well attended to. There were nearly forty acres of land attached to the school; its condition was very good, being well worked by spade husbandry. There were two cows and some pigs kept; and the corn crops yielded a very good return. In addition to agriculture, the boys were instructed in shoe-making, tailoring, and sack-making. They got plenty of work for Belfast at tailoring and shoe-making. All the boys' clothing was made in the house. They even made their own shirts, yet this school was only half full, while there were a number of young offenders in the prisons. In St. Joseph's school for girls, at Limerick, educational and industrial training were carefully attended to. The profit from the laundry showed how, and with what advantage to the girls, this branch of industry could be cultivated. Shirt-making, lace-making, and embroidery were well attended to. The number under detention on 31st of December, 1866, was 23; the average monthly number through the year was 31. The cost per head in 1866 was £22 15s. 04d. The payments by parents in that year were £14 3s., and the industrial profit was £143 7s. 9d. Out of the total number detained in reformatory schools in 1866, only six absconded, five boys and one girl. It might then be fairly asked why this Act was not more largely availed of by the judges and magistracy of Ireland. It was well known that a number of young offenders were still to be found in the gaols; a course which had been justified by some on the ground that to send them to a reformatory was to discourage honest industry. But it should be remembered that the cost to the national resources of a child in a reformatory was less than his cost either in prison or, if thieving, at large; and it had been estimated that a saving was effected to the Government alone of between £200 and £300 in every boy who was reclaimed in a reformatory instead of continuing his criminal career to Pentonville or Spike Island. It might be a question whether the Act should not be extended, and empower the Lord Lieutenant to send to these schools, on proper certification, boys whom bad habits, criminal influences, and the apparent want of means to earn their livelihood, made fit subjects for reformation.

Mr. ROBERT SPENCE WATSON, (Gateshead), read a paper on the Industrial Schools' Act, in which he recommended that the adoption of that Act, and the formation of industrial schools, should be made compulsory on the local authorities of all towns. He had had experience of the excellent results of these schools, having been secretary to one of the earliest. More than 850 boys had passed through the school at Newcastle-on-Tyne, lads picked up in the streets, begging, destitute, on the verge of crime; and not one of them had been committed to prison for any offence since leaving the school. Under the present Act the Government gave national assistance to these schools, and the local authorities could assist both in starting and working them. Why should not this permissive power be made compulsory? It might be urged that the advantage of the present system was the combination of legal authority with private benevolence; but if the schools were under

sons.

a committee of magistrates or town councillors, that would not prevent their being still regarded with interest by philanthropical perAs the law now stood the voluntary committees, who managed the schools, might reject suitable cases, although committed by the magistrates. If his proposal were adopted we might live to see in every town an industrial school, in which the children swept from the streets would be trained in knowledge and industry, aided to find employment, and watched in the difficult beginnings of independent life. Juvenile crime would then be unknown, adult crime be cut off at its source, and a destitute child be an impossibility.

Mr. J. P. ORGAN, Inspector of Released Convicts and Lecturer at the Intermediate Prisons, read a paper giving an account of the successful efforts made to obtain employment for convicts released from the intermediate prisons. He illustrated the results that had been realised in the labour market at home, in the colonies, and in the army and navy, notwithstanding great difficulties. Perhaps the strongest feature in the system was that it had worked without the aid of a patronage society. Every man was taught to trust to himself, not to look to his neighbours.

Mr. EDWARD ALLWORTHY read a paper on "The neglected children of the poor, and what we owe them." He said those who visit the homes of the poor witnessed scenes of misery indescribable -children huddled together in cellars and garrets irrespective of age or sex, often without light or heat, a little straw for beds, and a few rags to cover their nakedness. The natural result of their parents' neglect was infant mortality and enfeebled bodies, while their surroundings and want of education inclined them to all evil; but, beyond all this, thousands of parents trained their children to plunder society, and prostituted them to the most vicious courses. Here, then, was the prolific source of crime, disease, and death; and yet the State had hitherto acted on the principle of non-intervention. If the natural parents were so insensible to their duty, the State should step in and take their place. If we took into account the crime and pauperism checked in the bud, and the effect upon our gaols, reformatories, and workhouses, the loss would be very little, while the gain in bone and sinew and mind would be very considerable.

Mr. CHARLES R. FORD, Secretary of the Reformatory and Refuge Union, read a paper on the work of "The Boy's Beadle." This agent had been employed for a year to look after the homeless children in the streets of London, by the Reformatory and Refuge Union. His work had been eminently successful. He had been able to procure admission for many wanderers into homes and refuges, and had aided in applying the laws which enabled them to be remitted as vagrants to industrial schools, or when criminals to reformatories. He had also gone home with boys found selling matches, and cautioned their parents as to the consequences. Looking at the good achieved in so short a time, it was worthy of consideration whether such officers should not be employed in all large towns, specially to carry out the Vagrant and Industrial Schools Acts.

EDUCATION.

THE IRISH EDUCATION QUESTION.*

Is the "National" or "Denominational" System of Education best suited to the Circumstances of Ireland? By Professor NESBITT.

TE

E may, I think, congratulate ourselves, in approaching the attention the applicability, namely, of the denominational system of education to Ireland-that we have the advantage, rarely enjoyed in our education controversies, of knowing precisely what those who are in favour of that system propose for our acceptance. The Roman Catholic bishops have sketched, with great clearness, the scheme which they would substitute for the national system; and if we have no formal scheme from the Church Education Society, their views are, I presume, conveyed with sufficient definiteness in the propositions made, by the late Mr. Pollock, at the Dublin meeting of this Association. After carefully considering the Protestant and Roman Catholic proposals, I cannot see that they differ in any fundamental point. The essential feature of each is, that it rescinds that condi tion under which the State has remitted to the clergy of the various communions the religious teaching of the children-the condition, namely, that it shall be so given as not to obstruct her in the sphere which she has specially traced out for herself that of their secular instruction. There may be, and doubtless are, peculiarities of detail in the proposal of the bishops, but these are easily distinguishable, and do not affect the general principle. It seems to me, therefore, that I shall best bring the question between the national and denominational systems of education to a practical issue, if I devote the limited time placed at my disposal to pointing out the effect of changing our educational system in accordance with this, the latest, and, I may add, the only authoritative exposition of denominationalism which we possess.

And first let me say a word on the form which this demand for denominational education assumes. It is urged, as you are aware, on

*See Transactions, 1861, pp. 278; 294-325; 372–387. For Abstracts of Papers, see p. 419. For Discussion, see p. 421.

I

the familiar ground of a plea for equal justice. The system of education which prevails in England should, it is said, in all fairness be extended to Ireland. The demand for the English system is, however, accompanied with an important reserve. What is asked for is, not the English system, pure and simple, but the English system with a difference the English system without its voluntary element. Now, it is not strange that the principle that the assistance of the State should be made contingent upon voluntary local effort should be repudiated for Ireland. Even if the principle had not so miserably failed to overtake the educational wants of England; if it had not, after being in operation nearly thirty years, left 11,000 of the smaller parishes, with a population of 6,000,000 of souls-parishes which, from their intellectual sluggishness and poverty, stood most in need of stimulation and support, wholly destitute of the assistance of the State; if it had not broken down still more lamentably at the great centres of population, leaving in London alone from 150,000 to 200,000 children unprovided with the means of instruction; even, say, if the shortcomings of this principle were not so painfully manifest in England, there are circumstances connected with Ireland which would render its application wholly inadmissible. It is unnecessary to mention more than one. The great majority of the children for whom in Ireland public schools are needed are Roman Catholics, and to make their education dependent on the will of the owners of the soil, who are for the most part Protestant, and on that of the parochial clergy of the Established Church, would only result either in the neglect of the work, or in what would be, perhaps, still more objectionable, a system of proselytism on the most extensive scale. The repudiation of the voluntary principle for Ireland is thus most reasonable in itself. It is, however, it seems to me, absolutely fatal to the demand with which it is accompanied. The truth is, that the principle which is rejected is the basis and condition of the boon which is craved. You cannot have the English system without its voluntaryism. This is the groundwork of all that is characteristic in the system, its denominationalism included. There could be no greater mistake than to suppose that the denominational principle was deliberately chosen as in itself a desirable basis of public education. Denominationalism is, as we all know, the price which the State has paid for the voluntary efforts of the religious organizations-the only agency upon which, unprepared as was the public mind for a comprehensive scheme of education, she could rely, and it would be easy, in tracing the history of the transaction, to show that the price has varied directly with the efforts put forth; that the State has limited private discretion just in proportion as she has dispensed with private enterprise.

In England this principle of action is well understood, and generally accepted. Thus, in the application of the Conscience Clause, a distinction is made between schools to which a building grant is made, and those which only receive assistance in the way of salary and books. The latter are exempted from its operation. This, again, is the ground of the strenuous opposition which has been

offered to a local rate for the maintenance of public schools. A rate would be imposed on all the inhabitants of a district, and it is regarded as axiomatic, that its disbursement must be controlled by all the ratepayers. The imposition of a rate, it is therefore argued, must be the destruction, as of the voluntary, so of the denominational system. But the principle has been no less applied in Ireland. Here, indeed, the State has never forgotten that she is the mother of all her children; and care is taken that no child shall be excluded from any of the privileges of secular education on the ground of religious belief, but, subject to the limitation which this cardinal maxim imposes, local managers are entrusted with power in the exact ratio of the sacrifices they have made. Thus, in the model schools, which are exclusively supported by the State, she, through the Commissioners, exercises exclusive control, appointing the teachers, selecting the books, and arranging the courses of instruction. Again, in cases where she not merely contributes to the current expenditure, but aids in the erection of the school-buildings, she requires that those buildings shall be vested in the Commissioners, or in trustees for the public, and that they shall be open at suitable times to such pastors or religious teachers as the parents shall approve, leaving, however, to the local patrons, subject to the approval of the Commissioners, the choice of books, the regulation of the details of instruction, and the appointment of teachers. Lastly, in the cases of schools to which no building grant has been made, and which are not, therefore, vested in the Board or in public trustees, in return for a simple contribution of salary and books, she claims no other control than a general veto on the books and teachers employed, the right of inspection, and the prohibition of all compulsion in matters of religion.

Now, how does this reasonable and universally admitted maxim of the graduation of State control to State assistance bear upon the demand of the Roman Catholic prelates?

In England, we are told by the Royal Commissioners, the Government contributes about one-fourth to the income of the schools which receive annual grants; while in Ireland, as appears from the last Report of the National Board, five-sixths of the total amount received by the teaching staff come from the national funds, one-sixth alone being locally provided.† Is it conceivable, then, that the State will so far depart from her ordinary principle of action as to treat these cases as identical? That she will here give the clergy of a particular religious communion the same discretion in disposing of the national funds as in England she concedes to the several denominations in disposing of their own? The motives at least must be stringent, the countervailing advantages great, which are to determine the State to a course of action so exceptional, and when we come to inquire what are these motives and what these advantages, we can find none save these: that she may preclude the possibility of her children being educated in common, and that the perfect protection which religious minorities now enjoy may be extinguished.

* Report of 1861, p. 69.

+ Report, p. 22.