HC Deb 22 March 1875 vol 223 cc146-7
MR. SULLIVAN

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If it is true that in the "Instructions to Inspectors on the Examination of Children in Public Elementary Schools," issued by the Education Department (England) on the 8th May 1871, the following instruction is laid down:— You should reckon the discipline of a School imperfect in which a certain amount of drill is not part of the School routine: If time is set down in the 'Time-Table' for drill, you should see the boys put through their exercises; Whether it is true that in Ireland a monitor, teacher, or inspector of Schools would be liable to prosecution and imprisonment for teaching, inspecting or acting in a like manner; whether it is true that, under the "New Code (England)," under the headings "Grants to Evening Schools, Articles 106–112, Calculation of Attendance," it is laid down (in order to secure the Capitation Grant),— 24. Attendance of boys at drill under a competent instructor for not more than two hours a week and forty hours in the year, may, in a Day School he counted as a School attendance; Whether it is true that "such attendance of boys" at drill in Ireland, whether in School or elsewhere, would render them liable to prosecution and imprisonment; whether prosecution and punishment of boys of sixteen and seventeen years of age in Ireland cannot be cited in which no other offence was charged against them than that of "keeping step" on a public road; and, whether boys removing from a School at Liverpool to one in Dublin will carry along with them to Ireland the immunity from prosecution, and the State encouragement to drill under which they had studied in England?

SIR MICHAEL HICKS BEACH

, in reply, said, that the hon. Member had in this instance specified very exactly the points on which he required information. Any Question, however, which related to the proceedings of the English Education Department, or to the instructions issued by that Department, ought to be addressed to his noble Friend the vice President of the Council (Viscount Sandon). For his own part, he had no means of obtaining the information in that respect other than those open to the hon. Member. But with respect to Ireland, it was by no means true that a monitor, teacher, or Inspector of Schools would be liable to prosecution and imprisonment for teaching, inspecting, or acting in the manner alluded to. Nor were children attending and learning school drill liable to such "prosecution and imprisonment." As a matter of fact, the discipline of the National Schools in Ireland would be considered imperfect, unless it embraced a certain amount of drill as part of the school exercise. As to the cases of boys of 16 and 17 years of ago being punished for keeping step on a public road, no such case had ever come under his notice; but school drill was a different thing from military drill for disloyal purposes. Boys removed from Liverpool to Dublin enjoyed in the matter of school drill the same advantages, he believed, as they would do in this country.

MR. SULLIVAN

gave Notice that on an early day he would call attention to the matter, to enable the Chief Secretary to ascertain where the convictions referred to were carried out.