There's small chance for the Irish to better their condition through
education. Many Irish children don't go to school. It is estimated that out
of 500,000 school children, 150,000 do not attend school. Why not? Here are
two reasons advanced by the Vice-Regal Committee on Primary Education,
Ireland, in its report published by His Majesty's Stationers, Dublin, 1919:
Many families are too poor.
England does not encourage Irish education.
Irish poverty is recognized in the school laws; the Irish Education act
passed by Parliament in 1892 is full of excuses for children who must go to
work instead of to school. Thousands of Irish youngsters must avail
themselves of these excuses. Ireland has 64,000 children under the age of
14 at work. But Scotland with virtually the same population has only
37,500.[17]
Eight-year-old Michael Mallin drags kelp out of a rush basket and packs it
down for fertilizer between the brown ridges of the little hand-spaded
field in Donegal.
"Is there no school to be going to, Michael?"
"There do be a school, but to help my da' there is no one home but me."
The act says that the following is a "reasonable excuse for the
non-attendance of a child, namely, ... being engaged in necessary
operations of husbandry."[18]
Ten-year-old Margaret Duncan can be found sitting hunched up on a doorstep
in a back street in Belfast. Her skirt and the step are webbed with threads
clipped from machine-embroidered linen, or pulled from handkerchiefs for
hemstitching. A few doors away little Helen Keefe, all elbows, is scrubbing
her front steps.
"But school's on."
"Aye," responds Margaret, "but our mothers need us."
The act plainly states that another reasonable excuse is "domestic
necessity or other work requiring to be done at a particular time or
season."[19]
William Brady has a twelve-hour day in Dublin. He's out in the morning at
5:30 to deliver papers. He's at school until three. He runs errands for the
sweet shop till seven.
"You get too tired for school work. How does your teacher like that?"
"Ash! She can't do anything."
Intuitively he knows that he can protect himself behind the fortress of
words in the school attendance act: "A person shall not be deemed to have
taken a child into his employment in contravention of this act if it is
proved that the employment by reason of being during the hours when school
is not in session does not interfere with the efficient elementary
instruction of the child."[20]
Nine-year-old Patrick Gallagher may go to the Letterkenny Hiring Fair and
sell his baby services to a farmer. Some one may say to Paddy:
"Why aren't you at school?"
"Surely, I live over two miles away from school."
The law thinks two miles are too far for him to walk. So he may be hired to
work instead. Reads the education act: "A person shall not be deemed to
have taken a child into his employment in contravention of this act if it
is proved to the satisfaction of the court that during the employment there
is not within two miles ... from the residence of the child any ... school
which the child can attend."[21]
Incidentally England does not encourage Irish education. England does not
provide enough money to erect the best schools nor to attract the best
teachers. But England agreed to an Irish education grant.[22] She
established a central board of education in Ireland, and promised that
through this board she would pay two-thirds of the school building bill and
teachers' salaries to any one who was zealous enough to erect a school.
Does England come through with the funds? Not, says the vice-regal
committee, unless she feels like it. In 1900 she agreed with Ireland that
Ireland's teachers should be paid higher salaries, but stipulated that the
increase in salaries would not mean an immediate increase in grants.
New building grants were suspended altogether for a time. In 1902, an
annual grant of £185,000 was diverted from Irish primary education and used
for quite extraneous purposes. And when England does give money for Irish
education, she pays no heed to the requirements stated by the Irish
commissioners of education.[23] Instead she says: "This amount I happen to
be giving to English education; I will grant a proportionate amount to
Irish education."
"If English primary education happens to require financial aid from the
Treasury, Irish primary education is to get some and in proportion
thereto," writes the committee. "If England happens not to require any,
then, of course, neither does Ireland. A starving man is to be fed only if
some one else is hungry.... It seems to us extraordinary that Irish primary
education should be financed on lines that have little relation to the
needs of the case."[24]
So there are not enough schools to go to. Belfast teachers testified before
the committee that in their city alone there were 15,000 children without
school accommodations. Some of the number are on the streets. Others are
packed into educational holes of Calcutta. New schools, said the teachers,
are needed not only for these pupils but also for those incarcerated in
unsuitable schools--unheated schools or schools in whose dark rooms gas
must burn daily. On the point of unsuitability, the testimony of a special
investigator named F.H. Dale was quoted. He said:
"I have no hesitation in reporting that both in point of convenience for
teachers and in the requirements necessary for the health of teachers and
scholars, the average school buildings in Dublin and Belfast are markedly
inferior to the average school buildings now in use in English cities of
corresponding size."
So if unsuitable schools were removed, Belfast would have to provide for
some thousands of school children beyond the estimate of 15,000, and other
localities according to their similar great need.[25]
Live, interesting primary teachers are few in Ireland. The low pay does not
begin to compensate Irish school teachers for the great sacrifices they
must make. Women teachers in Ireland begin at $405 a year; men at $500. If
it were not for the fact that there are very few openings for educated
young men and women in a grazing country there would probably be even
greater scarcity.[26] Since three-fourths of the schools are rural those
who determine to teach must resign themselves to social and professional
hermitage. What is the result of these factors on the teaching morale? The
1918 report at the education office shows 13,258 teachers, and only 3,820
of these are marked highly efficient.[27]
Thus the committee of the lord lieutenant.
[Footnote 1: "Ireland's Crusade Against Tuberculosis." Edited by Countess
of Aberdeen. Maunsel and Company. Dublin. 1908. P. 32.]
[Footnote 2: "Marriages, Births, and Deaths in Ireland, 1917." His
Majesty's Stationery Office. Dublin. 1918. P. IX.]
[Footnote 3: "Ireland's Crusade Against Tuberculosis." P. 34-35.]
[Footnote 4: "Report of Chief Tuberculosis Officer of Belfast for the Three
Years Ended 31 March, 1917." Hugh Adair. Belfast. 1917. P. 25.]
[Footnote 5: "Appendix Report Housing Conditions of Dublin." Alex Thorn.
Dublin. 1914. P. 154.]
[Footnote 6: "First Annual Report P.F. Collier Memorial Dispensary."
Dollard. Dublin. 1913. P. 24.]
[Footnote 7: "Starvation in Dublin." By Lionel Gordon-Smith and Cruise
O'Brien. Wood Printing Works. Dublin. 1917. P. 14.]
[Footnote 8: "The Poor in Dublin." Pamphlet. St. Vincent de Paul Society.]
[Footnote 9: "How Local Milk Depots in Ireland Are Worked." Dollard.
Dublin. 1915. P. 3-15.]
[Footnote 10: "Second Annual Report of the Woman's National Health
Association." Waller and Company. Dublin. 1909. P. 143.]
[Footnote 11: "Supplement Fifty-fourth Report Inspectors of Lunacy." Alex
Thorn. Dublin. 1906. P. VII.]
[Footnote 12: _Ibid_. P. XXVII.]
[Footnote 13: "Sixty-second Annual Report of the Registrar General for
Scotland, 1916." His Majesty's Stationery Office. Edinburgh. 1918. P.
LXVII.]
[Footnote 14: "Marriages, Births, and Deaths in Ireland, 1917." P. XII.]
[Footnote 15: "Supplement Fifty-fourth Report Inspectors of Lunacy." P.
XXXII.]
[Footnote 16: "The Woman's National Health Association and Infant Welfare."
The Child. June, 1911. P. 10.]
[Footnote 17: Figures supplied by H.C. Ferguson, Superintendent of Charity
Organization Society, Belfast, 1919.]
[Footnote 18: "Irish Education Act, 1892." (55 & 56 Vict.) Chap. 42. P. 1.]
[Footnote 19: _Ibid_. P. 1.]
[Footnote 20: _Ibid_. P. 4.]
[Footnote 21: _Ibid_. P. 3.]
[Footnote 22: _Ibid_. P. 8 et al.]
[Footnote 23. "Vice-regal Committee of Enquiry into Primary Education,
Ireland, 1918." His Majesty's Stationery Office. Dublin. 1919. P. 22.]
[Footnote 24: _Ibid_. P. 22.]
[Footnote 25: _Ibid_. Martin Reservation. P. 27-30.]
[Footnote 26: _Ibid_. P. 8.]
[Footnote 27: _Ibid_. P. 39.]