Lord Carberypresented a petition from St. Nicholas, in the city of Cork, for the encouragement of schools in connection with the church of Ireland. He considered the present system of National Education to be defective and erroneous, and would be glad to see the prayer of the petitioners receive their Lordships approbation and support.
The Earl of Clancartywould take ad 172 vantage of the presentation of those petitions of the noble Lord to draw their Lordships' attention to the seventh report of the Commissioners of Education, in which, after stating that they had established a model farm at Glasniven, they declared that no assistance would be afforded to any institutions, in the way of agricultural instruction, unless they were in connection with some elementary national school. If that rule were acted on, many persons in Ireland would be deprived of the benefit of the model farm. He approved of the institution of the model farm, but he did not approve of the benefit being confined to institutions connected with the national schools. He did not think that the Commissioners of Education ought to have the monopoly of the Parliamentary grant, and he considered the granting of public money for the purpose of instruction in husbandry and agriculture, was an invasion of the province of the Royal Dublin Society, which was incorporated for the specific purpose of promoting instruction in arts, agriculture, and manufactures. He hoped their Lordships would not allow the thirst for agricultural education, which now prevailed, to be made a means of forcing on the people any particular system of religious or literary education. The present system had not been successful, it had not given satisfaction to either Roman Catholics or Protestants. He therefore, hoped that if the Parliament chose to grant any additional sum for the Education of the Irish poor, it would be on a system more liberal and extended than the present, which placed the Established Church in the position of a dissenting body.
§ Lord Cloncurryhad objected to the Kildare-street society, because the system on which its schools were conducted was objectionable to the feelings of the Roman Catholics. He approved of the present system of National Education in Ireland, and he must remind the House that this country owed a great debt of Education to Ireland; for during the space of a century it made it capital for any priest or pastor to teach their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. He said, that the Church of Ireland, which had done nothing to improve the condition of the people ought not now to come forward and take away a portion of the small grant, which was applied for that purpose.
§ Lord Monteaglesaid, in the speech of the noble Earl (Earl of Clancarty) he had divided the subject into two questions; 173 the question of the agricultural schools and the national school. Nothing was more important than an agricultural education to the people of Ireland. He was sure that the Government, in introducing that education, would endeavour to do so in the most practicable manner possible. If their national schools required alteration in principle, which he did not believe, let them alter the principle; but if they set up Protestant schools in Ireland, he would say that they would render every National School now established a distinct Roman Catholic school. When Sir Robert Peel was Secretary for Ireland, he recommended the necessity of bringing together all classes of the community in one common school. Many of the noble Lords who were in favour of this double education, complained of the College of Maynooth; but what would they say if every one of the schools now in existence should become a little Maynooth? He was strongly of opinion that no grant should be allowed towards the establishment of schools in exclusive connection with the Church, as the present National Schools were open alike to Protestants and Catholics.
The Archbishop of Armaghsaid, that the national system was protested against by seventeen of the prelates of the Irish Church, not from any political causes, but because they thought that it was founded on the principle of excluding the reading of the Scriptures from the schools, and that was a principle to which no Protestant clergyman could agree. The practical result of the system was that in these schools there was an actual exclusion of Protestants. He might mention that in the five schools which were in the town of Drogheda, there was not a single Protestant at any one of them. Now, be must be permitted to ask, was that a fair system of education? What had the Protestants of Ireland done that they were to be excluded in this manner from the benefit of the grant? There were, at present, 70,000 children in the Kildare-street Society Schools, and 20,000 of these were Roman Catholics, and their parents did not object to their reading the Scriptures. He, therefore, must express his hope that some change would be made in the system.
The Earl of Wicklowsaid, that the system was now completely in the hands of the Roman Catholics, and that being the case, it was the duty of their Lordships and of Parliament to consider, now that 174 there was no prospect of that united education which was so much desired, whether they would allow the present system to continue. He considered, that modifications might be made in it if the Roman Catholics would divest themselves of their hostility to the Protestants. He hoped, the Government would give some attention to the numerous petitions which had been presented to Parliament in favour of some grant to the Church Education Society. He hoped, that the Protestant Legislature of this country would in some degree sanction that religion in Ireland. He had always voted for the removal of the Catholic disabilities; and still this was a Protestant Legislature, and he hoped that some portion of the grant would be applied to Protestant purposes. As he was persuaded that the system was not effecting the object which its originators had in view,—namely, an united education of the Protestant and Roman Catholic children of Ireland, he certainly should feel it his duty to support any proposition which might be made for giving a certain sum for the support of the Church Education Society.
The Bishop of Norwichonly wished to say one word in answer to an observation which had fallen from the most rev. Prelate. The most rev. Prelate stated the national system of education in Ireland was one from which the reading of the Scriptures was excluded, and that no Protestant clergyman would support such a system. He (the Bishop of Norwich) thought, that there was a fallacy in that, for he maintained that as large a portion of the Scriptures was introduced into the Irish schools, as was introduced into any national schools in this country which he had visited, and he maintained that the selections used in those Irish schools contained every fundamental doctrine of Christianity— nay, more, every fundamental doctrine of the Church of England. This he maintained, and so far from the board of education in Ireland having any disposition to exclude the Bible, if their Lordships would have the goodness to read the preface to those selections, they would see that they urged upon the teachers and the children to consider the selections of these portions of Scripture as merely introductory to the Scriptures, and that they recommended them to read the Bible from beginning to end.
§ Petitions laid on the Table.