for the Education of their Children. 389 



in the parents to afford their children the benefit 

 of education, nor did we suspect there was any 

 want of schools. 



All past experience sanctions the gratifying 

 belief that in proportion as the knowledge of 

 man is advanced, so is his estimability and hap- 

 piness increased. The causes which for years 

 have so widely diffused the present wretchedness 

 over one of the most fertile countries of Europe, 

 will naturally become developed as the expan- 

 sion of the mind proceeds to establish this very 

 important conviction that all the evils so much 

 to be deplored have their origin in self creation, 

 arising from the absence of moral rectitude^ 

 principle, and restraint. Nothing is more easy 

 or less common than to shift the censure from 

 ourselves to the operations of the state : I am not 

 disposed to exempt government from its share of 

 blame ; but the real and substantial cause of 

 Irish misery has its origin in its redundant po- 

 pulation. Absenteeship, and the too general 

 neglect on the part of the higher to the com- 

 forts of the lower classes, as well as their own,- 

 though undoubtedly grievances, are of minor 

 consideration in the great scale of their sufferings. 

 To avert the further accumulation of distress r 

 and the calamities which are daily increasing, 

 the great body of the people must be made sen- 

 sible that the source whence all their miseries 



VOL, i. ? c 3 



