precedent of all social and economic
reform in Ireland. To explain the principles by the observance of which
the agency of the association may be utilised as an economic force,
while at the same time the industrial character of the individual may be
developed, was one of the chief aims I had in view in the foregoing
analysis of the Irish mind and character, as they have emerged from
history and are stunted in their growth by present influences. The facts
about to be recited will, I hope, suffice to prove that the reformer in
Ireland, if he has a true insight into the great human problem with
which he is dealing, may find in the association not only a healthy
stimulus to national activities, but also a means whereby the assistance
of the State may be so invoked and applied that it will concentrate, and
not dissipate, the energies of the people.

The other criticism which I think it necessary to anticipate would, if
ignored, leave room for a wrong impression as to much of the work which
is being done both on the self-help and on the State-aid sides of the
new movement. Education, it will be said, is the only real solvent to
the range of problems discussed in this book, most other agencies of
social and economic reform being of doubtful efficacy and, if they tend
to postpone educational effort, positively harmful. There is much truth
in this view. But it must be remembered that the backward condition of
our economic life is due mainly to the fact that our educational systems
have had little regard to our history or economic circumstances. We
must, therefore, at this stage in our national development give to
education a much wider interpretation than that which is usually applied
to the term. We cannot wait for a generation to grow up which has been
given an education calculated to fit it for the modern economic
struggle, even if there were any probability that the necessary reforms
would soon be carried against the prejudices which are aroused by any
proposal to train the minds, or even the hands and eyes, of the rising
generation. In the meantime much of the work, both voluntary and
State-aided, now initiated in Ireland, must consist of educating adults
to introduce into their business concerns the more advanced economic and
scientific methods which the superior education of our rivals in
agriculture and industry abroad has enabled them to adopt, and which my
experience of Irish work convinces me our people would have ado