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Rev. HENRY EVANS, D.D., .

Right Hon. CHRISTOPHER PALLES, Lord Chief Baron,

Right Hon. LORD MORRIS,

EDMUND G. DEASE. Esq., D.L.,

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Right Hon. C. T. REDINGTON, D.L. (Resident Commissioner, 1894),.

W. H. NEWELL, Esq., LL.D., C. B., J.P.,

J. MALCOLM INGLIS, Esq., J.P.,

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Sir PERCY R. GRACE, Bart., D.L.,

JAMES MORELL, Esq.,

GEORGE F. FITZGERALD, Esq., F.T.C.D., F.R.S.,

Sir HENRY BELLINGHAM, Bart., D.L.,

1868

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His Honour JUDGE SHAW,

Sir ROWLAND BLENNERHASSETT,

BART., D.L.,

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WM. R. J. MOLLOY, Esq., J.P.,

Rev. HAMILTON B. WILSON, D.D.,

Most Rev. Archbishop WM. J. WALSH, D.D.,

Most Rev. Archbishop WM. CONYNGHAM LORD Plunket, d.d.,

STANLEY HARRINGTON, Esq., J.P.,

EDWARD DOWDEN, Esq., LL.D., D.C.L.,

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N.B.-Section I. of the Appendix to this Report herewith. The other Sections are in course of preparation.

NATIONAL EDUCATION, IRELAND.

APPENDIX TO THE SIXTY-THIRD REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1896-7.

SECTION I-GENERAL REPORTS on the STATE of EDUCATION in 1896.

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The Commissioners desire it to be distinctly understood that they Reports on do not hold themselves responsible for the opinions expressed in these the State of Reports, nor do they feel called upon to adopt any suggestions they Education. may contain.

Mr. PURSER, Head Inspector.

Mr. Purser Head Inspector,

GENTLEMEN,-There has been no change in the group of districts Dublin assigned to me for supervision, and the same Inspectors remain in charge, except that Mr. Hynes has succeeded Dr. Moran in the North Dublin district.

During the past year I was able to hold fewer school examinations than usual, owing to pressure of other official work (mainly in connexion with the Training Colleges and the Teachers' Examinations), and to my having the full amount of leave to which I was entitled. In addition to ordinary visits and examinations it is part of my duty, with a view of promoting uniformity of standard, to examine some schools immediately before or after the District Inspectors. These check examinations held by me showed a very close approximation of marking; and this coupled with absence of complaints may be accepted as sufficient proof of the general correctness of the tests applied.

Irish Edu

The compulsory clauses of the last Education Act are still in force Compulsory only in Tullamore and Warrenpoint, where they have produced but a Clauses of moderate effect. As I have already stated, these clauses, to be just, cation Act, appear to me to require the removal of inefficient schools or teachers from the Board's list, and the providing of suitable houses, with such out-office accommodation as is demanded by the most elementary principles of decency, and with proper means of heating in cold weather. How these are to be provided it is not for me to suggest; but with the present excessive number of schools in many localities the Commissioners should not, in my opinion, tolerate the existence of National schools without offices, unless under very exceptional circumstances, and should refuse to pay salary for winter months unless adequate fires for heating the school-room are provided. It is not an extravagant supposition that a large part of the sickness among the children of the country is brought on by badly ventilated school-houses combined with want of due warmth in wet and cold weather.

houses.

Though a considerable number of new school-houses have been built, The Schoolespecially in Dublin, I regret that I cannot report much improvement in the general appearance of the schools. They are usually bare and ugly outside (and this applies to those built by the State as well as by local parties), without any ornamentation or greenery to relieve the monotony of the dull grey walls, and inside are as staring white as the dust of months will allow them to be. There are of course happy exceptions, but so long as greater importance is not attached to these matters general improvement is not to be looked for. One eye-sore might easily be removed from the school-room by sending every year a clean unmounted copy of all the tablets required to be suspended. A great deal of abuse has been lavished on the results system, some of it quite undeservedly, and mainly by those who have perverted it. One real defect of it as applied to Ireland is that it ignores a tendency of human nature to work for what will bring in a profit and to neglect other matters not specially paid for. No credit is given by the present system for cleanliness, neatness, or ornamentation of house and premises; none for regard to the health and comfort of the children ; none for the educative example of decency and order, so these are naturally neglected in a greater or less degree by all but very conscientious teachers. It is to be hoped that the public conscience will

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The prevent pr game vi skrin moddadions has now been in fr fr may rements are no doubt nominally high, but may feat coEZAT TOLA and so many either Jermit Degened a very perferty &mented that the programme sacort be bead X DE PET I was being done in the I canon far here to what appears to me bad plors—the floreing de sandari ir paaug," especially in the four classes, beste de Doma smiri é proficiency for the senior classes i bë-diving fr examque, a pass in spelling in Second Clam so a dit vir mESAME SI Viss out of ten is unsatis factory; and primicing a múi from Third Class who has no proper gray of the simple moje é amtment is equally objectionable. A stidening of the lover dies verse with a general modification of the recuirement for setite diass would appear to be a preferable course. This might involve the gending of a year longer in the junior classes or Fourth, which would be bo disadvantage if the work were more thorough.

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It is perhaps, allowable on pedagogis grounds to doubt the propriety of the present programme. Besides laying down the amount of proficiency to be locked for, the object which the teacher should set before his mind ought also to be given Besides cultivating the religious sentiments, the object of education should be to develop all the mental faculties to train the powers of observation and attention, the feelings, the reasoning faculty, the conscience, and the will. These objects cannot be attained if the whole instruction of the children consists in words understood imperfectly or not at all, and if their minds are not exercised on things so as to give them an intelligent understanding of what these words mean. Now to take the first subject in our programme Reading, most teachers suffer from not having a definite object before them except the doubtful one of getting through the required number of pages within the twelve months. Then again, the Reading books are not as suitable as they might be. To arrest the observation and attention of the children the lessons should be interesting, they should be fairly within the mental compass of the children, both in language and matter-a little above their present state of cultivation, but only a little. I do not think the fragmentary sentences of the First Book answer these requirements, and expect "What is a shield?" conveys as little meaning to the average pupil as “A flail is used to part the grain from the straw" does to a city child The little stories at the end of the book are better, for what interests children, especially the very young, are little narratives, and of these the First Book should be mainly composed. An occasional straying into dissyllables or longer words really causes no difficulty, quite as little as monosyllables (many of them irregular) as anyone can test for himself.

lessons

Again, in the senior classes the Fourth Book contains unconnected extracts from Surgeon Parke's book on the Stanley expedition; on Truth that are meant for parents, and which, if understood by the children, would make them prigs or hypocrites. The Fifth Reader contains extracts from a Blue Book on Irish Fisheries, probably as interesting to children as some pages of statistics from Thom's Directory; it contains lessons on Electric Light, with talk of batteries, which probably not one male teacher in three, or one female teacher in fifty could give any intelligent explanation of. All such using of words

Education.

Head

without a definite meaning is necessarily very injurious to the develop- Reports on ment of the children's intelligence, and renders it nearly impossible to the State of produce intelligent reading among a class of children whose knowledge of literature is mainly confined to the School Readers. No inducement Mr. Purser, to attempt anything better than mere mechanical reading has been Inspector, hitherto held out to the teachers, and this combined with the difficulty Dublin. of the subject matter has led to neglect of explanation, so that though pupils may read the words with fair correctness they have in general no notion of what they are reading about. The repetition of poetry labours under the same defects. I doubt if in one-tenth of the schools a person who did not know the lessons could in the least understand what the pupils read or recite, especially if they were placed half way down the schoolroom. But so long as Inspectors are bound by the present mechanical rules of examination they can do little to cure these defects. If the object to be arrived at were clearly laid down, and the examiner allowed to test its attainment in any reasonable way with suitable Readers there would soon be a marked improvement in reading. Geography is another subject in which the programme appears Geography. unsatisfactory. We begin in Third Class with the Map of the World; we require children to know names (words again!) of oceans, gulfs, bays, of continents, islands, countries, &c., but it is not until they are leaving Fourth Class that they are required to know the meanings of these terms, and even then this instruction is almost optional, as it is only a "sub-head." In no case are the pupils required to know this practically and intelligently as they might if they were taught them observa tionally. It is said they begin abroad with the schoolroom. This is only half correct. The real first step is the schoolground and what can be seen from it. This is rational. Probably a couple of years could with advantage be spent in teaching what can be seen and reached in the immediate neighbourhood of the school-house. City schools may present a little difficulty, but by allowing a teacher to take his classes out now and then some difficulties would be overcome. The present course of geography, consisting of a knowledge of names, is of little or no educational value. Geographical lessons in the Readers would be very useful, especially if well illustrated.

To refer to other specific subjects of programme-Penmanship is, in Penmangeneral, fairly good. The selection of copy books supplied is perhaps ship. unnecessarily large and confusing. The ordinary school exercises are seldom characterised by neatness, and are often very imperfectly corrected, to which in many cases may be traced the pupil's failure in spelling and grammar. It is a misfortune that penmanship and letterwriting should be combined in the senior classes; any such combination of subjects (reading and explanation for instance) with a payment of a fee for a minimum proficiency leads to a neglect of one or both subjects.

Spelling as a rule is fair in the lowest and highest classes, but not Spelling. good in Third and Fourth. The knowledge of Grammar is of little practical value.

Arithmetic, always a favourite subject in Irish National schools, Arithmetic. continues to receive much attention, but the proficiency is merely mechanical. Set a First Class child 36, 47, 58, under each other and he will probably add them correctly; ask him to write down 36, 7, 105, and he will probably fail to place them correctly, and add them; ask the class "If there were 25 sheep in one field and 17 in another, how many sheep were in both fields?" they will not know what to lo with the two numbers. If the children are very smart they will proceed to count from 25 up to 42, otherwise they will probably write 17 after 25

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