ols could and should do much more to remedy this national defect
than they are at present doing. At one first-class Irish
establishment--admirably equipped with buildings, playground, and all
other appliances--boots used to go unblacked from one end of the month
to the other. The boys who come here come largely from the well-to-do
farming class, in whose homes, in many ways so pleasant and worthy of
respect, there is often a lamentable lack of that charm which comes of
notable housewifery. The young men who return from this school will be
less apt than they should be to value good housewifery in their wives
and mothers.

But of all sinners in this regard the State is the chief offender. Under
the Code of the National Board of Education a national schoolmaster or
mistress is bound to teach cleanliness and decency by precept and
example. He or she is paid an average wage (without allowances) of
thirty shillings or one pound a week according to sex; and out of that
an appearance befitting superior station has to be maintained--for in
Ireland the schoolmaster has always a position of some dignity. For the
school the State provides four bare walls, a roof, not always
weatherproof, and a few desks. Firing is not provided. Decoration is
subject to inspection, and any picture which can be held to have a
religious or remotely political bearing is a gross offence against the
Code. It follows, in practice, that bare walls are kept bare, though not
clean; and let it be remembered that Catholicism, if left to itself, in
education always trusts greatly to the appeal to the eye. In every
Catholic school uncontrolled by the State the emblems of religion are
everywhere present. National schools under State control, even in places
where there is not a Protestant child within twenty miles, are
rigorously forbidden the use of any such embellishment. On the other
hand, Protestant schools which would gladly, and, as I think, most
laudably, furnish themselves with pictures recalling such memories as
the shutting of the Derry gates, come under the same tyranny of
compromise. Taste and culture are the expression of an individuality,
and individuality is forbidden to Irish teachers in State employ. The
State puts a schoolmaster into a schoolhouse, without adequate payment
for himself, without adequate provision either for building or the
upkeep of building; it bids him to keep it clean, but pays no servant to
wash or sweep; and, while enjoining