social intercourse, the deference and respect with which they met was particularly striking. His English experiences urged Keshub to take up again more enthusiastically than before the cause of the women of India and one of the most successful branches of the Indian Reform Association was the Normal School for Indian ladies. Soon after its commencement there were no fewer than fifty Hindu ladies of the highest castes regularly attending the school, receiving instruction on modern lines such as had never before been obtainable by Indian women. So cordially did Government approve of the object and work of the Normal School that is offered a grant of Rs. 2,000 annually towards its maintenance.