‘“Make the welkin ring again, And fetch still echoes from the hollow earth.”
These cheers were the genuine expression of the sentiment of the country. They, our opponents, teach you to rely on the use of this deserted and enfeebled and superannuated weapon of coercion. We teach you to rely upon Irish affection and goodwill. We teach you not to speculate on the formation of that sentiment. We show you that it is formed already; it is in full force; it is ready to burst forth from every Irish heart and through every Irish voice. We only beseech you, by resolute adherence to that policy you have adopted, to foster, to cherish, to consolidate that sentiment, and so to act that in space it shall spread from the north of Ireland to the south, and from the west of Ireland to the east; and in time it shall extend and endure from the present date until the last of the years and the last of the centuries that may still be reserved in the counsels of Providence to work out the destinies of mankind.’
Perhaps more of our readers will agree with Mr. Gladstone’s eulogy of books in opening a working men’s library in Saltney:
‘And now I commend you again to your books. Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books—and without even taking them down from their shelves—they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. They seem to tell you that they have got something inside their covers that will be good for you, and that they are willing and desirous to impart to you. Value them much. Endeavour to turn them to good account, and pray recollect this, that the education of the mind is not merely a stowage of goods in the mind. The mind of man, some people seem to think, is a storehouse that should be filled with a quantity of useful commodities which may be taken out like packets from a shop, and delivered and distributed according to the occasions of life. I will not say that this is not true as far as it goes; but it goes a very little way, for commodities may be taken in and commodities may be given out, but the warehouse remains just the same as it was before, or probably a little worse. That ought not to be the case with a man’s mind. No doubt you are to cull knowledge that is useful for the temporal purpose of life, but never forget that the purpose for which a man lives is the improvement of the man himself, so that he may go out of this world having, in his great sphere or his small one, done some little good to his fellow-creatures, and laboured a little to diminish the sin and the sorrow that are in the world. For his own growth and development a man should seek to acquire, to his full capacity, useful knowledge, in order to deal it out again according to the supreme purposes of education. I remember just now I said that, outside of science, the chance for a labouring man to acquire knowledge was comparatively very little, unless he acquire it through observation. The poet Gray describes the condition of the rustics of the village in these words: