A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION.
A little learning, we are told, is a dangerous thing; and in their
dealings with Irish education the English should have discovered that
this danger is accentuated when the little learning is combined with
much native wit. In the days when religious persecution was
universal--only, be it remembered, a few generations ago--it was the
policy of England to avert this danger by prohibiting, as far as
possible, the acquisition by Irish Roman Catholics of any learning at
all. After the Union, Englishmen began to feel their responsibility for
the state of Ireland, a state of poverty and distress which culminated
in the Famine. Knowledge was then no longer withheld: indeed the English
sincerely desired to dispel our darkness and enable us to share in the
wisdom, and so in the prosperity, of the predominant partner. In their
attempts to educate us they dealt with what they saw on the surface, and
moulded their educational principles upon what they knew; but they did
not know Ireland. Even if we excuse them for paying scant attention to
what they were told by Irishmen, they should have given more heed to the
reports of their own Royal Commissions.
We have so far seen that the Irish mind has been in regard to
economics, politics, and even some phases of religious influence, a mind
warped and diseased, deprived of good nutrition and fed on fancies or
fictions, out of which no genuine growth, industrial or other, was
possible. The one thing that might have strengthened and saved a people
with such a political, social, and religious history, and such racial
characteristics, was an educational system which would have had special
regard to that history, and which would have been a just expression of
the better mind of the people whom it was intended to serve.
Now this is exactly what was denied to Ireland. Not merely has all
educational legislation come from England, in the sense of being based
on English models and thought out by Englishmen largely out of touch and
sympathy with the peculiar needs of Ireland, but whenever there has been
genuine native thought on Irish educational problems, it has been either
ignored altogether or distorted till its value and significance were
lost. And in this matter we can claim for Ireland that there was in the
country during the first half of the nineteenth century, when England
was trying her best to provide us with a sound English education, a
comparatively advanced stage of home-grown Irish thought upon the
educational needs of the people. Take, for example, the Society for
Promoting Elementary Education among the Irish Poor, know as the Kildare
Street Society, which was founded as early as the year 1811. The first
resolution passed by this body, which was composed of prominent Dublin
citizens of all religious beliefs, was set out as follows:--
(1.) Resolved--That promoting the education of the poor of Ireland
is a grand object which every Irishman anxious for the welfare and
prosperity of his country ought to have in view as the basis upon
which the morals and true happiness of the country can be best
secured.
This Society, it is true, did not see or foresee that any system of
mixed religious education was doomed to failure in Ireland, but they
took a wide view of the place of education in a nation's development,
and the character of the education which their schools actually
dispensed was admirable. This hopeful and enterprising educational
movement is described by Mr. Lecky in a passage from which I take a few
extracts:--
The "Kildare Street Society" which received an endowment from
Government, and directed National education from 1812 to 1831, was
not proselytising, and it was for some time largely patronized by
Roman Catholics. It is certainly by no means deserving of the
contempt which some writers have bestowed on it, and if measured by
the spirit of the time in which it was founded it will appear both
liberal and useful.... The object of the schools was stated to be
united education, "taking common Christian ground for the
foundation, and excluding all sectarian distinctions from every
part of the arrangement;" "drawing the attention of both
denominations to the many leading truths of Christianity in which
they agree." To carry out this principle it was a fundamental rule
that the Bible must be read without note or comment in all the
schools. It might be read either in the Authorized or in the Douay
version.... In 1825 there were 1,490 schools connected with the
Society, containing about 100,000 pupils. The improvements
introduced into education by Bell, Lancaster, and Pestalozzi were
largely adopted. Great attention was paid to needlework.... A great
number of useful publications were printed by the Society, and we
have the high authority of Dr. Doyle for stating that he never
found anything objectionable [to Catholics] in them.[23]
Take, again, as an evidence of the progressive spirit of the Irish
thinkers on education, the remarkable scheme of national education
which, after the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act, was
formulated by Mr. Thomas Wyse, of Waterford. In addition to elementary
schools, Mr. Wyse proposed to establish in every county, 'an academy for
the education of the middle class of society in those departments of
knowledge most necessary to those classes, and over those a College in
each of the four provinces, managed by a Committee representative of the
interests of the several counties of the provinces.' 'It is a matter of
importance,' wrote Mr. Wyse, 'for the simple and efficient working of
the whole system of national education, that each part should as much as
possible be brought into co-operation and accord with the others.' He
foresaw, too, that one of the needs of the Irish temperament was a
training in science which would cultivate the habits of 'education,
observation, and reasoning,' and he pointed out that the peculiar
manufactures, trades, and occupations of the several localities would
determine the course of studies. Mr. Wyse's memorandum on education led,
as is well known, to the creation of the Board of National Education,
but, to quote Dr. Starkie,[24] the present Resident Commissioner of the
Board, 'the more important part of the scheme, dealing with a university
and secondary education, was shelved, in spite of Mr. Wyse's warnings
that it was imprudent, dangerous, and pernicious to the social condition
of the country, and to its future tranquillity, that so much
encouragement should be given to the education of the lower classes,
without at the same time due provision being made for the education of
the middle and upper classes.'
As still another evidence of the sound thought on educational problems
which came from Irishmen who knew the actual conditions of their own
country and people, the case of the agricultural instruction
administered by the National Board is pertinent. The late Sir Patrick
Keenan has told us that landlords and others who on political and
religious grounds distrusted the National system, turned to this feature
of the operations of the National Board with the greatest fervour. A
scheme of itinerant instruction in agriculture, which had a curious
resemblance to that which the Department of Agriculture is now
organising, was developed, and was likely to have worked with the
greatest advantage to the country at large. Sir Patrick Keenan, who
knew Ireland and the Irish people well, speaks of this part of the
scheme as 'the most fruitful experiment in the material interests of the
country that was ever attempted. It was,' he adds, 'through the agency
of this corps of practical instructors that green cropping as a
systematic feature in farming was introduced into the South and West,
and even into the central parts of Ireland.' But all the hopes thus
raised went down, not before any intrinsic difficulties in the scheme
itself, or before any adverse opinion to it in Ireland, but before the
opposition of the Liverpool Financial Reform Association, who had their
own views as to the limits of State interference with agriculture. These
examples, drawn from different stages of Irish educational history,
might easily be multiplied, but they will serve as typical instances of
that want of recognition by English statesmen of Irish thought on Irish
problems, and that ignoring of Irish sentiment--as distinguished from
Irish sentimentality--which I insist is the basal element in the
misunderstandings of Irish problems.
I now come to a brief consideration of some facts of the present
educational situation, and I shall indicate, for those readers who are
not familiar with current events in Ireland, the significant evolution,
or revolution, through which Irish education is passing. Within the last
eight years we have had in Ireland three very remarkable reports--in
themselves symptoms of a widespread unrest and dissatisfaction--on the
educational systems of the country. I allude to the reports of two
Viceregal Commissions, one on Manual and Practical Instruction in our
Primary Schools, and the other on our Intermediate Education; and to the
recent report by a Royal Commission on University Education. These
reports cover the three grades of our educational system, and each of
them contains a strong denunciation and a scathing criticism of the
existing provision and methods of instruction in elementary, secondary,
and university education (outside Dublin University), respectively. One
and all showed that the education to be had in our primary and secondary
schools, as well as in the examining body known as the Royal University,
had little regard to the industrial or economic conditions of the
country. We find, for example, agriculture taught out of a text book in
the primary schools, with the result that the _gamins_ of the Belfast
streets secured the highest marks in the subject. In the Intermediate
system are to be found anomalies of a similar kind, which could not long
have survived if there had been a living opinion on educational matters
in Ireland. No careful reader of the evidence given before the
Commissions can fail to see that under our educational system the
schools were practically bribed to fall in with a stereotyped course of
studies which left scant room for elasticity and adaptation to local
needs; that the teacher was, to all intents and purposes, deprived of
healthy initiative; and that the Irish parents must as a body have been
in the dark as to the bearing of their children's studies on their
probable careers in life. A deep and wholesome impression was made in
Ireland by the exposure of the intrinsic evils of a system calculated in
my opinion to turn our youth into a generation of second-rate clerks,
with a distinct distaste for any industrial or productive occupation in
which such qualities as initiative, self-reliance, or judgment were
called for.
I am told by competent authorities that there is not a single
educational principle laid down in either the report on Manual
Instruction or on Intermediate Education, which was not known and
applied at least half a century ago in continental countries. In fact,
in the Recess Committee investigations, as any reader of the report of
that body can see for himself, the Committee, guided by foreign
experience, foreshadowed practically every reform now being put into
operation. It is better, of course, that we should reform late than
never, but it is well to bear in mind also, so far as the problems of
this book are concerned, how far the education of the country has fallen
short of any sound standard, and how little could have been expected
from the working of our system. The curve of Irish illiteracy has indeed
fallen continuously with each succeeding census, but true education as
opposed to mere instruction has languished sadly.
Together with my friends and fellow-workers in the self-help movement, I
believe that the problem of Irish education, like all other Irish
problems, must be reconsidered from the standpoint of its relation to
the practical affairs and everyday life of the people of Ireland. The
needs and opportunities of the industrial struggle must, in fact, mould
into shape our educational policy and programmes. We are convinced that
there is little hope of any real solution of the more general problem of
national education, unless and until those in direct contact with the
specific industries of the country succeed in bringing to the notice of
those engaged in the framing of our educational system the kind and
degree of the defects in the industrial character of our people which
debar them from successful competition with other countries. Education
in Ireland has been too long a thing apart from the economic realities
of the country--with what result we know. In the work of the Department
of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, an attempt is
being made to establish a vital relation between industrial education
and industrial life. It is desired to try, at this critical stage of our
development, the experiment--I call it an experiment only because it
does not seem to have been tried before in Ireland--of directing our
instruction with a conscious and careful regard to the probable future
careers of those we are educating.
This attempt touches, of course, only one department of the whole
educational problem, much of which it would be quite outside my present
purpose to discuss. But I must guard against the supposition that in our
insistence upon the importance of the practical side of education we
are under any doubt as to the great importance of the literary side. My
friends and I have been deeply impressed by the educational experience
of Denmark, where the people, who are as much dependent on agriculture
as are the Irish, have brought it by means of organisation to a more
genuine success than it has attained anywhere else in Europe. Yet an
inquirer will at once discover that it is to the "High Schools" founded
by Bishop Grundtvig, and not to the agricultural schools, which are also
excellent, that the extraordinary national progress is mainly due. A
friend of mine who was studying the Danish system of State aid to
agriculture, found this to be the opinion of the Danes of all classes,
and was astounded at the achievements of the associations of farmers,
not only in the manufacture of butter, but in a far more difficult
undertaking, the manufacture of bacon in large factories equipped with
all the most modern machinery and appliances which science had devised
for the production of the finished article. He at first concluded that
this success in a highly technical industry by bodies of farmers
indicated a very perfect system of technical education. But he soon
found another cause. As one of the leading educators and agriculturists
of the country put it to him: 'It's not technical instruction, it's the
humanities.' I would like to add that it is also, if I may coin a term,
the 'nationalities,' for nothing is more evident to the student of
Danish education or, I might add, of the excellent system of the
Christian Brothers in Ireland, than that one of the secrets of their
success is to be found in their national basis and their foundation
upon the history and literature of the country.
To sum up the educational situation in Ireland, it is not too much to
say that all our forms of education, technical and general, hang loose.
We lack a body of trained teachers; we have no alert and informed public
opinion on education and its function in regard to life; and there is no
proper provision for research work in all branches, a deficiency, which,
I am told by those who have given deep thought and long study to these
problems, inevitably reacts most disastrously on the general educational
system of the country. This state of things appears not unnatural when
we remember that the Penal Laws were not repealed till almost the close
of the eighteenth century, and that a large majority of the Irish people
had not full and free access to even primary and secondary education
until the passing of the Emancipation Act in 1829. At the present day,
the absence of any provision for higher education of which Roman
Catholics will avail themselves is not merely an enormous loss in
itself, but it reacts most adversely upon the whole educational
machinery, and consequently upon the whole public life and thought of
that section of the nation.
One of the very first things I had to learn when I came into direct
touch with educational problems, was that the education of a country
cannot be divided into water-tight compartments, and each part
legislated for or discussed solely on its merits and without reference
to the other parts. I see now very clearly that the educational system
of a country is an organic whole, the working of any part of which
necessarily has an influence on the working of the rest. I had always
looked upon the lower, secondary, and higher grades as the first,
second, and third storeys of the educational house, and I am not quite
sure that I attached sufficient importance to the staircase. My view has
now changed, and I find myself regarding the University as a foundation
and support of the primary and secondary school.
It was not on purely pedagogic grounds that I added to my other
political irregularities the earnest advocacy of such a provision for
higher education as Roman Catholics will avail themselves of. This great
need was revealed to me in my study of the Irish mind and of the
direction in which it could look for its higher development. My belief
is based on practical experience; my point of view is that of the
economist. When the new economic mission in Ireland began now fourteen
years ago, we had to undertake, in addition to our practical programme,
a kind of University extension work with the important omission of the
University. We had to bring home to adult farmers whose general
education was singularly poor, though their native intelligence was keen
and receptive, a large number of general ideas bearing on the productive
and distributive side of their industry. Our chief obstacles arose from
the lack of trained economic thought among all classes, and especially
among those to whom the majority looked for guidance. The air was thick
with economic fallacies or half-truths. We were, it is true, successful
beyond our expectations in planting in apparently uncongenial soil sound
economic principles. But our success was mainly due, as I shall show
later, to our having used the associative instincts of the Irish peasant
to help out the working of our theories; and we became convinced that if
a tithe of our priests, public men, national school teachers, and
members of our local bodies had received a university education, we
should have made much more rapid progress.
I hardly know how to describe the mental atmosphere in which we were
working. It would be no libel upon the public opinion upon which we
sought to make an impression to say that it really allowed no question
to be discussed on its merits. Public opinion on social and economic
questions is changing now, but I cannot associate the change with any
influence emanating from institutions of higher education. In other
countries, so far as my investigations have extended, the universities
do guide economic thought and have a distinct though wholly unofficial
function as a court of appeal upon questions relating to the material
progress of the communities amongst which they are situated. Of such
institutions there are in Ireland only two which could be expected to
direct in any large way the thought of the country upon economic and
other important national questions--Maynooth, and Trinity College,
Dublin. Whether in their widely different spheres of influence these two
institutions could, under conditions other than those prevailing, have
so met the requirements of the country as to have obviated what is at
present an urgent necessity for a complete reorganisation of higher
education need not be discussed; but it is essential to my argument that
I should set forth clearly the results of my own observation upon their
influence, or rather lack of influence, upon the people among whom I
have worked.
The influence of Maynooth, actual and potential, can hardly be
exaggerated, but it is exercised indirectly upon the secular thought of
the country. It is not its function to make a direct impression. It is
in fact only a professional--I had almost said a technical--school. It
trains its students, most admirably I am told, in theology, philosophy,
and the studies subsidiary to these sciences, but always, for the vast
majority of its students, with a distinctly practical and definite
missionary end in view. There is, I believe, an arts course of modest
scope, designed rather to meet the deficiencies of students whose
general education has been neglected than to serve as anything in the
nature of a university arts course. I am quite aware of the value of a
sound training in mental science if given in connection with a full
university course, but I am equally convinced that the Maynooth
education, on the whole, is no substitute for a university course, and
that while its chief end of turning out a large number of trained
priests has been fulfilled, it has not given, and could not be expected
to have given, that broader and more humane culture which only a
university, as distinguished from a professional school, can adequately
provide.
Moreover, under the Maynooth system young clerics are constantly called
upon to take a part in the life of a lay community, towards which, when
they entered college, they were in no position of responsibility, and
upon which, so far as secular matters are concerned, when they emerge
from their theological training, they are no better adapted to exercise
a helpful influence. In my experience of priests I have met with many in
whom I recognised a sincere desire to attend to the material and social
well-being of their flocks, but who certainly had not that breadth of
view and understanding of human nature which perhaps contact with the
laity during the years in which they were passing from discipline to
authority might have given to them. However this may be, it is clear and
it is admitted that education as opposed to professional training of a
high order is still, generally speaking, a want among the priests of
Ireland, and I look forward to no greater boon from a University or
University College for Roman Catholics than its influence, direct and
indirect, on a body of men whose prestige and authority are necessarily
so unique.
It is, therefore, to Trinity College, or the University of Dublin, that
one would naturally turn as to a great centre of thought in Ireland for
help in the theoretic aspects, at least, of the practical problems upon
whose successful solution our national well-being depends. Judged by
the not unimportant test of the men it has supplied to the service of
the State and country during its three centuries of educational
activity, by the part it took in one of the brightest epochs of these
three centuries--the days when it gave Grattan to Grattan's Parliament,
by the work and reputation of the _alumni_ it could muster to-day within
and without its walls, our venerable seat of learning need not fear
comparison with any similar institutions in Great Britain. It may also,
of course, be said that many men who have passed through Trinity College
have impressed the thought of Ireland, and, indeed, of the world, in one
way or another--such men as, to take two very different examples, Burke
and Thomas Davis--but on some of the very best spirits amongst these men
Trinity College and its atmosphere have exerted influence rather by
repulsion than by attraction; and certainly their characteristics of
temper or thought have not been of a kind which those best acquainted
with the atmosphere of Trinity College associate with that institution.
Still nothing can detract from the credit of having educated such men.
But these tests and standards are, for my present purpose, irrelevant. I
am not writing a book on Irish educational history, or even a record of
present-day Irish educational achievement. I am rather trying, from the
standpoint of a practical worker for national progress, to measure the
reality and strength of the educational and other influences which are
actually and actively operating on the character and intellect of the
majority of the Irish people, moulding their thought and directing
their action towards the upbuilding of our national life.
From this point of view I am bound to say that Trinity College, so far
as I have seen, has had but little influence upon the minds or the lives
of the people. Nor can I find that at any period of the extraordinarily
interesting economic and social revolution, which has been in progress
in Ireland since the great catastrophe of the Famine period, Dublin
University has departed from its academic isolation and its aloofness
from the great national problems that were being worked out. The more
one thinks of it, indeed, and the more one realises the opportunities of
an institution like Trinity College in a country like Ireland, the more
one must recognise how small, in recent times, has been its positive
influence on the mind of the country, and how little it has contributed
towards the solution of any of those problems, educational, economic, or
social, that were clamant for solution, and which in any other country
would have naturally secured the attention of men who ought to have been
leaders of thought.
Whatever the causes, and many may be assigned, this unfortunate lack of
influence on the part of Trinity College, has always seemed to me a
strong supplementary argument for the creation of another University or
University College on a more popular basis, to which the Roman Catholic
people of Ireland would have recourse. From the fact that Maynooth by
its constitution could never have developed into a great national
University,[25] and that Trinity College has never, as a matter of fact,
done so, and has thus, in my opinion, missed a unique opportunity, it
has come about that Ireland has been without any great centre of thought
whose influence would have tended to leaven the mass of mental
inactivity or random-thinking so prevalent in Ireland, and would have
created a body of educated public opinion sufficiently informed and
potent to secure the study and discussion on their merits of questions
of vital interest to the country. The demoralising atmosphere of
partisanship which hangs over Ireland would, I am convinced, gradually
give way before an organised system of education with a thoroughly
democratic University at its head, which would diffuse amongst the
people at large a sense of the value of a balanced judgment on, and a
true appreciation of, the real forces with which Ireland has to deal in
building up her fortunes.
To discuss the merits of the different solutions which have been
proposed for the vexed problem of higher education in Ireland would be
beyond the scope of this book. The question will have to be faced, and
all I need do here is to state the conditions which the solution will
have to fulfil if it is to deal with the aspects of the Irish Question
with which the new movement is practically concerned. What is most
needed is a University that will reach down to the rural population,
much in the same way as the Scottish Universities do, and a lower scale
of fees will be required than Trinity College, with its diminished
revenues, could establish. Already I can see that the work of the new
Department, acting in conjunction with local bodies, urban and rural,
throughout the country, will provide a considerable number of
scholarships, bursaries, and exhibitions for young men who are being
prepared to take part in the very real, but rather hazily understood,
industrial revival which is imminent. Leaving sectarian controversies
out of the question, the type of institution which is required in order
to provide adequately for the classes now left outside the influence of
higher education is an institution pre-eminently national in its aims,
and one intimately associated with the new movements making for the
development of our national resources.
Unfortunately, however, in Ireland, and indeed in England too, there is
a tendency to regard educational institutions almost solely as they will
affect religion. At least it is difficult to arouse any serious interest
in them except from this point of view. I welcome, therefore, the
striking answers given to the queries of Lord Robertson, Chairman of the
University Commission, by Dr. O'Dwyer, the Roman Catholic Bishop of
Limerick, who boldly and wisely placed the question before the country
in the light in which cleric and layman should alike regard it:--
_The Chairman_.--(413): "I suppose you believe a Catholic
University, such as you propose, will strengthen Roman Catholicism
in Ireland?"--"It is not easy to answer that; not so easy as it
looks." (414):--"But it won't weaken it, or you would not be
here?"--"It would educate Catholics in Ireland very largely, and,
of course, a religious denomination composed of a body of educated
men is stronger than a religious denomination composed of ignorant
men. In that sense it would strengthen Roman Catholicism."
(415):--"Is there any sense in which it won't?"--"As far as
religion is concerned, I do not know how a University would work
out. If you ask me now whether I think that that University in a
certain number of years would become a centre of thought,
strengthening the Catholic faith in Ireland, I cannot tell you. It
is a leap in the dark." (416):--"But it is in the hope that it will
strengthen your own Church that you propose it?"--"No, it is not,
by any means. We are Bishops, but we are Irishmen, also, and we
want to serve our country."[26]
Equally significant were the statements of Dr. O'Dea, the official
spokesman of Maynooth, when he said,
I regard the interest of the laity in the settlement of the
University Question as supreme. The clergy are but a small, however
important, part of the nation, and the laity have never had an
institution of higher education comparable to Maynooth in magnitude
or resources. I recognise, therefore, that the educational
grievances of the laity are much more pressing than those of the
clergy ... It is generally admitted that Irish priests hold a
position of exceptional influence, due to historical causes, the
intensely religious character of the people, and the want of
Catholic laymen qualified by education and position for social and
political leadership. What Bishop Berkeley said of them in 1749, in
his letter, _A Word to the Wise_, still holds true, 'That no set of
men on earth have it in their power to do good on easier terms,
with more advantage to others, and less pains or loss to
themselves.' It would be folly to expect that in a mixed community
the State should do anything to strengthen or perpetuate this
power; but this result will certainly not follow from the more
liberal education of the clergy, provided equal advantages are
extended to the laity. On the contrary, I am convinced that if the
void in the lay leadership of the country be filled up by higher
education of the better classes among the Catholic laity, the power
of the priests, so far as it is abnormal or unnecessary will pass
away; and, further, if I believed, with many who are opposed to the
better education of the priesthood, that their power is based on
falsehood or superstition, I would unhesitatingly advocate the
spread of higher education among the laity and clergy alike, as the
best means of effectually sapping and disintegrating it.[27]
I had for long indulged a hope that a university of the type which
Ireland requires would have been the outcome of a great national
educational movement emanating from Trinity College, which might, at
this auspicious hour, have surpassed all the proud achievements of its
three hundred years. That hope was dispelled when the cry of 'Hands off
Trinity' was applied to the profane hands of the Royal Commission.
Perhaps that attitude may be reconsidered yet. There is one hopeful
sentiment which is often heard coming from that institution. An opinion
has been strongly expressed that nothing ought to be done to separate in
secular life two sections of Irishmen who happen to belong to different
creeds. Whatever may be the logical outcome of the position taken up
towards the University problem by those who give expression to this
pious opinion, I do not for a moment doubt their sincerity. But I often
think that too much importance is attached to the danger of building new
walls, and that there is too little appreciation of the wide and deep
foundation of the already existing walls between the two sections of
Irishmen who are so unhappily kept apart. In dealing with this, as with
all large Irish problems, it had better be frankly recognised that there
are in the country two races, two creeds, and, what is too little
considered, two separate spheres of economic interest and pursuit.
Socially two separate classes have naturally, nay inevitably, arisen out
of these distinctions. One class has superior advantages in many ways of
great importance. The other class is far more numerous, produces far the
greater proportion of the nation's wealth, and is, therefore, from the
national point of view, of greater importance. But both are necessary.
Both must be adequately provided for in the supreme matter of higher
education. Above all, the two classes must be educated to regard
themselves as united by the bond of a common country--a sentiment which,
if genuine, would treat differences arising from whatever cause, not as
a difficulty in the way of national progress, but rather as affording a
variety of opportunities for national expansion.
I do not concern myself as to the exact form which the new institution
or institutions which are to give us the absolutely essential advantage
of higher education should take. If in view of the difference in the
requirements to which I have alluded, and the complicated pedagogic and
administrative considerations which have to be taken into account,
schemes of co-education of Protestants and Roman Catholics are difficult
of immediate accomplishment, let that ideal be postponed. The two creeds
can meet in the playground now: they can meet everywhere in after life.
Ireland will bring them together soon enough if Ireland is given a
chance, and when the time is ripe for their coming together in higher
education they will come together. If the time is not now ripe for this
ideal there is no justification for postponing educational reform until
the relations between the two creeds have been elevated to a plane
which, in my opinion, they will never reach except through the aid of
that culture which a widely diffused higher education alone can afford.
* * * * *
When I was beginning to write this chapter I chanced to pick up the
_Chesterfield Letters_. I opened the book at the two hundredth epistle,
and, curiously enough, almost the first sentence which caught my eye
ran: 'Education more than nature is the cause of that difference you see
in the character of men.' I felt myself at first in strong disagreement
with this aphorism. But when I came to reflect how much the nature of
one generation must be the outcome of the education of those which went
before it, I gradually came to see the truth in Lord Chesterfield's
words. I must leave it to experts to define the exact steps which ought
to be taken to make the general education of this country capable of
cultivating the judgment, strengthening the will, and so of building up
the character. But every day, every thought, I give to the problems of
Irish progress convinces me more firmly that this is the real task of
educational reform, a task that must be accomplished before we can prove
to those who brand us with racial inferiority that, in Ireland, it was
not nature that has been unkind in causing the difference we find in the
character of men.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] _Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland_, II., 122-4.
[24] _Recent Reforms in Irish Education_, p. 7.
[25] It was not authorised to give degrees to lay students; and even the
admission of lay students to an Arts course was prohibited by
Government, lest Catholic students should be drawn away from Trinity
College. See Cornwallis Correspondence, III., 366-8.
[26] Appendix to First Report, p. 37.
[27] Appendix to Third Report, pp. 283, 296.