Yet, while criticism is good, it is proper to look on the other side of the coin. In the light of its own day the Irish State was a remarkable achievement, but in the light of any other day it would be hard to find a statecraft so complete, so wise and so soundly based on a people’s will while compact in itself. It was at once both aristocratic and democratic: in fact, it makes these modern expressions to seem, what they are, false entities, for it shows them to be parts of one whole, obverse and reverse of the same thing. The Normans when they came commented on the familiarity that existed between the members of a stateship and its king. The king, in fact, was generally required to foster his children with some freeman’s family. Yet to be a king a man had to be pure of birth, perfect of body, without physical blemish, and of considerable training in the laws and arts; while the oath he took, even though it were not always kept, is sufficient to show the moral qualities expected of his office. The arts did not exist at the whim of a lordly patron, but were maintained at the people’s charges. Each stateship conceived it an honour that Poetry, Music and History should be accorded the highest rank in its economy. Their professors were furnished land for their maintenance, and sat as equals at the king’s table. The same was true of the Doctors of Medicine. These were all public servants, serving the public and maintained at the public charge. Those that came overseas to learn in the schools were, apparently, not charged for their tuition, but had only to conform to the legal responsibility laid on such schools, for they came in such numbers that the Council of Brehons had to make special regulations for them. And the _Baile Biatach_, as we have seen, had land apportioned him for the maintenance of public hospitality. These things were not then, any more than they are now, precisely familiar virtues among the nations.