EDUCATION FOR IRELAND.
THIS matter is not one of easy adjustment. An attentive perusal of the views of Earls Clancarty, Donoughmore, and Granville, and of the speeches of Mr. Hennessey, has not tended to allay our sense of its difficulty. Our faith in the denominational system of schools, each in- differently aided by State grants, is entire and unswerving for England. But here, and also in Scotland, the payment of taxes falls pretty nearly on each denomination in the proportion in which each shares the grants paid from the taxes. It would be far otherwise were a denominational system established in Ire- land. The vast majority of the people, and especially of those who would benefit by schools for the poor, are Roman Catholics, whilst the revenue is derived mainly from Protestants. The proportion of schools under the control of the Irish priests, belonging to the National Board, is stated by Lord Donoughmore to be :3500 out of 5000. It is very natural that so it should be, but when his Lordship adds, that under the denominational sys- tem, the Roman Catholic clergy would have no larger share of the grants than " properly belongs to them," did it occur to his Lord- ship to inquire out of whose pockets the grants come ? Are they to be charged on the Consolidated Fund, or is it proposed to have local school-rates, or to charge them exclusively on Irish re- venue ? So long as a comprehensive system exists, and the in- struction is so managed that no denomination, or either of the two churches is excluded, on score of conscience—this crux does not arise, but the moment we denominationalise it, it does. True it is that the comprehensive scheme under the National Board has not fulfilled its behests. The general discontent alike of the Es- tablished and Roman Catholic Churches is conclusive on that head; and the positive averments of Lords Clancarty and Donoughmore in the debate of Friday se'nnight were nowise answered by the demurrer of Lord Granville. The vast inequalities in the existing extent of education in Ireland heighten the difficulty. In Antrim 441 out of every 100 of the people were reported in the last census as being able to read and write ; in Mayo only 16; the average being 331 through-
out Ireland. It will be probably; found that schools • are most wanted where the populace are in the greatest proportion Roman Catholic and impoverished. Who is to bear the burden of their education ? We have no anti-Catholic prejudices, and are not among those who deny that great good is done by efficiently con- ducted Catholic schools ; the moral teaching in them is, as far as our obversation has gone, nowise inferior to our own, and the secular instruction often equal to it. We believe that if the bulk of the Irish children are not educated by the Catholic clergy and under their control, they are little likely to be educated at all. At the same time the greatest care should be taken, lest Pro- testants are made to pay for the propagation of a creed they con- scientiously condemn ; and care must also be taken that where Protestant schools be established, they have their rightful share of State aid. Still the knotty question remains, whence are the funds to come from ? So long as the National Board worked the comprehensive plan mat difficulty did not exist, but now that such a system is found to fail, it stares us in the face. A local rate for schools in Ireland is obnoxious to all the objections which beset it in England. Its incidence is on a mere fraction of the people, and certainly not on that portion of them who can be justly required to bear the whole burden of educating the poor. The taxation of the country itself, or some branch of it, ought to be charged with a burden which all should bear. Q,noonnque mode, the necessity must be met ; and it is unfairly met as regards England, if in any way we have to pay for the performance of an obligation incumbent entirely on Ireland. We were struck by the remdrk of Lord Clanearty on the in- accuracy of the census adopted by the Commissioners. He states that in 100 schools two inspectors found 1699 fewer children than had been declared in attendance. Precisely the same thing has happened here ; and there can be no doubt that nothing like the numbers reported in our census or the Irish census are actually at school at any one time. A still greater mistake, however, is made alike in Ireland and England in estimating the additional number to be educated. It is assumed her that because one- third only, or whatever the proportion may be, of the children between three and fifteen are found at school, ergo, we ought to be prepared hereafter to treble our grants and add to our schools by two-thirds. This proceeds on the preposterous as- sumption that, after making allowance for sick children and those educated at home, &c., every child of a school age is from three to fifteen to be constantly at common schools. By no other pos- sibility could the full number be always in attendance. So far from being necessarily an object of desire for which a civilized nation ought to gird up its loins, this would be grossly injurious to the working class children, even if it were practicable. Assuming that one. third of the children between the ages of three and fifteen are really in school at any given time, that ne- cessitates every child to remain on' an average for four years during its childhood. This is no possibility, but it follows arith- metically from the facts, that twelve years being the whole of the school age, and the average number present at one time being always one-third of those children, all the children must, in suc- cession, be at school during one-third of the twelve years, that is, four years. If one-fourth only were there at the same time, then three years' average attendance would be required from the whole number, and so forth. No doubt the periods that individual children stay at school vary immensely. Some never go, and are compensated for by those who remain long over the average ; but considering how great is the necessity of inuring children early to industry, and how little industrial schools, as yet, supply this requirement, we do not think a four years' average of attend- ance alarmingly insufficient. We very much doubt if it be reached: but if one-third of the children between three and fifteen are really always in attendance, then assuredly that quantum of schooling is attained, barring exceptions, by all, and with or with- out exceptions such is the average duration of stay. There can be no good in grossly overealculating the number yet to be schooled either in England or Ireland. Nothing, however, is more common than to overlook the necessary relation of this dura- tion of stay, to the total number of a school age, in estimating the proportion of children who ought to be, or can be, at school at any one time. It is singular that of all the able essays put forth at the London Conference on Education in 1856 one only put thi matter in its proper light. In one respect Irish Education excels ours. it appears to be based on a better appreciation of the great necessity of combining bodily labour with mental instruction. Some of the workhouse schools there have long excelled in this respect, and there are in our own unions some admirable instances of the success of this system. In Ireland, where it, is so essential to teach habits of sustained labour as well as to teach spade husbandry, no public money should be given unless this requisite addition to the ordi- nary school system is made.
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