A crowd of minor enthusiasts fostered such industries as sprigging, and there was one man who believed that the future prosperity of Ireland might be secured by teaching people to make dolls.

It was altogether a noble army, and even a commercial traveller might hold his head high in the world if he counted himself one of its soldiers.
Hitherto results have not been at all commensurate with the amount of printer's ink expended in magazine articles and advertisements.

Yet something has been accomplished.

Nunneries here and there have been induced to accept presents of knitting-machines, and people have begun to regard as somehow sacred the words 'technical education.' The National Board of Education has also spent a large sum of money in reviving among its teachers the almost forgotten art of making paper boats.
Hyacinth very soon discovered that his patriotic view of this work did not commend itself to his brother travellers.

He found that they had no feeling but one of contempt for people whom they regarded as meddling amateurs.