Which of the following first recognized that the government should give “frank…

CONCEPT

Historical-policy questions are solved by matching the distinctive recommendation, period, and institutional role to the document or body that first formalized them. A later advocacy organization may support the same cause without being the originating government policy.

APPLICATION

The quoted call for the government to give “frank and cordial support” to female education and take effective measures for its expansion is associated with Wood’s Despatch of 1854. It treated female education as an area requiring active government support within a wider plan for education in British India.

CONTRAST

• The Women’s Indian Association was founded in 1917 as a voluntary reform organization.

• The All India Women’s Conference was founded in 1927 and advanced women’s education and legal and social reform through advocacy.

• Wood’s Despatch was an official education-policy document issued in 1854 and addressed state responsibility for expanding education.

• The National Council of Women was formed in 1925 as a coordinating and representative women’s organization.

CROSS-CHECK

The chronology and institutional form provide an independent check: the three organizations arose in the twentieth century, whereas the quoted recommendation belongs to a nineteenth-century government education despatch.

Therefore, the recognized policy document is Wood’s Despatch.