for these busy months.  With the generous help of the railway companies they organised parties of farmers, artisans, school teachers, members of the statutory committees, and, in fact, of all to whom it was of importance to give this object lesson upon the relations between practical education and the promotion of industry.  Nearly 100,000 persons were thus moved to Cork and back before the Exhibition closed—­an achievement largely due to the assistance given by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society and the clergy throughout the country.

This experiment, both in its conception and in its results, was perhaps unique.  There were not wanting critics of the new Department who stood aghast at so large an expenditure upon temporary edifices and a passing show; but those who are in touch with its educational work know that this novel application of State assistance fulfilled its purpose.  It helped substantially to generate a belief in, and stimulate a demand for, technical instruction which it will take us many years adequately to supply.

An American visitor who, as I afterwards learned, takes an active part in the discussion of the rural problems of his own country, disembarked at Queenstown in order to ‘take in’ the Cork Exhibition.  In his rush through Dublin he ‘took in’ the Department and the writer.  ’Mr. Vice-President,’ he said, before the hand-shaking was completed, ’I have visited all the great Expositions held in my time.  I have been to the Cork Exposition.  I often saw more things, but never more ideas.’

With this characteristically rapid appreciation of a movement which seeks to turn Irish thought to action, my strange visitor vanished as suddenly as he came.

* * * * *

Those whose sympathy with Ireland has induced them to persevere through the mass of details with which this story of small beginnings is pieced together may wonder why the bearing of hopeful efforts for bringing prosperity and contentment to Ireland upon the mental attitude of millions of Irishmen scattered throughout the British Empire and the United States, and so upon the lives of the countries in which they have made their homes, is apparently ignored.  I fully recognise the vast importance of the subject.  A book dealing comprehensively with the actual and potential influence of Irish intellect upon English politics at home, and upon the politics of the United States, a carefully reasoned estimate of the part which Irish intellect is qualified, and which I firmly believe it is destined, to play wherever the civilisation of the world is to be under the control of the English-speaking peoples—­more especially where these peoples govern races which speak other tongues and see through other eyes—­a clear and striking exposition of the true relation between the small affairs of the small island and that greater Ireland which takes its inspiration from the sorrows, the passions, the endeavours, and the hopes of those who stick to the old home—­such a book would possess a deep human interest, and would make a high and wide appeal.  Nevertheless, I feel that at the present time the most urgent need, from every point of view on which I have touched, is to focus the thought available for the Irish Question upon the definite work of a reconstruction of Irish life.