n led,
as is well known, to the creation of the Board of National Education,
but, to quote Dr. Starkie,[24] the present Resident Commissioner of the
Board, 'the more important part of the scheme, dealing with a university
and secondary education, was shelved, in spite of Mr. Wyse's warnings
that it was imprudent, dangerous, and pernicious to the social condition
of the country, and to its future tranquillity, that so much
encouragement should be given to the education of the lower classes,
without at the same time due provision being made for the education of
the middle and upper classes.'

As still another evidence of the sound thought on educational problems
which came from Irishmen who knew the actual conditions of their own
country and people, the case of the agricultural instruction
administered by the National Board is pertinent. The late Sir Patrick
Keenan has told us that landlords and others who on political and
religious grounds distrusted the National system, turned to this feature
of the operations of the National Board with the greatest fervour. A
scheme of itinerant instruction in agriculture, which had a curious
resemblance to that which the Department of Agriculture is now
organising, was developed, and was likely to have worked with the
greatest advantage to the country at large. Sir Patrick Keenan, who
knew Ireland and the Irish people well, speaks of this part of the
scheme as 'the most fruitful experiment in the material interests of the
country that was ever attempted. It was,' he adds, 'through the agency
of this corps of practical instructors that green cropping as a
systematic feature in farming was introduced into the South and West,
and even into the central parts of Ireland.' But all the hopes thus
raised went down, not before any intrinsic difficulties in the scheme
itself, or before any adverse opinion to it in Ireland, but before the
opposition of the Liverpool Financial Reform Association, who had their
own views as to the limits of State interference with agriculture. These
examples, drawn from different stages of Irish educational history,
might easily be multiplied, but they will serve as typical instances of
that want of recognition by English statesmen of Irish thought on Irish
problems, and that ignoring of Irish sentiment--as distinguished from
Irish sentimentality--which I insist is the basal element in the
misunderstandings of Irish problems.

I now come to a brief consideration