been divided between the Protestants and Catholics.

The

income of these schools, however, has been greatly reduced by agricultural depression.

'Superior Schools' in Ireland according to the Census'.

4. THE COMMISSIONERS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.

The Commissioners of National Education in their fourth Report, published in 1837, announced a future division of their schools into primary and secondary, the latter to afford manual training; but of course money was never forthcoming to develop this scheme, and it was dropped.

In 1867 a plan was approved by the Board for the introduction of Classics and French into the National Schools, but there was a delay in making pecuniary arrangements 2.

The Powis Commission on Primary Education in 1870 recommended that the course of education in Primary Schools should not be extended to secondary or intermediate subjects, but that Masters of Primary Schools should be freely allowed to teach as extra branches out of school hours any subjects in which they might have qualified themselves. The lessons must be regarded as private tuition, to be paid for by the parents or friends of the pupils who received them 3. Endowed schools should be revised and provision made for admission of promising pupils by open competition into superior schools without distinction of locality or creed'.

This last article, however, only obtained the assent of eight of the fourteen Commissioners.

In 1873 the recommendation to introduce higher subjects

1 P. P., 1892, C. 6,780, p. 64.

3 Ibid. Art. 120, 121.

2 Powis Report, i. 189.

Ibid. Art. 122.

out of school hours was carried out, and grants were given for three years' courses of Classics, German, French or Irish, and for a number of subjects in Science 1.

The Model Schools of the Board 2 give a definitely higher education than the ordinary National Schools, but, as we have seen 3, there is a strong Catholic feeling against them in spite of their educational merits.

5. THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

The Science and Art Department.

In the matter of grants, Ireland has always shared the bounty of the Science and Art Department on the same terms as Great Britain.

In 1868 the Government proposed to form a separate Department for Ireland analogous to the existing Science and Art Department in London, but a Commission of the Committee of Council for Education reported unanimously in the following year that such a step would be detrimental to the interests of Science and Art in Ireland. The Science schools and classes in that country were declared to be most successful, but the absence of industrial opportunity was a great discouragement to instruction of artisans in drawing or design *.

The Technical Instruction Act, 1889, applies to Ireland, but the money granted by the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 18905, to Ireland is not applicable to technical education. The Science and Art Department, which in the other countries has withdrawn its grants from subjects which can be encouraged out of this fund by the local authorities in Ireland, promised in 1891 £500 for this purpose, and has subsequently given grants equal in amount to the contributions made by local authorities out of the 3 Vide P. 95.

1 P. P., 1874, xix. p. 120.

4

2 Vide p. 94.

Report of Commission on Science and Art Department in Ireland, 1869. i. pp. xxxi, xxxiv.

5 Vide p. 182.

6 Vide p. 217.

The amount

rates under the Technical Instruction Acts. so granted in 1896 was £2,4221, and the total expenditure under the Technical Instruction Acts and the Public Libraries Acts was £4,399.

The total amount of results fees earned in Ireland under the Science and Art Department fell from £8,875 in 1890 to £4,870 in 1 973.

TESTS OF SECONDARY INSTRUCTION.

1. Middle Class Examinations.

In 1858, after the institution of the Universities' Local Examinations in England, Dublin University considered favourably a similar proposal, but nothing came of it; and it was the Queen's University which established Middle Class Examinations' in Ireland in January, 1860, with the assent of the Lord Lieutenant 5. There were senior and junior divisions for persons who were not members of the University, and in the former the title of Associate in Arts was given ".

They seem never to have attained any importance, but only died with the Queen's University.

2. The Commissioners of Intermediate Education. The national system of elementary schools had, as we have seen, actually diminished the available amount of secondary instruction in Ireland. In 1878, of every 100,000 persons in Scotland 371 were receiving education in the endowed intermediate schools; of every 100,000 Protestants in Ireland 199 were receiving a similar secondary training; but of every 100,000 Catholics in the same country

1 Science and Art Department Report for 1896, App. p. 4.

2 Ibid., Calendar for 1898, p. xxxix.

3 Report of Committee of Royal Dublin Society, 1898; vide Education, 1898, p. 19.

T. D. Acland, Some account, &c., p. vii.

5 P. P., 1861, vol. xx. p. 816. 6 Ibid., 1870, xxvi. 405.

7 Vide p. 283.

8 Vide p. 209.

only two were being educated in the endowed secondary schools1. If secondary education needed assistance in Ireland, and concurrent endowment was admitted to be out of the question, the only feasible course was to omit religious instruction from the scheme, provide against proselytism, and subsidise the best secular training. Accordingly the Intermediate Education (Ireland) Act 2 was passed in 1878, offering public examinations in secondary subjects to any persons presenting themselves who have been educated in Ireland during the twelve months preceding, and— in addition to a number of prizes and scholarships given to the scholars themselves—making payments for the results to the managers of the schools where those pupils were being educated.

An unpaid Board of Commissioners of Intermediate Education was appointed to administer the annual interest of £1,000,000 paid to them from the funds of the disestablished Irish Church.

Examiners are appointed annually from a list prepared by the Board and approved by the Lord Lieutenant; written examinations are held once a year at centres selected by the Board. The examinations last for two weeks, and include Latin, Greek, modern languages and Celtic, drawing, mathematics, science, and commercial subjects. There are four classes-Seniors under eighteen, Middle under seventeen, Junior under sixteen, and since 1892 Preparatory between twelve and fourteen. Since 1890 candidates under twelve have not been admitted.

The Conscience Clause is as follows: 'No payment is made to any school unless the rule is strictly observed that no pupil attending is permitted to remain in attendance during the time of any religious instruction which the parents or guardians of such pupil shall not have sanctioned, and that the time for giving such religious instruction is so fixed that no pupil not remaining in attendance is excluded directly or indirectly from the advantages of the secular education given in the school.' Hansard, T. S., ccxli. p. 436. 41 & 42 Vict. c. 66.

1

2

The examinations at once became as great a success in point of numbers as could well be expected: difficulties were chiefly financial, as the £1,000,000 originally allotted had been intended for boys only 1. Nowhere-not even at

South Kensington-do grant-earning and competition seem to have been pushed to such extremes. Not only do the pupils compete for large money prizes, but all the secondary schools are in self-defence compelled to make the best appearance possible in these universal lists 2.

It was originally intended that the two Assistant Commissioners should pay occasional visits of inspection to the Intermediate Schools, but this has not proved feasible 3.

By the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890 *, after a sum of £78,000 had been paid to the Commissioners of National Education, the residue of the Irish share was assigned to the Commissioners of Intermediate Education for results fees or prizes, exhibitions, and certificates to be distributed according to a scheme which should be settled by the Board with the approval of the Lord Lieutenant and the Treasury.

The money was spent in adding examinations in a commercial course for the middle and lower grades, and in a preparatory grade for students between twelve and fourteen. The new course includes book-keeping, commercial history and geography, foreign weights and currencies, and commercial terms in foreign languages.

The new course and new grade came fully into effect in 1892.

The decline in numbers of candidates taking Physics and Chemistry since 1891 has been the subject of an inquiry by a Committee of the Royal Dublin Society. The former fell from 1790 to 596, the latter 1095 to 312".

1

On May 30, 1898, a Vice-Regal Commission of seven

Report for 1880, p. 6.

2 Westminster Review, Nov., 1897; March, 1898: Rev. A. Murphy.

3 Childers Committee Report, 1884, Q. 935.

4 53 & 54 Vict. c. 60.

Journal of Education, 1898, p. 378.

5 Vide p. III.