Within the scope of these few pages it is not possible to comprise all the aspects of modern Irish Education which are worthy of discussion.  What are most urgently needed to-day are the necessary funds to continue the good work which is being done, and to introduce the reforms that have been sketched above.  Parsimony in educational matters is the most wasteful of all misplaced thrift.  Let the reformers be dealt with wisely and generously, and the harvest will exceed even the expectations of those who are working most hopefully upon the problem.  Withhold the funds on some niggardly and mistaken principle of petty economy, and the present progress will be discouraged and the educational tree become stunted in its growth.  From an administrative point of view, nothing, finance apart, would contribute more to the efficiency of Irish Education than the amalgamation of the National and Intermediate systems, as well as of the Technical work at present administered by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Education, under one Board.  The method of examination by the Department is far sounder than that which is forced upon the Intermediate Board by the Acts of Parliament under which it works.  In the case of science, the two are to be seen working to-day side by side in the Secondary Schools, to the undoubted benefit of the scientific course, which enjoys a double subsidy from the State, and is subject to the superior method of examination by the Department, being treated as a detached subject and the candidates being passed en bloc.  On the other hand, the obsolete method of examination by the Board tends to the serious disadvantage of the classical curriculum, the grants being made on the unprofitable results of a general examination of individual candidates, the class not being regarded as a whole, as is the case with the Department.  By the repeal of the Intermediate Acts, and by the amalgamation of the various Boards into one, these anomalies would rapidly disappear, and for the first time a genuine system of co-ordination could be introduced into Irish Education, which would knit together the strength of all the parts and overcome many of the prevailing weaknesses, making the whole system what it ought to be, a living, growing, pulsating organism, developing and shaping itself with the life of the nation.

Is it conceivable that all this can he accomplished if the Union between the countries is rent asunder?  What chance will there be of effecting this great settlement, which requires money and, above all, requires peace, when Ireland is plunged once again into the old internecine struggles of the eighteenth century?  The warning is writ very large upon the wall, so that he who runs may read.  The best hope for education in Ireland are the resources of Great Britain and a uniform policy undisturbed by party feuds.  Neither of these can be looked for under a separate Parliament.  Under the Union Ireland can have both, for the welfare of her children and the building of a noble history.