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THE

SIXTY-SEVENTH REPORT

OF THE

COMMISSIONERS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION

IN IRELAND,

FOR THE YEAR 1900.

ΤΟ

HIS EXCELLENCY GEORGE HENRY EARL CADOGAN, K.G.

LORD LIEUTENANT-GENERAL AND GENERAL GOVERNOR OF IRELAND.

May it please your Excellency,

Period

and the

WE, the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland for the submit to Your Excellency this our Sixty-seventh Report. In this Statistics Report the statistics of attendances, religious denominations, Expendi&c., in the schools, have been compiled for the year ended 31st ture. December, 1900, while the statements connected with the expenditure of the Parliamentary grants, &c., refer to the year ended 31st March, 1901.

Before giving the usual information regarding our proceedings for the closing year of the nineteenth century, we deem the occasion opportune to allude briefly to the operations of this Board since its formation in 1831, because of the increased interest now taken in Irish educational matters, and also on account of the radical changes which have recently been made in the National System in regard to its school curriculum and the methods of administration.

The question of popular education in Ireland had occupied the attention of the Government for many years prior to 1831, but in that year it was announced in the House of Commons that the Government intended to introduce a system of public education in which no attempt should be made to influence or disturb the peculiar religious tenets of any sect of Christian pupils.

In a letter, dated October, 1831, the Right Hon. E. G. Stanley, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, communicated to the Duke of Leinster the main principles on which the Board of National Education was to be constituted and was to work. The Board was to be composed of Roman Catholic and Protestant Commissioners of high personal character, and it was to provide a system of combined literary and separate religious education, capable of being so far adapted to the views of the different religious persuasions in Ireland "as to render it in truth a system of National Education for the poorer classes of the community.'

The Board was to be provided with funds from Parliament, and was to have absolute control over the disbursement of these funds, which were to be applied for aiding the erection of schools, training teachers, establishing Model schools, editing and printing books, paying inspectors and teachers, and defraying all other necessary expenses. The Board was to have complete control over the various schools; to grant aid to schools on condition that local funds were also provided for their support; to require that all schools should be kept open for a certain number of hours for combined moral and literary education only; and to make provision also for the separate religious instruction of pupils; to exercise entire control over all the books used in the schools; to allow individuals or bodies applying for aid to appoint the teachers, but on condition, inter alia, that the Board should have the right of fining, suspending, or removing teachers for a sufficient cause. The Board was also to have the right of visiting and inspecting the schools either by themselves or by their officers.

The first Board consisted of seven Commissioners, and met in December, 1831. A Code of Rules in consonance with the spirit of Mr. Stanley's letter was then drawn up. These Regulations were fairly well received at first, but troubles in connection with religious instruction soon beset the Commissioners, and at the end of 1834 there were only 789 National schools in operation. The Commissioners, however, modified their Code, and a marked increase in the number of schools was the immediate result. In 1835 there were 1,106 National schools in operation, with 145,521 pupils.

In 1832 the Christian Brothers placed certain of their schools in connection with the Board, but in 1836 most of these schools were withdrawn.

In 1833 the Commissioners had made arrangements for training teachers in their training establishment in Dublin, and in 1835 they projected the establishment of thirty-two Model and Normal schools, also for the training of Pupil Teachers. It was intended that these Model schools should be under the direction of teachers of superior attainments, and the schools were to be situated in different parts of the country.

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