Part 5

In the course of the work, proofs are given of the way in which it was sought to establish government influence. In the beginning, according to the letter of Lord Stanley, only one model school was to be erected in Ireland, and the minor schools through the country were to remain quite independent. In 1835, the commissioners began to manifest more extensive designs, and in a report to Lord Mulgrave, it was proposed to establish a model school in each county, to take the training of all the teachers of the kingdom into the hands of the Board, and, at the same time, the plan was adopted to introduce books treating of common Christianity, and compiled by Dr. Whateley, and, in fact, to make the authority of the commissioners paramount in everything connected with the education of the future generations in Ireland. On this Mr. Butt observes:--

"In no country ought such a system to be tolerated--least of all in Ireland, where--it ought not, it cannot be disguised--there still exists the antagonism between the English government and the thoughts and feelings and sentiments of the nation. I would not write the truth if I did not say, that any one who knows Irish affairs must expect the administration of such a system to be anti-national. He would be informed, without surprise, that from the lessons of history there was carefully excluded all that would remind Irishmen of their distinctive nationality--that the whole tone and tendency of the literature were English--and that, in drawing up the lesson-books in which Irish children are to be taught, Englishmen and Scotchmen were the only persons worthy of the confidence of the Irish National Board.

"I am content to be accounted of narrow and provincial feelings when I thus point to the anti-national character of the system. From the invasion of Henry II. to the present time, English rulers have been engaged in one device or another to destroy the distinctive nationality of Irishmen. The attempt is as unwise as it is unjust. It can only be effected by the destruction of public spirit and the demoralization of the country. The empire in which we are associated gains no more by the destruction of the individual nationality of its component parts, than society would gain by the destruction of all distinctive character in those who compose it. If even the Irish people are to be taught to love England, they must be taught to love Ireland first, and to feel that there is no inconsistency between the most intense Irish feeling and attachment to the empire of which Ireland forms a part. There is a waste of energy in every attempt to extirpate national prejudices and feelings, which makes the attempt a blunder as well as a crime. Russia has not yet Russianized Poland, and the Irish are as far from being West Britons as they were in the days of James I.

"It must be remembered that the effect of such a proposal was to substitute for the varying forms of individual energy and local exertion one great uniform system. While the education of the people was eked out by the sacrifices of the people themselves, or supplied by the desultory efforts of individuals, there was always room for the play of national and local feelings. So far as a plan like that propounded in this report was successful, it destroyed all other industrial energies among the lower orders. The old hedge schoolmaster could no longer make out his bread. The poor scholar could no longer wander from house to house, teaching the old history of Ireland in return for the food and lodging he received. All the lower orders of the people were to be taught by masters trained in a government college, and drilled in a system from which all national feeling was excluded--masters, of whom it was put forward as their chief merit that they would be political and moral agents of the government, inculcating order on a lawless, and teaching civilization to a barbarous, people.

"The report of 1835 suggested, of necessity, the question of religion. The masters, according to its proposal, were plainly to be indoctrinated in matters from which religion could not be separated. They were to be instructed in mental philosophy by a professor, specially appointed for that purpose. This training must be given them that they may be qualified to direct 'the thoughts and inclinations of Irish children in a right direction'. Would it have been unreasonable, is it unreasonable now, that the guardians of the faith of any portion of the Irish people should feel anxious to have some security for the character of the 'mental philosophy' in which the teachers of the people were trained?

"Comparing the plan announced in Lord Stanley's published letter with that which was carried into effect, under the joint operation of the interpolated passage and the report of 1835, it is obvious that those who might be perfectly satisfied with the arrangements of the first, either as to religious or national feeling, might yet be wholly dissatisfied upon the very same points with the second.

"Under the covert and guarded language of the report of 1835, we can clearly trace the inauguration of a new system--a system wholly unlike anything that had preceded it or had ever been recommended--a system which was to establish in every parish a government agent, under the name of a national schoolmaster, and which was also to become a great government university for the teaching of the middle classes.

"This last was to be accomplished by the medium of the model schools. One of these was to be established in each county. The master was to be a person of superior attainments, with a salary very far above that of any curate of the Established Church, and in these schools a superior education was to be conveyed. We shall see how steadily the plan, first broached in the annual report of 1835, has been carried out.

"In 1837, the report tells us that 'they had added to their normal establishment in Dublin a scientific department and a school of industry, in the immediate neighbourhood of Dublin, with work-rooms and a farm of from forty to fifty acres attached to it'. In the same report they propose to appoint a superintendent for each of twenty-five districts--residing at the model school, and having L125 a-year, with apartments and allowances. The head master of each model school was '_to be authorised to receive a limited number of boarders at such charge to their parents and friends as the commissioners might think proper, having regard to local circumstances'_.

"At the same time, they stated their intention to establish, generally, schools termed secondary, in which 'scientific instruction' and 'instruction in manual occupation' should be given;--a portion of land for garden husbandry to be an indispensable adjunct to each secondary school.

"In 1839 they modestly announce a model farm, near Dublin, as only in its infancy, with twelve agricultural pupils, 'deriving much benefit from the judicious system of farming which they see practised there'.

"In 1840 they determine to establish twenty-five agricultural model schools--each of them in connection with an elementary national school. They subsequently establish twelve pupil-teacherships in their central agricultural institution--scholarships, in fact, which are competed for by the most promising students in their rural agricultural schools.

"I have referred to these establishments in proof of the assertion that the national system has been gradually expanded into a vast educational institution, absorbing and controlling the education of the poorer classes, and, to a great extent, that of the middle classes of the country.

"The extent to which this has proceeded will be understood by a reference to the last report of the Commissioners, that for the year 1864.

"It appears by this report that there are at present in operation twenty-six model schools (classing the three metropolitan schools as one establishment). The expenditure within the year upon these model schools amounts to nearly L25,000.

"In addition to the Albert Model Farm at Glasnevin, near Dublin, there are in connection with the Board thirty-six agricultural schools; nineteen of these are under the exclusive management of the Board--seventeen partly under local control.

"The sums expended on this agricultural department amount in the year to more than L10,000. It will complete this statement to add that in the same year, 1864, the training institution of Dublin was maintained at a cost, in its several branches, of L4,500.

"The cost of the inspection department of the institution amounts to no less a sum than L23,000.

"The cost of the official establishment in Marlborough Street is L15,457.

"In addition to this, a very considerable sum, amounting, probably, to nearly L10,000, appears to be annually distributed, at the discretion of the Board and its inspectors, in the shape of gratuities of one kind or other to the persons engaged in the teaching of the national schools.

"It appears from this report (excluding the item last mentioned), that upon the official staff of this great educational institute there is annually expended a sum of L49,000; and upon model and agricultural schools, wholly foreign from the original objects, a further sum of L33,000, making an expenditure of L82,000, one shilling of which does not reach one of the schools, to support which the grant for Irish education was originally made.

"The whole of this immense sum, amounting to nearly one-third of the grant, is really spent upon a machinery for bringing the education of the people under the entire and absolute control of the Board.

"I do not stop to argue whether L15,000 be not an extravagant expenditure for official expenses. That which is of importance to observe is, that the tendency and effect of the costly, but most effective, system of inspection is, in reality, to convert inspection into superintendence, and to extend the direct influence of the Board over all the schools in connection with them. The training or normal establishment is instituted for the express purpose of indoctrinating the masters in the views prescribed by the Board. But the influence does not end here. By a system of examinations, conducted in connection with the inspection, the Board contrives to direct the studies and mould the train of thought of the masters. Their salaries are increased at the pleasure of the Board. A graduated system of promotion and a scale of rewards are established, dependent entirely on their recommending themselves to the inspectors. Under such a system the power nominally left to the local patrons of selecting the schoolmaster, in reality does not give to these patrons any substantial control. Every national schoolmaster adopts, or professes to adopt, the opinions of his real masters, and learns to reflect the opinions which he knows to be in favour with the Board.

"The model schools are established partly to complete the training of the masters, and partly to force upon the country the entire system of the Board. Of these schools the commissioners themselves are the patrons, and in these they have full power of enforcing their own views. What they 'earnestly recommend' to others, they are able to adopt in their own schools. Money is lavished upon these model schools, so as to make them establishments of a superior order. The model school in Marlborough Street is maintained at an expense of L3,500. One in Belfast costs very nearly the same sum. Most of this money is expended in the salaries and maintenance of pupil teachers, so that these model schools are, in effect, colleges, with their exhibitions to attract students. Over these model schools the commissioners have absolute control, and through them, and by means of them, they exercise an almost absolute influence over the whole system of education in connection with the Board. This is, in effect, the carrying out of the plan indicated in the report of 1835. Centralization is secured by an array of schoolmasters, trained under the Commissioners. No man can attain the rank of a first-class national schoolmaster who has not gone through a training in an establishment conducted after the most approved fashion of the Board--a training by which he becomes thoroughly indoctrinated in all the maxims of that fashion. He is not sent to a model school merely to see the best mode of arranging classes or maintaining the discipline of the school. He is sent there to reside as the student of a college, to learn various departments of knowledge. He is taught, in his training, history, political economy, mental philosophy, and scriptural history--and he learns them all in lesson books prepared to order for the Commissioners, and by catechetical instruction, in which he is drilled by professors and inspectors appointed at their sole nomination.

"I pass, for the present, from this part of the subject, with this one observation--that this sum of L80,000 is annually expended upon a portion of the system with which local exertion or local influence has nothing whatever to do. It is wholly, absolutely, and unreservedly under the direction and control of the central authority.

"In England, I may observe, the state assumes no such power. The training institutions for schoolmasters are left entirely under the control of the authorities of the respective denominations. In Ireland, the rule is that the masters should be trained by government, and accept at once their theology, their morals, and their science of teaching at the hands of the officials of the state. It is only the resolute opposition of the Catholic prelates that has prevented this project from being completely carried into effect"--(p. 87-96.)

We regret that our space will not allow us to give more copious extracts from the book now before us. But again we recommend our readers to read and study the whole treatise. It will open their eyes to the dangers with which mixed education, falsely called _national_, menaces our Church and our country.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Mr. Butt's work is entitled _The Liberty of Teaching Vindicated, Reflections and Proposals on the subject of National Education_. Dublin. Kelly, Grafton Street, 1865.

LITURGICAL QUESTIONS.

The few questions which were answered in the last number of the _Record_ have given occasion to other questions of a practical nature in connection with the Office and Mass for the Dead. There is a variety of practice in some points--for instance, 1st, at the end of the absolution, if the office and mass be celebrated for one person, should _requiescat in pace_, or _requiescant_, be said?

2nd, Should the _Anima ejus et animae omnium_, etc., be said, and is there any definite rule about it?

3rd, When is the _De profundis_ to be said, and when is it to be omitted?

With regard to the first question we beg to quote the following decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, which settles the question.

"Dec. 2709. An dicendum sit in fine absolutionis mortuorum requiescat vel requiescant?

"Resp. Quando absolutio est pro uno defuncto, in singulari; pro pluribus, in plurali. In missa vero semper _requiescant_. Die 22 Januarii, 1678".

In reply to the second question, it appears to us that the Rubrics of the Ritual will lead us to a safe conclusion. The Ritual clearly lays down that, if the remains for any reason are not carried to the cemetery immediately after the office, the Benedictus, and the prayer, etc., having been said, the _Anima ejus et animae_, etc., is also to be said. In such a case there is no doubt, inasmuch as the Ritual lays down the entire order of the ceremony, and ends with the words _Anima ejus_, etc., in full without any comment. If the remains are brought to the cemetery the same practice is to be observed, for at the sepulchre the same prayers are prescribed by the Rubrics, and there is no change mentioned. Hence, we consider we are correct in stating that the _Anima ejus_, etc., is to be said at the end of the prayers for burial, praesente corpore, whether these are recited in the church or in the cemetery. But is the verse _Anima ejus_ to be said at the end, after the _Requiescant in pace_, if the remains are not present? There is no mention of this in the Ritual nor in the Missal, and it is certain that on All Souls' Day, when the remains, as a rule, are not supposed to be present, the _Anima ejus_ is not to be said. There is a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites referring to this subject.

"Dec. 2924. An post absolutionem quae fit super cadaver in die obitus, vel supra tumulum in die anniversario aut super lecticam seu castrum doloris in die commemorationis omnium fidelium defunctorum, dicto versiculo requiescant in pace, subjungi debeat Anima ejus et animae omnium, etc.

"Resp. Servetur Rituale: et in commemoratione omnium fidelium defunctorum nihil superaddendum. Die 2 Decembris, 1684".

We do not mean to say that this decree decides the point clearly in our favour, but the Ritual certainly does not prescribe it. We have before us an excellent ceremonial published in Bologna by a missionary priest of St. Vincent, and he is clearly of opinion that the _Anima ejus_ absente cadavere ought not to be said, and adduces the decree above quoted referring to the office on All Souls' Day.

With regard to the third question, it is well we should observe, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, that we are speaking of the _De profundis_ which is said after Mass at the end of the absolution, when the clergy are proceeding to the sacristy. The Rubrics are clear as to when the _De profundis_ is to be said at the end of Lauds: "Psalmus lauda anima mea in vesperis similiter et Psalmus _De profundis_ in fine laudum non dicuntur in die commemorationis omnium fidelium defunctorum, neque in die obitus seu depositionis defuncti". We think that much the same answer is to be given about the _De profundis_ at the end of the absolution, as was given above about the _Anima ejus et animae omnium_, etc. This opinion is held by the author above quoted, and it is only in case the corpse is present that the Ritual prescribes the _De profundis_. "Deinde a sepultura in ecclesiam vel in sacristiam revertentes dicant sine cantu antiphonam si iniquitates etc. cum Psalmo, De profundis, etc.", and there is a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites which appears to confirm our views.

"Dec. 4543. Antiphona et Psalmus De profundis nec non versiculus animae eorum in die commemorationis omnium fidelium defunctorum post absolutionem ad tumulum sunt omittenda juxta. Decr. 2 Decembris, 1684".

"Die 28 Julii, 1832".

We must add that the practice in Rome is, even absente corpore, to say the _De profundis_, and hence our readers will perceive there is some difficulty in settling the question.

We wish, however, to state that, being pressed for time, we were not able to examine this question as fully as we would wish, and we hope soon to return to it; and if, in the mean time, any light were thrown on the subject by any of our learned readers who study such matters, we shall be very glad to receive any remarks or suggestions that may be forwarded to us.

CORRESPONDENCE.

_To the Reverend Editors of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record._

GENTLEMEN,

May I beg you to insert in your widely-circulating journal the following list. It may be useful to the clergy for the information of youths, in whose higher education they take an interest, and especially now, when we may hope that to have studied under a Catholic system will no longer be an obstacle to advancement.

I remain, Gentlemen, Your faithful servant, BARTH. WOODLOCK, _Rector_.

Catholic University, Dublin, 31st July, 1865.

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY EXHIBITIONS.

TO BE COMPETED FOR IN OCTOBER, 1865.

_General Regulations._

1. The following Exhibitions will be offered for competition in the University on Tuesday, October 10th, and following days.

2. The Examinations will commence each day at 10 A.M.

3. Candidates are required to send in their names and commendatory letters from their University or Collegiate Superior, to the Secretary of the University, on or before the day preceding the Examination at which they propose to present themselves.

4. They will not be awarded unless for distinguished answering.

5. The successful candidates, if not already matriculated, are required to matriculate within one week after the declaration of the award of the Examiners.

6. Every Exhibition is tenable for one year, unless where otherwise specified; but successful candidates are required to attend Lectures in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, or of Science, according to their standing, and can hold the Exhibitions so long only as they observe the regulations of the University.

7. No one, however, can hold two Exhibitions in the same matter;--_e. g._, two Classical, or two Mathematical Exhibitions, or two Exhibitions in Physical Science, cannot be held by the same person.

EPISCOPAL EXHIBITIONS.

_Special Regulations for the Episcopal Exhibitions._

1. No Student above twenty-two years of age, or of more than one year's standing in any University, will be allowed to compete for the Episcopal Entrance Exhibitions.

2. The Examinations for the Classical Exhibitions will take place on Tuesday, October 10th, and Wednesday, October 11th; and for the Mathematical Exhibitions, on Thursday, October 12th, 1865.

3. The Episcopal Exhibitions will be distributed among Students from the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Armagh and Cashel, Dublin and Tuam respectively; provided competitors from these provinces offer themselves, and comply with the other conditions prescribed.

4. The successful Candidates must attend the lectures of the First or Second Year.

I.--FOR ENTRANCE.

_Open to all Students of not more than One Year's standing in the University._

_Classical._--One Exhibition of L20, one of L15, and three of L10 each, for proficiency in the Classical and Literary matter of the Entrance Examination.

Candidates for these Exhibitions will be examined in Latin and Greek Grammar, and Latin Composition; in the elements of Ancient Geography, or Roman History (from the beginning of the Republic to the Battle of Actium), and of Greek History (from the Legislation of Solon to the death of Philip); and in the following books:--

Homer, _Iliad_, i.-iii.; Euripides, _Alcestis_; Virgil, _Aeneid_, i.-iii.; Cicero, _in Catilinam_, i.-iv.

Special marks will be given for Latin verses and Greek composition.

_Mathematical._--One Exhibition of L20, one of L15, and three of L10 each, for proficiency in the Mathematical matter of the Entrance Examination.

The Examination for these Exhibitions will not extend beyond the second book of Euclid, nor embrace matter which is not included in most Algebraical Treatises within the limits of Simple Equations.