HL Deb 04 July 1864 vol 176 cc686-704
THE EARL OF CLANCARTY

said, in calling the attention of the House to the petitions that have been presented against certain alterations lately made in the rules of the Board of National Education in Ireland in favour of convent schools, as tending to substitute a sectarian for an united system of education, it is right that I should state that, however desirable it undoubtedly is that the poorer classes of different Christian denominations should be unitedly educated, to the extent that such education, based upon Scriptural instruction, may be freely accepted, I have ever considered the principle upon which united education was provided for under the rules of the National Board as most objectionable, and the means vainly resorted to for enforcing its acceptance upon the clergy and Protestants of Ireland to have been utterly unjustifiable. But, while my own opinions are thus opposed to the National system, I am sensible that among those who differ from me, there are many who have given it their support from the belief of its having been devised with much wisdom, and calculated, if faithfully carried out, to confer the greatest benefit upon the country. It is, indeed, pretty generally admitted to have failed of accomplishing what was expected from it; but it has sincere and ardent patrons, who cling to the belief that its admirable staff of Inspectors, its many trained teachers, and its model schools, above all, which are very ably conducted, exhibiting a fair sample of what the National system was designed to be, and where, under the rules of the Commissioners, young persons are trained for the office of teacher, may yet be the means of rendering the system popular and effective over the country. Hence they view with great jealousy any interference with the model schools, or the establishment of rival institutions of an opposite character. Such are the persons that have petitioned the House against the alterations I have referred to in the rules of the National Board, as a departure from the principle upon which the National system was established. They have undoubtedly a right to claim redress at the hands of the Government of whose educational policy they have been the steady supporters; and it is no less clearly the duty of Parliament to require that the large annual grant of more than £300,000 for the education of the poorer classes in Ireland should be faithfully administered, in strict conformity with its fundamental regulations. It is true that since I gave notice of bringing this subject before your Lordships, a Resolution, to the effect That the new rules of the National Board, with regard to the aid to be afforded to convent and monastic schools, are at variance with the principle of the National System of Education, has been negatived by the House of Commons. If, however, report says truth, the subject was discussed in so thin a House as to have been at one time nearly counted out; and the Resolution may, therefore, have been decided upon by persons little acquainted with the subject; but, whatever may have been the cause of the Resolution having been negatived, such a verdict cannot, in the face of the facts of the case, be satisfactory to the public. It is tantamount to a declaration that the National system is properly sectarian, and its design to abet the pretensions of the Church of Rome to the absolute control of the education of the Irish population. But, on the other hand, it may be said that the petitions against the new rules have been but few, and do not indicate any widespread dissatisfaction. They certainly do not, for obvious reasons, come from the great body of the Roman Catholics. The interests of these, or rather of the Roman Catholic Church, in the matter are managed—and they could not be in more able hands—by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The petitions are, in fact, all from the Presbyterian body, except one from the Ulster National Education Society, which includes, along with the name of the Lord Bishop of a great northern diocese, many members of the Established Church; but, though numerically they are few, their importance consists in this, that they represent the views of every intelligent Protestant that takes any real interest in the scheme, so called, of united education. Now, what are the complaints that they have put forward? The Presbyterian petitions, I find, do not materially differ from one another, nor from that of the Ulster Association, which only enters more fully into the particulars of the alterations last year made in the rules of 1855. All express approval of the National system, and of the model schools of the Board, and agree in representing the convent schools as denominational and sectarian, and therefore at variance with the main object of the institution, namely, united education. They point to the rules recently introduced as manifestly designed to render convent schools and monks' schools training institutions for National School teachers, and to supersede the use of the model schools for that purpose; as a consequence of which teachers will be sent forth imbued with sectarian prejudices, instead of being fitly trained, as in the model schools, to carry out a strictly non-sectarian principle of education. The Ulster petition complains of a further distinct preference shown to one religious denomination, in that while clergymen generally are absolutely excluded from discharging the duties of teachers in National Schools, the members of the religious orders of the Church of Rome, whether monks or nuns, are at once recognized as duly qualified for the office, without undergoing any kind of examination. These are grounds I should conceive quite sufficient to call for a complete review of the system, to ascertain whether it is in fact what it originally purposed to be—a system of united education, strictly non-sectarian, and administered with faithful impartiality. I do not wish to prefer a Bill of indictment against the Commissioners, but four members of their own body have found reason to protest against their proceedings with respect to convent schools; and a circumstance came subsequently to light—their suppression of an important public paper bearing directly upon the merits of convent and monastic schools—that appears to me to stamp their conduct with unfaithfulness in the administration of a most important trust. It is necessary to observe that there had been from the beginning a general acquiescence in the very questionable decision the Board early came to of taking convent schools into connection with the National system in the face of the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons of 1825, which distinctly stated that they were unsuited for the purposes of united education; nor were the Commissioners ever reproached for the favour and consideration they showed to the communities of nuns, in admitting their qualifications as teachers without examination. The merits and zealous devotion of the nuns to the charitable duties they undertook, as educators of Roman Catholic poor, no one was disposed to call in question; but when it became plainly the intention of the Commissioners that monks and nuns, without having received any training under the National Board, and holding themselves responsible to none but their ecclesiastical superiors, should be invested with the very important functions of training those who are to teach in the National Schools with which the country is overspread, it was time for the friends of the National system to object. They have accordingly appealed to both Houses of Parliament. The paper I have alluded to as having been suppressed by the Commissioners is the Report of one of their Head Inspectors, Mr. Sheridan, a Roman Catholic, much impressed with the merits of the religious houses within his district, and anxious, in the discharge of the duties of his office, to improve the efficiency of the schools under their superintendence. It is remarkable that this gentleman's Report, written in ignorance of the Commissioners' views, was sent in about the time that they were preparing their new rules for giving increased endowments, extension, and importance, to the convent and monastery schools; but, being clearly condemnatory of the step they were taking, it was withheld from publication in the appendix to their Annual Report, in which it was customary it should have appeared, and it is probable it never would have been produced had it not been called for by an order of the House of Commons. I will, with your Lordships' permission, read what bears immediately on the question of the fitness or unfitness of these schools for what the Commissioners intend to make them— Teachers who are members of religious communities are monks and nuns, and are the teachers of the class of schools called Convent National Schools. The importance of these schools may be measured by the fact that thirty-five of them (from one, having been recently established, no Return was obtained) commanded, in 1860, a gross average daily attendance of 9,105 pupils, or about one-fifth of the gross average daily attendance of all the other 854 National Schools taken together. These teachers are not classified by the Board, nor are they required to submit to an examination, as the Commissioners take for granted that they are sufficiently well educated to discharge the duties of National teachers efficiently; and, in point of fact, it is undeniable that the majority of them—of the nuns especially—are infinitely better educated than the teachers of ordinary National Schools, while it is equally true that they bring to the discharge of their duties a disinterestedness and devotedness to which even the most zealous of the lay teachers can have no claim. It is also undeniable that their schools do an incalculable amount of good. Their pupils receive a moral and religious training of the highest order; they are educated to habits of truth-telling, modesty, order, and cleanliness; and such of them as attend with fair regularity, and continue at school till they reach the upper classes, are sure to receive an excellent literary education, (a.) These teachers very seldom have any opportunity of receiving a technical training as teachers, either before or after making their religious profession; and hence, although they are undoubtedly well-educated in a general sense, I apprehend that many of them have a very limited acquaintance with those improved methods of teaching and school organization which have received the sanction of experience. The want of such technical knowledge is most apparent in their management of the junior classes. (b.) It is a characteristic of these teachers that they are impatient of competition. A rival school, if it can possibly be extinguished, is not allowed to exist. In crowded cities this is, of course, impossible; but in Tralee, Killarney, Newcastle, Kinsale, Queenstown, Middleton, Skibbereen, Bandon, Dingle, and a host of smaller towns, no female schools, except those connected with convents, are to be found; none are permitted to be established. In some of them, indeed, such as Tralee, Killarney, Newcastle, and Dingle, in which there are monks' schools as well as nuns' schools, even the ordinary male National Schools have been proscribed. Now, I am perfectly convinced that in pursuing this policy these worthy teachers are actuated by good motives. They have faith in themselves, as all earnest devoted teachers have, or ought to have; and, believing conscientiously that their own schools are best adapted for the proper training of youth, they consider themselves justified in using all their influence to remove other schools out of the way. But to me such a policy appears most objectionable. It savours of intolerance. In fact—there is no use in mincing words—it is intolerance; and like every other intolerant policy, the evils it gives rise to are more than sufficient to counterbalance the good it is expected to effect. In the first place, in every mass of population, while there is, undoubtedly, a large proportion of children that will attend the schools of religious communities in preference to any other, there is always, on the other hand, a not inconsiderable number of children who would readily attend lay schools, but cannot be induced to frequent those conducted by religious teachers. Let it be understood that I am not alluding to children of different denominations, but only to Catholic children. What is the result? When the lay schools are extinguished, a considerable portion of the children of the poor of the locality receive no education whatever. In the town of Killarney there are two convent schools and one monks' school for the education of the children of a population amounting to nearly 6,000 persons. No day school conducted by lay teachers would be tolerated there. Well, I have it on the best authority that the number of children attending schools in Killarney is considerably less than that of those who never enter a school. In the next place, this impatience of competition not only extinguishes the principle of emulation, which exercises a healthy stimulating influence upon schools as upon individuals, but also leads the conductors of convent schools to admit pupils without limit—without any reference to the available teaching power. The expediency—the necessity—of restricting the attendance to that number which the schools are capable of accommodating conveniently, or the teachers of instructing efficiently, is practically ignored. The school-rooms in most cases are crowded to excess, the attendance out of all proportion to the teaching power. The inevitable result is that in such schools the rate of progress is extremely slow; it takes a very long time for a child to work her way from the lowest to the highest class, and, in point of fact, comparatively few ever reach that goal. The great majority leave the school, and give up schooling, before they have completed half the school course. Now, my Lords, it was certainly an inexcusable act of the Commissioners of National Education to attempt to suppress a public document of this kind, which the Government and the public should have had full opportunity of considering in connection with their new rules. Their disingenuous conduct in this and other matters connected with the alteration of their rules naturally aroused the indignation of the friends of the National system, and at a large and influential meeting held at Belfast, at which the right rev, Prelate opposite was present, it was animadverted upon in very strong terms by the right rev. Prelate himself, as well as by others who addressed the meeting. The changes of the rules were regarded as A violation of a solemn compact entered into with the friends of the National system, a treacherous departure from what they were led to believe would be its rules. They had met together to defend the system, not against the attacks of honourable and open adversaries who conscientiously oppose it, but to guard it against the insidious changes of professing friends.' Such was the tone of indignant rebuke with which the Commissioners' conduct was noticed by their friends in the North. I confess that I did not view their proceedings, except in respect of the disingenuousness by which they were characterized, with any surprise. It must be in the recollection of many of your Lordships that about four years ago there was a kind of crisis in the existence of the National system, in consequence of the declared hostility of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to the principle of the system, and their special denunciation of the model schools, from which they caused a general, and in some instances a total withdrawal of the Roman Catholic pupils. A correspondence thence ensued between them and the Irish Government, in which they so ably pressed their views of the importance of interweaving religious with secular instruction, and of the responsibilities of ministers of the Church when called upon to take part in the education of youth, that Mr. Secretary Cardwell, who conducted the correspondence on the part of the Government, being utterly incapable of answering them, and unwilling to make an open surrender of the principles of the National system, compromised the matter by adding to the number of Roman Catholic members on the Board, so as to give them a predominating influence in its proceedings. Was it to be supposed that a concession so made was to be of no further avail? Certainly not. It was legitimately to be regarded by the Roman Catholic prelates as a means to the attainment of what was not openly granted. The dominant party on the Board immediately proceeded to compass the object of their Church by extending the system of convent education, and investing the religious communities with the duties, hitherto confined to the model schools, of training teachers who would go forth from the convent walls trained in subjection to no other authority than that of the hierarchy. And what is the defence that the Commis- sioners have made since their proceedings have been called in question? They do not attempt to show that they are warranted by any reference to the principles of the National system. In what is termed their explanatory paper they divert attention from the question at issue by giving a history of the convent schools, showing at once how great have been their services, and how much underpaid, about which no question had arisen; but the Attorney General for Ireland himself, one of the Commissioners, is reported to have defended their course of action on the occasion of the late debate in another place, on the ground of precedent, remarking— That the Presbyterian schools of Ulster, under the amended rules of the Board, which were amended in favour of the Presbyterians of Ulster, in his judgment, against the interest of the Board, were to a large extent quite as exclusive as the convent schools. They had all other clergymen excluded from them. Now, if the National system is to be upheld with any pretence of carrying out its original and declared object, it appears to me that it is indispensably necessary, not only that its rules should be carefully reviewed and corrected, but that the Board should be reconstructed, and made a paid, responsible Board; and that all exceptional and exclusive privileges—whether to monks, nuns, or Presbyterians—should be done away with. There can be no doubt that, as at present constituted, there is a preponderant power given to one denomination, that practically invests the Roman Catholic hierachy with a controlling power over the education of the poorer classes over the whole of Ireland. The growth of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has been very apparent ever since, and through means of the institution of the National System of Education. The first and great step towards its present development was when it was announced in the charter letter of its institution, dated October, 1831, and signed "E. G. Stanley," that the reading of the Bible in the National Schools was a vital defect, inasmuch as it was contrary to the principle of the Roman Catholic Church to allow it; that, therefore, the reading of the Sacred Volume was to be excluded from the proposed plan of united education. In lieu of the Bible, however, some Scripture extracts, admirably adapted to assist the moral training of the school children, were ordered to be made use of. But not many years elapsed before the extracts were objected to by the Roman Catholic priests, as the Bible before had been, and in 1839 those extracts of Scripture were, like the Bible, eliminated from the course of instruction provided for general use in the schoolroom. There remained, however, a tablet suspended on the walls of every schoolroom, exhibiting to the view of the assembled children the Ten Commandments. This remnant of the authority of God's Word in the work of united education could not long be tolerated, and therefore, in a subsequent amendment of the rules, it is announced that "the use of the tablet containing the Ten Commandments is not compulsory." How completely Scripture authority was thenceforward excluded from the National system was two years ago plainly acknowledged by the Commissioners. A well-meant effort was made in the beginning of 1862, by the right rev. Prelate opposite and other devoted friends of the National system, to have the rule regarding the use of the Sacred Volume so far relaxed as to enable the managers and teachers of National Schools to make such slight and casual reference to the Word of God, at the time of secular instruction, as occasion should absolutely call for. After considerable endeavours on the part of the Commissioners of Education to evade giving a direct answer to so inconvenient an application, an answer was at length plainly given, and the humiliating duty devolved upon the Lord Lieutenant, the representative of our Protestant Sovereign in Ireland, of conveying to the right rev. Prelate the declaration that to permit any reference whatever to the Word of God, during the hours of combined instruction, would be subversive of the fundamental principle of the National System of Education. Thus, so far as morality is to be inculcated in National Schools, it is to be wholly independent of the moral teaching of the Bible. But, it may be asked, is there not a lesson of morality required to be hung up in every school? Undoubtedly there is, but though it aims at the commendable object of promoting harmony and good-will, how does it go about it? A copy of it that I hold in my hand is given in the Appendix to the last public Report of the Commissioners. It sets out with saying, "Christians should endeavour, as the Apostle Paul commands them, to 'live peaceably with all men;'" then follows the Scripture reference, "Romans, c. 12, v. 17." The same Scripture reference appears also in all the previously published copies of the lesson, but it was a blunder, no doubt accidental, and by persons more conversant with Scripture than the Commissioners appear to have been would have been earlier corrected. The words of the text referred to are, "Recompense to no man evil for evil; provide things honest in the sight of all men." The proper reference for the words quoted would be Romans, c. 12, v. 18, which says "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men;" to which words the Commissioners have most improperly added, "even with those of a different religious persuasion;" thereby suggesting to the minds of the children, what it was the proposed purpose of united education to guard against, that the very last persons with whom they were to live peaceably were those of a different religious persuasion. In the next paragraph the lesson says that "Our Saviour Christ taught His disciples to love even their enemies." But if the Bible were not a closed book, the children would see that the word even was an interpolation of the Commissioners not warranted by any part of our Lord's teaching. In the next paragraph it is written— Many men hold erroneous doctrines, but we ought not to hate or persecute them. We ought to seek for the truth, and to hold fast what we are convinced is the truth, but not to treat harshly those who are in error. "Holding erroneous doctrines," "being in error," "seeking for the truth," and "holding it fast," are phrases I should say hardly intelligible to young children who are not informed of what is the standard of sound doctrine—where or what the truth is. It therefore appears to have been alike needless and mischievous, however well intended, to suggest to the children's minds the notions of hatred, persecution, or harsh treatment of those who are in error. There is, however, one circumstance in this part of the general lesson illustrative of the progress of Roman Catholic authority in the National System of Education. It appears, as now drawn up in the new rules, that the Commissioners have struck out the words "We ought to seek for the truth." This was, no doubt, done in compliance with the representations that had been made to the Board that such a precept was inconsistent with the principle of the Roman Catholic Church. So that, because Roman Catholics are not allowed to seek for the truth, Protestants, under the Board's teaching, are to be contented likewise to remain in ignorance. Now, my Lords, let me ask what are the benefits the country has reaped from the National System of Education in Ireland —not, I am bound to say, as originally introduced by the noble Earl, the respected leader of the party on this side of the House, who, I am sorry, is not able to be in his place to-day—but from the system as it has since been growing up, with its accumulation of compromises, concessions, and exceptional arrangements? Has it been instrumental in producing greater harmony between persons of different creeds and parties? I believe that, so far from that being the case, more Acts of Parliament have been passed since than were ever deemed necessary before the institution of the National System of Education, to prevent the occurrence of collisions between Protestants and Roman Catholics, especially in the North of Ireland; and I am justified by the example England presents of the friendly harmony that subsists among persons of different creeds, as well as by my own observation of the beneficial influence of schools that may be called denominational in Ireland, where children are religiously educated in the tenets of the communion to which their parents wish them to belong, in saying that better feelings are thus produced among the rising generation than by forcing a system of united education upon the country. Then, what has been the result of the system in the matter of elementary instruction? The best and most impartial testimony upon the subject will be that of the Census of 1861. What does it show? There were, at the time it was taken, in the whole of Ireland no less than 39 per cent of the population above five years of age unable to read or write. It might, however, be said that those who had emigrated were, for the most part, well educated. Let us see, then, what is the actual effect of the schools upon the youth of Ireland between the ages of five and sixteen, the period of life at which the schools are resorted to. The Return made by the Commissioners shows no less a number than 45 per cent of those unable to read or write. A more striking evidence of the effect of the National School system may be seen from the following Return of the proportion of persons, five years old and upwards, of different religious persuasions, unable to read or write. It is as follows:—Established Church, 16.0; Roman Catholics, 45.8; Presbyterians, 11.1; Methodists, 9.0; Independents, 6.8; Baptists, 9.2; Society of Friends, 4.1; all other persuasions, 11.8; Protestants generally, 13.7; Jews, 11.9. Hence it appears that while the Presbyterian body, supported by an exceptional arrangement with the National Board, have turned their schools to good account in showing so small a proportion as 11 per cent uninstructed in reading and writing, the Established Church, thrown upon its own resources, but with a poor population often scattered through Roman Catholic districts, where they have access to any but a priests' school, has not generally neglected the interests of the Church children when there are but 16 per cent of them illiterate. In the Roman Catholic body may be seen the result of the work done in four-fifths of the National Schools, including the schools in monasteries and convents—the value of which is so much vaunted in the explanatory paper of the Commissioners of National Education. And what is that result? 45.8 of the Roman Catholic population over five years of age that can neither read nor write. I need not comment upon this, but, with your Lordships' permission, will read a few words from an address on social economy by Sir James Emerson Tennant, delivered at the meeting of the Social Science Association at Glasgow, in 1860, his testimony to the character, with regard to intellectual development of the Irish immigrants to large towns in England. He writes— The Scotch or Welsh peasant who finds his way to the manufacturing towns of England, from a labourer, becomes in his turn an employer, a tradesman, a shopkeeper, a merchant; but, strange to say, as a general rule, in that humblest of all capacities in which the Irish immigrant lands on the quay of Liverpool or Glasgow—in that capacity, for the most part, he is contented to continue for the remainder of his life. … Whence comes it that whilst the labourer of Scotland and of England has the prospect of affluence in the future, the eye to discern and the ambition to attain it, the patient but unaspiring peasant of Ireland, unconscious of his own powers and blind to his opportunities, finds his energies arrested in the earliest stage of a career which he is competent, but never destined to run, and in a land overflowing with riches he is contented to remain 'a servant of servants unto his brethren.' It would be equally an insult to Ireland and to our own understanding were we to snatch a conclusion, and cut short inquiry, by imputing to the Irish some imaginary inequality of race. We have the evidence of the very different career of the Irish in the United States and Canada, and their success there to prove that what might be mistaken for incapacity amongst the Irish in Scotland and in England, is in reality the dormancy, not the deficiency, of ability. It seems to me that much that is anomalous in the character and career of some of the labouring classes in Ireland is to be traced to a grave defect in their early training. An Irishman of the labouring class is seldom taught, nor even permitted, to think for himself. Must we not admit, my Lords, that educa- tion has been at fault in this matter? And who is there among your Lordships that is connected with, or has visited Ireland, that has not seen and deplored the very backward and manifestly uneducated condition of the lower orders, the absence from their dwellings of that cleanliness, neatness, and economy, as well as of the enjoyment of the comforts of civilized life, which to the English peasant have become indispensable? Why is it that, compared with the sister country, Ireland exhibits over the greater part of her surface so much poverty, helplessness and squalid wretchedness as to have made her condition a very by word of reproach? What is it that makes the wealth and prosperity of a nation? Not the fertility of its soil; if that were so, the soil of Ireland being naturally more fertile than that of England, the former would be the wealthier and more flourishing of the two. Not the number of its inhabitants; if that were so, Ireland would, eighteen years ago, have presented an example of prosperity far in advance of any other part of the United Kingdom. But we know how much the case was the reverse; that, ere the advent of the great famine in 1846, the overwhelming numbers of her population were the worst fed, the worst clothed, and in a greater proportion houseless and begging their bread, than the population of any other country. Nor does it depend upon the existence of free institutions; if that were so, Ireland, being under the same form of government as England, and enjoying the same political rights, would have reaped the like benefit from them. No, my Lords, the improvement of the condition of Ireland—any hope we may entertain of her prosperity, must depend, under Divine Providence, upon the awakened intelligence and rightly-directed energies of her population, and it is for lack of these conditions having been fulfilled that she is fully twenty-five years behind any civilized country in Europe. The obvious remedy for this is to provide education, not by the intolerant application of any theory of united education that has totally failed, but such education as will meet the ascertained requirements of the country; not the mere elementary teaching of literature, but the education of the character, and, above all, of the Christian character, which alone can impart a right sense of responsibility and of moral rectitude. I will not trouble your Lordships by further observation of my own upon this subject, but will close what I have to say by quoting from a speech not long since delivered by the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on the subject of education, when it was proposed to introduce into England a system of education, somewhat of the same kind as that which unfortunately exists in Ireland— I own that to me, looking to this as a practical question, innumerable difficulties rise up against the adoption of such a proposition. In the first place, I could not but be struck with the answer of one of the boys at the examination today, when he was asked for what purpose the Holy Scriptures were given to mankind? and he answered, 'To be the guide of our conduct in life.' Well, now, what an imperfect, lame system must that be which proposes, either by State assistance or voluntary effort, to educate the great body of the people of this country, and yet leave out the knowledge of that which is to guide our conduct through life? Can any omission be more unwise, or more fatal to the object we have in view…The children who receive only secular instruction will conclude most naturally that they have the sum and substance of that which is most necessary for them. That they might attend religious instruction elsewhere is, no doubt, possible; but when you consider the time that is taken up at school, and the occupations of the various ministers of religion, you will see that it is hardly possible in practice that in one place children should receive an adequate secular instruction, and that in another place they should find a minister of religion capable of giving them the whole of the instruction which is required for their religious education. If that is the case, and if it is so important that their conduct in life should be so regulated, will you give them moral instruction apart from the Bible, apart from any religious sanction? That again appears to me to be an equally unwise and fatal course, because if these precepts of morality—these rules for the guidance of their conduct—have a Divine sanction, it ought to be revealed to them, and the counsel of God should not be withheld. … I have always contended that this matter of religion is secular as well as religious, that it belongs to us all, that it pervades the whole business of life, and is, in fact, one of those things which ought to be reckoned among the common things of which every household ought to partake. I have ventured to say this much because the question at the present time is not whether education ought to be given so much as of what kind it ought to be. I have taken the liberty, my Lords, after placing before your Lordships the nature of the objections to the alterations of the rules of the National Board, to notice at some length the working of the education system, and what appears to me to be the just claims of Ireland upon the consideration of the Government. I have done so—I will not say in the hope, for that hope has been too often disappointed, but with the earnest desire, that should the noble Earl the President of the Council answer my question, whether the sanction of the Government will be given to the new rules of the National Board, by telling me that the subject will be considered—that it will be considered irrespective of party interests, and solely with a view to the best interests of the Irish population, as in that case the great question of the Irish difficulty will at length be solved.

THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR

could not concur with the noble Lord in his condemnation of the National System of Education in Ireland. He could not look with indifference upon a system which embraced 6,000 schools, and educated more than half a million of children of every sect in Ireland. It afforded them not only secular but religious instruction, and, by bringing the children of every sect together, it tended to check the growth of prejudice and bigotry in their minds. He must say, however, that he regarded with no small misgiving and alarm the alterations which had lately been made in the fundamental rules of the Board, the effect of which was to transfer the training of future teachers of the National Schools in Ireland from the model schools, which exemplified the system in its highest and best form, to schools which must from their very character and position be regarded as denominational schools. The question was simply whether the change which had been made was a fundamental one. That had been denied, but in his opinion the change was of that character. The right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary of Ireland, in writing to the Chief Commissioner, on the 30th of January, said— The attention of the Irish Government had been drawn to certain contemplated changes in the fundamental rules of the National System of Education. Although the right hon. Baronet had thought fit to alter his opinion since that time, he himself concurred entirely in the right hon. Baronet's impressions as expressed in the letter from which he had quoted. He could also refer to the opinions of his right rev Brother the Bishop of Derry, and of Dr. Henry and others, in confirmation of his view. It would be seen, therefore, that those whose long experience in connection with the subject well qualified them to express an accurate opinion took the same view of the question. The papers presented to their Lordships' House contained protests from some of the earliest members of the Board, who stated that in their opinion the alterations which had been made were fundamental; and in this opinion a majority of the Board concurred. Having many schools in which he took an interest, he could not consent to accept any scheme which he believed to be opposed to the system of National Education. He did not wish that the schools in which he was interested should possess any peculiar privileges, but that they should enjoy all the benefits which were common to every religious body in Ireland. It had been said that the schools of the Presbyterians in Ireland enjoyed at a former date some exceptional privileges; but when that statement was inquired into by a Committee it was found that the Presbyterians possessed no peculiar privileges, The convent schools alone were exceptionally favoured, and he could not but object to the variation of the rules in favour of these schools. They received grants of public money not calculated upon the efficiency of the pupils, but according to the number of children in attendance. Thus the convent schools had a direct interest in enlarging the numbers of children whom they taught, and Mr. Sheridan had stated that in these schools children were admitted without limitations. Of his own knowledge he knew nothing of the efficiency of these schools, but from some remarks of Mr. Sheridan he was led to believe that they were not very efficient. He found that in the model schools 90 per cent of the pupils passed from the lower classes to the upper classes, and in the district schools 52 per cent; but in the convent schools only 23 per cent of the pupils were so advanced. He, therefore, could not think that these schools could be regarded as institutions best fitted to provide future masters and mistresses for the schools in Ireland. Indeed, in his opinion, they must necessarily be inefficient for that purpose, because the ladies who taught in these schools were themselves imperfectly educated. The efficiency of a master depended not so much upon the education he had received as upon his ability to impart that education to others, and it could not be expected that masters trained in schools where the teachers themselves were untrained would be the persons best qualified to conduct the education of the people of Ireland. He denied that any crusade had been set on foot in Belfast against these schools. He gave to the ladies who conducted them the highest credit for performing what was no doubt to them a labour of love, and they were, he fully believed, actuated by the purest and highest motives; but he still could not think that schools based upon so narrow and sectarian a foundation were proper institutions for training the youth of Ireland. Those who had petitioned against the changes in the rules did so because they deprecated any departure from the great principle of non-sectarian education in Ireland. At present children of all religions might be found sitting side by side in the schools. But if the rules as recently altered should be enforced, the whole country would be covered with hostile schools, in which children would be imbued with antagonistic feelings, and all the old intolerance and bigotry which he hoped had almost disappeared from Ireland would be revived. He would suggest that the best mode of dealing with this subject would be by the appointment of a Royal Commission, composed of persons unconnected with the system; and, although he would not pledge himself to agree with any conclusions they might arrive at, he would undertake to bow with respect to their determination, and would, as far as possible, urge upon those who agreed with him to do the same.

THE EARL OF BANDON

said, the system of education as introduced by Lord Derby was on the principle of united education; and in very few of the non-vested schools could united education be said to exist. In his own county he had known instances where clergymen were anxious to put their schools under the National Board, and were prevented from doing so by their own Protestant parishioners. Having frequently assisted at collections made with charitable objects, he could testify to the zeal with which the very poorest classes subscribed to sustain the Church Education Society. The position in which the education of the children of the lower classes in Ireland was placed was, that while Roman Catholics in each parish had schools supported by the State, no Protestant child attended these schools. The Roman Catholic schools received support from the State, while assistance was refused to Protestant schools. He would ask their Lordships how long that anomaly was to continue? The religious scruples even of Jews were respected, but those of Irish Protestants were wholly disregarded. The National Board professed to carry out a mixed system of education, but in reality it was undermining that system. Nominated to please the Ultramontane party, and viewing the convent schools with the utmost favour, how was it likely that the Commissioners would do justice to the model schools of which the others were their rivals? If they made the convent schools model schools, the days of the National system were numbered. The National system was really carried out in the workhouses, where a lay Board mediated and did justice between the parties respectively; whereas in other schools, when complaints were made, the Commissioners too often sent back the matter for investigation by the priest, who was the patron of the school; in the same way the Lord Lieutenant, when appealed to as a Minister of the Crown, instead of deciding for himself, referred to the Commissioners for their view of what ought to be done. If they wished to maintain the National system they must totally abolish the Board, and appoint paid Commissioners and make them responsible to Parliament.

EARL GRANVILLE

said, that great weight was to be attached to the views of the right rev. Prelate who had spoken on the subject (the Bishop of Down and Connor), although he had certainly failed to convince him that the course which he advocated was one which it would be desirable to adopt. In reference to the arguments of the two noble Lords opposite, he felt bound to remark that they had all along been the consistent, but uncompromising, opponents of the system of National Education in Ireland. It was but natural, therefore, that they should continue to object to it; but he, for one, must contend that one of the greatest benefits which could be conferred on Ireland was the promotion of education, and the National system had, he believed, answered the purpose. There was something besides, however, which would tend greatly to the advantage of the country—and that was the encouraging a spirit of harmony and conciliation on religious subjects; and the observations in which the noble Lords opposite had indulged were, he thought, scarcely calculated to forward that end. With respect to the composition of the National Board, the average attendance was about four Protestant to three Roman Catholic Members; and on the day when the rules in question were decided on the members of both persuasions were, so far as he was aware, equal in their numbers. In respect to the change of the rules, the speeches that had been made conveyed to their Lordships a very exaggerated view of them. He might observe that Lord Derby had—very properly he thought—given his sanction to the admission of convent schools to the benefits of the National system. They first received the capitation grant; but when afterwards the system of classification was introduced it was not found applicable to the convent schools, and they had hitherto received from the Government only about half what was given to other schools. That being so, the question lately brought before the Board was, that the age at which monitors were allowed to remain at the training schools being restricted to eighteen, and managers refusing to receive them at that age because of their youth, the result being that their services were lost to the country, and they adopted frequently other pursuits, it was desirable that those boys should be allowed to remain at the schools till they reached the age of twenty; the expense of which change would be about £2,000 a year, of which sum it was estimated only £500 would go to the convent schools. There was in that change, he thought, nothing to which objection could possibly be taken, while the interests of education were advanced by the step.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

said, that the members of the Established Church in Ireland will hear with great regret that Her Majesty's Ministers sanction the change proposed in the Rules of the Commissioners of National Education. The speech of the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Down and Connor) ought to have convinced them that a grave error had been committed, which it was their duty to rectify rather than to support. He (the Earl of Longford) and other persons had placed schools in connection with the National Board, on the faith of its published principles and published regulations. Its published principles were to the effect that no suspicion of proselytism should attach to the system, so that parents of all religious persuasions might send their children with confidence to the schools. Its published regulations were literally and verbally non-sectarian; but its practice had gradually become, and has now avowedly become, bitterly sectarian. He (the Earl of Longford) would not follow previous speakers through the series of changes, all in a direction hostile to the Established Church, which have been successively introduced into the system; but he added his protest to theirs against the unfortunate measure now under discussion, and regretted that the Ministry should approve an arrangement which he believed to be prejudicial to the cause of good government in Ireland.

House adjourned at half past Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.