THE BISHOP OF RAPHOE AND IRISH PRESBYTERIANS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 109, 29 May 1875, Page 7

THE BISHOP OF RAPHOE AND IRISH PRESBYTERIANS.

The Bishop of Raphoe has addressed a public lotter to the Marquis of Hanulton,|the senior membor for Donegal, which connty comprises the chief portion of that diocese, upon the subject of the proposed Denominational Training Colleges in Ireland, and the objections made thereto by the Presbyterian General Assembly. The Duke of Aborcorn has extensive possessions in the County Donegal; and Lord Hamilton has sat for that constituency for fifteen years ; and it is for this reason that the Bishop's letter is addressed to him. It may also be mentioned that of the population of Donegal the ancient Tyrconnel, amounting to 288,334, no less than 165,270, or 75.7 per cent., are Catholics, and that the proportion has increased by six in 1,000 between 1861 and 1871. These facts help us to a clearer understanding of the precise import of the letter of the Bishop of Raphoe. Dr. M'Devitt makes the adverse Memorial of the Deputation to the Duke of Abercorn from the Presbyterian General Assembly the text of his Letter. The Presbyterians have, for more than forty years, been the most virulent opponents of Catholic claims, in ths matter of education of every grade, while they themselvea are uncoinprisrog supporters of Denominational Education for Presbyterians, decrying it, however, in the case of Catholics. . They violently oppose the National system during the first eight years of its existence, until they secured Us subversion, in the direction of Denominational or rather of Presbyterian education in 18.40. They intimated to the Government m 1845, that unless a Presbyterian President and certain chairs were secured to them in the Belfast Queen's College, they would oppose the scheme, so that their support was purchased on

their own terms, President, "Vice-President, and the majority of the professors being Presbyterians, and only one, the professor of the Irish language, who never lectured, a Catholic. Yet the Irish Presbyterians are politically a branch of the Birmingham League, and of the English and Scotch* Secularists. They have contributed their share to the defeat of the late Government in the matter of Irish Catholic claims, and to the recent circumstances that have shattered the Liberal party. -Numerically and politically they are contemptible compared with Irish Catholics. Yet statesmen will blindly attach undue importance to their fanatical clamour. It is difficult to get people on this side of the channel thoroughly to understand the position of Presbyterians in Ireland, or the pertinacity, presumption, and success with which they have bullied and thwarted every Government, Liberal and Conservative, that attempted to make any concession to Catholics. When it is stated that of the population of Ireland in 1871 the percentage of Catholics was 76.6, of Episcopalian Protestants 12.6, of Presbyterians (including Unitarians) 9.3, and of all others about 1.5, it might be supposed that the relative position of the several creeds is thereby indicated. This, however, is far from being the case. Presbyterianism is altogether alien to Ireland, a-nd is confined to the Scotch settlement, in two or three of the north eastern counties of "Ulster. According to one census return in 1871 the Presbyterians are 497,615, and to another 503,461 ; but for our present purposes we shall include with them all non-Episcopal Protestants, and thus swell their number to 558,238. Of these 522,774 or nearly 93.7 per cent, are in Ulster, leaving little over 6 per cent, in the other three provinces. If we followed the matter up we should find that the two counties of Antrim and Down contain the main mass, a single parish in Belfast claiming a large contingent of the Presbyterians of the Kingdom. Yet this is the handful of alien squatters that presumes to dictate to a Catholic nation how their children shall be educated, and that lectures and bullies successive Governments against granting any concession to the Irish people. A crisis must come when a Catholic nation will be c'rlven to asstime an attitude that must leave the Government no altematve but to tell this faction who and what they are, and estimate their precise weight in the statistical, social, and political strength of the Kingdom. The special raison d'etre of. Dr. M'Devitt's letter, coming from an Ulster Bishop, and addressed to the Viceroy's son, must, to be intelligible, be interpreted in the light of the broad facts just stated. There are twenty-eight District or Provincial Model Schools, and one Central one in Dublin ; while at the latter only is there a, Training Department, one for masters and one for mistresses. Dr. M'Devitt calls attention to tlie fact that every one of those institutions Avas visited, examined, and reported on to the Royal Commission, by two members of their own body, Mr. Cowie, then one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools in England, and now Dean of Manchester, and Mr. S. If, Stokes, another of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools. These two English gentlemen, one a Protestant, the other a Catholic, held the first rank amongst the most experienced Inspectors under the Education Department, and were specially charged with the examination of the Church of England and the Catholic Training Colleges. Their Report, endorsed by the Royal Commission, disposes for ever of the alleged success, the efficiency, or the mixed character as to creed of these Model Schools and of that Central Training Institution; while the Bishop of Raphoe ably utilizes some of the best passages in their Report to crush and overthrow the statements and arguments of the Presbyterian Deputation. We can find space for a few extracts only from the Bishop's letter, which illustrate the completeness of bia answer to the Presbyterians. The allegation that the Model Schools are a success, as to the number of pupils, he answers by citing the attendance found present with the number for whom, accommodation is provided. The assertion that they are successful specimens of united education the Bishop contradicts by the following passage from the report of the Royal Commission :—: — "In one or tAvo cases the Roman Catholics virtually have the Model Schools to themselves ; from the rest all Roman Catholic pupils have withdrawn,, excepting a few children of the Board's officers or of mixed marriages (xolr i., p. 456) ; and in another place (vol. i., p. 739) they state — Henceforward (after 1858), there was an ambiguity, and the Board spent many thousands upon schools at Londonderry, Sligo, Enniscorthy, Omagh, and the rest, without the slightest hope of conducting them as models of united education. From this time the model Schools became for the majority of the people the scene of a contest between the strength of religious principle and the allurements of temporal advantage ; and the Board ap--pointed 'to superintend a system of education in which should be banished even suspicion of prosleytism,' imitated in effect the example of the Charter and Souper'schools." Dr. McDevitt remind* the Marquis of Hamilton that while the National System waa founded expressly for the education of the poor of Ireland, those very schools founded by the State as "models" are attended chiefly by the middle classes, and to such an extent that the pupils look down socially on their teachers, and refuse to obey them. " With few exceptions Are were dissatisfied with the class discipline. In most cases, if wo had been examining the children in order fp ascertain the amount due by the State for the proficiency of each child, Aye should have had to dismiss the class, and. declare the school unworthy of support. This is strong censure, but we are compelled to let it remain as our deliberate conviction The feature of Model Schools which has already received frequent notice, viz., tho attendance therein of children of the middle class and professional classes is probably here to be recalled in explanation. The children consider themselves much above the teachers, and do not pay attention to them. They know that there is a great desire to attract them to the schools ; and that, consequently, they are masters of the situation. (Ib. 749.) If children come in private cars to school, or furnished with their season ticket by railway, or attended by servants in livery (which we have ourselves witnessed), such children frighten away the poor and barefooted, who do not Uko to have their social and fiscal deficiencies made

conspicuous by contrast ; and in somo cases wa have actually been requested to recommend that there sliould be a separation of classes, as the parents of well-dressed children found it offensive to their feelings thet they should mix with their inferiors." These are grave utterances from a Royal Commission of fourteen members, four of whom were niombcrs of the National Board, one a President of a Queen's College, and another since appointed President, and two others her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools in England. Seven of the fourteen were Catholics, five Episcopalian. Protestants, and two Presbyterians. Tho alleged literary proficiency of the pupils is fully disposed of, but the most important arguments in favour of Denominational Training Colleges as distinct from' the model schools, cited by the Bishop of Raphoe, are :—: — " No system, however carefully devised, which ignores the power to be derived in forming the character, from unity of religious conviction, can be effectual. In Marlboro\igh- street (Central Training School), at every turn, religious differences are kept before the pupils. It is no happy family which is dirided into these sects, continually separating from each other for religious duties, we cannot say even " Our Father "in common. The young people are not any longer children fresh and light-hearted ; they have learned to feel already the bitterness and difficulty which religious differences create. "Would it not "be far better that the training of teachers should be denominational, even if no other part of the system should be altered. We wish to record our decided comiction of the impolicy of the present arrangements." And, again — " Brought from distant homes," and so withdrawn from parental and pastoral care, these young men pass their days and nights under a schoolmaster who, however skilful as an elementary teacher, has not been selected for ability to mould the character and form the manners of boarders, and who, sincere and well instructed as he may be in his own religion, cannot undertake to enforce the obligations of religions which are not his own. This portion of the Model Schools appears to us to "be extremely ill-advised, cosily without being effective, and calculated to alienate those most deeply interested in the welfare of the young men, without securing a sound class of teachers. . . . . Not even the Queen's Colleges have attempted boardinghouses of mixed religions, (Rep. vol. i., part ii., p. 760)." It was the late Conservative Government, chiefly the Duke of Abercorn and Lord Mayo, that constituted that Royal Commission, Jan., 1868, while its Chairman, Earl Powis, and several of its members, as Lord Clonbrook, Dr. Butcher, Bishop of Mcath, Master Burke, Judge Morris, and Mr. Waldron, were leading Conservatives. Now returned to office that Report and those recommendations lie before Mr. Disracl's Government awaiting actior. Sir M. IlicksBeach has evinced a disposition to move in the matter of Training Colleges. The motion, early in March, of which Major O'Reilly has given notice respecting the report of that Primary School Commission, before which bo himself gave admirable evidence, will test the intention of the Government on the subject. Meantime the admirable letter of the Bishop of Raphoe is an opportune contribution to the discussion.

The Bishop might have called the attention of the noble Marquis to the Model Schools in Newtown-Stewart, close beside Baronscourt, the residence of the Duke of Abercorn. When the school census was lalen, the week ending 17th June, 1871, of 160 children present in the three schools there were 46 Episcopulians and 114 Presbyterians and others ; but not even one Catholic, although the majority of the population of the town are Catholics. Yet this costly institution is set down as a model of Mixed Education. — ' Tablet.'