The Reformation had at this time been established in Ireland, and the clergy whom the state recognised were necessarily all Protestant. The desire for extending education as a means for improving and enlightening the people, was therefore to be expected from them; and it is not improbable this desire was accompanied, and perhaps strengthened, by a belief that education would bring about the conversion of such of the people as were not yet of their flock, but still adhered to the church of Rome. That such were the motives of the Protestant clergy in the prominent part taken by them with regard to these free schools, and that the government and the proprietary classes generally were influenced by similar motives, can hardly admit of doubt. The result turned out different however from what was anticipated. The great bulk of the people remained in ignorance, and devotedly attached to the old religion, as it was and still is called; and thus a separation sprung up between one class and another, between the more English and Protestant class, and the more Irish and Romanist class, which has been a fruitful source of evil to each, and in spite of the countervailing efforts which have of late years been made, can hardly be said to have altogether disappeared even at the present day. How strange it seems that religion, which ought, and we must believe was designed to be, a bond of concord and union, should be perverted into an occasion for hatred and strife!—Yet so it unhappily too often has been, and in no country perhaps more than in Ireland. [Sidenote: 1612. 11 and 12 James I. cap. 5.]