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of whom,‘to the taking them off more useful works, have greater knowledge
in thisway than some of the better sort in other places.” And he adds, that
“in hissurvey he had met with some good Latin scholars who did not under-
stand the English tongue.” A more general spread of information, and
increased facilities for acquiring it, have deprived Kerry of the honour of
being exclusively the seat of peasant-learning in Ireland; but its inhabitants
are still remarkable for the study of the dead languages, acquaintance with
.whieh has been formed by the greater proportion of them literally under a
hedge. -
Tl1e genuine “Hedge Schools” of Kerry are rapidly disappearing; and
necessarily with them the old picturesque sehoolmasters-in some respects a
meritorious, in others a pernicious, class: for wherever there was disaffeetion,
the village schoolmaster was either the originator or the sustainer of it; was
generally the secretary of illegal associations, the writer of threatening notices,
and too frequentlythe planner and ‘leader in terrible outrages. The national
system of education has destroyed their power, by substituting in their places
men who are, at all events, responsible to employers interested in their good
characters and good conduct. The ancient Domines, however, had their merit;
they kept the shrivelled seed of knowledge from utterly perishing, when learning,
instead of being considered
“better than house and land,”
was looked upon as an aequirement‘ for the humbler classes, in the light of a
razor in thehands of a baboon--a thing that was dangerous, and might be
fatal, but which could do no pos5ble good either to the possessor or to society.
The Irish schoolmaster is now paid by the state, and not by “sods of turf,”
“a kish of praties,” “a dozen of eggs,” or at Christmas and Eastcr“‘a roll
of fresh butter;’’. for, very commonly, there was no other way of liquidating
his quarterly accounts; yet this mode of payment was adopted eagerly on the
one side, and received thankfully on the other, in order that “the gorsoon
might have his bit of learning, to keep him up in the world.” The English
of the lower classes covet knowledge, but only as a. source of wealth; an
Irishman longs for it'as a means of acquiring moral power and dignity. “Rise
up yer head, here’s the master; he’s a fine man with grate larning;” “ lVhisht!
don’t be putting in your word, sure he that’s spaking has fine Iarning;”
“Sure, he had the world at his foot from the strength of the laming;” “A
grate man ‘entirely, with apower of larning;” “No good could ever come of
him, for he never took to his larning;” “VVhat could you expect from
;him? since he was the ‘size of a midge he never looked in a book;”-such
are the phrases continually in the mouths of the Irish peasantry. Utter
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