its own fulfilment
within five years, and thenceforth for ever. Let but one generation be
well educated, and there can be no rational apprehension that their
children or grandchildren will be allowed to grow up in ignorance and
helplessness. Knowledge is self-perpetuating, self-extending. And,
dreadfully destitute as this country is, the Priesthood of the People
can command the means of educating that People, which nobody without
their cooeperation can accomplish. Let the Catholic Bishops unite in an
earnest and potential call for teachers, and they can summon thousands
and tens of thousands of capable and qualified persons from convents,
from seminaries, from cloisters, from drawing-rooms, even from foreign
lands if need be, to devote their time and efforts to the work without
earthly recompense or any stipulation save for a bare subsistence, which
the less needy Catholics, or even the more liberal Protestants, in every
parish would gladly proffer them. There is really no serious obstacle in
the way of this first great step toward Ireland's regeneration if the
Priesthood will zealously attempt it.

But closely allied to this subject, and not inferior to it in
importance, stands that of Industrial Training. The Irish Peasantry are
idle, the English say truly enough; but who inquires whether there is
any work within their reach? Suppose there was always _something_ to do,
what avails that to millions who know not how to do that precise
something? Walking with a friend through one of the back streets of
Galway beside the outlet of the Lakes, I came where a girl of ten years
old was breaking up hard brook pebbles into suitable fragments to mend
roads with. We halted, and M. asked her how much she received for that
labor. She answered, "Six-pence a car-load." "How long will it take you
to break a car-load?" "_About a fortnight._" Further questions
respecting her family, &c., were answered with equal directness and
propriety, and with manifest truth. Here was a mere child, who should
have been sent to school, delving from morning till night at an
employment utterly unsuited to her sex and her strength, and which I
should consider dangerous to her eyesight, to earn for her poor parents
a half-penny per day. Think of this, ye who talk, not always without
reason, of "factory slaves" and the meagre rewards of labor in America.
In any community where labor is even decently rewarded, that child
should have been enabled to earn eve