FATHER O'KEEFFE IN PARLIAMENT.
THE evidence collected by the Select Committee on the Callan Schools has not verymuch advanced what it was not likely it would advance,—our knowledge of the question at issue between the Commissioaers of National Education and Father O'Keeffe. But it has, we suspect, had the result of opening some few Members' eyes to the real danger of this interference with the Irish Board of National Education, and to the probable result of any Parliamentary censure on them. Hitherto, as Sir Alex- ander Macdonnell, the resident Commissioner, implies in his very brief, but pertinent evidence, the Soard of Education has been the breakwater between the Church of Rome and the National Schools. "I was Commissioner of Education for thirty-two years, and I can say with the greatest delibera- tion that upon no one occasion did I ever know a single change made by the National Board, or an improvement intro- duced, under Catholic dictation or pressure. I have lamented over and over again that our improvements did not take place sooner, improvements which were calculated to satisfy the Roman Catholic interests, but I never recollect a single instance in which we were induced by Catholic dictation or pressure to do anything which our consciences did not think necessary or just." And as a consequence of this firmness and perfect in- dependence, it is known to everybody who has compared the Irish national schools in Catholic districts, with the English Catholic schools, that the former are far more care- fully protected against undue interference with the sound secular teaching of the schools than the latter. The Eng- lish Catholic Schools reflect far more distinctly in their general management the views of the Roman hierarchy on questions of general education, than the Irish National Schools. And though, of course, the English Catholic priests are, as a rule, men of much higher education than the Irish Catholic priests, and need the check of the State less, yet cer- tainly also they are far less under the check of the State, and manage their schools in matters of general education far more as they choose, than the the Irish Catholic managers. If, however, the National system in Ireland were to collapse,— and this Parliamentary attack upon the Board for deferring too much to the ecclesiastical principles of the various sects, is jest the kind of thing which may cause a collapse,—and a volun- tary system to be substituted for it, we should soon see that the Catholic schools in Ireland were not to be compared for a moment to the Catholic schools in England. It is the National Board, and that alone, which saves Irish education from reflect- ing the wishes of a half-educated Catholic priesthood. By a carefully considered policy of perfect impartiality as between all the various religious bodies of Ireland, and of careful deference to the ecclesiastical principles of all Churches interested in religious education, the Board has won the
genuine confidence of the religious teachers of Ireland, and its salutary influence over the secular education given in the various schools can hardly be overrated. If Par- liament should adopt Mr. Bouverie's censure on the Board, and the Government should accept that censure,— an event which would not surprise us,—we take it that the result would be, as a matter of course, Lord O'Hagan's resignation, perhaps the resignation of others of the Board, and too probably also a recast of its principles in rela- tion to clerical managers in revolt against the authori- ties of their Church,—a recast which would determine the Roman hierarchy to withdraw their support from the national schools, and go in for a strictly denominational system of primary education. It may be said that Parliament might legislate against such a system, and drive Irish children into primary schools disapproved by their Church. No one knows either Ireland or Parliament who thinks such a result for a moment possible. If the Irish priesthood tell the people that it has become a sin to send their children to the National Schools, the children will not go, and Parliament would be just as likely to intro- duce slavery into Ireland, as to force them to go. A satisfactory system of national education in Ireland depends on a general accord between the Educational policy of the State and the Catholic Church. The Board of National Edu- cation has secured hitherto that kind of accord by the policy which it is now proposed to condemn. And if it is con- demned, the result is but too likely to be—not increased influence for the State on Irish Education, but the total loss of its influence. Mr. Bouverie will find, if he succeeds, that by a movement in the direction of Bismarck he has disturbed the delicate equilibrium of a very sensitive mechanism, and produced an irresistible reaction in the direction of the Pope and Cardinal Cullen. Certainly, if any one is likely to rejoice in the result of the present attack, it is not the Germanisers, but the Romanisers, not the disloyal Catholics, but the extreme Infallibilists.
And we cannot doubt that if the policy of the Board is to be reversed in relation to the treatment of schools attached to a special religious organisation, i. e., schools originally subscribed for by the people who worship in a given place, and who establish the schools as a religious duty im- posed on them by their faith, there will be very good ground for the hostility of the ecclesiastical authorities of all Irish Churches. Mr. Justice Fitzgerald in his evidence puts the case very simply thus :—" I had ascertained for myself that the schools in question were what I should call parochial schools, i.e., the three schools in Callan were schools which have been built by public subscription ; that they were not the schools of the parish priest at all, but had been built by public subscription ; and there were two country schools in the same parish ; one of those in the country district was actually built in the chapel ground ; I am not quite certain whether both are not ; but in my judgment they were all five properly described, though not technically so, as parochial schools, as schools to which the Rev. Mr. O'Keeffe had succeeded as manager in his character of parish priest ; I do not mean to say at all ex officio (there is no such thing as an ex-officio under our Board), but that he had succeeded as parish priest ; and I found also and knew that he had succeeded his predecessor, who had not died, but had gone elsewhere, who had again succeeded his predecessor, who had succeeded his predecessor ; in fact, there were four successions from one parish priest to another from the time that they were originally brought by the parish priest in con- nection with the Board, down to the Rev. Mr. O'Keeffe." Consequently, Mr. Justice Fitzgerald, regarding these schools as schools intended by the Catholic public who subscribed for them to be to all intents and pur- poses schools in connection with the Roman Catholic body in Ireland, did not think the Board could properly keep Mr. O'Keeffe as manager, when it was known that he had been suspended by his ecclesiastical superiors, until -the issue between them had been settled. And surely that was an• act of policy, not only, as this evidence proves, in the strictest keeping with all the Board's precedents, but intrinsi- cally reasonable. The object is to have a manager who will be regarded with perfect confidence by the public which built or founded the schools. Mr. O'Keeffe is at variance with the ecclesiastical authorities whom that
public regards as their guides in these matters. No doubt some of Mr. O'Keeffe's flock were personally attached to him, and thought his suspension unjust ; but others, and, we believe, the majority, went with their Church, and bowed to the authorities. Clearly, under these circumstances, Mr. O'Keeffe was not the man to command the confidence of those by whom the school was built ; and if the Board were not only to maintain that he was, but to adopt the same principle in other cases, it would be fairly asserted that, instead of acting, so far as possible, in concert with the great religious bodies of Ire- land, they were doing their best to encourage dissension and to invite revolt. No one could blame the ecclesiastical autho- rities of the Roman Church if they took that view of such a policy. It is quite certain they will take it. And we hold, therefore, that if Parliament and the Government accept Mr. Bouverie's censure of the Board for impartially pursuing, through a period of thirty or forty years, a very sound and wise policy, they will simply strike a heavy blow at the chief bulwark of sound secular education in Ireland. No success- ful system of Irish education can be carried on without the hearty co-operation of the various Irish Churches. Nor can that co-operation be assured without steady adherence to the rule of policy which has drawn down upon it the very blind and blundering censure of Mr. Bouverie,—whose blow, though meant for the Roman priesthood, will strike the secular education of Ireland.
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