ding intellectual advancement
and a greater beauty in life has prompted many of the farmers' societies
to use their organisation for higher ends. A considerable number of them
have started Village Libraries, and by an admirable selection of books
have brought to their members, not only the means of educating
themselves in the more difficult technical problems of their industry,
but also a means of access to that enchanted world of Irish thought
which inspires the Gaelic Revival to which I have already referred.
Social gatherings of every kind, dances, lectures, concerts, and such
like entertainments, which have the two-fold effect of brightening rural
life and increasing the attachment of the members to their society, are
becoming a common feature in the movement, and this more human aspect
has attracted to it the attention of many who do not understand its
economic side. We have gratifying evidence from many of the clergy that
the movement thus developed has kept at home young people who would
otherwise have fled from the continued hardship and intellectual
emptiness of rural life at home.

These results are in no small measure due to the zeal and devotion of
the governing body and staff of the I.A.O.S. The general policy of the
society is guided by a committee of twenty-four members, one-half of
whom are elected by the individual subscribers and the other half by the
affiliated societies. It is representative in the best sense and
influential accordingly. The success of the Committee is no doubt mainly
due to the wisdom which they have displayed in the selection of the
staff. In the most important post, that of Secretary, they have kept on
my chief fellow-worker in the early struggle, Mr. R.A. Anderson, who has
devoted himself to the cause with all the energy of a nature at once
enthusiastic, unselfish, and practical, and who has succeeded in
inspiring his staff of organisers and experts with his own spirit. Among
these, two deserve special mention, Mr. George W. Russell, one of the
Assistant Secretaries, who has, under the _nom de plume_ "A.E.,"
attained fame for a poetry of rare distinction of thought and diction,
and Mr. P.J. Hannon, the other Assistant Secretary, who has proved
himself a splendid propagandist. Each of these gentlemen has brought to
the movement a zeal and ability which could only come of a devotion to
high ideals of patriotism, curiously combined with a shrewd practical
instinct for carrying on va