Muslim School in India

This lantern slide, “Muslim School in India,” shows about ten boys sitting in a semicircle around a man. All are dressed in traditional Muslim clothing, and the man is likely a teacher in the middle of class at a Muslim school in India.In the early 20th century, J. N. Farquhar, a missionary in India, wrote that Muslims were experiencing “a great awakening,” leading to greater political activity, educational enthusiasm, and “a revival of Mohammedanism” (an obsolete term for Muslim). Farquhar saw these developments as opening the way for Christianity and believed the YMCA and the World Student Christian Federation would be able to deal effectively with the impact of “the explosive forces of Western thought” in the Muslim world. In 1889, the Y.M.C.A. International Committee sent a young American named David McConaughy to Madras to serve as the first foreign secretary in India. McConaughy encouraged the development of pre-existing Associations and held the first National Convention in 1891, resulting in the formation of the National Council of India, Burma, and Ceylon. The Association’s most notable contribution in India was their rural development work, first begun by K. T. Paul in 1913. Paul established microloan programs that freed the rural poor from the grips of moneylenders and won many converts among India's lower classes. Joseph Hawkes, the slide’s creator, spent much of his life producing and coloring lantern slides from his home in New York. This slide is part of Springfield College’s lantern slide series depicting Y.M.C.A. work in India, Ceylon, and Burma in the early twentieth century. The series was prepared by the Foreign Division of the American and Canadian Y.M.C.A, which established self-sustaining associations staffed by trained secretaries in foreign lands.Text on border reads, "India Mohammedan School; 12; MADE BY JOSEPH HAWKES NEW YORK CITY.