class="label">[*] "The Evolution of Modern Germany," by W. H. Dawson, brings together in its twenty-third chapter most of the facts relating to this question. See especially a letter from a prominent member of the Polish aristocracy quoted on p. 475.

Such are the ideals and such the practice of the people whom Roger Casement and one or two other enthusiasts for Gaelic culture in Ireland have sought to make the dominant power in that country, because it will rid them of "English" rule.

Let us now see what "English" rule (it is not really English at all, but the rule of the United Kingdom) is actually like in regard to this particular subject. Up to the decade 1830-40 it may be said that the Irish language was spoken by fully half the population of Ireland. No restrictive measures were in force against it. But during that decade a general system of elementary education was introduced, and in the Board Schools the language withered away with astonishing rapidity. At the last census (1911) only 16,000 persons were recorded as speaking Irish alone, while the number of those who knew anything of the language was only about 13 per cent. of the population. Whether this change was a blessing or a bane to Ireland is a subject which is outside the range of this discussion, but whatever it was the Irish people themselves had a full share of responsibility for the result. With scarcely an exception, the abandonment of Irish was approved by the clergy, the political leaders, and the masses of the people "The killing of the language," writes Dr. Douglas Hyde, "took place under the eye of O'Connell and the Parliamentarians, and, of course, under the eye and with the sanction of the Catholic priesthood and prelates ... From a complexity of causes which I am afraid to explain, the men who for the last sixty years have had the ear of the Irish race have persistently shown the cold shoulder to everything that was Irish and racial."[*] Their attitude is easily understood. Irish had long ceased to be used for literary purposes. No Irish newspapers, no Irish books were printed; English was regarded as the only available key to the world of modern culture, and Ireland became an English-speaking country without a struggle and almost without a regret.

In the early 'nineties, however, a popular movement took shape for the rescue of what still remained of the language and for its restoration, so far as was practically possible. Classes for the study of Irish were formed all over the country, folk-tales were collected, MSS. of half-forgotten poets were disinterred and edited, the first scholarly and adequate dictionary of modern Irish was compiled,[*] and plays, poems, and stories began to be written in the re-discovered language. These activities were mostly organised and directed by the Gaelic