eathes There a Man with a
Soul so Dead," owing to their tendency, one must suppose, to suggest
emotions other than those which it was deemed fitting to inculcate, and
in their place was inserted a verse from the Archbishop's own pen which
is familiar to most Irishmen, but which is, I find, unknown to most
Englishmen:--

"I thank the goodness and the grace which on my birth have smiled,
And made me in these Christian days a happy English child."

To appreciate fully the irony of the divergence between the sentiments
expressed and the real facts, one must remember that these lines were
written at a time when land reform and church disestablishment were
regarded by those in authority as the proposals of unspeakable
demagogues.

The views of Whately on the value of the educational machine which he
controlled, as an instrument of proselytism are very frankly set out in
a conversation which he had with Nassau Senior, which is quoted from the
diary of the latter in the Archbishop's biography:--

"I believe," he said, "that mixed education is gradually enlightening
the mass of the people, and that if we give it up we give up the only
hope of weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery. But I cannot
venture openly to profess this opinion. I cannot openly support the
Education Board as an instrument of conversion. I have to fight its
battles with one hand, and that my best, tied behind me."[20]

This extract more than justifies the policy by which, when Dr. MacHale
succeeded Dr. Murray in Dublin, a bland acquiescence in Governmental
action began to be no longer the line of action of Catholic prelates.

The system of National Education was, as I have said, founded at its
inception on the principles of undenominationalism, but, as a matter of
fact, the determined views of all creeds in Ireland prevailed to a very
great extent, so that at the end of the nineteenth century out of a
total of 8,700 schools in the country more than 5,000 were attended by
children of one religion only; of these 4,000 were Catholic schools, the
remaining 1,000 belonging to one or other of the Protestant
denominations. Of the 3,700 schools which are not purely denominational,
there are many in which the great majority of the pupils belong to one
religion, but in these, of course, the minority is safeguarded by a
conscience clause.

The members of the National Board are appointed to-day--as they were in
1833--by Dublin Castle. They are nominees