190 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



But this beautiful and wretched country abounds with intelli 

 gent minds, glowing with the warmest philanthropy. They 

 appear, indeed, like stars in a partially-clouded night, pouring, 

 out of their own native fulness, rays of the purest splendor; 

 struggling, as it were, continually, to penetrate the darkness 

 which intercepts them ; and appearing to shed a brighter radiance 

 as the mists and black clouds sweep along, and, occasionally 

 breaking open, leave, though only for a time, a way for the 

 transmission of their light. They may, sometimes, seem to 

 serve no other purpose than to render the darkness visible ; but 

 they inspire courage, and strengthen the hope of a wider diffu 

 sion, and the ultimate dawning of a full day. 



These men rightly conceive that education is to be one of 

 the great means of elevating Ireland ; and that, an education of 

 a practical character. In an education of a different character, 

 Ireland is not wanting. Strange as it may seem, in some parts 

 of Ireland, even the common people are familiar with the an 

 cient classics ; and the household deities of the heathen are en 

 shrined in their cabins among their own numberless saints. 

 When in Killarney, in the vicinity of the lakes of that pic 

 turesque and romantic region, I took leave to inquire of the hotel- 

 keeper into the state of education among the people. He im 

 mediately called in a ragged, dirty, barefooted boy, for, indeed, 

 very few of the common people in the rural districts of Ireland 

 are in any other condition, and told him &quot;to bring his books 

 and show the gentleman what he knew.&quot; This boy was only 

 ten years old, and the son of a shoemaker. He brought in his 

 Greek Testament, and in the Gospel of John, in which I pretty 

 thoroughly examined him, he recited with perfect correctness. 

 I then examined him in the declensions and conjugations of 

 nouns, and adjectives, and verbs, in which he was equally expert 

 and correct. I found, likewise, upon inquiry, that this was the 

 general course of education at the school which he attended. 

 The next day, a lad passed me, evidently on his way to school, 

 with his books under his arm. I inquired his age, which he 

 said was fifteen years, and then desired him to allow me to see 

 a book which he had with him, which was Homer in Greek ; 

 and he was studying the second book. To my inquiry if there 

 were many in his class, he replied, yes ; and to my question 

 whether he was destined for the priesthood, his answer was 



