pted long
ago if they had had similar educational advantages. And I would further
point out that there is no better way of promoting the reform of
education in the ordinary, the pedagogic, sense, than by bringing to
bear upon the minds of parents those educational influences which are
calculated to convince them of the advantage of improved practical
education for their children. So to the economist and to the
educationist alike I would submit that the new work of economic and
social reform should be judged as a whole, and not prejudged by that
hypercriticism of details which ignores the fact that the conditions
with which it is attempted to deal are wholly unprecedented. I am quite
content that the movement which I am about to describe should be
ultimately known and judged by its fruits. Meanwhile, I think that to
the intelligent critic it will sufficiently justify its existence if it
continues to exist.

* * * * *

The story of the new movement, which must now be told, begins in the
year 1889, when a few Irishmen, the writer of these pages among them,
set themselves the task of bringing home to the rural population of
Ireland the fact that their prosperity was in their own hands much more
than they were generally led to believe. I have already pointed out that
in order to direct the Irish mind towards practical affairs and in order
effectively to arouse and apply the latent capacities of the Irish
people to their chief industry, agriculture, we must rely upon
associative, as distinct from individual effort; or, in other words, we
must get the people to do their business together rather than
separately as the English do. Fortunately for us, it happened that this
course, which was clearly indicated by the character and temperament of
the people, was equally prescribed by economic considerations. The
population and wealth of Ireland are, I need hardly say, so
predominantly agricultural that the welfare of the country must depend
upon the welfare of the farming classes. It is notorious that the
industry by which these classes live has for the last quarter of a
century become less and less profitable. It is also recognised that the
prime cause of agricultural depression, foreign competition, is not
likely to be removed, while that from the colonies is likely to
increase. The extraordinary development of rapid and cheap transit,
together with recently invented processes of preservation, have