The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-08 00:00:00

REPORT.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY HUGH VISCOUNT EBRINGTON, LORD
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, AND GENERAL GOVERNOR OF

RELAND.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY,
I. We, the undersigned Commissioners of Na-
tional Education in Ireland, beg leave to submit to
your Excellency this our Sixth Report.
Pursuant to an order of the House of Commons,
we made a return, in July last, of all schools aided
or built by us up to the Ist of January, 1839.
We had at that period 1,384 schools, which
were attended by 181,264 children. We had also
undertaken to make 190 grants to schools which
had not, at that time, come into existence, and the
number in attendance upon which, it was expected,
would amount to 38,000. The total number of
schools would therefore be 1,574, and of children
about 219,000.
We now give a list in the Appendix of the
schools which we had in operation on the 31st of
December last, and we specify opposite to each the
number of children in attendance upon it, according
to the rolls for the half year, ending the preceding
30th of September. We also give a list of ex-
pected schools, towards the erection of which we
have undertaken to make grants ; and we have in
like manner set opposite to each the expected at-
tendance upon it.
The schools in operation amounted to 1,581;
of these 1,479 were in existence on the preceding
30th of September, and the number of children in
attendance upon them, according to the rolls for the
half-year ending on that day, was 192,971. The
remaining 102 schools were opened after the 30th
of September, therefore no half-yearly rolls have
been, a.; yet, received from them ; but from the
general information which we have respecting them,
we think the number in attendance upon them may
he stated at about 12,000, making altogether about
205,000.
The expected schools amounted to 357, and the
estimated attendance upon them to about 63,000.
The foregoing statement ,shows that we had,
at the commencement of 1839, 1,384 schools in
existence, which were attended by 181,264 children,
and that at the termination of the year, the number
of schools in existence was increased from 1,384
to 1,581, and the attendance of children from
181,264 to 205,000 ; also, that the expected
schools, at the commencement of 1839, amounted
to 190, and the expected attendance of children to
38,000 ; and that, at the termination of the year,
the number of expected schools, was increased from
190 to 357, anti the expected attendance from
38,000 to 63,000 ; making altogether an increase,
actual and expected, of 364 National Schools, and
of 49,000 scholars. _ _

11. While the systeinof National Education has
been thus spreading so widely through Ireland in
general, it has lately received a check in one district
through the efforts of a Roman Catholic prelate,
who formerly sought aid for a school, which, under
the circumstances of the case, the Board could not
grant. Several schools in those pacts of the
counties of Galway and Mayo, in which he exer-
cises spiritual authority, have ceased to be in con-
nexion with us, and the operation of others, which
are vested in trustees under the Board, has been
suspended until new trustees and managers shall
have been appointed. The patrons of all were, with
a single exception, Roman Catholic clergymen, and
appear to have acted entirely under the orders of
the prelate alluded to.
For nearly the whole of the last century, the
Government of Ireland laboured to promote Pro-
testant education, and tolerated no other. Large

grants of public money were voted for having chil-
dren educated in the Protestant faith, while it was
made a transportable offence in a Roman Catholic
(and if the party returned, high treason) to act as
a schoolmaster, or assistant to a schoolmaster, or
even as a tutor in a private family. The Acts
passed for this purpose continued in force from 1709
to 1782. They were then repealed, but Parlia-
ment continued to vote money for the support only
of schools conducted on principles which were re-
garded by the great body of the Roman Catholics
as exclusively Protestant until the present system
was established.

It guarantees to parents and guardians of a
communions, according to the civil rights with
which the laws of the land invest them, the power
of determining what religious instruction the chi'.
dren over whom they have authority shall receive,
and it prohibits all attempts at enforcing any, either
on Protestant or Roman Catholic children, to
which their parents or guardians object.
This is the great principle of the system. It
has therefore been earnestly embraced from the first
by the Roman Catholic clergy, and laity in parti-
cular, and been hailed by the poor as one of the
greatest boons that the Government had ever be-
stowed upon them.
It shall ever be our constant object, as it tide.
formly has been, to administer it with fairness and
justice to all; and, seeking only to do impartial
good, we trust, whatever difficulties we may meet
with, that we shall be enabled, under Providence,
to overcome them by the force of reason, charity,
and truth.
We may here observe, that there has been much
misapprehension with respect to the principle of
the national system, as to religious instruction. It
has been supposed that the Commissioners assumed
a right to direct and control the religious education
of the children attending the national schools, but
such a notion is altogether groundless. It is en-
tirely at variance not only with our practice, but
with documents which the Board has from the first
put forth in explanation of its views. Whoever
refers to these must see that we leave the particular
religious education of children of all denominations
in the hands of such persons as their parents or
guardians may choose to entrust with it, taking
care only that children shall not be, through the
direct or indirect operation of the rules adopted in
any school, either prevented from attending it, for
general, literary, and secular instruction, or debarred
by any compulsory attendance upon it from oppor-
tunity of receiving such religious instruction as
their parents or guardians may provide for them.
It will easily be understood, that regulations
which, in this point of view, might be in some
schools unobjectionable, and attended with no in-
convenience, might, where local circumstances were
different, be at variance with our fundamental
principles.
We should also state, that we by no means insist
on having the Scripture extracts published by our
authority, read in any of the national schools, nor
would we allow them to be read during the time of
secular or literary instruction in any school attended
by any children whose parents or guardians ob-
jected to them. In such case, we should prohibit
the use of them, except at the times of religious in-
struction, when the persons giving it might use
them or not, as they should think proper.
It may be proper to add, that, before granting
aid towards the building of a school, we have, ever
since the appointment of our district superintendents
in 1838, required them to ascertain whether any
arrangement had been made for giving religious in-
struction in the school, should it be established ;
but we have never required this information from
them before granting aid by way of salary, or of
books to schools already in existence. In the for-
mer case, we have to act a priori, and consequently
to guard against contingencies ; in the latter, we
have to deal with actual circumstances, and we
judge of these as we find them, always taking care
to give no aid unless to a school which is bona.fide
open for secular instruction to children of all com-
munions, and which does not debar any from OP -
portunities of receiving such religious instruction
as their parents or guardians may
provide for them.
We should add, that where the grant
is only o
salary and books, the Board acts upon the state-
ment of the parties applying, provided it be satis-
factory, without binding them literally to the rules
of the Board ; because, should anything occur here-
after which might appear contrary to the spirit of
the rules, the Board has it in its power to have the
evil corrected, or, if it be not, to oithdraw the sa-
lary; but in making a grant for building, as the
Commissioners make it irrevocably, they require the
parties receiving it to bind themselves irrevocably
in return to a strict observance of the rules as in

S

EVENING EDITION
•
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force at the time the grant is made, and to have
the school vested in trustees for that purpose. Aaavas
We are aware of course, that schools in which
the patrons themselves provide religious instruction
for children only of a particular communion, leaving
it to the parents or guardians to provide it for all
others, bear in some degree a peculiar religious as-
pect ; but schools of such a description, when con-

elected with Presbyterian meeting-houses, appear to
us to stand upon the same principle as schools con-
nected with communities of the Roman Catholic
persuasion, and to these we have been, from the
commencement of our labours, granting aid, having
first communicated with his late Majesty's govern-
ment upon the subject, and been sanctioned by it
in doing so.
Indeed schools in general, which are under the
direction of persons only of one communion, may
be considered to bear a distinctive stamp ; but al-
though we arc required to give a preference to ap-
plications signed by persons of different persuasions,
we are not required to restrict aid to cases of that
description.

IV. We deemed it expedient to require the at-
tendance in Dublin of our several superintendents
at the close of the last year, with the view of ob-
taining, by means of a personal examination of them,
full and accurate information on the state of the
schools in their respective districts. Their reports
were in general very satisfactory as to those schools
which are conducted in houses built by aid from
the Board, and by teachers trained at our normal
establishment. The Reports were also favourable
as to several others, but many are still kept in un-
suitable buildings, and are under teachers of in-
ferior qualifications ; even these, however, have
been improved by the frequent inspection, and by
the supplies of books and school requisites which
the Board affords.
We have trained altogether 524 teachers.
We have now in training sixty, and arrangements
are in progress which will enable us to accommo-
date a much greater number.
Our model farm, which is connected with
our normal establishment, is at present only in its
infancy, but it is well conducted, and we have no
doubt that the teachers under training, as well as
the agricultural pupils, of whom there are at pre-
sent twelve, derive much benefit from the instruc-
tion they receive, and the judicious system of farm-
ing which they see practised there.
In our former Reports, we expressed our re-
gret. that we had not the means to remunerate our
teachers in proportion to the importance and value
of their labours. We have now, however, been
enabled to adopt measures for classifying and n.
creasing the salaries of deserving teachers, by which
we hope the whole body will be gradually elevated
and improved. The particulars of the arrange-
ments are given in the Appendix.
The model schools are in a flourishing condition,
and continue to attract a large share of public at-
tention. There are now in attendance upon them,
as stated in the Appendix,

- - 752 boys,
558 girls,
329 infants.
We annex a statement of our receipts and ex-
Icnditure to the 31st December, 1839.
(Signed) LEINSTER.
RICHARD DUBLIN.
D. MURRAY.
FRANCIS SADLEIR.
A. R. BLAKE.
ROBERT HOLMES.
RICHARD W. GREENE.
PATRICK BELLEW.
POOLEY SHULDHAM HENRY.
MORPETH.
ALEXANDER NIACDONNELL.
JOHN RICHARD CORBALLIS.
PLUNKET.
Dublin, April, 1840.