HOME EDUCATION AND FOSTERAGE:
Thus far we have dealt with literary and professional education. It remains to add a few words in regard to what may be called home education. This education was partly literary and partly technical in nature, and differed according to the age, sex, and social position of the child.
In addition to the usual literary education the sons of the chiefs were instructed in archery, swimming, and chess-playing,[212] while the daughters were taught sewing, cutting-out and embroidery. The sons of chiefs were also taught horsemanship. The children of the wealthy class were often put to fosterage and the foster father was held responsible for the instruction in these branches for neglect of which he was punished by a fine of two-thirds the fosterage fee. The Brehon Law clearly defines the relation between the teacher and pupil in the following words:
“The social position that is considered between the foster-pupil and his foster-father is that the latter is to instruct him without reserve, and to prepare him for his degree, and to chastise him without severity; to feed and to clothe him while he is learning his lawful profession unless he obtains it (food and clothing) from another person. On the other hand, the foster son is to assist his tutor in poverty, and support his old age, and to give him the honour price of the degree for which he is being prepared, and all the gains of his art while he is earning it, and the first earning of his art after he has left the house of his tutor; and moreover the literary foster father has power of judgment and proof and witnesses upon his foster son as the father has upon his son.”[213]
In the case of children who were put to fosterage the parents were apparently left to their own discretion as to the training of their children in their own homes. In such a case the instruction was of the more or less technical type that all must master to a greater or less extent in order to discharge the ordinary duties of life.[214]
Notwithstanding the facilities afforded by the numerous lay and monastic schools the great body of the people were probably neither able to read or write, yet they were not uneducated. They had an education of another kind, reciting poetry, historical tales, and legends, or listening to recitation in which all took delight. In every hamlet there was one or more amateur reciters. This practice of listening to the recitation of stories and poems was then as general as the reading of newspapers and story-books is at the present day.[215] Anyone acquainted with the social life of the Irish-speaking peasantry even in modern Ireland and has listened to a story told, or poem recited, by a seanchaidhe (raconteur) will realise that this was true education, a real exercise for the intellect and a refined source of enjoyment. Taking education then in the broad sense we see that the great body of the Irish people in these early times were really educated.