of citizenship is realized, and individuals are created who are ever conscious of the identity of interest between themselves and their race. In the old Greek civilizations this was possible because their States were small, indeed their ideal State contained no more citizens than could be affected by the voice of a single orator. Such small States, though they produced the highest quality of life within themselves, are no longer possible as political entities. We have to see whether we could not, within our widespread nationalities, create communities by economic means, where something of the same sense of solidarity of interest might be engendered and the same quality of life maintained. I am greatly ambitious for the rural community. But it is no use having mean ambitions. Unless people believe the result of their labors will result in their equaling or surpassing the best that has been done elsewhere, they will never get very far. We in Ireland are in quest of a civilization. It is a great adventure, the building up of a civilization--the noblest which could be undertaken by any persons. It is at once the noblest and the most practical of all enterprises, and I can conceive of no greater exaltation for the spirit of man than the feeling that his race is acting nobly; and that all together are performing a service, not only to each other, but to humanity and those who come after them, and that their deeds will be remembered. It may seem a grotesque juxtaposition of things essentially different in character, to talk of national idealism and then of farming, but it is not so. They are inseparable. The national idealism which will not go out into the fields and deal with the fortunes of the working farmers is false dealism. Our conception of a civilization must include, nay, must begin with the life of the humblest, the life of the average man or manual worker, for if we neglect them we will build in sand. The neglected classes will wreck our civilization. The pioneers of a new social order must think first of the average man in field or factory, and so unite these and so inspire them that the noblest life will be possible through their companionship. If you will not offer people the noblest and best they will go in search of it. Unless the countryside can offer to young men and women some satisfactory food for soul as well as body, it will fail to attract or hold its population, and they will go to the already overcrowded towns; and the lessening of rural production will affect production in the cities and factories, and the problem of the unemployed will get still keener. The problem is not only an economic problem. It is a human one. Man does not live by cash alone, but by every gift of fellowship and brotherly feeling society offers him. The final urgings of men and women are towards humanity. Their desires are for the perfecting of their own life, and as Whitman says, where the best men and women are there the great city stands, though it