There can be no doubt that the committee were entitled to avow the expectation here expressed. The perfect fairness and impartiality of what they proposed with regard to religious teaching, and the simplicity and moderation of their recommendations, fortified moreover as these substantially are by the Reports of the commissions of 1812 and 1824, seem to leave no room for cavil or objection on any side. Yet we do not find that any steps were specifically taken for carrying the committee’s recommendations into effect until October 1831, when Mr. Stanley,[[55]] the then Secretary for Ireland, addressed a letter to the Duke of Leinster, stating that it had been determined to constitute a board for the superintendence of a system of national education in Ireland, and that it was proposed, with the duke’s consent, to place him at its head. The motives for constituting the new board, and the powers intended to be conferred upon it, “and the objects which it is expected that it will bear in view and carry into effect,” are all then very fully explained.
1831.
Mr. Stanley’s letter to the Duke of Leinster on the formation of the Board of National Education.
A preceding government, it is observed, imagined that they had found a superintending body acting upon the impartial and non-proselytising system recommended by the committee of 1812, and had intrusted the distribution of the national grants to the care of the Kildare-street Society.[[56]] But, the letter proceeds—
“His Majesty’s present government are of opinion that no private society deriving a part, however small, of their annual income from private sources, and only made the channel of the munificence of the legislature, without being subject to any direct responsibility, could adequately and satisfactorily accomplish the end proposed; and while they do full justice to the liberal views with which that society was originally instituted, they cannot but be sensible that one of its leading principles was calculated to defeat its avowed objects, as experience has subsequently proved that it has. The determination to enforce in all their schools the reading of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment, was undoubtedly taken with the purest motives; with the wish at once to connect religious with moral and literary education, and at the same time not to run the risk of wounding the peculiar feelings of any sect, by catechetical instruction, or comments which might tend to subjects of polemical controversy. But it seems to have been overlooked, that the principles of the Roman catholic church (to which, in any system intended for general diffusion throughout Ireland, the bulk of the pupils must necessarily belong) were totally at variance with this principle; and that the indiscriminate reading of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment, by children, must be peculiarly obnoxious to a church which denies, even to adults, the right of unaided private interpretation of the sacred volume, with respect to articles of religious belief.”
“Shortly after its institution, although the society prospered and extended its operations under the fostering care of the legislature, this vital defect began to be noticed; and the Roman catholic clergy began to exert themselves with energy and success against a system to which they were on principle opposed, and which they feared might lead in its results to proselytism, even although no such object were contemplated by its promoters. When this opposition arose, founded on such grounds, it soon became manifest that the system could not become one of national education.”
“The commissioners of education in 1824-5, sensible of the defects of the system, and of the ground, as well as the strength of the objection taken, recommended the appointment of two teachers in every school, one protestant and the other Roman catholic, to superintend separately the religious education of the children; and they hoped to have been able to agree upon a selection from the Scriptures that might have been generally acquiesced in by both persuasions. But it was soon found that these schemes were impracticable; and, in 1828, a committee of the house of commons,[[57]] to which were referred the various Reports of the commissioners of education, recommended a system to be adopted, which should afford, if possible, a combined literary, and a separate religious education, and should be capable of being so far adapted to the views of the religious persuasions which prevail in Ireland, as to render it, in truth, a system of National education for the poorer classes of the community.”
The letter next points out, that on the composition of the board will in a great degree depend the obtaining of public confidence, and the success of the measure; and it is then declared to be the intention of government—
“That the board should exercise a complete control over the various schools which may be erected under its auspices; or which having been already established, may hereafter place themselves under its management, and submit to its regulations. Subject to these, applications for aid will be admissible from Christians of all denominations; but as one of the main objects must be to unite in one system, children of different creeds, and as much must depend upon the co-operation of the resident clergy, the board will probably look with peculiar favour upon applications proceeding either from—
“1st.—The protestant and Roman catholic clergy of the parish; or
“2nd.—One of the clergymen, and a certain number of the parishioners professing the opposite creed; or