EDUCATION OF GIRLS
As mentioned earlier, the number of girls attending school was
very small. Leaving aside the district of Malabar and the Jeypoor
division of Vizagapatam district, the girls from the Brahmin,
Chettri, and Vysee castes were practically non-existent in
schools. There were, however, some Muslim girls receiving
school education: 56 in Trichnopoly, and 27 in Salem. The
Hindoo girls who attended school, though again not in any large
number, were from the Soodra and other Hindoo castes; and,
according to the collectors of Masulipatam, Madura, Tinnevelly
and Coimbatore, most of them were stated to be dancing girls, or
girls who were presumably going to be devdasis in the temples.
Table 8 presents the district and caste-wise number of the girls
attending school, or said to be receiving private tuition.
As will be noticed from Table 9, the position in Malabar, as
also in Jeypoor Zamindary of Vizagapatam district, was much
different. The relative numbers of girls and boys attending school
in these two areas^56 are presented in Table 8 below:
In percentage terms of the total, the proportion of girls to
boys in school was the highest, 29.7%, in the Jeypoor
Zamindary of the Vizagapatam district. Even more surprising,
the proportion of Brahmin girls to Brahmin boys in school was
as high as 37%. Similarly, in Malabar the proportion of Muslim
girls to Muslim