In addition to the Board of National Education there are in Dublin the Intermediate Board, the Commissioners of Education, who deal with the few Educational endowments in the country, the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, the Senate of the Royal University, the Local Government Board attending to the education of children in work-houses, industrial, and reformatory schools, all concerned with primary and secondary education in its administrative aspect, while the Board of Works is occupied with the erection of school buildings. The extravagance and inefficiency which results from this diffusion and consequent overlapping of power and duties on the part of officials scattered about in Tyrone House, in Hume Street, in Merrion Place, and three or four other parts of Dublin, is well illustrated by the fact that out of every 20s. given as Exchequer aid to education—
In England and Wales
17/- goes to Education and 3/- to Administration and Inspection.
In Scotland
16/2 goes to Education and 3/10 to Administration and Inspection.
In Ireland
13/6 goes to Education and 6/6 to Administration and Inspection.
Administrative extravagance, it will be seen, is in inverse ratio to the quality of the educational service. If we take the three Irish Boards of National, Intermediate, and Technical Education, the total cost of administration and inspection is £120,000 per annum; the similar charge on Scotland is exactly half that sum, and yet Scotland prides herself on
[131]her education, and Ireland is taunted with her illiteracy.
The state of secondary education in Ireland differs fundamentally from that of England in this—that the number of educational endowments in the country are extremely few. Practically the whole of the money spent on this branch of education comes from taxation and school fees. It is controlled by the Intermediate Board, which was established some thirty years ago, and is in its management entirely dissociated from the National Board, so that all arrangements with a view to the transfer of clever pupils from the schools of the one type to those of the other are made as difficult as possible.
The Intermediate schools are, on the other hand, subject to the Department of Technical Instruction as well as to the Intermediate Board. Each of these awards grants, in some instances, for the same subjects, but dependent in many cases on different standards and conditions, so that it sometimes happens that schools earn grants twice over for the same subjects; and in other cases they enjoy aid from one Department of State which is refused for the same subject by another, owing to failure to comply with its conditions or to attain to its standard. Just as the connection of the Elementary schools with the Intermediate schools is very imperfect, so at the other end is the connection with the universities. The system of payment by results, under which the Intermediate schools are subsidised, is notoriously unsound from the point of view of education, since it leads to "cramming," and, moreover, under it the amount of grant earned by a school is subject to extreme variations. Lastly, if the pupils suffer from existing arrangements, the case of the teachers is no better, for from a recent report it will be seen that the average salary of lay teachers in Intermediate schools in Ireland is at least half what it is in corresponding schools in England.
[132]In a country where elementary and intermediate education are in so unsatisfactory condition as we have seen them to be, one would expect university education to be seriously crippled, but in Ireland there arise in this connection further complications from religious differences which serve to perpetuate a state of affairs which twenty years ago Mr. Balfour declared was an intolerable grievance, and which still remains one of the chief disabilities of Ireland. There are at the present moment two universities in the country, but since one of these is only an examining board let us begin by considering the status of the other. Trinity College, Dublin, was founded by Queen Elizabeth with the proceeds of confiscated Catholic lands, both monastic and lay, with the avowed intention of propagating the principles of the Protestant religion. During Grattan's Parliament, at the end of the eighteenth century, it threw open its gates to others than members of the Established Church—an example which was not followed by Oxford and Cambridge for three-quarters of a century. There could be no greater mistake than to imply from this that it thereby lost its strong sectarian character. After Mr. Gladstone's attempt in 1873 to solve the University question had failed, Fawcett's Act removed the religious tests which barred not only Catholics but also Presbyterians from its offices and scholarships, and thereby made the College, in theory, undenominational. In point of fact it is little less Episcopalian than it has ever been. Its chapel services are Protestant, as are also its Divinity schools. Its governing body, comprising the Provost and seven Senior Fellows, is entirely Protestant, while of the 4,200 names on its electoral roll 2,600 are those of Protestant clergymen.
Of other institutions affording opportunities for higher education in Ireland, the three Queen's Colleges in Cork, Galway, and Belfast were destined by their founder, Sir Robert Peel, who established
[133]them in 1838, to supply the higher education which was lacking among the Catholics of the country. The Protestant "atmosphere" of Trinity being the great obstacle in the way of Catholics who wished for higher education for their sons, it was thought that by removing this and setting up undenominational colleges all would be well and the religious difficulty would be solved. It was as great a mistake as it was possible to commit. They were stigmatised by a leading Protestant of the time as godless colleges; they ran counter to all Catholic principles of education, which demand at least some connection between secular and religious teaching, and the taboo to which they have in large measure been subjected has to a great extent resulted in making a failure of Cork College, and still more of Galway College. The undenominationalism of Queen's College, Belfast, not being in opposition to the consciences of the Presbyterians of that city, has resulted in the fact that the College there has succeeded to a far greater extent than have the other two.
The Royal University, founded in 1882, is, as I have said, nothing more than an examining body, established on the lines of the London University as it existed at that date, with power to award scholarships and fellowships. About fifty years ago John Henry Newman founded the Catholic University in St. Stephen's Green. Unendowed and depending on the voluntary contributions of the poorest people in Western Europe, it is not surprising that the venture failed. From it, however, rose the University College, controlled by the Jesuit Fathers, which occupies the same buildings, and the pupils of which compete for the degrees of the Royal University as those of the Queen's Colleges have done ever since, on the foundation of the Royal University, the Queen's University—of which the three colleges were components—was destroyed. The indirect mode in which