choolbooks,
offensive to any of them. Hence all prayers, the catechism, all teaching
of the special doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church, must be
banished from the school during the hours of teaching, and the books
placed in the hands of children which are calculated to exercise great
influence on their after life, must be compiled in a style of
indifference to every religion. Indeed we could not expect to find
anything good or religious in books composed by a Protestant archbishop
of rationalistic and latitudinarian views, who does not appear to have
believed in the Trinity or the Divinity of Christ, who raised himself to
the episcopal dignity by publishing the _Errors of Romanism_, and who
terminated his career by admitting that his object in compiling some of
the books introduced into the national schools was to dissipate the
darkness in which the Irish people are sitting, or, in other words, to
spread among them his own dangerous principles, and to undermine their
faith.

Whilst the national system is beset by so many dangers, we cannot but be
anxious that its character and tendencies should be accurately examined,
and the objections to which it is liable fairly stated to the public. We
are now happy to be able to say that all this has been done by a
Protestant barrister, Mr. Isaac Butt, late M.P. for Youghal. This
learned and eloquent gentleman has just published a treatise entitled
_The Liberty of Teaching Vindicated_, in which he gives the history of
the system of National Education, and discusses its merit. The writer
appears to have studied the subject with the greatest care, and to have
made himself acquainted with all its bearings. His treatise is written
with great clearness and moderation; his views upon education are
liberal and accurate; and his arguments against allowing the education
of Ireland to pass into the hands of a hostile government, are most
powerful and unanswerable. Mr. Butt has rendered us an immense service
by publishing so valuable a treatise. We recommend all our friends to
provide themselves with it, and to peruse it most carefully.

We shall now give some few extracts from it to show the spirit in which
it is written. The treatise is dedicated to Mr. Gladstone, and in the
dedication Mr. Butt calls on that great statesman to apply to Ireland
the principles of justice and liberality, which he had so often
advocated in the case of other nations, principles unhappily ignored in