§ MR. DAWSONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the National Schools of Ireland are conducted on the mixed system; how far technical education is carried out in these schools; whether Reformatories and Industrial Schools are purely denominational; whether technical instruction forms a largo portion of the education in these schools; and, whether he will cause to be extended to the schools which are not intended for the vagrant and criminal classes the same religious privileges and technical instruction which are afforded to Industrial Schools and Reformatories?
§ MR. TREVELYANAccording to the fundamental rule of the Commissioners of National Education, the object of the system is to afford combined literary and moral and separate religious instruction to children of all persuasions as far as possible in the same schools. With regard to technical instruction, the rule of the Commissioners is to encourage it in all suitable cases. In all rural boys' schools the manual of agriculture is a compulsory subject, and in the case of 73 schools to which farms are attached, special grants are made for the encouragement of practical agricultural education. Practical dairy instruction is given at the farms at Cork and Glasnevin. In all schools in which female teachers are employed, the girls are taught needlework, for proficiency in which over 128,000 results fees were paid in 1882. There are also 54 schools to which grants are made for instruction in special subjects, such as lace work, embroidery, crotchet, &c. Cookery and domestic economy are taught to the students in the training colleges of Marlborough Street and Bagot Street, that they in turn may teach their pupils when they take charge of schools; and the students of the male training college in Marlborough Street are, with a similar object, taught the use of tools. Reformatory and industrial schools are strictly denominational, and technical education formed a large portion of the education in these schools. The last paragraph of the hon. Member's Question opens up a 1870 field for consideration much too large to be satisfactorily dealt with in answer to a Question. Much difficulty would exist in the way of increasing the technical education now given, while to make the national schools essentially denominational would be a complete subversion, not only of the Irish national school system, but also of the English and Scotch systems of public education.