who will have to come into direct conflict with the trials and temptations of life.  But here again we must accept the situation and work with the instruments ready to hand.  The practical and statesmanlike action for all those concerned is to endeavour to render these institutions as efficient educational agencies as may be possible.  They owe their existence largely to the gaps in the educational system of this country which religious and political strife have produced and maintained, and they deserve the utmost credit for endeavouring to supply missing steps in our educational ladder.[19] If they now fully respond to the spirit of the new movements and meet the demand for technical education by the employment of the most approved methods and equipment, and by the thorough training on sound lines of their staffs, it is impossible that their influence on the young generation should not be as salutary as it will be wide-reaching.

But, after all, these criticisms are, for the purposes of my argument, of minor relevance and importance.  The real matter in which the direct and personal responsibility of the Roman Catholic clergy seems to me to be involved, is the character and morale of the people of this country.  No reader of this book will accuse me of attaching too little weight to the influence of historical causes on the present state, social, economic and political, of Ireland, but even when I have given full consideration to all such influences I still think that, with their unquestioned authority in religion, and their almost equally undisputed influence in education, the Roman Catholic clergy cannot be exonerated from some responsibility in regard to Irish character as we find it to-day.  Are they, I would ask, satisfied with that character?  I cannot think so.  The impartial observer will, I fear, find amongst a majority of our people a striking absence of self-reliance and moral courage; an entire lack of serious thought on public questions; a listlessness and apathy in regard to economic improvement which amount to a form of fatalism; and, in backward districts, a survival of superstition, which saps all strength of will and purpose—­and all this, too, amongst a people singularly gifted by nature with good qualities of mind and heart.

Nor can the Roman Catholic clergy altogether console themselves with the thought that religious faith, even when free from superstition, is strong in the breasts of the people.  So long, no doubt, as Irish Roman Catholics remain at home, in a country of sharply defined religious classes, and with a social environment and a public opinion so preponderatingly stamped with their creed, open defections from Roman Catholicism are rare.  But we have only to look at the extent of the ‘leakage’ from Roman Catholicism amongst the Irish emigrants in the United States and in Great Britain, to realise how largely emotional and formal must be the religion of those who lapse so quickly in a non-Catholic atmosphere.[20]