nst the supposition that in our
insistence upon the importance of the practical side of education we
are under any doubt as to the great importance of the literary side. My
friends and I have been deeply impressed by the educational experience
of Denmark, where the people, who are as much dependent on agriculture
as are the Irish, have brought it by means of organisation to a more
genuine success than it has attained anywhere else in Europe. Yet an
inquirer will at once discover that it is to the "High Schools" founded
by Bishop Grundtvig, and not to the agricultural schools, which are also
excellent, that the extraordinary national progress is mainly due. A
friend of mine who was studying the Danish system of State aid to
agriculture, found this to be the opinion of the Danes of all classes,
and was astounded at the achievements of the associations of farmers,
not only in the manufacture of butter, but in a far more difficult
undertaking, the manufacture of bacon in large factories equipped with
all the most modern machinery and appliances which science had devised
for the production of the finished article. He at first concluded that
this success in a highly technical industry by bodies of farmers
indicated a very perfect system of technical education. But he soon
found another cause. As one of the leading educators and agriculturists
of the country put it to him: 'It's not technical instruction, it's the
humanities.' I would like to add that it is also, if I may coin a term,
the 'nationalities,' for nothing is more evident to the student of
Danish education or, I might add, of the excellent system of the
Christian Brothers in Ireland, than that one of the secrets of their
success is to be found in their national basis and their foundation
upon the history and literature of the country.

To sum up the educational situation in Ireland, it is not too much to
say that all our forms of education, technical and general, hang loose.
We lack a body of trained teachers; we have no alert and informed public
opinion on education and its function in regard to life; and there is no
proper provision for research work in all branches, a deficiency, which,
I am told by those who have given deep thought and long study to these
problems, inevitably reacts most disastrously on the general educational
system of the country. This state of things appears not unnatural when
we remember that the Penal Laws were not repealed till almost the c