Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/80

74 province, have been a great blessing in this respect. Many a poor child by these schools has been made to look up with a hope which was entirely new—a hope that in after days she might wear a shawl and a bonnet, write a good letter, make a dress, &c. The happy effects of industry on the minds of the children were striking. That passive indifference to all but how a morsel of bread should be obtained, was exchanged for a becoming manner and animated countenance, lighted up by the happy consciousness that industry was a stepping-stone which would justly and honorably give them a place among the comfortable and respectable of the earth. And again, to quote Dr. Edgar, every look seemed to say, "They have had in their work a full reward." And he adds, "Thus an independent, self-supporting, and useful generation may be raised, who will be less at the mercy of changing seasons; and who, when the day of trouble comes, will have some resources on which to draw."

My greatest object in writing this sketch of the famine being to show its effects on all classes, rather than to detail scenes of death by starvation, a few sketches only of this kind in passing along will be given, for the purpose of illustrating the principle of mind as it developes itself in the varied changes through which it is called to pass. These Industrial Schools, which I afterward visited when passing through Connaught in 1847 and 1848, were subjects of the deepest interest; for to me they told the whole story of Ireland's wrongs and Ireland's remedy. They told me, that when