(_a_) Encouragement of the teaching of gardening in connection with
country schools for boys, at a cost of about £2000 a year.
(_b_) Provision for instruction in wood-work for pupils of urban
districts, at central classes in technical schools, at a cost of
about £4000 a year.
(_c_) The provision of medical inspection and the treatment of
school children, which would cost about £30,000 a year, and dental
inspection and clinics, which would cost another £50,000. This
expense should be defrayed largely out of the local rates, one
third, say £25,000, to come out of the estimates. There would also
be the cost of supervision, etc., by the Education Department,
amounting to about £5000 a year. Committees, as for school
attendance, composed partly of representatives of school managers
and partly of local authorities, could be formed for
administration.
(_d_) A considerable impetus might be given to Evening
Continuation Schools, on which about £10,000 a year is at present
spent. A beginning could be made of compulsory attendance, and the
amount of the grant doubled.
Much might be done in all these directions. Much has been accomplished
already. The worst that can happen is that a separate legislature should
be set up in Dublin, devoid of the requisite means, as it would most
certainly be (unless, indeed, it had recourse to the rates, or the
taxpayer) of financing Irish Education; swayed from side to side by the
exigencies of the party programme of the moment; and temperamentally
unable to look at the educational problem from the standpoint alone of
the needs of the country in the way that it is now regarded. At present,
under the Union, Irish Education is fortunately liberated from all
appeals to party passion, and organised with but one end in view, the
upbringing of the infant race whose possession is the future.