cracy made them equal, and
whose generous nature made them welcome. They have thus been brought to
the very well-spring of the new forces which have been re-shaping human
society and preparing the transformation of the world. In this
incomparable enterprise they are themselves a foremost force, taking part
in the intellectual work with the revived vitality of a race which has
found its Land of Youth.

If we had a past of shame--were we members of a nation that had never
risen or had deeply fallen--these should be incentives to brave hearts to
achieve work for the credit of their race. It is otherwise with us, and we
dare not stand still. The past would be our reproach, the future our
disgrace. Not foreign force, but native sloth can do us dishonour. If our
nation is to live, it must live by the energy of intellect, and be
prepared to take its place in competition with all other peoples.
Therefore must we work, with earnest hearts and high ideals for the sake
of our own repute, for the benefit of mankind, in vindication of this old
land which genius has made luminous. And remember that whilst wealth of
thought is a country's treasure, literature is its articulate voice, by
which it commands the reverence or calls for the contempt of the living
and of the coming Nations of the Earth.

THE NECESSITY FOR DE-ANGLICISING IRELAND.

BY DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D.

THE NECESSITY FOR DE-ANGLICISING IRELAND.[18]

When we speak of "The Necessity for De-Anglicising the Irish Nation," we
mean it, not as a protest against imitating what is _best_ in the English
people, for that would be absurd, but rather to show the folly of
neglecting what is Irish, and hastening to adopt, pell-mell, and
indiscriminately, everything that is English, simply because it _is_
English.

This is a question which most Irishmen will naturally look at from a
National point of view, but it is one which ought also to claim the
sympathies of every intelligent Unionist, and which, as I know, does
claim the sympathy of many.

If we take a bird's-eye view of our island to-day, and compare it with
what it used to be, we must be struck by the extraordinary fact that the
nation which was once, as every one admits, one of the most classically
learned and cultured nations in Europe, is now one of the least so; how
one of the most reading and literary peoples has become one of the _least_
studious and most _un_-literary, and how the present art product