In the United States, even in Canada, hardly
has the pioneer made a home in the wilderness when his sons and his
daughters are allured by the distant gleam of cities beyond the plains.
In England the countryside has almost ceased to be the mother of men--at
least a fruitful mother. We are face to face in Ireland with this
problem, with no crowded and towering cities to disguise the emptiness
of the fields. It is not a problem which lends itself to legislative
solution. Whether there be fair rents or no rents at all, the child of
the peasant, yearning for a fuller life, goes where life is at its
fullest. We all desire life, and that we might have it more
abundantly,--the peasant as much as the mystic thirsting for infinite
being,--and in rural Ireland the needs of life have been neglected.
The chief problem of Ireland--the problem which every nation in greater
or lesser measure will have to solve--is how to enable the country-man,
without journeying, to satisfy to the full his economic, social,
intellectual, and spiritual needs. We have made some tentative efforts.
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