Yesterday week there was a discussion of some interest in
the House of Lords on the inadequate training of the teachers in the Irish National Schools. Of 9,900 teachers, the Irish Secre- tary had admitted that 6,100 were totally untrained, while even the trained teachers had had on an average only about five months' training, instead of the two years' which are considered the minimum period necessary in England. Of course the National Schools cannot be what they are even in England, with such teachers, and what is urgently wanted is a better supply of training-schools or colleges, and better payment for the teachers who pass through them,--since Irish masters or mistresses who are thoroughly trained will be no more willing to starve on the salaries they now get than any other skilled labourers. No doubt the remedy is, first, more non-vested training-colleges, established as in England by voluntary agencies, but inspected and recognised by the Irish National Board of Education,—and then a system of payment by results, but a moderate, and not a doctrinaire one. The prejudices which prevent the recognition, and therefore the foundation of these non-vested training-schools, are prejudices of the kind which have so long stood in the way of all efficient government in Ireland.
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