European women educators under the British colonial administration in Sri Lanka

WomenSStudiesInf. Forum, Vol. 13. No. 4, pp. 323-331. 1990 Printed in the USA.

0277-5395/5a $3.00 + .oo 0 1990 Fergamon Press plc

EUROPEAN WOMEN EDUCAIORS UNDER THE BRITISH COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION IN SRI LANKA

SWARNA JAYAWEERA Joint Co-coordinator of the Centre for Women’s Research (CENWOR). Colombo, Sri Lanka

Synopsis-Education was an important instrument of colonial policy in the consolidation of political power and in the acculturation of colonial society. In colonial Sri Lanka in the 19th century and early 20th century, British administrators and British, other European and North American Christian missionaries and educators (both male and female) were imbued with the cultural imperialism, social class values and gender ideology prevalent in their own societies. Western women educators tended to have a subordinate position in the hierarchy of religious and educational institutions transplanted in Sri Lanka. but they were authority figures in their own school environment, the urban elite English schools. They played a crucial role in denationalizing many women members of the colonial elite and in efforts to reproduce western norms of domesticity and Christian patriarchy in Sri Lanka through a narrow elite who were expected to be the intermediaries of colonial culture in local society

INTRODUCTION

During nearly one-and-a-half centuries of Crown Colony administration in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Sri Lanka was sub- jected to a relatively intensive impact of Brit- ish imperialism. The imperial government perceived education to be a major instrument of colonial rule in consolidating political power through the training of local personnel to assist in the administration and through the expected transformation of colonial society. In this context, it used education to promote the political socialization of the mass of colonial subjects, and in particular, of a loyal local elite, who in the words of the first Colonial Governor, would be “connected with England by education and by office and connected by ties of blood with the principal native families” (Governor of Colom- bo, 1799).

Although colonial rulers and Christian missionaries, who were the auxiliaries of the colonial administration, were wont to write disparagingly of the “degraded” status of women in local society, they appeared to have attached importance to the role of women as “facilitators” of the adaptation of the indigenous population to colonial social norms. In the interface of two cultures, European women educators were direct intermediaries of the transfer and legimitation of western

knowledge and values and the cultural condi- tioning of an influential segment of the re- ceiving society. The views and perceptions of these women educators are examined here in the context of their crucial role in the education and socialization process.

COLONIAL EDUCATION-AGENTS AND IDEOLOGIES

The agents of colonial education were (a) colonial administrators and chief educational personnel who were of British origin till the end of direct colonial rule in 1930; and (b) the European clergy and missionaries who were both a powerful “pressure group” as well as managers and educators in the majority of colonial schools.

Colonial administrators of the 19th century were influenced so strongly by the Chris- tian evangelical revival in England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that western culture and Christianity were synonymous in their perceptions of the needs of their colonial subjects (De Silva, 1%5). The administrators also depended heavily on the missionaries for the provision and organization of colonial schools and for political support. In addition to their proselytizating activities, therefore, the clergy and missionaries had virtual control of education and the monop- oly of the education of the elite for much of

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the colonial period (Jayaweera, 1966, 1969, 1985).

All colonial educators, lay or religious, male or female, were imbued with the same ideologies. The evangelical zeal of colonial administrators and the religious fervour of the missionaries were focused on the salva- tion of “backward” and “heathen” races through the spread of Christian values and norms of behaviour. They found expression also in explicit and implicit contempt of indigenous culture and religions in their views and attitudes analogous to the prejudices reflected in Macaulay’s Minute of 1835 which recommended that the objective of British education policy in India was the spread of western learning through the medium of the English language. In the second half of the 19th century imperial sentiments were inten- sified throughout the British empire, and cultural imperialism reached a zenith at the turn of the century in an euphoria of enthu- siasm for the self-assumed “white man’s burden” (Kipling, 1899). The paternalism under- lying the “trusteeship” concept (Lugard, 1922) that influenced imperial policy in the early 20th century was only another manifes- tation of Britain’s “civilizing mission.” At all times colonial political, economic and educational policies were determined by imperial needs and perspectives.

Colonial administrators and at least some of the educators were the products of elite British educational institutions which reflected the ethos of the British ruling class with its authoritarianism and social exclusiveness (Heussleur, 1963). Their social values and biases were transmitted through education policies that created new forms of social differentiation in Sri Lanka through the establishment of urban-based fee levying En- glish schools for a small elite and free, ill- equipped, elementary schools in the local languages for the majority of the population. Missionaries from other European countries and from North America, who played an important role in colonial missionary schools, tended to share the same racial and social class biases.

Almost all European and Americans - administrators, missionaries and educators - brought along with them to their new environment the gender role assumptions and stereotypes of western societies, such as the

“domestication” of women and the dichoto- my of a “public” domain of men and a “private” domain of women confined to their households. They endeavoured through their administration and educational programmes to superimpose these normative behaviour patterns on the traditions and practices of indigenous society.

Gender inequalities transferred from Vic- torian England were also apparent in the colonial power structure. The imperial government in London and the colonial administration in Sri Lanka were male dominated and few European women worked in the state school system. Patriarchy was clearly reflected in the relations between male and female missionaries. Women missionaries played largely a supportive role in religious and educational activities. While women educators were authority figures in their own school environment, they tended to have subordinate positions in the hierarchy of religious and educational institutions.

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND WOMEN EDUCA’IXlRS

The British colonial education system devel- oped from the early 19th century had no point of contact with indigenous educational institutions, which were located chiefly in religious institutions or in a religious environment. The system was designed to meet colonial needs and to transplant British institutions such as the Charity Schools, the Ele- mentary Schools, the High Schools and even the Public Schools in 19th-century England in the Empire.

The restriction of English schools to urban centers created a cultural cleavage between the urban and rural sectors and marginalized the majority of rural families in the socio-economic structure as they lacked the economic resources to seek access to En- glish schools. An interesting feature was that the “vernacular” or local language state and missionary schools for the “masses” were mainly co-educational, while the urban elite English schools were single-sex institutions that sought to perpetuate the socially restric- tive lives of the upper and middle classes in western society and in Sri Lanka. The chief spheres of influence of European women ed-

Women Educators in Colonial Sri Lanka 325

ucators were the segregated girls’ English schools in the urban environment.

The earliest group of European women to engage in educational activities were the wives of the missionaries of the large missionary organizations-the Wesleyan Metho- dist Missionary Society, the Church Mission- ary Society and the Baptist Missionary Society of England and the American Mis- sion - who worked in Sri Lanka from the second decade of the 19th century. They were joined by unmarried women missionaries who made religion and education their avo- cation in life and subsequently by nuns of the Roman Catholic organizations who established Convent schools in the second half of the 19th century.

Wherever possible, the missionaries attempted to establish female branches of schools or separate female schools at their “stations” under the direction of their wives. Girls from low income families were attracted by rewards of cloth and other prizes, and in the north of the island, even by offers to provide the dowry (lbnnent, 1850). The Colonial Governor’s wife and the wives of other colonial administrators gave their pat- ronage to the establishment of schools in major urban centers for girls from elite families as a part of their philanthropic and social “reformist” activities (Hardy, 1864; Selkirk, 1850). Contemporary missionary writers reported that the first girls’ school in Kandy in the Central Province was a failure because the missionary was a bachelor (Selkirk, 1850), while in general the “presence of Euro- pean families had a wonderful effect” on the education of girls (Hardy, 1864).

The importance attached by colonial rulers and missionaries to the education of girls reflected the imperative to mould “native” society and future generations according to Christian principles. The traditional laws of Sri Lanka were liberal with regard to marriage and divorce, women’s rights were sup- ported by relatively egalitarian laws pertaining to inheritance, and women had independent access to assets such as land (Goonesekere, 1980). Missionaries and other westerners deplored the informal attitude to marriage and what they perceived to be sexu- al laxity, and they worked singlemindedly to enforce Christian principles of morality, the concept of a monogamous family and male

head of household and the domestic virtues of a Christian wife. They could not compre- hend the important role of women as pro- ducers in agriculture and local industries. It has to be noted here that the colonial administration introduced at the same time changes in laws that required registration of marriage, enforced the “marital power” of husbands (Goonesekere, 1980), and promulgat- ed land laws that tended to discriminate against the poor and against women.’

Schools attracted boys as the major ave- nue to formal employment under the colonial administration. The school system was used overtly to Christianize students, but it was also important that the newly converted men did not relapse into “heathenism.” Girls’ schools were perceived, therefore, to be an important mechanism for promoting Chris- tian marriages and successful acculturation. The most effective schools were the boarding schools established to separate scholars from the influence of “idolatry” (Tennent, 1850). The first girls’ boarding school, Uduvil Girls’ School in the north, was established by the American Mission in 1825 chiefly to provide Christian wives for the products of the Bati- cotte Seminary (Winslow, 1835), and this pattern prevailed in the 19th century in dif- ferent parts of the country under the aus- pices of other missionary organizations. It was often the practice in these schools for girls to remain in school under the influence of European (and American) women educators for some years and then to be en- couraged to marry Christian men and “as Christian wives and mothers, to exhibit a pleasing contrast with heathen families and to show the loveliness of domestic virtue in the midst of abounding vice” (Winslow, 1835).

The most important role of European women educators was thus to assist in the “transformation” of indigenous society on the metropolitan model as a facet of cultural colonization. In practice, the number of local women who came within the ambit of their influence was very limited in the 19th century, but there were great expectations

IA good example of such a law is the Waste Lund Act, Ordinance No. 12 of 1840, Government Press, Col- ombo, Sri Lanka.

326 SWARNA JAYAWHHFU

from the “downward filtration theory” and its implications.

Direct state intervention in female education was limited until the establishment of the Colombo Academy in 1835 and the Cen- tral Schools for Boys and the demand from western-oriented colonial society for the education of girls led to the organization of five Female Superior Schools between 1842 and 1869. The heads of these schools came from England, sent by the “Society for Promoting Female Education” in the empire which was founded in 1834 reportedly as a product of the Movement for the “emancipation” of women (Curtis, 1948). They introduced in these schools the curriculum in girls’ schools in England -English, history, geography and ornamental needlework and other accom- plishments. Their clientele appears to have been limited, however, to a narrow urban elite, as 87% of the girls were reported to be Europeans and Eurasians or “Burghers” in 1868. Fifty-four percent of the girls enrolled in the few schools offering instruction in En- glish and the local languages were from the same background. Both government and missionary vernacular schools were isolated from the agrarian society in which the majority of women worked as economic pro- ducers, and were limited to the “3 Rs” and needlework, which were intended to provide them with minimum skills for their role as housewives in their low status social environment .

The first Education Commission under British colonial rule, the Moran Committee, appointed in 1865 to inquire into the education system, drew attention to the importance of the education of girls for accelerat- ing social change and recommended the establishment of as many girls’ schools as possible corresponding to boys’ schools. For- ty-one of the 47 respondents whose views were ascertained by the Committee were Eu- ropean clergymen, administrators and educators, and only one of them was a woman - the head of the Randy Female Superior School. The views of the latter were conso- nant with other European respondents, ad- vocating female education as a mechanism for equipping girls for their domestic roles and for “fitting’them for marriage to “educated” men (Sessional Paper VIII, 1867). The Morgan Report underscored the centrality of

the role of the mother in the family and the importance of educating her to raise the moral tone of colonial society, chiefly through the acceptance of Christian civilization including Christian morality and the concept of the patriarchal Christian family.

The Morgan Report advocated the expan- sion of “vernacular” education for both boys and girls, but it was to be an education that was limited to the “rudiments of knowledge in their own tongue.N Even at the end of direct colonial rule in 1930, 87% of the school population (of which around one-third were girls) were in these schools, which were the “poor relations” of the education system. Colonial policy and the use of the colonial language in administration and commerce, however, created a demand for English. En- glish education became an agent of upward socio-economic mobility, expanding the new middle class which was largely the product of the colonial economy and education system; it enabled the traditional elite and the new elite created by western industrial capitalism to maintain their status in society; and it di- vided local society into two disparate and un- equal cultural worlds.

Colonial administrators, missionaries, and educators perceived the English schools to have a special role as agents of western civilization, and the replication of the High School in England in urban centers in Sri Lanka in the later decades of the 19th century enhanced the position of European women educators and had a significant impact on the education of girls.

THE ENGLISH SCHOOLS

Ibwards the end of the 19th century the state virtually withdrew from English education to reduce colonial expenditure, closed down the Central Schools for boys and the Female Su- perior Girls’ Schools or handed them over to the missionaries, and retained only the Col- ombo Academy or Royal College as it was now known, the most prestigious institution for the education of boys. A request from leading residents in Colombo in 1895 for a government high school for girls was refused on the grounds that missionary and private educational enterprise could cater adequate- ly to the educational needs of girls (Sessional Paper XIII, 1895). Incentives were offered to


religious denominations for the development of English education through the payment of differential rates of grant payments to En- glish and vernacular schools.

As the English High Schools were intended to provide “the fullest contact of the upper classes of Ceylon with English civilization” (Director of Public Instruction, 1889), their curriculum was modelled on that of high schools in England. The Revised Code for Schools in 1881 borrowed heavily from the Code for Schools in England, including the content of “domestic economy” for girls. The external Cambridge Schools Certificate Examinations introduced in 1881 rapidly became the goal of English education and the school authorities, parents and male and female students became obsessed by aspirations for examination successes and concom- itant social prestige.

Double grants were offered for English and Anglo-Vernacular Boarding Schools for Girls which were considered by the colonial administration to be the most effective “agents of civilization.” The attitude of the administration to these schools, which were under the direction chiefly of European women, was reflected in the subsequent com- ments of the Director of Public Instruction during this time:

Fortunately the agencies of Christian Churches in Ceylon had with one consent recognized the value of female education as a moral power in the home and in the principal centre of their educational activ- ity. They had established boarding and convent schools which had become powerful agencies to raise the tone and manners of the lower social strata. . . . After my earliest visits to them I declared my belief that if the Government wished to pay for permanent and indelible rather than transitory results, the money paid for one girl educated in a Mission boarding school or a Convent was worth ten times the sum for a girl taught in a day school. (Bruce, 1910)

The Buddhist and Hindu Revival in the second half of the 19th century was part1y.a reaction to the pervasive impact of colonial or Christian education. The managements of the new Buddhist and Hindu schools, howev-

er, had no influence on the colonial power structure and policies, and colonial policy was to withdraw from education and rely chiefly on Christian missionary enterprise. In the colonial environment, Buddhist and Hindu organizations perforce also had to meet the demand for English education, and the earliest heads of Buddhist English schools for boys and for girls came from western societies.

It was, in fact, during this period that most of the prestigious girls’ schools in Sri Lanka were established, most often in the neighbourhood of a boys’ school under the same or similar management. A contemporary view of the changes in the education of girls during these years is given in the 1911 Census Report:

. . . up to 1869 no girl had been taken in her school course beyond the curriculum of an ordinary primary school, but now the course of a girl’s education is in most respects the same as for boys and the Cambridge Examinations-unfortunately in the opinion of many-play an important part in the school course in many girls’ schools as they do in boys’ schools. (Census of Ceylon, 1911)

Criticism of the orientation of the education of girls came also from another source-national opinion that deplored the indiscriminate westernization of behavioural patterns and the erosion of indigenous cultural values. The Ceylon Social Reform Soci- ety, founded in 1905 “to encourage and initi- ate reform in social conditions amongst the Ceylonese and to discourage the thoughtless imitation of unsuitable European habits and customs” (Ceylon Social Reform Society, 1905), attempted to influence public opinion with regard to the place of the national languages and culture in the education system and in macro society.

An outcome of the multifaceted criticism of English education was the appointment of the Macleod Committee (1911-1912) to make recommendations pertaining to En- glish education with particular reference to the curriculum and examinations. The focus of inquiry was the place of the local languages in the curriculum of English schools, as they had been excluded from these schools


since their inception, and the need for gender differentiation in the curriculum. A special question was addressed to those involved in the education of girls with regard to the pur- poses of educating girls, measures that would be required to assist in the preparation of girls for home life, and career opportunities that were available for girls.

The Macleod Committee’s observations on the education of girls reflect awareness of the crucial role of women educators:

The education which is actually going in girls’ English schools follows the lines of the education of boys, except that it is supplemented by the teaching of needlework. This applies not only to the elementary education prescribed by the Code, but also the higher classes which are usu- ally preparing for the Cambridge Exami- nations. In fact, this examination has been the main force which has kept the higher education of girls along the same lines as that of boys. It is worth noticing that many of those who came from En- gland to join the teaching staff of Ceylon girls’ schools have been connected with girls’ schools in England and have brought with them the high school point of view. . . . We think that the question whether the curriculum of girls’ schools should be the same as that of boys must still be regarded as an open one. (Session- al Paper XIX, 1911-1912)

SOME PERCEPTIONS OF EUROPEAN WOMEN EDUCATORS

It is possible to examine the role of European women as imperial educators from their own statements to the Macleod Committee (Ses- sional Paper XX, 1911-1912). It is apparent also that their views were overt expressions of imperial attitudes and perspectives and were far removed from the national aspirations and demands that were being articulated in the country. These views were, however, echoed by a significant proportion of the local elite who were the products of the colonial education system.

The colonial ethos of elite schools and the norms they imposed on their students were clearly reflected in the responses of the 26 European women educators (two Inspectors

of Girls’ schools and 24 heads of English schools), to whom the Macleod Committee addressed the questionnaire. The gender role assumptions of the majority of these women surface in this statement by the head of a leading girls’ school in Colombo:

. . . few or more of our girls will be obliged to earn their livelihood; as wives and mothers they must be able to show themselves sufficiently well equipped to take an intelligent interest in the affairs of their husbands and to lay the foundations and supervise the progress of a Christian education in the minds of their children. (Principal, St. Bridget’s Convent, Colom- bo, Sessional Paper XX, 1911-1912, p. 68)

Another head stated that the education of their students should as nearly as possible approximate to that given in England and that a good knowledge of English was necessary “so that their manners, accent, etc. may be more thoroughly English” (Principal, St. Joseph’s College, Colombo, Sessional Paper XX, 1911-1912, p. 54). Language, in fact, was perceived to be an important agent of social control. Despite the agitation of some national leaders for the inclusion of the local languages as subjects in English schools, most European women educators disap- proved of the intrusion of the local environment into these schools. The exception was the head of the only Buddhist girls’ English school who stated that the local languages should be taught compulsorily in English high schools as girls would need an adequate knowledge of these languages to interact suc- cessfully with their fellow citizens (Principal, Museaus College, Colombo, Sessional Paper xx, 1911-1912, p. 39).

The heads of all the large Roman Catholic schools stressed the need for the complete exclusion of local languages from English schools, on the grounds that they could con- tribute nothing to the education of the elite and would, in fact, be an obstacle to the study of English. Local literature was assumed to be unsuitable for girls in the context of Victorian norms of social behaviour:

. . . we have no place for the vernacular. . . . I do not see that teaching the vernacular would in any way benefit the


children who attend the school. . . . From what I have heard of the character of that portion of vernacular literature which would have to be taught in the higher classes of secondary schools, I have no hesitation in replying that it is such as could never be taught in a Convent school. (Principal of St. Bridget’s Con- vent, Colombo, Sessional Paper XX, 1911-1912, p. 68)

These statements echoed the even more strongly expressed views of the heads of Ro- man Catholic boys’ schools. Cultural imperialism was manifest, in fact, in the contempt of local culture and in the defense of Ma- caulay’s sentiments with regard to oriental languages by the head of one of the largest boys’ schools (Principal, St. Joseph’s Col- lege, Colombo, Sessional Paper XX, 191 l- 1912, pp. 64-71). The sense of cultural supe- riority was reflected also in the preference for classical European languages (Latin and Greek) and modern languages (French and German) over the local languages in these schools.

Heads of other Christian schools advocated teaching the local languages as a subject in the primary classes only, as proficiency was necessary for social interaction in non- English speaking homes and in the commu- nity. Only the head of the Anglican school for the daughters of the traditional elite expressed fears that if the local languages were not taught at least in the earlier stages of education, girls would tend to be ashamed of their language and to despise those who had no knowledge of English (Principal, Hill- wood College, Kandy, Sessional Paper XX, 1911-1912, pp. 80-81).

It is interesting to note that the high schools in England adopted almost the same curriculum as boys’ schools to prove the in- tellectual capacity of girls and to prepare them for university studies. The demand for a similar education for boys and girls in Sri Lanka, however, came from European women educators who were concerned exclusively with the social role of women as wives in elite families within a framework of patriarchal social relations:

Husbands, educated men will be chosen for them from people of their own class, and with these they should be equally edu-

cated. . . . Our desire is to give our girls as nearly as possible the same education as their brothers receive. (Principal, St. Bridget’s Convent, Colombo, Sessional Paper XX, 1911-1912, p. 68)

The education of girls in the higher classes of English schools is to fit them to occupy worthily and becomingly their sta- tion in the higher sphere of life they are expected to follow hereafter. Imbued as we are in Ceylon with western ideas of civilization, men wish their wives to have had the same educational advantages as themselves. (Principal, Holy Family Convent, Colombo, Sessional Paper XX, 1911- 1912, p. 65)

There were heads of girls’ schools, however, who deplored the lack of clear gender differentiation in the curriculum, and suggested a diluted curriculum for girls, reducing content in mathematics, arithmetic, history and geography, excluding Latin and French, and adding a strong component of home science to improve their domestic skills. One head, for instance wrote, “As long as they know how to keep the house accounts and check bills, I think it is sufficient” (Principal Wes- ley Girls’ High School, Matara, Sessional Pa- per XX, 1911-1912, p. 62). Hence the main objective was domesticity for women, whether it was to be achieved through a similar curriculum to that of boys’ schools or through a modified curriculum suited for the intellectually inferior.

It is apparent, however, that the education system had its own dynamics and had oper- ated already as an agent of upward mobility so that the extra-domestic roles aspired to by some upper and middle class women could not be ignored by the Committee. Neverthe- less, most heads of English schools reiterated that marriage was the only career for the majority of girls in these schools. In response to the Committee’s question, they suggested al- ternative careers that in their perceptions were culturally acceptable-teaching (21), nursing (17) and medicine (lo), secretarial telephone assistants (3). leaching and medicine were, in fact, the careers sought by the products of the elite girls’ schools who aspired to enter the professions. The education system was thus expected to reinforce the gender division of labor carried over from


imperial society to the “modern” sector of the economy of Sri Lanka.

EDUCATION, WOMEN AND THE COLONIAL LEGACY

It has been seen that colonial education op- erated as an instrument of general colonial policy and as an agent of social change and control, meeting colonial needs, consolidating colonial power and reproducing colonial norms. The Sri Lanka experience was not unique in this respect. Colonial education policy was used to westernize societies in many other empires (Altback & Kelly, 1984; Furnivall, 1948). Gender roles and relations in imperial or metropolitan countries were replicated through education in colonial societies (Yates, 1982).

Besides the macro policies that were part of the imperial mission and were imple- mented through both men and women imperial educators, the family as the smallest and most intimate social unit was perceived as an important instrument in the expected transformation of colonial society. The model for this transformation was the Christian family in the Victorian hierarchical socio-economic structure in the same way as colonial education practice was modelled on that of British educational institutions and legitimized through prestigious British examinations. European women educators were less visible than their male superiors or colleagues in the power structure, but they had as much out- reach and intensive impact, particularly through the environment of the boarding schools and the subsequent family life of their students.

Their education mission had two facets. They played a crucial role in denationalizing women members of the colonial elite, and thereby succeeding generations, through the purposeful and exclusive use of the colonial language and a western-oriented curriculum divorced from the local environment. It is relevant to note that the 1911 Census Report recorded a category of persons who were lit- erate in English and not in their own language, and that 37.4% of this group were women. The impact of cultural colonization has survived political decolonization in Sri Lanka.

They also collaborated in the effort to re-

produce in Sri Lanka the Victorian family with its strongly marked features of Chris- tian patriarchy, the exclusive domesticity of women and the dichotomous division into a male breadwinner and a dependent wife. In this process they reinforced the traditional immobility of elite women in local society. As the Morgan Report presaged, efforts were extended also through missionary and educational activities to enforce norms of domesticity among the masses of women, with apparent success at the conceptual level, so that the reality of women’s lives as economic pro- ducers and income earners has been oversha- dowed by their self-perceptions engendered by socialization in such norms. When women entered the formal labor market, condi- tioning in the services roles of women had a long-term effect on the gender division of labor outside the home.

It has to be noted, however, that educational policy was only one aspect of colonial policy. It was colonial political and economic policy that determined the academic- and examination-centered education that was perceived to be socially desirable by women educators. The structure of the colonial economy resulted in the neglect of peasant agriculture, gave low priority to industrial- ization and created gender inequalities in wage labor, with obvious repercussions on educational development, Colonial legisla- tion deprived the poor of access to assets that had been shared and reduced the individual rights of women. Like their male counter- parts, European women educators were, therefore, powerful auxiliaries of the colonial government in the consolidation of imperial power and western culture rather than innovators of change.

Further, colonial “subjects” were not al- ways passive in their response to change. The demand for English education came from families aspiring to achieve upward socio-economic mobility through the education of their sons and daughters, and from the elite who needed it to sustain their status and en- hance it through education and marriage alli- ances. The majority of the population were illiterate at this time or were restricted to an inferior elementary education that was a blind alley, largely through lack of economic resources. For the majority of women, too, domesticity was an image, and in reality the


ines continued to be blurred between the so called “public” and “private” domains. Resis- tance to Christianity and wholesale westernization came from segments of traditional society who spearheaded the revival of indigenous religions and from’those who were the products of western education but want- ed to use the education system to resuscitate national culture.

The success or failure of the mission of these women educators was determined part- ly by the strength of the family unit in ac- cepting or resisting intensive acculturation and by local perceptions of opportunities and rewards. These women, like all missionaries in Asia, were more successful in promoting western education and culture than in spreading Christianity, but neither Christian- ity nor western culture were blindly accepted even by the members of the elite. In the long run the isolation of the colonial school and educator from the local social and economic environment enabled the survival of indigenous patterns of life.

As representatives of the imperial government or religion, these women educators were a part of a worldwide movement of Eu- ropean colonization of what is now called the “Third World”; their cultural imperialism, social values and gender role assumptions filtered through the educational process to a narrow elite who were themselves the intermediaries of colonial culture in local society.

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Yates, B. A. (1982). Church, state and education in Bel- gian Africa -implications for contemporary Third World women. In G. P. Kelly & C. M. Elliott (Eds.), Women’s education in the Third World: Compam- tive perspectives (pp. 127-151). Albany: State Uni- versity of New York Press.

Documents

European women educators under the British colonial administration in Sri Lanka