The Irish origin of the Scots[18] is studiously avoided by nearly all the “Scotch-Irish” writers, or, if mentioned at all, is spoken of in a manner which leaves the reader to infer that the Scots had made mistakes in selecting their ancestors, and it was the duty of their descendants, so far as it lay in their power, to rectify the error. These old settlers possessed the energy, faith and cheerful nature that could make life endurable under the hardships and privations of their situation on the frontier of civilized society. They had brought with them the manners, customs and habits of the Ireland of the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century. I need not repeat examples of their quaint humor and queer stories, or of their use of the ardent spirits on public occasions, church-raising, trainings, dancing parties, weddings and funerals. They believed in ghosts and witches and of course the devil; indeed, the devil was seen in person, if old Fiddler Baker told the truth, at the fork of the road, with horns and cloven foot, spitting fire.[19] Under the conditions of this early time we need not wonder that when the admission of a new member to the church was in question and objection was raised that he made too free use of the bottle, “Well,” said the grave elder, “if the Lord may have a church in Peterborough He must take such as there be.” Nearly all of the schoolmasters of these early times were Irishmen from the central and southern counties of Ireland, but their history has been suppressed by modern writers, to the extent, indeed, in some instances, of omitting altogether the mention even of their Irish names. Rev. John H. Morison, a Unitarian minister, wrote in 1845 a history of Judge Jeremiah Smith,—before this system of suppressing and falsifying history had reached its present perfection—and in recording the facts of Smith’s boyhood of about 1771, on page 14, stated: “He began to study Latin, when about twelve years old, with Rudolphus Greene, an Irishman, employed by the town to keep school a quarter of the year in each of the four quarters of the town. While he was hearing a boy recite he usually held a stick in his hand, on which he cut a notch for every mistake, and, after the recitation was ended, another stick was employed to give a blow for every notch that had been cut.” On page 16 it is recorded that “he was sent for a short time to New Boston, to be under the instruction of an Irishman, named Donovan.” [Illustration: VERY REVEREND ANDREW MORRISSEY, C. S. C., D. D., LL. D., University of Notre Dame. Vice-President of the Society for Indiana. ]