In 1885 Gopal Joshee arrived in America, but his coming only proved what her friends had feared it might do, a source of embarrassment to his wife. He began talking and writing in a quite unaccountable manner, speaking slightingly of women and their capacity for education, and, at the same time, showing himself quite ready to take every advantage of his wife's exertions, and of the kindness which her friends showed him for her sake. His presence added to his wife's difficulties in every way, and his conduct and conversation were calculated to strengthen the belief already held by many people, that the average Hindu is not likely to be benefited by visiting Europe or America, and that it will take years of education and experience to counteract the effects, on the minds of Indian men, of the belief in their absolute superiority to women, in which they have been trained for so many generations.
In March 1886, Anandibai Joshee took her degree as Doctor of Medicine in Philadelphia. Eye-witnesses describe the scene as a most striking one. The brave Hindu woman was surrounded by many friends and sympathisers, conspicuous among whom was Ramabai, who had come over purposely from England in order to be present on this occasion, which was the first on which the degree of Doctor of Medicine had ever been conferred on a Hindu woman. It seemed, indeed, that a brilliant and useful