old. He does not
spare the Cork farmer, but he does not distort him. Why however, his
"Harvest" was allowed to be played unmolested in New York, after the
"The Playboy of the Western World" met with organized opposition, can be
explained only by recognition of the fact that the Irishmen of the
patriotic societies are slaves of precedent. "The Playboy of the Western
World" had always met with opposition, so it should meet with opposition
in New York. "Harvest" escaped in New York because its uncomplimentary
personages were unheralded. Not that there is anything in "Harvest," any
more than in "The Playboy of the Western World," that any
self-respecting Irishman need object to. "Harvest" shows the disastrous
effects the wrong sort of primary education, as taught by the country
schoolmaster of the old type, the type that was prevalent before the
present type, brought about. The present-day schoolmaster is in sympathy
with system of education that will keep the children on the land or in
an industry near the home place; the older type would give them an
education that would send them to the cities to be priests and lawyers
and secretaries and typists and chemists and what-nots. Old William
Lordan, the schoolmaster, had, evidently, in the opinion of the
playwright, the sins of many on his shoulders, and yet one, knowing that
it is the system and not the man that is at fault, cannot help feeling
that Mr. Robinson is rather severe on what is in life a really lovable
though mistaken sort of man.

"Harvest" shows that of the six children of Tim Hurley, but the three
that come into the play are loyal to their father: Maurice, who works
the home farm; Jack, the apothecary's clerk from Dublin, who tries to
help with the farmwork, but is too much of a weakling to be anything of
a help; and Mary, who from typist has turned mistress, now to this man,
now to that. Mary, come home to get away from her wrong life, is called
back to London by the excitement of its life, which has become a
necessity to her. Jack, the chemist, in the end deserts the home; and is
off at the end of the play, with his upper-class wife, for America or
the colonies. Only Maurice is more than half-entitled to our respect.
The son who is the priest is in America to collect for the Church at the
time of his family's need, and so is not helpful to his family; the
solicitor son is climbing socially, and, needing a motor-car to help him
to position, prefers to spend hi