I say I wonder how the people of Ross in the generation of my father’s boyhood got their education, for they were born in a time when education was banned in Ireland. The schools that are called National schools were not established till I was born. The hedge-schools and hedge-schoolmasters were around in the generations that preceded my time. In the summer time, the children assembled in the shade of the hedges and trees, and the masters taught them their lessons. In the winter time the hedge-school was in the shelter of some farmhouse. As it was in the schooling of the Irish people, so it was in their religion. That was under a ban too; the priests were boycotted as well as the people. Yes, for two hundred years after the English religion was introduced into Ireland, any priest caught saying mass was subject to a fine; caught a second time, it was fine and imprisonment, and caught a third time it was banishment or death. Any Irishman caught attending mass was heavily fined; caught a second time, was doubly fined, and when the fines increased and were not paid, the lands of the people were confiscated, and sold out by the English. That is how the tradition is implanted in the minds of many exiled Irish men and women to-day--that their people lost their lands in Ireland on account of sticking to their religion. There were two of the old-time schoolmasters in Ross when I was a child. Daniel Herlihy was one, and Daniel Hegarty the other. I remember being at the house of each; but it was only for a few days, or a few weeks. They had their schools in their own houses, and they turned out good scholars, too; scholars that knew Latin and Greek. But ’tis to John Cushan that I give the credit for my schooling. When I went to his National school, I wasn’t much beyond my A-B-C, if I was out of it at all; because I recollect one day that I was in his class, and the master teaching us. He had a rod called a pointer, and he was telling a little boy from Maoil what to call the letters. The little boy could not speak any English; he knew nothing but Irish, and the master, putting the tip of the pointer to the letter A on the board, would say to him, “Glao’g A air sin,” then he’d move the pointer to B, and say, “Glao’g B air sin,” and so on to the end of the lesson. Another recollection satisfies me I had not much learning when I went to John Cushan’s school. I was in my class one day, that one of the monitors had charge of it. All the small classes were up in the hallways around the school, reading their lessons off the boards that hung on the walls. It was a day that the Inspector visited the school, and with the Inspector was the priest, Father Ambrose. Each boy in my class was to read one sentence of the lesson, until the lesson was ended; then the next boy would commence again, at the top of the card. It came to my turn to commence, and after commencing I did not stop at the end of the first sentence. I read on--