e of political economy, that at the daily table which Nature
spreads for the human family there is no cover laid for them in Ireland,
they have crossed the ocean to find occupation, shelter, and bread, on a
foreign but friendly soil.

This "Celtic Exodus," as it has been aptly called, is to all the parties
immediately connected with it one of the most important events of the
day. To the emigrants themselves it may be regarded as a passing from
death to life. It will benefit Ireland by reducing a surplus population,
and restoring a sounder and juster relation of capital and labor. It
will benefit the laboring classes in England, where wages have been kept
down to the starvation-point by the struggle between native population
and the inhabitants of the sister island, for that employment and food,
of which there is not enough for both. This benefit will extend from
England to ourselves, and will lessen the pressure of that competition
which our labor is obliged to sustain, with the ill-paid labor of
Europe. In addition to all this, the constant influx into America of
stout and efficient hands supplies the greatest want in a new country,
which is that of labor, gives value to land, and facilitates the
execution of every species of private enterprise and public work.

I am not insensible to the temporary inconveniences which are to be set
off against these advantages, on both sides of the water. Much suffering
attends the emigrant, there, on his passage, and after his arrival. It
is possible that the value of our native labor may have been depressed
by too sudden and extensive a supply from abroad; and it is certain that
our asylums and alms-houses are crowded with foreign inmates, and the
resources of public and private benevolence have been heavily drawn
upon. These are considerable evils, but they have perhaps been
exaggerated.

* * * * *

=_Hugh S. Legare, 1797-1843._= (Manual, p. 487.)

From his "Collected Writings."

=_193._= THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT CLASSICS.

Not to have the curiosity to study the learned languages is not to have
any vocation at all for literature: it is to be destitute of liberal
curiosity and of enthusiasm; to mistake a self-sufficient and
superficial dogmatism for philosophy, and that complacent indolence
which is the bane of all improvement, for a proof of the highest degree
of it....

All that we ask, then, is, that a boy should be thoroughly taught the