r. The system which
is condemned by the universal suffrage of the Irish nation,
is unfit for Ireland, because it is so condemned--(p. ix.)

"If we are driven to justify our opinions, we have only to
refer to the example of England. In England, every school
that receives aid from the funds of the State, is a school
avowedly teaching the doctrines of some religious body. Full
and unrestricted religious instruction is made an essential
part of national education in England. In Ireland, a school
which adopts that instruction as its rule, is consequently
placed under a ban, and denied all assistance from the
national funds. It matters not whether the instruction be
Protestant or Catholic, it equally condemns the school in
the eyes of our rulers"--p. x.

Treating of the difference between the systems prevailing in England and
Ireland, Mr. Butt adds:--

"In point of principle, no reason can be assigned for the
difference between England and Ireland. If it be wrong in
Ireland to endow and aid a purely Roman Catholic school, it
is equally so in England. The difference established between
the two countries can neither be justified nor accounted for
upon any rational principle. It fosters the belief in the
mind of every Irishman that his country is treated as an
inferior. In many Irishmen it promotes the belief that
religious instruction, which is free in English schools, is
placed under restriction in Ireland, because the faith of
the majority of the Irish people is proscribed"--(p. xi.)

And may we not ask has not the Irish Catholic sufficient grounds for
adopting this opinion? Has not all the legislation of the country for
centuries been directed to the destruction of Catholicity?

The question is next referred to of the tendency of the national system
to throw the whole education of the country into the hands of the
government.

"I do not shrink from inviting your consideration to the
complaint--that the Irish national system, as now
constituted, is one gigantic contrivance for bringing the
whole education of Ireland under government control. I
appeal with confidence to you, as an English statesman,
against the attempt to 'Anglicise' the education of the
Irish people--against the project of bringing up, in
government academies, an army of schoolmasters, who, in