"The House of Commons, with an almost prodigal, but a wise liberality, has placed at the disposal of the Irish Government large and ample funds for the purposes of national education. These funds are administered on a plan opposed to the feelings of all creeds and all classes of the Irish nation. Ninety-nine out of every hundred Irishmen condemn it. There is not an Irish constituency from Bandon to Derry in which any man could be returned as an advocate of the national system, if the question were purely one of its approval or disapproval. There is not a parish in Ireland in which the inhabitants, if they had their choice, would adopt it as the system of their parish school. Right or wrong, the present system is one forced, by official coercion, on the Irish people. It is a national system, maintained and supported in defiance of the sentiment of the nation"--(p. viii.) Looking at the national system in a religious point of view, Mr. Butt adds, that it is in antagonism with the wishes and feelings of all classes of the Irish people. "There is no nation on earth who cherish religious feelings with a more deep and enthusiastic devotion than do the Irish. They are the very last people among whom the experiment of an education, which excludes the fulness of religious teaching, should be tried. The result of the experiment has been, that by all creeds and classes of Irishmen, the 'national' system is condemned. All who avail themselves of it do so grudgingly and of necessity. It is a system forced upon the people by their rulers.... It is for the Irish nation themselves to judge of the education which is suited to the wants of the Irish poor. The system which is condemned by the universal suffrage of the Irish nation, is unfit for Ireland, because it is so condemned--(p. ix.) "If we are driven to justify our opinions, we have only to refer to the example of England. In England, every school that receives aid from the funds of the State, is a school avowedly teaching the doctrines of some religious body. Full and unrestricted religious instruction is made an essential part of national education in England. In Ireland, a school which adopts that instruction as its rule, is consequently placed under a ban, and denied all assistance from the national funds. It matters not whether the instruction be Protestant or Catholic, it equally condemns the school in the eyes of our rulers"--p. x. Treating of the difference between the systems prevailing in England and Ireland, Mr. Butt adds:--