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reading and writing as likely to promote love-letters 
and intrigue. The nervous parent is fearful of 
allowing girls to traverse streets or paths unaccom- 
panied, while to escort a child to school daily is 
an exacting task in the tropics. The mother of a 
family finds her daughters useful about the house. 
The cynical or self-satisfied parent thinks a girl can 
pick up cookery and needlework as well at home 
as abroad. But a great deal depends on the personal 
influence of the village headman or of the village 
schoolmaster and it is remarkable how, in some 
places too small to have a separate girls’ school, 
the forms of the boys’ school will be found supple- 
mented by a number of tiny girls. 
Next there is the difficulty of getting competent 
school-mistresses. With notable exceptions among 
the higher classes, women of the older generation 
can barely read or write and cannot teach arithmetic. 
Younger women marry as a matter of course and 
have no wish to take up teaching until middle age 
has perhaps left them widowed or divorced. A few 
marry schoolmasters and husband and wife have 
charge one of the boys’ and one of the girls’ school, 
until child-bearing interrupts the wife’s scholastic 
career. 
THE Report of 1916 did not neglect this grave 
problem of female education. The girls’ schools 
benefited greatly from the use of the new series 
of vernacular text-books. And above all it was 
decided to engage a European lady to reorganize 
and supervise the work of these schools. Despite 
insuperable obstacles, the Lady Supervisor has 
effected real reforms and caused thoughtful Malays 
to recognize the need of supporting an attempt to 
/ s-to 
