raided by the Spaniards, and having valuable covers of gold, was stolen
by some ignorant soldier who stripped it and threw the text into a bog
where it was found coverless by a peasant a few days later and taken to
Archbishop Ussher. He recognized it and kept it in his library until his
large and unique collection of books and manuscripts was purchased by
Cromwell and presented to Trinity College. There are other remarkable
books in the collection, including several chronicles of the early
history of Ireland, which are priceless, and one marvels at the artistic
skill and labor that they represent. They are also important as
illustrating the culture and learning of the people of Ireland at a
period when England and the continental countries of Europe were still
submerged in the barbarism of the Middle Ages.
The library of Dublin University is one of several government
depositories, under the Stationer's Act, and receives a copy of every
book printed in the United Kingdom. By this method its shelves have been
rapidly filled and the catalogues contain more than a million entries.
There is another, known as the National Library, only a few squares
away. It occupies a beautiful building erected at a cost of $750,000 to
correspond with the National Museum, which occupies the other side of a
quadrangle. It was opened in 1890 and has about three hundred thousand
volumes. There is a reading-room seventy-two feet square, with a glass
dome, where many people come daily to consult works of reference, and
certain persons have the privilege of taking books away.
A bill that had been pending in the British parliament for several years
was passed in the summer of 1908 authorizing the establishment of two
new universities, one at Belfast, under the auspices of the Presbyterian
church, and the other at Dublin, under the control of the Roman
Catholics, although both theoretically will be non-sectarian, and no
religious tests will be required or allowed at either.
The enactment of this law is a part of the contract agreed upon between
the liberal government and the leaders of the Irish party in parliament,
which is being carried out in good faith, and will be concluded at the
next general election, when it is hoped that the question of home rule
in Ireland will be submitted to the people of the United Kingdom.
The Irish Catholics have been demanding a university of their own
supported by the state for many years. There has been no institution for
higher education at which a self-respecting Catholic could seek an
education, because the University of Dublin represents the Church of
Ireland, just as Oxford and Cambridge represent the Church of England,
and until a few years ago placed a ban upon Catholics and would not
permit them to have anything to do or say about the management. It was
perfectly natural, therefore, that when the trustees of Trinity took off
the ban, the synod of Maynooth should put it back, and Catholic students
were forbidden to attend lectures there by what is known as Decree
XXXVII. of the synod of Maynooth, declared in 1875 and confirmed by Pope
Pius IX.
Religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge were abolished in 1871, at the
same time as at Trinity. In 1874 an attempt was made by the famous
Monseigneur Capel, who is now living in California, to found a Roman
Catholic university in England, but it failed, and since then the young
men of that church have attended Cambridge and Oxford, by permission of
the hierarchy, but the ban has never been removed from Trinity College,
Dublin. And one cannot blame them for not removing it. They cannot
forget the past. The Roman Catholics of Ireland were deprived of
educational privileges for centuries, and under the penal statutes of
Queen Anne were debarred from the learned professions. There are no
religious tests in Trinity College to-day, it is true, and students who
do not belong to the Church of Ireland are not required to attend
chapel. But the atmosphere and the influences and every tendency at
Trinity are naturally toward the Church of Ireland, which has a
theological school as a department of the university.
Three independent non-sectarian institutions, known as Queen's colleges,
were founded by Queen Victoria about forty years ago, at Belfast,
Galway, and Cork. These are known as "godless colleges" because they
have no chapels, no religious exercises, and no religious instruction.
Queen's College at Belfast, however, is distinctively a Presbyterian
institution. Nearly all the faculty are prominent and active members of
that denomination, and students who are intending to enter the ministry
go from Queen's to Magee College, Londonderry, which is under the care
of the Presbyterian general assembly. Therefore Queen's College,
Belfast, occupies a relation to the Presbyterian denomination quite as
intimate as that of Trinity with the Episcopalians.
The same conditions apply to both the Roman Catholic theological
seminary at Maynooth and the Presbyterian theological seminary at Magee.
The students at both of these institutions will be excused from residing
in the new universities, and may continue their studies exactly as at
present, going up to Dublin and to Belfast only to receive their
degrees. Several of the Roman Catholic colleges and the two "godless
colleges" now supported by the state at Cork and Galway are to be made a
part of the Roman Catholic university at Dublin, but Section 3 of the
bill provides that "no test whatever of religious belief shall be
imposed upon any person as a condition of his becoming or continuing to
be a professor, lecturer, fellow, scholar, exhibitioner, graduate, or
student of, or of his holding any office or emolument, or exercising any
privilege in, either of the two new universities or any constituent
college. Nor in connection with either of the new universities or any
such constituent college shall any preference be given or advantage
withheld from any person on account of his religious belief." It will be
permitted, however, for religious denominations to erect chapels or
other houses of worship in connection with either of the new
universities with their own funds for the accommodation of students
professing their faith, but no students shall be required to attend
religious exercises or religious instruction, and they shall be entirely
voluntary. It is well understood, however, and the bill is intended
precisely for that purpose, that one of the universities shall be Roman
Catholic and that the other shall be Presbyterian, just as the present
University of Dublin represents the Protestant Episcopal Church of
Ireland.
Education and religion have always gone hand in hand both in ancient and
modern Ireland. The history of one is the history of the other.
Instruction has always been given either by or under the supervision of
priests and monks, and there have been regular teaching orders, like the
Christian Brothers, which combine religious with secular instruction,
with the catechism as their chief text-book. As early as the middle of
the sixth century the monastery schools of Ireland were famous all over
the world, and even at that date there were three thousand students at
Clonarde College, and an equal number at Bangor, at Monasterboice, and
several other centers of learning. The sons of kings, chiefs, nobles,
and other favored classes lived in the monasteries with their
instructors, but usually each ordinary student had a little hut of sod
built by himself, and often those from the same locality or the same
clan built houses for their common use.
All of the more important schools had students from foreign lands. An
English bishop, writing in the year 705, says that they came in "fleet
loads" from Great Britain and the Continent. Many of them were princes
of royal houses. Several of the early kings of France and other
countries were educated in Ireland, which was for three or four
centuries the most learned country in the world. Great numbers of
Irishmen were employed as professors and teachers in the schools and
colleges of England and the Continent. Charlemagne, Charles the Bold,
and other monarchs of the Middle Ages called learned men from Ireland as
guests and as tutors in their courts, and the influence of Irish
scholars was greater than that of those from any other country. For four
or five hundred years after the time of St. Patrick the monasteries of
Ireland were the center and source of science, and art and learning of
every kind and the literature of the Gaelic reached its highest glory.
The Danish invasion destroyed these conditions and threw everything into
disorder. The monasteries were sacked, the monks were scattered, the
students fled to their homes, and the development of learning and art
suddenly was arrested. There was another revival during the reign of
Brian Boru, but that was interrupted by the Anglo-Norman invasion, and
Irish learning never again reached its previous fame.
During the Reformation all the monasteries throughout Ireland except in
a few remote districts were suppressed. More than four hundred were
entirely destroyed and their inmates were turned out upon the world by
the agents of Henry VIII. Cromwell's governors were even more severe and
cruel, and the parliaments of 1692 and 1695 passed penal laws forbidding
the Catholic children of the country to be educated, either in schools
or in private houses. Education practically came to a standstill,
although many Irish Protestants all through the country did a great deal
in a quiet way to provide instruction for the children of Catholic
friends and neighbors.
The Relief Act of 1782 allowed Roman Catholics to open schools of their
own, and the present national system, inaugurated in 1831, afforded
means of education for children of all denominations under the
supervision of their own priests, although members of different
denominations are required to receive religious instruction separately
and interference with the religious principles of any child is
forbidden. From that time to the present the number of schools has been
gradually extended, their efficiency has been improved, and the
government appropriations for education have been slowly increased from
year to year.
The schools of Ireland are now governed by an act of parliament passed
in 1892, and Dr. W.M.J. Starkie, national commissioner of education,
explained the system to me as follows:
"We have eight grades of primary schools," he said, "from kindergartens,
which receive pupils three years of age, up to the eighth grade, which
corresponds very nearly to that of the public schools in America, with
pupils fourteen or fifteen years of age. We have a compulsory education
law, but it is enforced according to the local conditions of different
districts,--a sort of local option which is applied where the people of
the counties of the districts desire it. The schools are practically
free. By the reorganization of 1892 certain schools were permitted to
charge fees, but no more than 1 per cent of them do so, and they are all
Protestant. No Catholic school collects tuition.
"The schools of Ireland are controlled by a national board of twenty
members, appointed nominally by the lord lieutenant, one-half Protestant
and one-half Catholic, and an executive council in charge of
administration, also appointed by the lord lieutenant, one of whom, that
is myself, is always on duty at the headquarters of the board in Dublin.
"Funds for the support of the schools are voted by parliament every year
with the usual budget, which are absolutely controlled by the board, who
make an annual report of their disposition. This year we have
£1,600,000, which is equivalent to about eight million dollars in your
money. The larger amount, which is about £1,250,000, goes to the payment
of the salaries of teachers; the next for the construction of new
buildings and repairs; the next item is for the maintenance of central
model schools, which are object lessons. The rate of expenditure per
pupil is about £3, or $15, a year, and has been gradually increasing
from time to time with the allowances that have been given us by the
government. Ten years ago the allowance for primary education was about
£1,250,000 or $6,250,000 in American money, and the _per capita_ was
about $12.50.
"There are now about 8,600 primary schools in Ireland, with 16,000
teachers and an average daily attendance of 490,000 out of a school
population enrolled of 730,000.
"The following table will show the number and the average daily
attendance at the different schools:
No. Schools. Av. Attend.
Ordinary schools . . . . . . . . . . . 8,100 401,000
Model schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 6,955
Convents and monasteries . . . . . . . 384 80,712
"The money is divided among these different schools as follows:
Amount. Per Capita.
Ordinary schools . . . . . . . . . . £1,038,854 £2 13s 10d
Model schools . . . . . . . . . . . . 27,755 3 19s 10d
Convents and monasteries . . . . . . 164,048 2 7s 6d
"The average daily attendance seems very small, and is due to several
reasons: first, the lack of accommodations and the long distances
between schoolhouses in the thinly settled sections along the west coast
of Ireland, where some families are many miles from a schoolhouse, and
where the children have no means of conveyance to reach them. In all the
poorer sections of the country, where the men of the family go off to
England or Scotland to do labor, the children have to stay at home and
look after the place. They take care of the cows and the sheep and the
pigs. Many parents make their children work where the compulsory
education law and the child labor laws are not enforced. In the factory
towns of northern Ireland the laws prohibit children under eleven years
old working, and they are pretty well enforced.
"The following table will show the number of children of the different
religious denominations enrolled in the national schools:
Roman Catholic . . . . . . . . . . 541,638, or 74.4 per cent
Church of Ireland . . . . . . . . . 87,904, or 12.1 per cent
Presbyterian . . . . . . . . . . . . 82,434, or 11.3 per cent
Methodists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,387, or 1.3 per cent
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,794, or 0.9 per cent
"Of the Catholic children a large number, perhaps 112,000, are in the
convents. The Catholic families prefer to send their girls to be taught
by the nuns. And about 10,000 boys are in the monasteries.
"Every teacher is required to pass an examination prepared by the
commissioner of education as a test of his or her qualifications, and
the teacher is responsible to the educational department for the
enforcement of the rules and the application of the methods of
instruction that have received its indorsement. But, as a rule, teachers
are nominated by the priests of the Roman Catholic church or the clergy
of the Church of Ireland or those of the non-conformist churches, as the
case may be. The consequence is that there have to be separate schools
for each denomination, which naturally adds to the cost of maintenance.
In two-thirds of the schools, however, you will find both Protestant and
Catholic children. Any sect that can furnish twenty pupils can have a
school of its own, to run it as it likes at the expense of the
government and select its own teachers, provided the persons selected
demonstrate their qualifications by submitting to the regular
examinations.
"Religious instruction, prayer, and other exercises of worship may take
place before and after the ordinary school hours, during which all the
children of whatever denomination may attend, but the regular school
business cannot be interrupted or suspended for any religious
instruction or worship or any arrangement that will interfere with its
usefulness or cause any pupils inconvenience in attendance.
"No pupil who is registered as a Protestant is permitted to remain in
attendance during the time of religious instruction in case the teacher
is a Roman Catholic, and no pupil who is registered as a Roman Catholic
can remain in attendance during religious instruction by a teacher who
is not a Roman Catholic, and further, no pupil can remain in attendance
during any religious instruction whatever if his parents or guardians
object. A public notification of the hours of religious instruction must
be made in every school and kept posted in large letters for the
information of the public as well as the pupils. No schoolroom can be
connected with any place of worship; no religious emblems or emblems of
a political nature can be exhibited in any schoolroom, and no
inscription which contains the name of any religious denomination.
"Thus we have, as you will see, all points guarded against religious
proselyting. Monks and nuns are eligible as teachers if they pass the
examinations, and any convent or monastery can be made a national school
by accepting the regulations and observing them.
"The salaries for men teachers range from £77 to £175, and for women
from £65 to £141, according to length of service, experience, the grade
of the school, and the number of pupils.
"We are introducing some modern ideas similar to those you have in
America. We have already introduced cooking into a thousand schools and
are introducing Gaelic as fast as the teachers can be found, but they
are very scarce. We furnish special instruction in the teachers'
colleges, or normal schools as you call them, and to excite the interest
of the children special prizes are offered for proficiency in Gaelic.
"We are improving our school buildings generally, and parliament has
allowed £40,000 a year for three years for building new primary
schoolhouses.
"Our secondary or intermediate schools are under the supervision of a
different board, also appointed by the lord lieutenant, and they
distribute £85,000 a year in grants to about four hundred different
institutions, preparatory, collegiate, and university."
"What is the ratio of illiteracy in Ireland?"
"It has gradually been reduced from 53 per cent of the population in
1841, the first census taken after the establishment of the national
school system, to 18 per cent in 1891 and 14 per cent in 1901. The ratio
of illiterates is being reduced nearly 1 per cent per year, and it is
calculated from five years old and upward. If the minimum age were made
seven years the ratio would be very much less. It is the old people and
the little ones under seven years who cannot read and write, and many
adults claim that they are unable to do so for their own reasons."
VIII
ROUND ABOUT DUBLIN
The street-car system of Dublin is excellent. It reaches every part of
the city and all the lovely suburbs, and every line starts at a lofty
column, which was erected many years ago in the middle of the principal
street in honor of Horatio Nelson, the greatest of Irish sailors, the
hero of the battle of Trafalgar. The cars are large and neatly kept, the
conductors and motormen are very polite and love to give information to
strangers, although they are paid only thirty and thirty-six shillings a
week, which would certainly make men of their occupation very reticent
in America. The roofs of the cars are arranged with comfortable seats,
from which one can see everything within the range of human vision and
gratify his curiosity about what is behind the high stone walls, green
with lichen and ivy and overhung with lustrous boughs. There isn't much
satisfaction going about in an automobile in the immediate vicinity of
Dublin, because the roadways are mere tunnels between walls eight feet
high and overhung with foliage, which makes a perpetual twilight, a
damp, cool atmosphere, a dustless ride, and a picturesqueness that an
artist would admire. The owners of suburban homes have shut themselves
in so successfully that nobody can see what they are doing or enjoy the
wondrous beauties of their private parks. But the seats on the top of a
tram car permit the public to penetrate their secrets, give an abundance
of fresh air, gratify the love of motion that we all inherited from our
savage ancestors, and enable us to look beyond the barriers into
beautiful gardens and groves.
The River Liffey, as I have told you in a previous chapter, divides all
Dublin into two parts and empties into a bay about four miles below the
business limits of the town. The bay is famous for its beauty, and is
closely embroidered with history, legend, and romance. One street-car
line follows the river and the north shore as far as the ocean, and then
turns northward to accommodate the population of several pretty
watering-places and fishing-towns. Another line, also starting from
Nelson's Pillar, follows the south bank of the Liffey and the bay and
encircles a most picturesque and romantic landscape. It takes three
hours to make a round trip by either of these routes, and one can spend
an entire afternoon or indeed a whole day with profit on both of them.
We will take the south side first. The track runs through the best
residence section of the city and several of the prettiest suburbs down
to the port of Kingston, where all deep-draft steamers have to receive
and discharge their passengers and cargoes because the water is too
shallow for them above. The turbine ferries that cross St. George's
Channel from England land their passengers there and send them by rail
into the city.
Between the frequent villages along the train line are comfortable and
spacious mansions surrounded by beautiful grounds owned and occupied by
the wealthy citizens of Dublin, and occasionally there is a long row of
"semi-detached villas" occupied by "the prosperous middle
classes,"--brick houses of two and three stories built in pairs, with
strips of lawn on either side and quite a little space for a garden at
the back. Every house has a name painted on the gatepost as well as a
number, and that is a matter of great importance, because, when Miss
Genevieve says she lives at Heatherhurst, Princes' Crescent, it sounds a
great deal more aristocratic than No. 1660 Rockville Road. Princes'
Crescent is a long block of two-story brick houses on a curve in the
street; Heatherhurst is one of them, situated about the middle, twenty
feet front and sixty feet deep, with thirty feet of lawn in the
foreground and a garden at the rear. And these houses are much more
comfortable than any the city can furnish, and I do not know of any town
so well provided with suburbs as Dublin.
[Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN, SHOWING NELSON'S PILLAR.]
There are several historical places on the road. Beyond Booterstown
is Blackrock, where an ancient granite cross in the center of the main
street marks the limit of jurisdiction of the lord mayor. Many years ago
it was customary for that official after his installation to ride out
there and fling a dart into the waters of the bay, as a symbol of his
right of admiralty; but these old-fashioned demonstrations of power and
prerogative have been abandoned for stupid parades and long speeches.
Just before entering Blackrock the tramway passes the entrance of a
lovely estate christened "Frascati," after a favorite resort of Rome. It
formerly belonged to the Duke of Leinster, and was an early seat of the
Kildare family, and one of the strategic rendezvous of the Geraldines,
for two centuries the strongest clan in Ireland. Frascati has a pathetic
interest to every one, and particularly to all Irish patriots, because
for several years it was the home of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Pamela,
his mysterious French bride. It was there they spent their honeymoon and
there he left that fascinating little person while he was off on
political missions preparing for the Revolution of 1798. Her letters,
full of domestic details and loving prattle, written during this period,
have been preserved, and give us a charming impression of the character
of a woman who suffered much for the cause of Irish liberty, even
poverty and shame.