The enthusiasm is said to be very great, and donations last year are credibly reported to have exceeded 300,000 rupees.
Life in the _gurukuls_ is simple and even austere, the discipline rigorous, the diet of the plainest, and a great deal of time is given to physical training.

As the _chelas_ after 16 years of this monastic training at the hands of their _gurus_ are to be sent out as missionaries to propagate the Arya doctrines throughout India, the influence of these institutions in the moulding of Indian character and Indian opinion in the future cannot fail to be considerable.

Some five years more must elapse before we shall be able to judge the result by the first batch of _chelas_ who will then be going forth into the world.
For the present one can only echo the hope tersely expressed a few months ago by Sir Louis Dane, the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, in reply to assurances of loyalty from the President of the Arya Samaj, that "what purports to be a society for religious and social reform and advancement may not be twisted from its proper aims" and "degenerate into a political organization with objects which are not consonant with due loyalty to the Government as established." But neither the spirit of Dayanand's own teachings nor the record of many of his disciples, including some of those actually connected with the _gurukuls_, is in this respect encouraging.
There has been, however, no recurrence of serious disturbances in the Punjab since 1907, and if the native Press lost little of its virulence until the new Press Act of this year, and numerous prosecutions bore witness to the continued prevalence of sedition, the province has been free from the murderous outrages and dacoities which have been so lamentable a feature of the unrest in Bengal and in the Deccan.

None the less there is still a very strong undercurrent of anti-British feeling.
It has partly been fostered in the large cities by Bengalee immigrants who have come into the Punjab in considerable numbers, and thanks to their higher education have acquired great influence at the Bar and in the Press, but it is rife wherever the Arya Samaj is known to be most active, and the Arya Samaj has already proved a very powerful proselytizing agency.

Its meeting houses serve not only for religious ceremonies, but also as social clubs for the educated classes in all the larger towns where they congregate.