THE REV. MR. O'KEEFFE AND THE IRISH BOARD OF NATIONAL

EDUCATION.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR-1

Sm,—From the vast importance of the principles and interests involved, I trust that you will afford space in your columns for the correction of some errors of fact, and consequent fallacies of reasoning, in your recent article on the case of the Rev. Mr. O'Keeffe, and the Irish Board of National Education. No little misapprehension prevails about the actual facts. As you have given prominence to one aspect of the question, it is only fair that you shall allow it to be exhibited in another and a different light.

You have asserted that " the management of most of the schools in Ireland is confided to priests or ministers not in their private capacity, but officially, as the priest or minister of a particular parish or congregation." Proofs are abundant and exhaustive that such is not the fact, and that there is no such thing as official clerical management.

1. According to the rules of the Board, " the Commissioners recognise as the local patron the person who hpplies in the first instance to place the school in connection with the Board, unless it be otherwise specified in the application" (Rules, &c., vi. 3). "In the case of a vacancy in the patronship by death, the repre- sentative of a lay patron, or the successor of a clerical patron, is recognised by the Board (where no valid objection exists) as the person to succeed to the patronship of the school" (ib. 7). But "if a patron wishes to resign his office, he has the power of nomi- nating his successor " (ib. 8). Lay and clerical are all alike. There is not one word about parochial or congregational appointment or representation. (a.) 2. The testimony of Sir Alexander Macdonnell, upwards of thirty years resident Commissioner, before the Primary Educa- tion Commission, is specially conclusive. Being asked, " Do you recognise any manager ex officio, such as justice of the peace, for example ?" he answers, " No ; neither justice of the peace, nor even the pastors of the children ; we don't recognise them ex officio. In the majority of instances the pastor of the children is the manager, but we don't recognise him as such. It is because that he has made the application, or as it were, inherited the manage- ment from his predecessor, in his own church." (Evidence, 39.) Clerical representation in school management is therefore a fiction and a delusion. (b.) 3. Rectors of the late Established Church who were school managers, translated to other livings, or raised to higher dignities, have been sometimes succeeded by clergy more opposed to the national system, who would therefore refuse to act as managers. In such cases the out-going rector either retained the management or nominated a successor, lay or clerical. A remarkable instance of this is given in the Primary Education Commission. Mr. Matthews stated that the Bishop of Derry, who had been manager of the school at Strabane before his elevation to the Bench, con- tinued to act as manager, though reeding nearly thirty miles distant ; and he adds of the bishop's successor in his former in- cumbency, the Rev. Mervyn 'Wilson, " The present minister never looks into the school,—I believe, on conscientious grounds. He is a Church-education man." (Evidence, 18,435:) 'Here one rector was manager. The succeeding rector not only was not manager, but he shunned the school. No doubt there are many more such cases, which effectually dispose of the theory of official management by parish ministers. (c.) 4. Roman Catholic parish priests translated, have sometimes retained the management of schools in parishes which they left. This is known to have caused inconvenience, and contention some- times ; so that ecclesiastical authority had to interpose for the correction of an evil which the National Board was powerless to remedy. Roman Catholic curates, who are removable at their Bishop's will, and even without notice, are school managers. When they are displaced, the in-coming curate does not always succeed as manager. Wesleyan ministers are managers. When they are changed, and by their Conference, as happens periodically, the minister in succession cannot be manager unless he shall be appointed as such by his predecessor. For he alone " has the power of nominating his successor, subject to the approval of the Board." (Rules, &c., vi., 8.) (d.) 5. Lay managers have often transferred their managerial office to clergymen, and clerical managers have transferred it, but not so often, to laymen. If the trust were an adjunct of the ministry in a parish or congregation, there could be no lay managers at all. The fact that they reckon by the hundred proves beyond question that manager " qua parish priest," or manager, " qua Presbyterian minister," is a gratuitous fiction ; just as manager gad landlord, or manager qua merchant. (e.) You admit that " if Father O'Keeffe had been manager of one of these schools, simply as Mr. O'Keeffe, and not as parish priest of Callan, there would be no room whatever for the question to arise." But he was manager of these schools simply as Mr. O'Keeffe. If the parish of Callan had a book club, a literary or scientific society, or a mechanics' institute, of which he happened to have be- come president in succession to the former pariah priest, it would be equally rational to assert that he held the presidential office only as parish priest, as to maintain that he was school manager only as such. As a matter of fact, he became manager of some schools, as successor to the Rev. Mr. Mullins, deceased ; the school com- mittee elected him to another, and in one case he was the original applicant. If he had thought proper to transfer the management of all or any of these, except the school under a committee, to any unobjectionable person, lay or clerical, before these controversies arose, it is beyond question that the National Board could not refuse to sanction the transfer. How, then, can it be asserted that the management was inherent in his office as parish priest ? He could bestow it, just as he could bestow his plate or his library, and continue parish priest of Callan still. To be the manager of the parish schools is no more an essential function o a parish priest than to be the parish pound-keeper. (f.) The very fact that the assent of the School Committee was essential to the appointment in one case is, of itself, enough to prove that the office is anything but an ecclesiastical one. For no Roman Catholic doctrine or practice is more clearly recognised than that the hierarchy of the Church are the only fountain of spiritual authority ; and that no lay organisation, whether it be school committee or education board, has the power to confer any ecclesiastical prerogative or jurisdiction. (g.) It is a mistake to have described Mr. (late Judge) Longfield as one of "the most experienced members of the Board," or one of the " men who have all learned their duties as Commissioners in the School of Archbishop Whately." Mr. Longfield was appointed Commissioner, 12th August, 1853, after the Archbishop had left the Board. He was chosen to fill one of the vacancies created by the secession of the Archbishop, Mr. Blackburne, and Parson Greene. 1Vhatever his experience may be, his judgment is astray and his reasoning fallacious in this business. His case in, point, from the Board of Charitable Donations and Bequests, is altogether irrelevant. " If a testator bequeathed an annuity of £50 a year upon trust, to pay it to the parish priest of Callan, for the education of the poor, that Board would, as a matter of course, pay the annuity, not to Mr. O'Keeffe, but to Mr. Martin, the administrator appointed by the trustees." (h.) Of course they would. And if the National Board had covenanted to make grants to the parish priest of Callan for certain schools in his parish, they should pay them to Mr. Martin also. But the Board did no such thing. They voted grants to Mr. O'Keeffe personally ; to his successor in the event of his death ; to anyone in whose favour he may resign ; or to anyone else whom such party may choose to set over them ; to the manager or managers of these schools, whether priest, parson, or layman, as the case may be. This makes all the difference in the world. There is clearly no analogy whatever between the two cases. (i.)

Equally irrelevant is the reference to the Poor Law Commis- sioners, who " felt compelled to act in this sense, in relation to Father O'Keeffe's chaplaincy to the Union of Callan." If there were any parity between the two cases of chaplain and school manager, laymen would be competent to act as workhouse chap- lains, which is manifestly absurd. Mr. O'Keeffe's functions as chaplain were to preach, celebrate mass, and administer sacra- ments. When his faculty to do all or any of these things was taken from him, of course he was incompetent to officiate as chaplain ; and his removal became a necessity. But there was nothing to disqualify him from acting as school manager. (k.) There is another and a marked difference between the procedure of the two Boards. Before the Poor Law Commissioners removed Mr. O'Keeffe from the chaplaincy they gave him ample notice. They carefully considered all that he had to urge in his defence. They did not, like the Commissioners of National Education, condemn him without notice, hearing, or trial, upon mere ex parte evidence. (1.) "Most solid and authoritative precedents," so confidently relied on, have no bearing upon the case. There are many points of divergence between every one of them and the case of Mr. O'Keeffe.

1. Rev. Mr. Keenan constructively admitted the fact of his sus- pension by appealing against it. The case was publicly investi- gated by Primate Crony, assisted by Bishop Donvir ; and the evidence fully reported in the newspapers of the time. The dispute was put an end to by Mr. Keenan's death, under suspicious circumstances, in Rome, whither he had gone to prosecute his appeal. The Board investigated the matter carefully. Protests and resolutions of local parties were considered ; the local inspector instructed to inquire " with the utmost discretion and caution ;" and an officer sent down for the purpose. The whole business occupied nearly a year. On Mr. O'Keeffe's suspension being noti- fied, he was removed at once, and the reasonable proposal of Mr. Justice Morris rejected. In one case the suspension was admitted, in the other it was denied. Though admitted, there was patient inquiry ; though denied, there was no inquiry at all. (m.) 2. Rev. Mr. Wilson admitted the fact of his deposition. (n.) Mr. Justice Morris "pointed out that Mr. O'Keeffe denied the alle- gation that he had been suspended, and he read the pleadings in an action then and still pending in the Court of Queen's Bench, in which the very question whether he was suspended was in issue." And it is a question yet to be ascertained.

3. Rev. Mr. O'Farrell was suspended " for several years," and retained as school manager all the time. Two letters of Bishop Kilduff, 16th and 26th August, 1862, are conveniently "not now forthcoming." Perhaps one or other of them may have revealed the fact that Mr. O'Farrell was insane at the time. He was soon after tried at the Carrick-on-Shannon assizes, before Mr. Justice Keogh, on a charge which painfully proved that he had been utterly bereft of reason ; soon he was sent to a lunatic asylum, under a warrant from the Lord-Lieutenant. The presumption is that he was deprived of the management, not because of his suspension, but his unhappy mental state. (o.)

4. Rev. Mr. Sheridan's case is equally foreign to the point. Although " suspended from all sacerdotal functions in his parish," it is by no means certain that he was removed from the manage- ment of schools in it. The Rev. Mr. Fulham, administrator, does not appear to have been recognised in his stead. The appoint- ment was referred to the School Committee. There was some difference of opinion among them. The majority were disposed not to disturb Mr. Sheridan. The correspondence concludes with an expectation of an amiable adjustment. The whole transaction proves nothing one way or the other. (p.)

There is no use in mystifying the matter or raising false issues. The complaint against the National Board is not so much the- removal of Mr. O'Keeffe from the management of schools at Callan, as the fact that it was done without notice, without trial,. without affording any means of defence or explanation. Their transgression was, as Mr. Justice Lawson described it, " to con- demn a person unheard, and to deprive him of a civil right, without giving him notice of any such intention." The learned judge " has been so far biassed by a very vehement personal sympathy" as to suggest that "such a course was not only con- trary to British law, but even to national justice." Surely the House of Commons will not permit a Board which they entrust: every year with a large amount of public money to degenerate into a star-chamber or a club of petty factionists ; or that those who co-operate with them in the exercise of a high trust are to be ignominiously discarded, without a trial such as the British Constitution decrees to the meanest malefactor.—I am, Sir, &c., JUSTICE TO IRELAND.

[(a. and c.) We probably overstated the case in using ex officia in its strict legal sense, though we believe that many of the parish- priest patrons are patrons even in the legal sense ex officio, as we show below. What is, however, always true, and all we need have said, is that the parish priest is chosen because his office en- sures him the kind of confidence which the policy of the Board from its very origin under the late Lord Derby has always re- quired. Our correspondent omits to quote Rule 9. Here, the

managership is designated a "trust." And the Board reserve to

themselves whether the person proposed is a "fit" person to exercise the trust. In the case of a school, notoriously parochial, built by the parish, in existence probably long before the

National system was established, the Board, recognising the manager- ship as a trust, would never dream of accepting any one else as the

manager in succession to a parish priest than the succeeding parish priest himself, unless, indeed, the in-coming priest declined to undertake the management. The case referred to in paragraph 3 of the letter, that of the Bishop of Derry, is an illustration, not a confutation of this. For more than a century the rectors of Camus-juxta-Mourne had been managers of the parochial school of Strabane. Dr. Alexander, when rector, connected the school with the Board. In the year 1867 Dr. Alexander became Bishop of Derry. His successor in the rectorship, the Rev. Mervyn Wilson, it would appear, had conscientious scruples against the National system. The Bishop, the parish being in his diocese, continued to manage the school. There was nothing contrary to the course of ecclesiastical succession or authority in this. We believe, however, that the Rev. Mervyn Wilson is now acting as the manager. The school has never gone out of the clerical succession.

(b.) Look at Rule 6. " When a school is vested in the Com- missioners, the name of the patron is inserted in the lease." If

the name so inserted is that of a priest, then his clerical successor, by right of law as well as rule, succeeds to him. If, as Sir Alexander Macdonnell states, a clergyman inherits, as it were, the management from his predecessors in his own church, via what comes the inheritance ? Undoubtedly ex officio, guti priest.

(d). Succession in parochial schools from clergyman to clergyman is, as a matter of fact., invariable. In the case of a Wesleyan minister who is changed to some other district, his nomination of his suc- cessor is the evidence the Board receives of identity, 'Rm., of the succeeding clergyman. The new minister always succeeds.

(e.) The controversy has relation to parochial or congregational schools. No priest or minister in his senses would divest the

parish or congregation-of schools established and maintained by parochial or congregational funds. If be attempted to do it, and the parish or congregation reclaimed, the Board would doubtless back the parish or congregation.

(f.) There is no parity of reasoning between the case of the book club, &c., and that of a school. The school is part of the ecclesiastical machinery of a parish, the book clubs, &c., are not.

(g.) School-committee schools are specially provided for in the rules. They are not parochial in the ecclesiastical point of view.

(h.) Why does our correspondent omit to say that the certificate of the Bishop is conclusive in the case of the Bequest Board ?

(i.) This assumes that Mr. O'Keeffe originally obtained con- nection with the Board personally as Mr. O'Keeffe. But he did

not. He obtained that connection wholly and entirely from his position as P.P. Had he come to Callan in 1863 as a merchant instead of a P.P., we never should have heard of him in connection with the parochial schools—nor is it at all probable that we should have heard of him, even in the case of the two schools under the

Committee—who have, we believe, hitherto in all cases nominated the P.P.

(k.) "But there was nothing to disqualify him from acting as school manager." This is not the opinion of Catholics, nor could it be of many of the parishioners, especially as upon a manager devolves the right of determining whether any, and if any, what religious instruction is to be given in a school.

(1.) The Poor Law Commissioners declined emphatically to investigate the cause of suspension. They took the certificate as final. So did the National Board.

(m.) The Rev. Mr. O'Keeffe has never denied that he was sus- pended. It is the validity of the suspension he combats. Even that much, however, he has never done in his case with the Edu- cation Board. In the matter of the suspension of Mr. Keenan, in Dr. Whately's time, we are assured that there was no investigation whatever undertaken by the Board.

(n.) Mr. Wilson admitted the suspension, but denied its validity.

(o.) We believe that none of the information was ever in the possession of the Board. It is surely a very unworthy and ludicrous imputation on the Board, and especially upon its Secretaries, who prepared the return, to insinuate that the Bishop's letters have been suppressed. The substance of the Bishop's letters—as the return shows—is found in the minutes.

(p.) Mr. Fulham was, we believe, appointed in succession to Mr. Sheridan. The Pim Return did not, by its terms, elicit in every case the name of the successor of the deposed clergyman.— ED. Spectator.]