Female Education.—Female education is still a tender plant, but of late growth has been vigorous. The Victoria May School in Lahore founded in 1908 has developed into the Queen Mary College, which provides an excellent education for girls of what may be called the upper middle class. There is a separate class for married ladies. Hitherto they have only been reached by the teaching given in their own homes by missionary ladies, whose useful work is now being imitated by the Hindu community in Lahore. There is an excellent Hindu Girls' Boarding School in Jalandhar. The Sikhs and the body of reformers known as the Dev Samáj have good girls' schools at Ferozepore. The best mission schools are the Kinnaird High School at Lahore and the Alexandra School at Amritsar. The North India School of Medicine for Women at Ludhiána, also a missionary institution, does admirable work. In the case of elementary schools the difficulty of getting qualified teachers is even greater than as regards boys' schools.
Education of European Children.—There are special arrangements for the education of European and Anglo-Indian children. In this department the Roman Catholics have been active and successful. The best schools are the Lawrence Asylum at Sanáwar, Bishop Cotton's School, Auckland House, and St Bede's at Simla, St Denys', the Lawrence Asylum, and the Convent School at Murree.
The Panjáb University.—The Panjáb University was constituted in 1882, but the Government Arts College and Oriental College, the Medical College and the Law School at Lahore, which are affiliated with it, are of older date. The University is an examining body like London University. Besides the two Arts Colleges under Government management mentioned above there are nine private Arts Colleges aided by Government grants and affiliated to the University. Four of these are in Lahore, two, the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic and the Diál Singh Colleges, are Hindu institutions, one, the Islámia College, is Muhammadan, the fourth is the popular and efficient Forman Christian College. Four out of five art students read in Lahore. Of the Arts colleges outside Lahore the most important is the St Stephen's College at Delhi. The Khálsa School and College at Amritsar is a Sikh institution. The Veterinary College at Lahore is the best of its kind in India, and the Agricultural College at Lyallpur is a well-equipped institution, which at present attracts few pupils, but may play a very useful rôle in the future. There is little force in the reproach that we built up a super-structure of higher education before laying a broad foundation of primary education. There is more in the charge that the higher educational food we have offered has not been well adapted to the intellectual digestions of the recipients.
Education in N.W.F. Province, Native States, and I Kashmír.—The Panjáb Native States and Kashmír are much more backward as regards education than the British Province. As is natural in a tract in which the population is overwhelmingly Musalmán by religion and farming by trade the N.W.F. Province lags behind the Panjáb. Six colleges in the States and the N.W.F. Province are affiliated to the Panjáb University.
CHAPTER XII
ROADS AND RAILWAYS
Roads.—The alignment of good roads in the plains of the Panjáb is easy, and the deposits of calcareous nodules or kankar often found near the surface furnish good metalling material. In the west the rainfall is so scanty and in many parts wheeled traffic so rare that it is often wise to leave the roads unmetalled. There are in the Panjáb over 2000 miles of metalled, and above 20,000 miles of unmetalled roads. The greatest highway in the world, the Grand Trunk, which starts from Calcutta and ends at Pesháwar, passes through the province from Delhi in the south-east to Attock in the extreme north-west corner, and there crosses the Indus and enters the N.W.F. Province. The greater part of the section from Karnál to Lahore had been completed some years before the Mutiny, that from Lahore to Pesháwar was finished in 1863-64. A great loop road connects our arsenal at Ferozepore with the Grand Trunk Road at Lahore and Ludhiána. The fine metalled roads from Ambála to Kálka, and Kálka to Simla have lost much of their importance since the railway was brought to the hill capital. Beyond Simla the Kálka-Simla road is carried on for 150 miles to the Shipkí Pass on the borders of Tibet, being maintained as a very excellent hill road adapted to mule carriage. A fine tonga road partly in the plains and partly in the hills joins Murree with Ráwalpindí. From Murree it drops into the Jhelam valley crossing the river and entering Kashmír at Kohála. It is carried up the gorge of the Jhelam to Báramúla and thence through the Kashmír valley to Srínagar. A motor-car can be driven all the way from Ráwalpindí to Srínagar. In the N.W.F. Province a great metalled road connects Pesháwar, Kohát, Bannu, and Dera Ismail Khán.
