The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-13 00:00:00

NEW BOARD of EDUCATION in DUBLIN.

We take from the Dublin Gazette of Tuesday, th,
following important document :

TO THE DUKE OF LEINSTER.

164 h-office, London, Oct., 1831.

Mr LORD,—His Majesty's Government have
come to the determination of empowering the Lord
Lieutenant to constitute a Board for the superin-
tendence of a system of national education in Ire-
land, and Parliament having so far sanctioned the
arrangement, as to appropriate a sum of money in
the present year, as an experiment of the probable
success of the proposed system, I am directed by his
Excellency to acquaint your Grace that it is his in-
tention, with your consent, to constitute you the
President of the new Board; and I have it further
in command, to lay before your Grace the motives
of the Government in constituting this Board, the
powers which it is intended to confer upon it, and
the objects which it is expected that it will bear in
view, and carry into effect.
The Commissioners, in 1812, recommended the
appointment of a Board of this description, to su-
perintend a system of education, from which should
be banished even the suspicion of proselytism, and
which, admitting children of all religious persua-
sions, should not interfere with the peculiar tenets
of any. The Government of the day imagined that
they had found a superintending body, acting upon
a system such as was recommended, and intrusted
the distribution of the national grants to the care of
the Kildare-street Society. His Majesty's preseht
Government are of opinion that no private society,
deriving a part, however small, of their annual in-
come from private sources, and only made the chan-
nel of the munificence of the Legislature, without
being subject to any direct responsibility, could ade-
quately and satisfactorily accomplish the end pro-
posed, and while they do full justice to the liberal
views with which that Society was originally in-
stituted, they cannot but be sensible that one of its
leading principles was calculated to defeat its avowed
objects, as experience has subsequently proved that
it has. The determination to enforce in all
their schools the reading of the Holy Scrip-
tures, without note or comment, was undoubtedly
taken with the purest motives, with the wish at
once to connect religious with moral and literary
education, and, at the same time, not to run the
risk of wounding any peculiar sect by catechetical
instruction, or comments which might tend to sub-
jects of polemical controversy. But it seems to
have been overlooked that the principles of the Ro-
man Catholic Church (to which, in any system in-
tended for general diffusion throughout Ireland, the
bulk of the pupils must necessarily belong) were
totally at variance,with this principle; and that the
indiscriminate reading of the Holy Scriptures, with-
out note or comment, by children, must be pecu-
liarly obnoxious to a Church which denies, even to
adults, the right of unaided private interpretation of
the sacred volume with respect to the articles of re-
ligious belief.
Shortly after its institution, although the Society
prospered and extended its operations under the
fostering care of the Legislature, this vital defect
began to be noticed, and the Roman Catholic Clergy
began to exert themselves with energy and succes.
against a system to which they were on principle
opposed, and which they feared might lead in its
results to proselytism, eren although no such object
were contemplated by its promoters. When this
opposition arose, founded on such grounds, it soon
bec,:me manifest that the system could not become
one of national education.

The Commissioners of Education in 1824-5, sen-
sible of the defects of the system, and of the ground
as well as the strength of the objection taken, re-
commended the appointment of two teachers in
every school, one Protestant arid the other Roman
Catholic, to superintend separately the religious
education of the children ; and they hoped to have
been able to agree upon a selection from the Scrip-
tures, which might have been generally acquiesced
in by both persuasions. But it was soon found
that these schemes were impracticable ; and, in
1828, a Committee of the House of Commons, to
which were referred the various reports of the Com-
missioners of Education, recommended a system to
be adopted, which should afford, if possible, a com-
bined literary, and a separate religious, education,
and should be capable of being so far adapted to the
views of the religious persuasions which prevailed
in Ireland, as to render it, in truth, a system of
national education for the poorer classes of the coin-
munity..

For: the success of the undertaking, much must
depend upon the character of the individuals who
compose the Board, and upon the security thereby
afforded to the country, that while the interests of
religion are not overlooked, the most scrupulous
care should be taken not to interfere with the pe-
culiar tenets of any description of Christian pupils.
To attain the first object, it appears essential that
the Board should be composed of men of high per-
sonal character, including individuals of exalted
station in the Church ; to attain the latter, that it
should consist of persons professing different religi-
ous opinions.

It is the intention of the Government that the
Board should exercise a complete controul over the
various schools which may be erected under its
auspices, or which, having been already established,
may hereafter place themselves under its manage-
ment, and submit to its regulations. Subject to
these, applications for aid will be admissible from
Christians of all denominations; but as one of the
main objects must be to unite in one system children
of different creeds, and as much must depend upon
the co-operation of the resident clergy, the Board
will probably look with peculiar favour upon appli-
cations proceeding either from—
I st. The Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy of the
parish ; or

•
2d. One of the clergymen, and a certain number of
parishioners professing the opposite creed ; or
3d. Parishioners of both denominations.

'Where the application proceed's exclusively from
Protestants, or exclusively from Roman Catholics,
it will be proper for the Board to make inquiry as to
the circumstances which lead to the absence of any
name of the persuasion which does not appear.
The Board will note all applications for aid,
whether granted or refused, with the grounds of the
decision, and annually submit to Parliament a report
of their proceedings.
They will invariably require, as a condition not
to be departed from, that local funds shall be raised,
upon which any aid from the public will be de-
pendent.

They will refuse all applications in which the fol-
lowing objects are not locally provided for :-
Ist. A fund sufficient for the annual repair of the
school-house and furniture.

2d. A permanent salary for the master, not less than
pounds.
3d. A sum sufficient to purchase books and school re-
quisites at half price.
. .

4th. Where aid is sought from the Commissioners fur
building a school-house, it is required that at least one-
third of the estimated expences be subscribed ; a site fur
building, to be approved of by the Commissioners, hs
eranted for the,porpose ; and that the school-house when
finished, be vested in trustees, also to be approved of by
them.

They will requite that the schools should be kept
open for a certain number of hours, on four or five
days of the week, at the discretion of the Commis-
sioners, for moral and literary education only ; and
that the remaining one or two days in the week be
set apart for giving, separately, such religious edu-
cation to the children as may be approved of by tho
clergy of their respective persuasions.
They will also permit and encourage the clergy to
i
give religiousinstruction to the children of their re-1
spective persuasions, either before or after the or-
dinary school hours, on the other days of the week.
They will exercise the most entire controul over
all books to be used in the schools, whether in the
combined moral and literary, or separate religion,instruction ; none to be employed in the first, except
under the sanction of the Board—nor in the !auto,
but with the approbation of those members of the
Board who are of the same religious persuasion with