ead; awakened within
them the native desire for knowledge, and then--stopped. When the
national school was built had we established the parochial
library and made it the means of continuing the child's
education, we would have a different Ireland to-day.

We made the youth hungry and then stepped aside. The British
publisher came and occupied the place we should have held. He has
been feeding them on garbage and gutter literature since. God
grant that it is not too late to undo the mischief of our
neglect.

[Side note: What we spend]

It is estimated that we spend four hundred and forty-six thousand
pounds every year on English papers, books and magazines. Almost
half a million of money! How many of our honest rooftrees would
not that sum keep standing? How many of our pure boys and girls
would it not save from the "hells" of Chicago and New York.

It is bad enough to part with the bone and muscle, but a nation
loses her most precious asset when she exports her intellect.
While we have gone on helping the British publisher to the
carriage and the suburban villa, the young Irishman, who feels
the fire of genius throbbing in his blood, sees but two
alternatives before him--to starve at home or sell his brains in
a foreign market.

To-day the priest holds the field, but for how long? Recent
convulsions should warn us; the ground may rock again; then let
us arouse ourselves to the task before us.

[Side note: Awake!]

Whether the priest moves or not the library is sure to come, and
what in his hands would be a centre of diffusive light to the
parish, under the control of semi-educated or conscienceless men
may prove a dark curse.

Let the coarse and sensuous literature of England drop from our
people's hands. Let us encourage native genius to dip her pen
into the old holy well of Catholic truth, and build up a
literature that will be racy of the soil and redolent of its
Faith. Let us feed the minds of the young on the untainted
productions of our own countrymen and women. Let us brace them
with robust Catholic principles that are mortised into the solid
bed-rock of knowledge. Then the most powerful foe the future
holds will blow the trumpet in vain.

But to the priest who slumbers, heedless of the swift march of
time, and the forces of evil now possessing our land, I say--
Dream on, dear gentle soul, dream on! The day may come when you
will awake with a thunder-clap, perhaps to find the Irish Church
in chain