Mr. O'Shaughnessy, M.P. for Limerick, drew the attention of the
House of Commons yesterday week to the state of primary education in Ireland, and moved a resolution to the effect that steps should be taken to press on education there, especially in the direction of employing compulsion as soon as might be, in places where there was no danger of compulsory education being regarded as an attack on faith. In reply, the Irish Secretary, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, gave a more favourable account of the existing state of primary education than was expected. The number of children who had attended sufficiently to obtain a qualification were only 1 per cent. fewer- in Ireland without compulsion, than they are in England with compulsion. To show the progress education had made, he stated that while, for the ten years ending with 1841, the proportion of the population above five years old who could not read and write was 52 per cent. ; for the ten years ending with 1851 it was only 46 per cent. ; for the ten years ending with 1861 it was 38 per cent. ; and for the ten years ending with 1871 it was but 33 per cent., or just one-third. Lord Charles Beresford declared that if denorni-. national education were permitted in Ireland, there would be no need of compulsion ; the Irish people would then of their own accord insist on their children going to school. And yet in nine Irish schools out of ten the education, if not exactly denominational, is at least conducted by teachers and presided over by mana,gera who are of the same faith with the people, so that there is no room for jealousy or distrust of heretical influence. We fear that quick-witted as the Irish are to see the benefit of education, the temptations of the moment still too often outweigh with them the beneficial prospects of the future.
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