the management of Irish affairs by those who have the reins of power in
their hands.

"Most of our departments are managed as if the chief art of
Irish government consisted in a dexterous thwarting, or, at
least, ignoring of all local and national wishes, as they
are represented by the class with whom the department has to
deal. In no country in the world, not even in the Austrian
provinces of Venetia, are national feeling and sentiment so
completely excluded from any control over the management of
national affairs"--(p. viii.)

Applying what he had stated to the question of national education, he
adds:--

"The House of Commons, with an almost prodigal, but a wise
liberality, has placed at the disposal of the Irish
Government large and ample funds for the purposes of
national education. These funds are administered on a plan
opposed to the feelings of all creeds and all classes of the
Irish nation. Ninety-nine out of every hundred Irishmen
condemn it. There is not an Irish constituency from Bandon
to Derry in which any man could be returned as an advocate
of the national system, if the question were purely one of
its approval or disapproval. There is not a parish in
Ireland in which the inhabitants, if they had their choice,
would adopt it as the system of their parish school. Right
or wrong, the present system is one forced, by official
coercion, on the Irish people. It is a national system,
maintained and supported in defiance of the sentiment of the
nation"--(p. viii.)

Looking at the national system in a religious point of view, Mr. Butt
adds, that it is in antagonism with the wishes and feelings of all
classes of the Irish people.

"There is no nation on earth who cherish religious feelings
with a more deep and enthusiastic devotion than do the
Irish. They are the very last people among whom the
experiment of an education, which excludes the fulness of
religious teaching, should be tried. The result of the
experiment has been, that by all creeds and classes of
Irishmen, the 'national' system is condemned. All who avail
themselves of it do so grudgingly and of necessity. It is a
system forced upon the people by their rulers.... It is for
the Irish nation themselves to judge of the education which
is suited to the wants of the Irish poo