The experiment of mixed education in Ireland had already been made with partial success, first by individuals, and afterwards by an association known as the Kildare Place Society. On the appointment of Dr. Whately to the archbishopric of Dublin, it received a fresh impulse, and Stanley, as chief secretary, definitely adopted the principle, recommended by two commissions and two committees, of "a combined moral and literary and separate religious instruction". A board of national education was established in Dublin, composed of eminent Roman catholics as well as protestants, to superintend all state-aided schools in which selections from the Bible, approved by the board, were to be read on two days in the week. Though provision was made for unrestricted biblical teaching, out of school hours, on the other four days, protestant bigotry was roused against the very idea of compromise. A shrewd observer remarked, "While the whole system is crumbling to dust under their feet, while the Church is prostrate, property of all kind threatened, and robbery, murder, starvation, and agitation rioting over the land, these wise legislators are debating whether the brats at school shall read the whole Bible or only parts of it".[109] The opponents of the national board failed to defeat the scheme in parliament, and it was justly mentioned with satisfaction by the king in his prorogation speech of August 16. But its benefits, though lasting, were seriously curtailed by sectarian jealousy. Most of the protestant clergy frowned upon the national schools, as the Roman catholic priesthood had frowned upon the schools of the Kildare Place Society, and a noble opportunity of mitigating religious strife in Ireland was to a great extent wasted. Thus ended the eventful session of 1832.
FOOTNOTES:
[104] See Professor Dicey's observations on this clause, Law and Opinion in England, p. 54, n.
[105] Wellington, Despatches, etc., viii., 206; Parker, Sir Robert Peel, ii., 207.
[106] Parker, Sir Robert Peel, ii., 206.
[107] Goldwin Smith, United Kingdom, ii., 354; Dicey, Law and Opinion in England, p. 85.
[108] C. Creighton, History of Epidemics in Britain, ii., 768, 793-97, 860-62.
[109] Greville, Memoirs (March 9, 1832), ii., 267.