Page:Sketches of some distinguished Indian women.djvu/53

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in September 1886 she enrolled herself as a pupil in a training school for Kindergarten teachers, and lost no time in finding out how the various toys, or "gifts" as they are called, could best be adapted to Indian ideas. She was much struck by the superiority of the books provided in America, both for the instruction and the amusement of children. In England she had paid very little attention to the subject, but in Philadelphia she found that even the school-books were printed on excellent paper, in beautiful type, and adorned with illustrations, each of which was in its own way a triumph of art. When she saw these fascinating little books, and compared them mentally with the books supplied to Indian school- children, which are almost all, and more especially those in the vernacular, badly printed on thin discoloured paper, and destitute of any embellishment, she could not help feeling that even in a small matter like this her own people were at a great disadvantage. But this did not discourage her. She simply set to work to prepare a series of primers and lesson-books in Marathi, and to collect illustrations for them, so that they might be put into print as soon as she landed in Bombay, for they could not be printed in America, owing to the absence of Marathi type.

By the end of the year 1887 Ramabai's plans and ideas had taken a definite shape. She had come to