The EARL of CLANCARTYMy Lords, I regret to have to call your Lordships' attention, and that of Her Majesty's Government, to the undue delay, I fear I must call it the very gross neglect, there has been about furnishing your Lordships with the information respecting the operation of the National School system in Ireland, for 867 which you agreed to an address to the Crown so long ago as the 7th of last March. The circumstances under which the information was called for, and readily promised on the part of the Government, were such as to have rendered it peculiarly incumbent upon the officials of the National Board to have used every exertion, to have afforded it with the utmost promptitude, unless they were sensible, as I believe they certainly were, that the returns called for would have convicted them of having put forward in their last annual report a statement of the successful working of the system of National education, altogether at variance with the true facts of the case. When I moved the House to call for those returns, I did so for the purpose of enabling your Lordships to judge, on the evidence of official documents, of the correctness of the statements and opinions I had expressed condemnatory of the system. With the last report of the Commissioners in my hands, I showed your Lordships that the number of children they had reported as actually under education in their schools was a gross exaggeration; that their schools were not in fact attended by nearly half as many as they reported; and that of the number really under instruction little more than one-tenth were kept at school after eleven years of age; so that the instruction given could be of any permanent advantage to but very few. For proof of this I had no need no need to call for any evidence, for it was already supplied by the returns of the Board's own inspectors, which were given in the appendix; but having no official documents to produce in support of what I further stated, I called for that information from the office of the Commissioners, which they are so reluctant to furnish, that would have established in the minds of your Lordships the opinion I had expressed of the total failure of the system of education. I expressed my belief from facts within my own knowledge, that there was little, if any, united education of the poor; that is to say, very little union of Protestant and Roman Catholic children in the same school-room, which it was the great object of the system to effect, even at the cost, to the character of a Christian people, of prohibiting the use of the Bible. The Commissioners were at the time in possession of returns upon this subject, which had been called for by the late Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but which they suppressed from their report, and have since withheld from your Lordships, although 868 they have been expressly called for. I further stated to your Lordships that such religious instruction as it was intended the children should receive in common, was not given them, namely, the reading of certain scripture extracts, and a volume of sacred poetry. This has been confirmed by the testimony of the noble Earl by whom the National Board was twenty-two years ago established. If the Commissioners are not aware, as they ought to be, in what schools these extracts and sacred poetry, at first obligatory, but afterwards only particularly recommended by them, are used, a short circular to the school patrons would have enabled them to have supplied your Lordships with the returns you called for. I further showed that the National education system had not received that aid of local subscription, by which its popularity and acceptance with the country was to have been tested. The Commissioners must have, in the archives of their office, records of the local aids and subscriptions annually contributed in support of their schools, otherwise they could not determine what amount it was necessary for them to contribute from the public grant. There is, however, the same withholding of information from your Lordships upon this point as upon every other that you have sought to be informed upon. The returns which were called for, would, I believe, have fully established the statements I submitted to your Lordships on the 7th of last March; if not, they would have been so far a vindication of the Commissioners, and of the system of education confided to their management, from the charges I made against them. On this account it might have been expected that diligence would have been used in getting the returns at once prepared; but, instead of that, nearly five months have elapsed without any return whatever having been made to your Lordships' address. I am unwilling to say that this delay has arisen from any wilful disrespect to this House, or from any deliberate purpose of evading a compliance with its orders; but the case calls, at least, for explanation on the part of Her Majesty's Government. Along with the representation I have felt it my duty to make to your Lordships about the returns that have been withheld, I must express my astonishment that the noble Earl at the head of Her Majesty's Government should—notwithstanding the fact universally admitted that the National system of education has failed of accomplishing the ends for which 869 it was professedly instituted—notwithstanding the unhappily debased condition of the poor population of Ireland in intellectual and moral attainments—should have lately expressed it as his deliberate opinion that the National system of education was the greatest blessing ever conferred upon Ireland. My Lords, what are the proofs of it? In what can it be said to have proved a blessing to the Irish people? Is it a blessing to Ireland that her peasantry are the most illiterate of any to be found in the Queen's dominions? Yet the education of the poor has been for the last twenty-two years carried on under this system. Has the British Government no greater blessing to bestow upon the people of Ireland than the enforcement of a Papal bull prohibiting the teaching of the Bible in the Irish National schools? If so, then God forbid that the British Government should be the dispenser of any more blessings to Ireland! In one respect, my Lords, I will admit that the National system has proved a blessing; for when its principles were announced, and the clergy of the Established Church were called upon to assist in carrying out a plan of education which restricted them from freely teaching in these schools to the children of the poor the great truths of Christianity; this outrage upon their character as ministers of the Gospel awakened them from that state of supineness with which the Church in Ireland had been till then justly reproached; and the result was, that they not only declined co-operation in the proposed plan, but, at the sacrifice of every assistance from the State, established a society for upholding scriptural education in the country, in connexion with which, as affording uniformity of action and properly regulated inspection, their own parochial schools for giving Christian education to the poor around them have been placed. The consistent stand made by the Irish clergy against the principles upon which the National system was instituted, reflects, I must say, the highest credit upon that body; and the success that has attended their efforts, in spite of many discouraging circumstances, to carry out the principle of combining religious with secular instruction for all who are willing to come to their schools, will, I trust, be appreciated by the Government in the reconsideration of the question of education in Ireland—for reconsidered it must be, now that the men of most weight and respectability upon the Board have felt it necessary to resign their 870 seats. Of the exact cause of the disagreement among the Commissioners, I am not aware; if it is, as some say, a mere difference of opinion as to whether Whately's Evidences of Christianity should be read in common or not, I am, certainly, surprised that such a question should have led to such consequences. Able as the work certainly is as a medium of Christian instruction, it was not worth contending for after the highest evidence of Christianity—namely, the Bible—had been discarded; it was a "straining a gnat, and swallowing a camel." But if the difference turned, as others say, upon the question whether the objection of any child to a particular book on religious grounds should be a sufficient reason for restricting the use of that book to the hours of religious instruction, there was, I must say, ample ground for the seceding Commissioners to separate from a majority who could support so unreasonable a proposition. The result, I trust, will be, that the Government will see the necessity of reviewing the plan of education, and making such changes in it as justice and reason require, and as are necessary for the best interests of the people. I have only now, in conclusion, to request that the noble Earl will state for what reason no return has yet been made to the Addresses of this House of the 7th of March and of the 18th of April respectively, for information connected with the state of education in Ireland?
§ The EARL of ABERDEENassured the noble Earl that there was not the slightest reluctance on the part of the Government to the production of the returns; it would be absurd to suppose otherwise. That the returns had been unduly delayed it was impossible to deny; but he was unable to account for the delay. The returns were very voluminous, and the persons at the disposal of the Board of Education were not numerous; this, perhaps, might be the reason why the returns had not been prepared. Nevertheless, the delay had been so great, that an inquiry should be instituted into the case. As regarded a declaration of his to which the noble Earl had adverted, he adhered to the opinion that the National system of education was the greatest blessing ever conferred on Ireland; and it was to be recollected that it originated with a noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby), who was a friend of the noble Earl who now found fault with it.
The EARL of WICKLOWsaid, he thought as the Archbishop of Dublin, Chief Baron Greene, and the late Lord Chancellor Blackburne—the three members of the Educational Board to whom the Church looked with the greatest confidence, were reported to have withdrawn from it, the Government ought to adopt means to remodel it, and reduce its management into accordance with the original constitution of the system; for every change that had taken place had been more and more at variance with it. Unquestionably it had failed to carry out the object as a combined system of education; but still, even assuming that it had been confined to the Roman Catholic portion of the population, he conceived that it had proved one of the greatest blessings the country had enjoyed. It was impossible that they could have received a more excellent education than that afforded by the Board under Government control, and that was a great national benefit.
The EARL of DONOUGHMOREsaid, it could not be denied that the system had failed as a system of national and united education: indeed, the original idea of a united education had practically been already abandoned, and he would recommend the Government to abandon the doctrine altogether. Surely the Government must by this time have perceived that a system of united education in Ireland was not only unsuited to the condition of the country, but was impossible of execution. The aggressive action of the Roman Catholic Church, under the influence of its foreign head, had been directed to this end with undeviating energy, and would defeat any system that any Government could establish to secure a system of united education. There was a simple and easy mode, how ever, of getting over the difficulty, and that was by the Government undertaking secular instruction, and that alone, leaving the patrons of schools to provide for such religious education as they thought proper the Government grants and the system o inspection being applied only to secular instruction, and proportioned to the progress made by the pupils in different schools—that is to say, that if upon a periodical inspection it was ascertained that in any school a certain number had made a certain progress in education, the school should receive a certain amount of aid proportionate to the number of scholars; but that as to religious instruction the Government Board should have nothing to do with it. The Roman Catholics had always declared against a 872 united system of education. A gentleman, who signed himself "Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin," and apostolic delegate (in defiance of the Ecclesiastical Titles Acts and other laws of the realm), had especially insisted on this point, and declared it to be a fixed doctrine and duty of the Catholic Church that Catholic children should not be educated in conjunction with Protestant children; but that Catholic children should be educated only by Catholic teachers. It was clear, therefore, that the so-called National system was unsuited to a country so Roman Catholic as Ireland, and could not by any possibility prove successful. As to other religious bodies, the same feeling to a great extent prevailed, though not perhaps accompanied by the same amount of prejudice. The Government ought to consider the question carefully, and they would discover that there was no effective mode of educating the people except by leaving religious opinions free.
§ LORD REDESDALEsaid, he hoped it would not be supposed that there were any great number of Peers on his side of the House who were favourable to the principle of a national system of secular education uncombined with any religious instruction. If Government grants were to be confined to secular education alone, there would soon be schools without any sacred instruction at all, and he should consider such a system anything but a benefit or a boon to the country.
§ The EARL of HARROWBYsaid, he thought the English system would be best adapted to Ireland—a system under which religious instruction was amply provided for, and Roman Catholic as well as Protestant schools received Government aid. As to the idea of an united system of instruction for Roman Catholic and Protestant children, it was one of the wildest that had ever entered into the mind of man to imagine. The National system had perhaps produced some beneficial effects, but as an united system it had utterly failed; and no system could properly be continued in which the Church of Ireland was practically deprived of all share. It was unjust and unseemly that the clergy of that Church, merely because they had not approved of a system of education the Government had chosen to select, should have no assistance from the State, and be subjected to obloquy and odium for maintaining at the sacrifice of their own interests the sacred principle of scriptural education.
The EARL of DONOUGHMOREex- 873 plained that he had no wish to see a secular system of education, but a system in which the State only supplied secular instruction.