Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/45

 perfect of body, without physical blemish, and if considerable training in the laws and arts; while the oath he took, even though it were not always kept, is sufficient to show the moral qualities expected of his office. The arts did not exist at the whim of a lordly patron, but were maintained at the people's charges. Each stateship conceived it an honour that Poetry, Music and History should be accorded the highest rank in its economy. Their professors were furnished land for their maintenance, and sat as equals at the king's table. The same was true of the Doctors of Medicine. These were all public servants, serving the public and maintained at the public charge. Those that came overseas to learn in the schools were, apparently, not charged for their tuition, but had only to conform to the legal responsibility laid on such schools, for they came in such numbers that the Council of Brehons had to make special regulations for them. And the Baile Biatach, as we have seen, had land apportioned him for the maintenance of public hospitality. These things were not then, any more than they are now, precisely familiar virtues among the nations.

So for the State itself, as an organisation. Its faults we have seen; but, even so, it found as wise a balance as any nation has yet found between a centralised and a decentralised system. Authority, to be sure, depended a good deal from the personality of whoever exercised it; but then history has shewn that this was not an attribute exclusively monopolised by the Irish State. In the last resort,