Aligarh College’s earliest attempt at Women’s education, before Sheikh Abdullah’s College

"The education imparted would consist, first, of the repetition of the Koran, Urdu reading and writing, and simple arithmetic. In addition to reading . This and writing they would be taught the elements of domestic economy, especially cooking and, sanitation; they would also learn sewing of all kinds..."

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Theodore Morrison, the Principal of M. A. O. College Aligarh, in May 1903 published a proposal for girls’ education in several newspapers and journals. It asked people of their opinion on women’s education and inquired how many girl students were ready to take admission in the college. It was three years before the school for girls was started by Begum Waheed and her husband Sheikh Abdullah. The proposal reads, 

“I am convinced that there exists in some quarters of Mahomedan society a desire for advanced female education but as yet I have no means of judging how strong or how general this desire is ; it would obviously take a long time to raise an endowment sufficient to maintain a large and efficient girl’s school, and while this endowment was being raised the present generation of Mahomedan girls would have passed beyond school age. It would, however, be possible to begin at once, if a comparatively small number of parents were prepared to pay large fees for the education of their daughters. I desire, therefore, to inquire of Musalman parents what sort of support would be given to some such scheme as the following:

– A bungalow in which purdah could be strictly observed would be put under the charge of two European ladies, with whom would be associated two or three Mahomedan ladies. The education imparted would consist, first, of the repetition of the Koran, Urdu reading and writing, and simple arithmetic. In addition to reading . This and writing they would be taught the elements of domestic economy, especially cooking and, sanitation; they would also learn sewing of all kinds, and, if there were a demand for such accomplishments, drawing and music scheme could not be initiated satisfactorily unless at least 20 girls could be found to join, who would each pay Rs. 75 a month and an entrance fee of Rs. 100. These fees are no doubt comparatively heavy, but it is proposed to make a beginning with only girls of well to-do families. The advantage of large fees is that they make it possible to begin at once without waiting for an endowment fund to be raised. “


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Saquib Salim

Saquib Salim is a well known historian under whose supervision various museums (Red Fort, National Library, IFFI, Jallianwala Bagh etc.) were researched. To his credit Mr. Salim has more than 400 published articles on history, politics, culture and literature in English and Hindi. Before pursuing his research and masters in modern Indian History from JNU, he was an electrical engineering student at AMU. Presently, he works as a freelance/ independent history researcher, writer and works at www.awazthevoice.in