Early Life
She was born of Dr. John Scudder Jr. and his wife, Sophia (née Weld), part of a long line of medical missionaries (see Scudders in India). The granddaughter of John Scudder, Sr., as a child in India, she witnessed the famine, poverty and disease in India. She was invited by Dwight Moody to study at his Northfield Seminary in Massachusetts, where she earned a reputation for pranks.
She initially expected to get married and settle down in the United States after seminary, but in 1890 she went back to India to help her father when her mother was ailing at the mission bungalow at Tindivanam. Ida had expressed a resolve not to become a medical missionary, but during that stay, she had the enlightening experience of not being able to help three woman in childbirth who died needlessly in one night. That experience convinced her that God wanted her to become a physician and return to help the women of India. She never married.
She graduated from Cornell Medical College, New York City in 1899, as part of the first class at that school that accepted women as medical students. She then headed back to India, fortified with a $10,000 grant from a Mr. Schell, a Manhattan banker, in memory of his wife. With the money, she started a tiny medical dispensary and clinic for women at Vellore, 75 miles from Madras. Her father died in 1900, soon after she arrived in India. In two years she treated 5,000 patients. She opened the Mary Taber Schell Hospital in 1902.
Ida Scudder realized that she would be foolish to go on alone in her fight to bring better health to South India's women, so she decided to open a medical school for girls. Skeptical males said she would be lucky to get three applicants; actually she had 151 the first year (1918), and had to turn many away ever since. At first, the Reformed Church in America was the main backer of the Vellore school, but after Dr. Scudder agreed to make it coeducational, it eventually gained the support of 40 missions. Of 242 students today, 95 are men.
Read more about this topic: Ida S. Scudder
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“No two men see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will apply in different ways a principle that they both acknowledge. The same man will, indeed, often see and judge the same things differently on different occasions: early convictions must give way to more mature ones. Nevertheless, may not the opinions that a man holds and expresses withstand all trials, if he only remains true to himself and others?”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“In my dreams is a country where the State is the Church and the Church the people: three in one and one in three. It is a commonwealth in which work is play and play is life: three in one and one in three. It is a temple in which the priest is the worshiper and the worshiper the worshipped: three in one and one in three. It is a godhead in which all life is human and all humanity divine: three in one and one in three.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)