A little learning, we are told, is a dangerous thing; and in their dealings with Irish education the English should have discovered that this danger is accentuated when the little learning is combined with much native wit. In the days when religious persecution was universal—only, be it remembered, a few generations ago—it was the policy of England to avert this danger by prohibiting, as far as possible, the acquisition by Irish Roman Catholics of any learning at all. After the Union, Englishmen began to feel their responsibility for the state of Ireland, a state of poverty and distress which culminated in the Famine. Knowledge was then no longer withheld: indeed the English sincerely desired to dispel our darkness and enable us to share in the wisdom, and so in the prosperity, of the predominant partner. In their attempts to educate us they dealt with what they saw on the surface, and moulded their educational principles upon what they knew; but they did not know Ireland. Even if we excuse them for paying scant attention to what they were told by Irishmen, they should have given more heed to the reports of their own Royal Commissions.
We have so far seen that the Irish mind has been in
Now this is exactly what was denied to Ireland. Not merely has all educational legislation come from England, in the sense of being based on English models and thought out by Englishmen largely out of touch and sympathy with the peculiar needs of Ireland, but whenever there has been genuine native thought on Irish educational problems, it has been either ignored altogether or distorted till its value and significance were lost. And in this matter we can claim for Ireland that there was in the country during the first half of the nineteenth century, when England was trying her best to provide us with a sound English education, a comparatively advanced stage of home-grown Irish thought upon the educational needs of the people. Take, for example, the Society for Promoting Elementary Education among the Irish Poor, know as the Kildare Street Society, which was founded as early as the year 1811. The first resolution passed by this body, which was composed of
(1.) Resolved—That promoting the education of the poor of Ireland is a grand object which every Irishman anxious for the welfare and prosperity of his country ought to have in view as the basis upon which the morals and true happiness of the country can be best secured.
This Society, it is true, did not see or foresee that any system of mixed religious education was doomed to failure in Ireland, but they took a wide view of the place of education in a nation's development, and the character of the education which their schools actually dispensed was admirable. This hopeful and enterprising educational movement is described by Mr. Lecky in a passage from which I take a few extracts:—
The ‘Kildare Street Society’ which received an endowment from Government, and directed National education from 1812 to 1831, was not proselytising, and it was for some time largely patronized by Roman Catholics. It is certainly by no means deserving of the contempt which some writers have bestowed on it, and if measured by the spirit of the time in which it was founded it will appear both liberal and useful.... The object of the schools was stated to be united education, ‘taking common Christian ground for the foundation, and excluding all sectarian distinctions from every part of the arrangement;’ ‘drawing the attention of both denominations to the many leading truths of Christianity in which they agree.’ To carry out this principle it was a fundamental rule that the Bible must be read without note or
[Footnote: Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, 2., 122 4.]
Take, again, as an evidence of the progressive spirit of the Irish thinkers on education, the remarkable scheme of national education which, after the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act, was formulated by Mr. Thomas Wyse, of Waterford. In addition to elementary schools, Mr. Wyse proposed to establish in every county, ‘an academy for the education of the middle class of society in those departments of knowledge most necessary to those classes, and over those a College in each of the four provinces, managed by a Committee representative of the interests of the several counties of the provinces.’ ‘It is a matter of importance,’ wrote Mr. Wyse, ‘for the simple and efficient working of the whole system of national education, that each part should as much as possible be brought into co-operation and accord with the others.’ He foresaw, too, that one of the needs of the Irish temperament was a training in science which would cultivate the habits of ‘education, observation, and reasoning,’ and he pointed
the present Resident Commissioner of the Board, ‘the more important part of the scheme, dealing with a university and secondary education, was shelved, in spite of Mr. Wyse's warnings that it was imprudent, dangerous, and pernicious to the social condition of the country, and to its future tranquillity, that so much encouragement should be given to the education of the lower classes, without at the same time due provision being made for the education of the middle and upper classes.’[Footnote: Recent Reforms in Irish Education, p. 7.]
As still another evidence of the sound thought on educational problems which came from Irishmen who knew the actual conditions of their own country and people, the case of the agricultural instruction administered by the National Board is pertinent. The late Sir Patrick Keenan has told us that landlords and others who on political and religious grounds distrusted the National system, turned to this feature of the operations of the National Board with the greatest fervour. A scheme of itinerant instruction in agriculture, which had a curious resemblance to that which the Department of Agriculture is now organising, was developed, and was likely to have worked with the
I now come to a brief consideration of some facts of the present educational situation, and I shall indicate, for those readers who are not familiar with current events in Ireland, the significant evolution, or revolution, through which Irish education is passing. Within the last eight years we have had in Ireland three very remarkable reports—in themselves symptoms of a wide
I am told by competent authorities that there is not a single educational principle laid down in either the report on Manual Instruction or on Intermediate Education, which was not known and applied at least half a century ago in continental countries. In fact, in the Recess Committee investigations, as any reader of the report of that body can see for himself, the Committee, guided by foreign experience, foreshadowed practically every reform now being put into operation. It is better, of course, that we should reform late than never, but it is well to bear in mind also, so far as the problems of this book are concerned, how far the education of the country has fallen short of any sound standard, and how little could have been expected from the working of our system. The curve of Irish illiteracy has indeed fallen continuously with each succeeding census, but true education as opposed to mere instruction has languished sadly.
Together with my friends and fellow-workers in the self-help movement, I believe that the problem of Irish education, like all other Irish problems, must be reconsidered
This attempt touches, of course, only one department of the whole educational problem, much of which it would be quite outside my present purpose to discuss. But I must guard against the supposition that in our insistence upon the importance of the practical side of
To sum up the educational situation in Ireland, it is not too much to say that all our forms of education, technical and general, hang loose. We lack a body of trained teachers; we have no alert and informed public opinion on education and its function in regard to life; and there is no proper provision for research work in all branches, a deficiency, which, I am told by those who have given deep thought and long study to these problems, inevitably reacts most disastrously on the general educational system of the country. This state of things appears not unnatural when we remember that the Penal Laws were not repealed till almost the close of the eighteenth century, and that a large majority of the Irish people had not full and free access to even primary and secondary education until the passing of the Emancipation Act in 1829. At the present day, the absence of any provision for higher education of which Roman Catholics will avail themselves is not merely an enormous loss in itself, but it reacts most adversely upon the whole educational machinery, and consequently upon the whole public life and thought of that section of the nation.
One of the very first things I had to learn when I came into direct touch with educational problems, was that the education of a country cannot be divided into water-tight compartments, and each part legislated for or discussed solely on its merits and without reference to the other parts. I see now very clearly that the
It was not on purely pedagogic grounds that I added to my other political irregularities the earnest advocacy of such a provision for higher education as Roman Catholics will avail themselves of. This great need was revealed to me in my study of the Irish mind and of the direction in which it could look for its higher development. My belief is based on practical experience; my point of view is that of the economist. When the new economic mission in Ireland began now fourteen years ago, we had to undertake, in addition to our practical programme, a kind of University extension work with the important omission of the University. We had to bring home to adult farmers whose general education was singularly poor, though their native intelligence was keen and receptive, a large number of general ideas bearing on the productive and distributive side of their industry. Our chief obstacles arose from the lack of trained economic thought among all classes, and especially among those to whom the majority looked for guidance. The air was thick with economic fallacies or
I hardly know how to describe the mental atmosphere in which we were working. It would be no libel upon the public opinion upon which we sought to make an impression to say that it really allowed no question to be discussed on its merits. Public opinion on social and economic questions is changing now, but I cannot associate the change with any influence emanating from institutions of higher education. In other countries, so far as my investigations have extended, the universities do guide economic thought and have a distinct though wholly unofficial function as a court of appeal upon questions relating to the material progress of the communities amongst which they are situated. Of such institutions there are in Ireland only two which could be expected to direct in any large way the thought of the country upon economic and other important national questions—Maynooth, and Trinity College, Dublin. Whether in their widely different spheres of influence these two institutions could, under
The influence of Maynooth, actual and potential, can hardly be exaggerated, but it is exercised indirectly upon the secular thought of the country. It is not its function to make a direct impression. It is in fact only a professional—I had almost said a technical—school. It trains its students, most admirably I am told, in theology, philosophy, and the studies subsidiary to these sciences, but always, for the vast majority of its students, with a distinctly practical and definite missionary end in view. There is, I believe, an arts course of modest scope, designed rather to meet the deficiencies of students whose general education has been neglected than to serve as anything in the nature of a university arts course. I am quite aware of the value of a sound training in mental science if given in connection with a full university course, but I am equally convinced that the Maynooth education, on the whole, is no substitute for a university course, and that while its chief end of turning out a large number of trained priests has been fulfilled, it has not given, and could not be expected to have given, that broader and more humane culture which only
Moreover, under the Maynooth system young clerics are constantly called upon to take a part in the life of a lay community, towards which, when they entered college, they were in no position of responsibility, and upon which, so far as secular matters are concerned, when they emerge from their theological training, they are no better adapted to exercise a helpful influence. In my experience of priests I have met with many in whom I recognised a sincere desire to attend to the material and social well-being of their flocks, but who certainly had not that breadth of view and understanding of human nature which perhaps contact with the laity during the years in which they were passing from discipline to authority might have given to them. However this may be, it is clear and it is admitted that education as opposed to professional training of a high order is still, generally speaking, a want among the priests of Ireland, and I look forward to no greater boon from a University or University College for Roman Catholics than its influence, direct and indirect, on a body of men whose prestige and authority are necessarily so unique.
It is, therefore, to Trinity College, or the University of Dublin, that one would naturally turn as to a great centre of thought in Ireland for help in the theoretic aspects, at least, of the practical problems upon whose successful solution our national well-being depends. Judged
From this point of view I am bound to say that Trinity College, so far as I have seen, has had but little influence upon the minds or the lives of the people. Nor can I find that at any period of the extraordinarily interesting economic and social revolution, which has been in progress in Ireland since the great catastrophe of the Famine period, Dublin University has departed from its academic isolation and its aloofness from the great national problems that were being worked out. The more one thinks of it, indeed, and the more one realises the opportunities of an institution like Trinity College in a country like Ireland, the more one must recognise how small, in recent times, has been its positive influence on the mind of the country, and how little it has contributed towards the solution of any of those problems, educational, economic, or social, that were clamant for solution, and which in any other country would have naturally secured the attention of men who ought to have been leaders of thought.
Whatever the causes, and many may be assigned, this unfortunate lack of influence on the part of Trinity College, has always seemed to me a strong supplementary argument for the creation of another University or University College on a more popular basis, to which the Roman Catholic people of Ireland would have recourse. From the fact that Maynooth by its constitution could never have developed into a great national
and that Trinity College has never, as a matter of fact, done so, and has thus, in my opinion, missed a unique opportunity, it has come about that Ireland has been without any great centre of thought whose influence would have tended to leaven the mass of mental inactivity or random-thinking so prevalent in Ireland, and would have created a body of educated public opinion sufficiently informed and potent to secure the study and discussion on their merits of questions of vital interest to the country. The demoralising atmosphere of partisanship which hangs over Ireland would, I am convinced, gradually give way before an organised system of education with a thoroughly democratic University at its head, which would diffuse amongst the people at large a sense of the value of a balanced judgment on, and a true appreciation of, the real forces with which Ireland has to deal in building up her fortunes.[Footnote: It was not authorised to give degrees to lay students, and even the admission of lay students to an Arts course was prohibited by Government, lest Catholic students should be drawn away from Trinity College. See Cornwallis Correspondence, 3., 366—8.]
To discuss the merits of the different solutions which have been proposed for the vexed problem of higher education in Ireland would be beyond the scope of this book. The question will have to be faced, and all I need do here is to state the conditions which the solution will have to fulfil if it is to deal with the aspects of the Irish Question with which the new movement is practically concerned. What is most needed is a University that will
Unfortunately, however, in Ireland, and indeed in England too, there is a tendency to regard educational institutions almost solely as they will affect religion. At least it is difficult to arouse any serious interest in them except from this point of view. I welcome, therefore, the striking answers given to the queries of Lord Robertson, Chairman of the University Commission, by Dr. O'Dwyer, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick, who boldly and wisely placed the question before the country in the light in which cleric and layman should alike regard it:—
The Chairman.—(413): ‘I suppose you believe a
Catholic University, such as you propose, will strengthen Roman Catholicism in Ireland?’—‘It is not easy to answer that; not so easy as it looks.’ (414):—‘But it won't weaken it, or you would not be here?’—‘It would educate Catholics in Ireland very largely, and, of course, a religious denomination composed of a body of educated men is stronger than a religious denomination composed of ignorant men. In that sense it would strengthen Roman Catholicism.’ (415):—‘Is there any sense in which it won't?’—‘As far as religion is concerned, I do not know how a University would work out. If you ask me now whether I think that that University in a certain number of years would become a centre of thought, strengthening the Catholic faith in Ireland, I cannot tell you. It is a leap in the dark.’ (416):—‘But it is in the hope that it will strengthen your own Church that you propose it?’—‘No, it is not, by any means. We are Bishops, but we are Irishmen, also, and we want to serve our country.’[Footnote: Appendix to First Report, p. 37.]
Equally significant were the statements of Dr. O'Dea, the official spokesman of Maynooth, when he said,
I regard the interest of the laity in the settlement of the University Question as supreme. The clergy are but a small, however important, part of the nation, and the laity have never had an institution of higher education comparable to Maynooth in magnitude or resources. I recognise, therefore, that the educational grievances of the laity are much more pressing than those of the clergy... It is generally admitted that Irish priests hold a position of exceptional influence, due to historical causes, the intensely religious character of the people, and the want of Catholic laymen qualified by education and position for social and political leadership. What Bishop Berkeley said of them in 1749, in his letter, A Word to the Wise, still holds true, ‘That no set of men on earth have it in
their power to do good on easier terms, with more advantage to others and less pains or loss to themselves.’ It would be folly to expect that in a mixed community the State should do anything to strengthen or perpetuate this power; but this result will certainly not follow from the more liberal education of the clergy, provided equal advantages are extended to the laity. On the contrary, I am convinced that if the void in the lay leadership of the country be filled up by higher education of the better classes among the Catholic laity, the power of the priests, so far as it is abnormal or unnecessary will pass away; and, further, if I believed, with many who are opposed to the better education of the priesthood that their power is based on falsehood or superstition, I would unhesitatingly advocate the spread of higher education among the laity and clergy alike, as the best means of effectually sapping and disintegrating it.[Footnote: Appendix to Third Report, pp. 283, 296.]
I had for long indulged a hope that a university of the type which Ireland requires would have been the outcome of a great national educational movement emanating from Trinity College, which might, at this auspicious hour, have surpassed all the proud achievements of its three hundred years. That hope was dispelled when the cry of ‘Hands off Trinity’ was applied to the profane hands of the Royal Commission. Perhaps that attitude may be reconsidered yet. There is one hopeful sentiment which is often heard coming from that institution. An opinion has been strongly expressed that nothing ought to be done to separate in secular life two sections of Irishmen who happen to belong to different creeds. Whatever may be the logical outcome of the position taken up towards the University problem by
I do not concern myself as to the exact form which the new institution or institutions which are to give us the absolutely essential advantage of higher education should
When I was beginning to write this chapter I chanced to pick up the Chesterfield Letters. I opened the book at the two hundredth epistle, and, curiously enough, almost the first sentence which caught my eye ran: ‘Education more than nature is the cause of that difference you see in the character of men.’ I felt myself at first in strong disagreement with this aphorism. But when I came to reflect how much the nature of one generation must be the outcome of the education of those which went before it, I gradually came to see the truth in Lord Chesterfield's words. I must leave it to