We were, it is true, successful beyond our expectations in planting in apparently uncongenial soil sound economic principles.

But our success was mainly due, as I shall show later, to our having used the associative instincts of the Irish peasant to help out the working of our theories; and we became convinced that if a tithe of our priests, public men, national school teachers, and members of our local bodies had received a university education, we should have made much more rapid progress.
I hardly know how to describe the mental atmosphere in which we were working.

It would be no libel upon the public opinion upon which we sought to make an impression to say that it really allowed no question to be discussed on its merits.

Public opinion on social and economic questions is changing now, but I cannot associate the change with any influence emanating from institutions of higher education.

In other countries, so far as my investigations have extended, the universities do guide economic thought and have a distinct though wholly unofficial function as a court of appeal upon questions relating to the material progress of the communities amongst which they are situated.