ART. X.-1. Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry. 8 vols. Dublin, 1870.

2. Thirty-seventh Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland. 1871.

3. Pastoral Address of the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland. Dublin, 1871.

4. Charge to the Clergy of Armagh by the Archbishop of Armagh. Dublin, 1871.

R. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE recently declared at

the

when dealing with the question of Irish education, to show great respect and consideration for Irish interests and Irish feelings. This language, coming from Mr. Gladstone's late Irish Secretary, looks very like a return to the famous doctrine of Irish ideas, which was popular with the Liberal party when Mr. Gladstone took office. But, after an experiment of a year or two, the Liberal press declared that Irish ideas were' somewhat inapprehensible; Mr. Gladstone gave us one of those elucidations of his own rhetoric, with which he favours the world at convenient seasons; and we thought we had heard the last of governing Ireland, not according to the dictates of intelligence and common sense, but at the bidding of some one of the factions which prey upon that country.

It is argued by some supporters of the Government that Mr. Fortescue only means that the question of Irish education must be dealt with in reference to the present circumstances of Ireland. It is sought to apply to Mr. Fortescue's more emphatic language the same process of exegesis which his leader has applied to his own speech at Wigan. It is quite true that any statesman undertaking to legislate on education in Ireland is bound to keep in mind the peculiar influences at work upon Irish society, and the history of existing educational institutions in that country; but these are just the considerations which the Liberal party have shown the greatest indisposition to regard. Had Mr. Fortescue regarded them in past time, we should never have had his supplemental charter to the Queen's University in 1866, nor his letter to the National Board in the same year. Did he keep them in mind now, we should not have him talking of the educational services of Irish ecclesiastics.' This speech at Bristol, viewed in connection with Mr. Fortescue's acts in former years, fills us with real alarm, for it leaves no room to doubt that the Ministry are now seeking to sacrifice the educational institutions of Ireland to that one of the Irish factions which it suits them to treat as representing

representing Irish interests and feelings.' Under these circumstances it is important to recall to the recollection of our readers what the State has done in Ireland for the education of the people, and briefly to lay before them the present state of the question. Fortunately we possess ample materials for our purpose in the voluminous evidence amassed by the Royal Commissioners, who reported in 1870 upon the subject of primary education in the sister isle.

From the time of the Reformation occasional efforts were made by the State to encourage education in Ireland; but in most of the schemes adopted it was assumed that the people had become, or were about to become, Protestant. In those of Elizabeth and James there was no idea that the people had any right to claim, much less that they would claim, to have any opinions of their own in the matter of religion: that the State had adopted a certain form of religion, was held sufficient to ensure the adoption of it by the people. Proselytism, properly so called, recognises at least the right of the people to have some voice in the matter; and this spirit first came into operation in the earlier part of the last century, when the State awoke to the consciousness that the Protestantism of the State did not involve the Protestantism of its subjects, and when an organised effort was made to bring the people individually round to Protestantism. Primate Boulter wrote in 1730, to bring the nation over to true religion, one of the likeliest methods we can think of is, if possible, the instructing and converting the young generation.' Schools, called Charter schools, were established at the public expense in different parts of the country. In these schools any children that could be got hold of were educated gratuitously, their course of education including instruction in the religion of the Established Church, irrespective of the religion of the parents. The schools were naturally denounced by the priests, and the memory of the policy associated with them makes the cry of proselytism still a weapon of some power in the popular discussion of the question.

In 1812 we discover the dawn of another policy. In that year a Parliamentary Committee laid down the principle that popular education in Ireland should be conducted without any attempt to interfere with the peculiar tenets of the different religious persuasions. Acting on this recommendation the State henceforward recognised two facts in the work of primary eduction-that the people were Catholic, and were likely to continue so. But the difficulties still remained as to the application of the new principle. The schools to which the State gave assistance continued to enjoin the study of the Bible, and as

Roman

Roman Catholics objected to the unrestricted reading of the Bible, the mass of the people staid away, and some other arrangement became necessary.

To meet this difficulty was devised the system of 1831,the first satisfactory effort to apply the resources of the State to popular education. In that year the late Earl of Derby, then Mr. Stanley, addressed a letter to the Duke of Leinster, announcing the appointment of a Board of unpaid Commissioners to conduct a system of national education. This letter contained the groundwork of the present national system which came into operation in 1833. Mr. Stanley referred to the language of a Parliamentary Commission of 1828 as affording the leading idea of the proposed system. It recommended 'a system which should afford a combined literary and a separate religious education, and should be capable of being so far adapted to the views of the religious persuasions which prevail in Ireland as to render it, in truth, a system of national education for the lower classes of the community.' The Board was to consist in part of persons professing different religious opinions.' Thus a denominational element was from the first recognised in the constitution of a portion of the Board, but it was a denominational element selected by the State, not a delegation from the respective denominations. The duties assigned to this Board were to control the funds voted by Parliament and to superintend generally the work of education. Two elements were recognised in the machinery of the system-the Board and the local authorities-the latter term being used to describe the individuals or bodies applying for a share of the Parliamentary grant. The Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy were specially designated as persons to be encouraged to place themselves in this latter category of local authorities. The Parliamentary grant was to go (1) to aid in erection of school-houses, the sites and one-third of the cost of erecting the schools being guaranteed to the Board by the locality; (2) to make certain additions to the salaries of the teachers provided by local funds; (3) to edit and print school-books, and supply these and other schoolrequisites at half-price; (4) to provide inspection and a training system. The Board were required to see that a register was kept of the attendance of the children on Divine worship on Sunday; that one or two week-days should be set apart in every school for giving the children'separately, such religious instruction as might be approved of by the clergy of their respective persuasions; that the right of giving religious instruction before or after school hours on the other days of the week was secured to the respective clergy, and the practice encouraged.' In practice some modifi

cations

cations of this scheme have been adopted, for its main characteristic always was that boasted of by Mr. Stanley in 1837, 'that flexibility which admitted of its being managed locally by patrons of different persuasions.' But the Irish system of 1872 remains what its founders designed it to be-a denominational system of a simple kind, with a strict conscience clause. The scheme was intended to give effect to a new policy on the part of the State towards the Roman Catholic population: the Roman Catholics so understood Mr. Stanley's letter; and his scheme was at once accepted, and long warmly supported, by the clergy and laity of that Church. Latterly the Catholic bishops have been its persistent assailants, and their change of policy is sometimes defended on the ground that the principles laid down in Mr. Stanley's letter have been departed from. The most noted modification of those principles is to be found in some of the regulations of the Board as to convent-schools, and one or two other efforts to conciliate the Ultramontane party; but these changes have not been complained of by the present assailants of the national system, nor has the more serious departure from the terms of the Stanley letter-the abandonment of the principle of local aid.

Local resources have done little or nothing for the education of Ireland, and this constitutes the great difference between the Irish system and that existing in England before 1870. The present Irish system of education, with its 6520 schools, is almost entirely the creation of the State. When the Board commenced its operations in 1832, the economic condition of Ireland was nearly at its lowest ebb, and twenty years passed before any improvement could be discovered. The principle laid down in the Stanley letter was, as we have already shown, that the school should be established and maintained by local resources, the State supplementing them. The body seeking the aid of the Board was required to secure a site for the school, one-third of the cost of building, a fund which should be sufficient to supply the cost of repairs, the teacher's salary, and school requisites at half price. Of these conditions of public aid the Board dispensed, from the beginning, with the contribution to the local fund. What had been at first intended as a gratuity from the Board to the teacher in addition to his salary, became his sole income. The other conditions were retained, but not generally enforced. Local aid to secure a site or build a school-house in the systematic way originally designed might not be forthcoming, but there was many a hamlet schoolmaster who was willing to leave his roadside academy under the hedge and rent a cabin or a room in order to obtain the aid and countenance of the Board. Instead of waiting

to

to assist in building schools of which they might claim the ownership, the Board gave a helping hand to any school that could profess an existence, and was willing to promise adherence to their rules. If the schools were bad schools, they were better than none at all, and were much improved for having the inspection of the Board.

Two classes of schools were soon recognised in connection with the Board. Those provided in compliance with the original scheme as to local aid, being built on sites conveyed to the Board, were called Vested Schools, and another class, making more than three-fourths of the whole, were named Non-vested Schools. The money for the latter class came almost entirely from the Board in the shape of an annual grant, paid through the patron as a salary to the teacher. The theory of local aid was retained so far as to require a start for the school; but this aid was often of the most formal kind. The term 'erected by the locality,', in some of the returns as to this class of schools, gives a very false idea of the character of the schools. Such a phrase suggests a site with a secure title and a building specially appropriated to school work. But many of these schools are held in yearly tenements, and as large a number as 460, the Commissioners of Inquiry tell us, are held in rooms or cottages rented by the teachers. Speaking of the South of Ireland, Mr. Laurie, one of the Assistant Commissioners, describes the school-houses as either originally dwelling-houses or designed with the contingency of being, at some future time, converted into dwelling-houses. Professor Kavanagh, one of the witnesses presented to the Commission by Cardinal Cullen, says that the structures of these schools are of so low a character that he declines to make any computation of their value.

As to this modification of the original plan, the Board argued in 1849: 'We have done all that could, under the circumstances of Ireland, be safely attempted. We have made no building grants where one-third of the expense has not been locally contributedno grant for salary where reasonable proof has not been given that there will be a sufficient attendance of children to augment, by their weekly pence, the salary furnished by us to the teacher," As to the permanent local fund, they say this condition was not insisted on because it was impossible. Had we attempted to enforce it, the country would have rejected our system from the beginning. To the same effect is the evidence of the resident Commissioner of Education, the Right Hon. Alexander McDounell: 'About the wisest thing ever done by the Commissioners was the violating, from the very commencement, the rule laid down. by Lord Derby; for I am convinced that the circumstance