nflict with the
trials and temptations of life. But here again we must accept the
situation and work with the instruments ready to hand. The practical and
statesmanlike action for all those concerned is to endeavour to render
these institutions as efficient educational agencies as may be possible.
They owe their existence largely to the gaps in the educational system
of this country which religious and political strife have produced and
maintained, and they deserve the utmost credit for endeavouring to
supply missing steps in our educational ladder.[19] If they now fully
respond to the spirit of the new movements and meet the demand for
technical education by the employment of the most approved methods and
equipment, and by the thorough training on sound lines of their staffs,
it is impossible that their influence on the young generation should not
be as salutary as it will be wide-reaching.

But, after all, these criticisms are, for the purposes of my argument,
of minor relevance and importance. The real matter in which the direct
and personal responsibility of the Roman Catholic clergy seems to me to
be involved, is the character and _morale_ of the people of this
country. No reader of this book will accuse me of attaching too little
weight to the influence of historical causes on the present state,
social, economic and political, of Ireland, but even when I have given
full consideration to all such influences I still think that, with their
unquestioned authority in religion, and their almost equally undisputed
influence in education, the Roman Catholic clergy cannot be exonerated
from some responsibility in regard to Irish character as we find it
to-day. Are they, I would ask, satisfied with that character? I cannot
think so. The impartial observer will, I fear, find amongst a majority
of our people a striking absence of self-reliance and moral courage; an
entire lack of serious thought on public questions; a listlessness and
apathy in regard to economic improvement which amount to a form of
fatalism; and, in backward districts, a survival of superstition, which
saps all strength of will and purpose--and all this, too, amongst a
people singularly gifted by nature with good qualities of mind and
heart.

Nor can the Roman Catholic clergy altogether console themselves with the
thought that religious faith, even when free from superstition, is
strong in the breasts of the people. So long, no doubt, as Irish Roman
Catho