NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 351, 5 March 1861, Page 4

NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND.

Among the Estimates voted in the British Parliament was, £220,722 for Irish Education. The annual vote is increased this year to £221,254, though thirty schools have ceased to receive the money; most of them for the best of all reasons. They were workhouse schools, and there are no children in them. There is something for this vote —something positive and presentable. It is so much gain to the country, and ho gain can be greater or more substantial than that which is effected in the minds and hearts of the people. The hundreds of thousands—millions, we believe— spent in screwing debts out of poor people, in hunting out and punishing offenders,: in keeping pickpockets in splendid castles or sending them to the Antipodes, give us nothing but grief and disgust. They are deductions from our income to cover worse deductions from our comfort and selfrespect. The education vote represents a substantial and, we must say, an undeniable improvement in souls which form, in fact, the future of our. race,7fnd. that future which is beyond all futures of race or time*' '■"'' '.!'.. '.■>

If7the.present condition pf.lreWdl, compared Witfil the social chaos whiqh prevailed t»enty years ago, be not sufficient proof, we have the evidence of every impartial witness to the excellence of the education given by the Irish .National Society. We have the striking and uninvited evidence of Americans as to.the improved quality and tone of the Irish immigrants, coupled with the fact that while those immigrants were once all bat thrust into the sea as they landed on the quays of New York, they are now' everywhere welcome. A still more important testimony, as we interpret it, remains; and itiis one. given, not with .friendly or impartial, but with hostile intent. When a considerable section of the Protestant clergy and the Church Education Society on the one hand,_ and a large section of the Roman Catholic clergy on the other, want of National schools, with the single exception of..their, religious neutrality, they show their estimation of the system as far as it goes. It will be said, indeed, that all they want is the bare grant* but it is not so in some instances. The Church Education Society consents to the books and the whole system, only asking that every: child may be required to attend at the reading and explanation of the Scriptures., As such, a demand can only be with the objects of proselytising, it has nothing to do with the favorable estimate of the schools admitted by the Church Education Society.. But whence on all sides this zeal for education? It cannot be said that forty years ago there was so much anxiety to make every Irish child a good scholar. It shows how .well the example has worked. All sides stand by and admire the National Schools. The only fault they can find is that the schools are not their own, to the exclusion of all other admirers. The demand also proves that religious zeal has not died away. As Mr. Cardwell observes, not only is Ireland more educated, but never was there so much religious knowledge and earnestness. When the National Board was founded, we were told it was to make Irishmen latitudinarians. Near thirty years, have passed away, and is there such a thing as a latiiii^' dinarian in Ireland ? One of the arguments against the schools last night.was, 3-that-: they fostered polemical differences.» and' that where there were mixed schools J there you had the most controversy. It is not unlikely to be so; but:' what 3 becomes; of the old argument that the scholars under' the National Board would become intellectual indifferentists?

Of course, thff principal argument Mr. Cardwell has to meet is, that the system adopted by Government in this country is Denominational, while in Ireland, it is National. If the two countries and peoples, with all the circumstances, were the same, then it would not be easy to defend so great a difference of system. But, in the first place, in England we had to take things as they were, and just to assist, improve, and control existing schools, while in Ireland we had to create a new system. Thirty years ago there were two classes of schools in Ireland,—those maintained by the clergy and Government for the Protestant children, which, were highly polemical ; and, for the Roman Catholic children, the old "hedge schools-," taught by sharp Irishmen with ready wits and tongues, but not an atom of regular education. As the religions hated and persecuted one another, and went to the very verge of disloyalty, it was out ot the question to give the schools the same sort of support that we do to our own safe and quiet parish schools. We had to teach as much as we could and keep as clear as we could of polemical quarrel. The attempt met with small favor, either here or in Ireland; it was proved to be imppssible, and every ill was predicted. For our part, we have not a word to say against the Denominational system, when it is established; but from All accounts it could not Etand the test of a

a fair comparison with the National system; It is all very well well^for the clergy,, wher ther Established, Roman Catholic,, or! Dissenting, to demand the entire and exclusive control of their schools. No doubt, t4o,*tlie { demand often arises from a properjealously for the exclusive care of their own; flocks. But high views and vulgar facts, great aims and miserable shortcomings, often together; and exclußiveriess is too often—too jgenerally—found the protection of idleness and.3 inefficiency. The English public know, what their own system is, and how it works. They know the actual result of leaving their schools entirely in Clerical or Denominational hands. Yet, we much suspect that the British public, were it fairly canvassed, would not tie very urgent to recommend their system to .Ireland ;—nay, if" it Werfe: practicable,: would be; quite ready to try the Irish system here.-^Tmes.