The Sun.
London, England, 1830-05-04 00:00:00

SCHOOLS.

The number of day, Sunday, and adult schools, in connection
with the Society, ,during the last year, amounts to 1,373, in
which 80,513 boys, girls, or adult persons have been enrolled.
Some slight deduction may be made from this number, in con-
sequence of a few of the day scholars being also enrolled in the
Sunday schools ; after every deduction which can, on any legi-
timate account be made, the number of scholars instructed by
your Society, during the last year, must have exceeded 75,000.
As, however, the adult schools are only taught in, the winter
nt mohs, and as, during that inclement season, therclis usually a
diminished attendance of the day scholars, the average number
of those under instruction, at any one period of the year, would,
perhaps, scarcely amount to 60,000.

ever, still adhere to their original plan of giving extra pay to the
teachers for those scholars who evirce, on inspection, an ade-
quate proficiency in the Irish language; and only advert to the
subject in consequence of a very unexpected attack made 11P011
the Society by a highly respectable publication, The able ob,er-
vations of the Dublin Committee on this attack are appended as
a note to this report.*

• INSPECTORS, SCRIPTURE READERS.
While, however, the number of children instructed by this
Society, in the Irish language, has, from causes which your Com-
mittee cannot control, been in the • last year somewhat dimi-
nished, the importance of instructing adults in, and employing
Scripture readers conversant with that tongue, is increasingly
manifest. Instances continually occur, where persons who could
not be induced for one moment, to listen to the Holy Scriptures
in English, evince the most marked attention when those Scrip_
tures are read to them in the Irish language, often detaining
the readers for a considerable time, earnestly desiring to be sup_
plied with copies of this blessed book, and frequently determin-
ing to send their children to schools where they may be taught
to read, and commit to memory, the inspired volume. Sixty-
four persons are at present employed, either as inspectors or
Scripture readers, almost all of whom are intimately conversant
with the Irish tongue.

HOLY SCRIPTURES.
By means of the inspectors and Scripture readers, and through
your various schools, 26,356 bibles or testaments, in English or
Irish, have been distributed during the last year, making, with
those circulated through the instrumentality of this Society in
former years, a grand total of 235,781 copies of the word of CUD.
Of the Scriptures distributed in the last year, 6,302 bibles and
19,939 testaments were in the English language, and fifty-three
bibles and ninety-two testaments in Irish. This increased dis-
tribution of the Holy Scriptures arises partly from the extension
of the Society's schools, but principally from the ardent desire
of the Irish peasantry for the sacred volume. It has ever been
an object of the Society to gratify this desire in all cases where a
reasonable prospect appeared that the copies lent or given would
be properly used. Fewer Irish Scriptures, indeed, have been
circulated-than your Committee had previously been led to ex-
pect; they are, however, fully convinced that this scanty distri-
bution has not been owing to any neglect oftheir several agents,
but partly to the very small proportion of those persons who
speak Irish, who are able to read so as adequately to comprehend
Bishop Bedel's Version; and partly to other institutions having
recently entered the field once exclusively occupied by your
Society.