has ever counted for much--the influence of a
strong personality, acting in alliance with the influences of a fully
realised religion and of an ordered family life.

I sketch a more concrete picture that always rises in my mind with a ray
of hope, when I think of education in Ireland. Out of doors, winter
twilight falling on a wild landscape within hearing of the Atlantic
surf; the man of the house coming out to talk to me, a handsome Irishman
of the old school, frieze-clad, with the traditional side whiskers, the
humorous eye and mouth. We talked for a while in the cold, then "_Gabh i
leith isteach_," he said, "for I hear you have the Irish." As I paused
in the door to phrase the Gaelic salutation, more devout and courteous
than would come to my lips in any other tongue, I was astonished at the
company gathered in the long low room. Chairs were set by the wide
hearth of course, and from one of them the woman of the house rose to
greet me; a settle ran along the side wall, and its length was filled
with men and women blotted against the dusk background. But the centre
of the picture was a narrow deal table set in the middle of the room,
with candles on it, and benches on each side, and on the benches fully
ten children busy with books and copies. "Are these your burden?" I
asked in the quaint Irish phrase. "A share of them," the man answered;
and then I understood that some belonged to other neighbours, and that
it was a mutual arrangement for friendliness and help. None of the
children budged; there they were, drilled and disciplined at their work,
in the middle of the room, while their elders sat and chatted quietly. I
have never seen elsewhere anything which so filled my conception of what
a home should be, as that farmhouse in Corcabascinn--so full of order
and good governance, yet so free of constraint, so full of welcome, yet
so lacking in expense or display. For, understand, we who were strangers
were brought (much against my will) into the state-room or parlour
beyond the party wall, and drink was pressed upon us hospitably. But the
neighbours who had come there (and came daily, I fancy) came neither to
eat nor drink (unless maybe tea might be brewing) but simply to sit and
smoke and talk, and watch that their children got their lessons
properly. And at the end, perhaps before they parted, perhaps when the
family was alone, the rosary would be said by the turf fire, that made,
winter or summer, the centre of all