this happy harmony of interests and influences was totally impossible. It was almost invariably the duty of the Pastor of souls to set himself against the lord of the soil, of the teacher of obedience to become a leader in resistance, of the preacher of peace, to take a tone of opposition, even of menace. Thus society went wrangling on; the clergy denouncing the vengeance of heaven on the more obdurate gentry; the vindictive among the gentry inflicting all the local annoyances they could invent upon the heads of the clergy. In this conflict of interests and positions the uninformed rural mind was shocked and confused, and but for the stay and prop of religion might easily have fallen into the last stage of anti-social savagery. Mr. Maginn's letters after his appointment as Parish Priest, are largely made up of appeals to the Castle against the abuse of power by the neighboring magistrates, and other controversies with them and their class. His vigilance and fearlessness are conspicuous in every instance, but the details of these local affairs could hardly interest the general reader.

A more congenial object of his activity was the foundation of new Schools. He felt instinctively from his love of the country that she was passing out of one cycle of existence into another. He discerned on the face of the land those patches of pitchy darkness, which the statist depicts on the map of comparative education. He thoroughly adopted the maxim of Dr. Doyle, that

"next to the blessing of redemption, and the graces consequent upon it, there is no gift bestowed by God, equal in value to a good education." Before the National

Schools were introduced, he had visited many parts of England and Ireland, soliciting the aid of the charitable and benevolent, to enable him to erect a school-house and chapel for the accommodation of four hundred and ten families, hitherto destitute of the means of instruction." The introduction of the new school system in 1834, presented him with unexpected facilities for following up his favorite project. The theory of this system was very far indeed from perfection, and its mixed Board of Commissioners looked more like a compromise of essential truths, than a natural or desirable co-operation. Yet whatever the shortcomings of the system, its administrators gave practical safeguards to parents and pastors, which in Mr. Maginn's eyes compensated for its defects. The Board appointed by government could alone decide what was to be taught during school-hours; the Board could refuse its quota to the teacher and practically close the school; but then the resident heads of families were to be joint founders of the school and paymasters of the teacher, with the Board; the local clergyman could become the patron of the school, could visit it and supervise every detail of its management. As the system could not succeed without the sanction of the

* Extract from Mr. Maginn's Circular, dated March, 1833

Catholic clergy, the Pastor of Fahan was looked upon by the Board as a valuable ally. In the course he took he had with him the majority, not all, of the members of his order. The distinguished Archbishop of Tuam and a powerful minority continued for years, and a few of their survivors still continue, hostile to the whole system. It cannot be denied that special facts-such as the introduction of Dr. Whately's Arian lessons into the schools-went far to justify their hostility. On the other hand, the experience of twenty years has dissipated the worst apprehensions of the first opponents of the schools, since it is well-known that the young men and maidens educated on their forms have come out into the world not less Catholic or less Irish than the generality of preceding generations. It was natural that the patriots of '34 should fear the gift of the Greeks, especially when presented by the hands of a Stanley; but it was no small evidence of statesmanship to foresee at that time how the gift might be used for the common good, agreeably to the highest requirements of religious duty.

Previous to 1840, we find the money orders of the Commissioners of Education made payable to Mr. Maginn as Patron of the National Schools (male and female), situated at Dumfries and Cristagh, also of the schools of Meenagh, and upper and lower Illies. Towards the first-named schools the Commissioners contributed eighteen pounds per year, to the second sixteen

pounds, to the third ten, and the last eight pounds. They granted in each case to start the school a gratuitous stock of books, and engaged to supply their standard works afterwards, on the patrons' and teachers' joint order, at half price. In return, they stipulated that the schools should be open to the inspectors appointed by the National Board, should teach according to their system, and should put up their title on the outside of each school-house. This necessity of the Board working through the local pastor, placed Mr. Maginn in the enviable position of the educator of Innishowen. With his accustomed energy, he discharged the onerous duties of his self-imposed office. His success, and the sacrifices he made to compass it, naturally gave him a strong claim on the Board, and a right to take the high tone which we find him assuming in the controversy which arose in 1840. In that year the Synod of Ulster, which had previously opposed the national system, agreed by a majority to co-operate in its dissemination. As a consequence, the Moderator (Dr. Henry, we believe) was added to the Board, which at once entered into a correspondence with all the friendly Presbyterian ministers. The same year a circular of the Commissioners, complaining that the school-houses were suffered to fall out of repair, and inviting the local trustees to transfer the deeds by which they were held from the local patrons to the Board, excited in Mr. Maginn serious apprehen

sions. Having occasion to address their secretaries on a local matter, he wrote the following decided letter in relation to these innovations.

REV. MR. MAGINN TO THE SECRETARIES OF THE NATIONAL BOARD OF EDUCATION.

BUNCRANA, July 22, 1840.

DEAR SIRS, -I have written twice to your office within the last eight weeks, relative to the aid we require from the Commissioners to erect a national schoolhouse at Ballymacarry, in the County of Donegal. In your letter dated the first October, 1839, you promised that whenever your funds should be replenished by the government grant, our application on said subject would be taken into consideration. I beg leave to refer you to your letter to me of said date of the first October. It is rather strange, and I must say, unaccountable, that you did not think proper to reply to my two last letters, the more pressing, as the season for building is far advanced, and this is the only time in which the peasantry of the country can co-operate with us without loss or inconvenience to themselves. I am convinced that a rumor that is here in circulation cannot be founded in fact, viz., that a Catholic clergyman is not, for the future, to expect any attention, even the ordinary courtesies of life, from you, since your establishment has become the betrothed of the Synod of Ulster. I would say at least, no matter how you may feel, that it would be rather imprudent to throw off at once your old friends, who made many sacrifices for your sake, to press to your bosoms your new adherents, even before the echo of their sweet voices, styling you "infidel," "impious," "mutilators of the Word of God," &c., had died in the distance. Rather strange things have occurred in this neighborhood and that of Derry; National Schools and opposition National Schools--schools founded on the broad principles on which you set out, and never, in a single iota, deviating from the same, neither honor, honesty or truth violated in their management, and schools founded on exclusive principles, in every respect sectarian and bigoted-schools established for no other purpose but to dissociate the members of the same community, because it would not suit their bigoted and persecuting spirit, or their views of Orthodoxy to have us, the unclean thing, reading, writing, &c., in the same apartment with the predestinated, now all under the same, your patronage. I