I move: "That £62,750 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st March, 1924, for expenditure in respect of Intermediate education, including the payment of teachers' salaries grants." A sum of £70,000 has been voted on account.
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - ESTIMATES FOR PUBLIC SERVICES. INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION.
Since we discussed the Educational Vote a few months ago a very considerable amount of progress has been made by way of administration. The Dáil will recollect that when I did complain, as I did more than once, of the absence of any promise or shadow of a promise of the introduction of an Education Bill, the Minister replied that much could be done through administration. I must confess that at the time I was somewhat sceptical as to the amount of progress we were likely to have through that mechanism. It is only fair to say, and it is a pleasure to me to make the confession, that what has since been published on behalf of the Ministry of Education indicates that not only has this great national subject not been neglected, but that it must have been given a more than usual amount of highly considered thought, and that a great step forward has been taken to provide the country with that type or system of secondary education which its needs demand. I might, as a member of the late Intermediate Board, complain to some extent of the methods employed in getting this new machinery into motion. It is notorious with regard to motor cars that the engine requires to be run in. It takes at least 500 miles of running to secure that desirable result. The poet Byron, referring to his sudden blaze of glory arising out of the publication of "Childe Harold," declared that he went to bed and rose up one morning to find himself famous. The members of the Intermediate Board went to bed one evening less than a month ago Commissioners of Intermediate Education, and rose up in the morning to read in the newspapers that they were merely private citizens. However, I make no complaint with regard to that. The dissatisfaction with the method is swallowed up in the supreme satisfaction with the aim of what has been done. There was, the Dáil will remember, a great deal of criticism published by way of complaints that the new development was about to sweep away examination. But that is not so. And even if it were so, the reform would not be altogether wrong. Now, I have always been an advocate of examination, and I say what I have just said without the slightest fear of any inconsistency being imputed to me. We have had quite too much of the external competitive examination in secondary education of late years. That does not mean that external competitive examination in secondary education in Ireland was always bad. The Boards of Education have long been butts for popular and consequently unconsidered criticism, and now that the Intermediate Board has passed away, and, like Sir John Moore in the poem about his burial, "They carved not a line, they raised not a stone," I for one am willing to leave it alone in its glory. It did great constructive work. I have had my own quarrels with it until I became a Commissioner myself, but it must be said in justice that it did great constructive work. Before the Intermediate Act came into operation there were many secondary schools characterised more by listlessness than by work, and very, very few indeed in which real education was attempted.
The system of examination, with grants on results to teachers and huge arrays of exhibitions and prizes for the successful students, galvanised existing schools and brought into existence innumerable others which, though not of the highest efficiency, really attained to wonderful efficiency when we consider the conditions under which they had to exist. I have been an Intermediate pupil, an Intermediate teacher, an Intermediate examiner, and an Intermediate Commissioner, and I think therefore that in point of experience in regard to Intermediate Education in Ireland I might, without undue want of humility, claim to be able to say something about Irish Intermediate Education at first hand. I have always been interested in secondary education; I have studied secondary education as it is carried on in other lands, and I have no hesitation in saying—and it is not a boast made in the spirit of national vanity, but a statement which will bear examination—that we have built up in this country a very admirable supply of intermediate schools, and that we have laid the foundation here for higher education, arising out of Intermediate School work, which is bound to be in succeeding years of the highest value. There was too much of the external examiner. It is proposed now to reduce that type of examination to a minimum. This is not a revolution which the Ministry are creating. I read from what I call the swan song of the Intermediate Board passages of its last report, in which it is indicated that the substitution for the examination system of an Intermediate certificate and a leaving school certificate was the line upon which reformation ought to proceed, and that is the line upon which I understand the present Ministry of Education has already set out. In pre-war Germany, which we were accustomed to look to as the great exemplar for educational policy and educational procedure, there was what was called a certificate of maturity. Corresponding to that in the Scotch system was the leaving school certificate. A great point of superiority which I would recommend to the Ministry on the side of the German maturity certificate was that the progress of the pupil was attested by his teachers under the supervision of inspectors who represented the Ministry of Education, and the nation was bearing the expense of subsidising secondary education. The record of the student's progress of that type was the material factor in the granting of the certificate and in the fixing of the terms of its wording. Armed with such a certificate, the student was at liberty to enter the Universities or the higher technological institutions, and it provided him with the necessary qualification for entrance to the learned professions.
I have dwelt perhaps at too much length, you would say, for a Parliamentary discussion, upon educational policy, but I should like to inform the Dáil that quite recently there was a prolonged and a highly alert debate in the French Chamber of Deputies on this very question, and the Minister for Education, M. Léon Bérard, explained his reasons for adopting a certain policy. That is a matter upon which I would like your indulgence, Sir, to dwell for a moment. Our secondary schools have, to a great extent, been under the influence of those views on education which were fixed, almost stereotyped, since the Renaissance, the idea that the great classical writers were the spiritual ancestors of modern Europe, and that no education could be regarded as a true education that was not based on a classical foundation. In these days of scientific progress, and when so much regard is bound to be paid to a type of instruction in the school which will fit the pupil for undertaking, immediately on leaving school, the responsibilities of life belonging to the type of life in which he finds himself in these days, the natural reaction takes place of insisting, perhaps unduly, on a higher value for scientific teaching. It seems to me that in the teaching of classics a great deal of time was wasted on what is merely the apparatus of scholarship, and on the other hand on the teaching of science too little regard was had to the extension of mind, the training and cultivation of the imagination to the making of what we call a whole man, a many-sided man. This debate in the French Chamber to which I have just referred concentrated largely on what was alleged to be the failure of the modern type of education, and the pendulum of French educated opinion is swinging back in favour of classical teaching as part of the general education of pupils up to fifteen or sixteen years of age.
I would advocate strongly that so far as regards an Intermediate certificate the conditions should be a satisfactory attendance for a full number of years at a primary school, followed by at least three years in the secondary school, in which the education imparted would be of a general type—for example, two foreign languages, preferably English and French, or English and German, a fair amount of Mathematics, some Chemistry, and an introduction to a knowledge of Economics and of Civics. That would not be an overloaded programme, and the overloading would be avoided by choosing systems which have hitherto contained a great many things which, however valuable they may have been in the 17th or 18th century, I would respectfully suggest are largely out of date. The aesthetic sense of the pupil can be awakened, and the first lines of training attempted on the basis of modern literature. There are people who will ask you to believe that all that has been of best thought and best study in the world belongs to ancient days, just as you are to believe that all the great paintings are old masters. There is room for another opinion upon these questions, and I would advocate that an introduction to the thought and style of the aesthetic aspects of literature, and all the culture that comes from that side of training, could be at least equally provided by masterpieces of modern literature, particularly of French. Unfortunately, while I am dilating upon the splendid prospects of secondary education under the new regime, I am conscious all the time of one blot on the fair picture, and that is the position of the teachers, especially of lay secondary teachers, through whom the great work is to be carried on, the practical side of education as distinct from this work of the educationalists.
I have nere a document sent me on behalf of the lay secondary teachers. It lays great stress upon what so many of us emphasised on a former occasion—the wretched status and the wretched pay of the secondary teacher. The intermediate Board, amongst its other good deeds, saved the genuine Intermediate teacher from one great evil. There was a time, not so long ago, indeed, when anyone on his way to a profession took up secondary teaching as a modus vivendi on the way. He was an amateur, and never meant to be anything but an amateur, untrained, without his heart in the work, and he meant to abandon it as soon as he could. There was introduced in 1918 a State system of registration of secondary teachers. The conditions demanded there were of considerable severity. For a school to get the full grant it should be staffed with men in sufficient numbers who had a University degree, a diploma in education, and three years' experience of teaching. These are exacting demands to make, and one might fairly well expect in equity that the teacher who satisfies these demands, and gives of his best services to the nation in the work of a secondary teacher, should have a higher rate of remuneration than the ordinary Metropolitan policeman. This is a subject on which I cannot speak with moderation, and I find it difficult to refrain from using the language of irritation. There is no part of the world except, I should say in the Western States of America, where it is more necessary to make education respectable than in our own country. Our people through long tradition are pretty like the French. I do not like to say too much on this matter, and very little would be too much, but I do think that they are impressed very considerably of the worth of a thing by what they see paid by way of respect or otherwise to those who are identified in their minds with that institution. Now, secondary teachers are not able to impress the imagination of the populace by the social position which they occupy. They are in quite as bad a position as professors. Professors are a despised class in this country, and I say that without fear of contradiction.
Everyone knows there are two tests of the height of civilisation to which any country has progressed—the position of women in it and the respect that is paid to learning in it. In one of the Western States of America a little while ago a man of Southern State extraction was invited to a levee, where he was to meet a very distinguished negro preacher, a Doctor of Divinity. A Southern friend protested against his presence there, and inquired of him how he had addressed the distinguished ecclesiastic. He said, "I did not like to be offensive to him, and so I did not call him Sambo; and I did not like to sacrifice my principles with regard to niggers, so I compromised and called him Professor." The secondary teachers' remuneration is of enormous importance to the future of education, because here, as elsewhere, you cannot expect any but enthusiasts to take up an arducus line of life, devote themselves to the work, and be satisfied with less emoluments than their capacities would entitle them to in some other occupation. Enthusiasts join religious Orders, and they teach for the honour and glory of God. If you are determined to exclude the laity from educational work, then you cannot adopt a measure more calculated to be successful than to keep down the level of salaries of the teachers to its present level, £180 to £230 per annum. That is the average rate. There is no security of tenure. The secondary teacher goes on his summer holiday, and he has no assurance as to how long that holiday will last. He may never go back to his school. Security of tenure, assurance of employment; look at what that accounts for with the working man. Everyone interested in sociological problems is aware that there is nothing more destructive of efficiency than unemployment. Next to unemployment in that regard is the dread of it. There are no pensions for these men. It is not the Minister that is to blame, nor the Ministry of Education, for this. Yet there must be someone to blame. Are these men the victims of cosmic operations merely? They are the victims of economic and other considerations, and I suggest that the public are at fault, and the section of the public most particularly at fault are the parents of the children who are satisfied to derive these great and lasting benefits from the work and self-sacrifice of this class of men, and who go on with equanimity year after year contemplating their disabilities and profiting by them.
If we propose a grant in aid to these men there would be a howl from public representatives that the Exchequer was being drawn upon unduly, and that the taxpayer was being burdened. But the taxpayer ought to be burdened. Education should be a first charge upon the Exchequer of the country; it is the basis of all future progress and future development. There is an idea abroad that secondary education is for the middle class, more particularly the upper middle class, and that it has no concern whatever for the people at large. That is an altogether mistaken view. Altogether mistaken. If education of a secondary type was at the disposal of the middle class until recently, that was merely because of the reign of the bourgeoise. We are making a new State here. We are advancing on lines which we hope will be characteristic of our own civilisation. We intend to shut out no avenue or career to brains. Anyone who can purchase the highest type of education and places himself at the service of the State in its higher offices should be free to do so. All we want is the removal of all barriers; equality of opportunity—and equality of opportunity is one of the principal tenets of democracy. If the schools of Ireland of a secondary type are to be efficient the teachers must be paid. How are they to be paid? It is quite obvious that if fees are to be raised we block the entrance into these schools to the sons of poor men. Therefore the obvious way of coming to the relief of these schools is so obvious that it does not need to be pointed out. It is a sad thing that year after year in Ireland the same plea has to be made. Either we intend—I say this in all seriousness as the dilemma that ought to be put to the Irish people—to shut out lay teachers from the secondary schools altogether, and we will not allow education to be a profession for a layman to engage in, or if we do, then we shall not have him, year after year, subjected to this disability which interferes with the efficiency of his work.
I do not propose to add any additional argument to the case for the teachers made by Deputy Magennis, because he has covered the whole ground and no new argument can be added. But I feel so strongly on the point that I would like to support the case he has made. I think it is my duty as a Deputy to underline the case that he made for the secondary teachers. As regards that humorous American story that he told us when the visitor took the middle course and called the Bishop a professor, I think if he had to deal with the poor secondary teacher in Ireland he would have no hesitation in calling him Sambo, because he was on the bottom rung of the ladder. I do not agree with Deputy Magennis on one point. He said the responsibility lies upon the parents. I cannot see where the parents are to be blamed any more than any other citizen. All the citizens of the Saorstát are equally at fault in this matter, and the Government cannot escape its responsibilities. At present they occupy an inconsistent and illogical position regarding secondary teachers. The primary teacher has to have certain qualifications before he can teach the pupils going to his school. Then the more advanced pupils require teachers with higher qualifications, and the State has stepped in and said to the secondary teacher, "Before you can teach in a secondary school it will not be sufficient for you to have all the qualifications of a primary teacher. You must have additional qualifications, and though we call upon you to have superior qualifications to the primary teacher we will see that you do not get half the salary that he gets." The position is very illogical altogether. If you go to the Army you will see instructors there for teaching private soldiers; you will also find instructors for teaching the officers, but the instructors in the one case are paid considerably more than in the other case, as is natural and reasonable. So with all the other professions. But when you come down to the secondary teacher you find that he is not at all to be on the level of those who have less to do and less onerous work. Why should not the secondary teacher get even the salary that the primary teacher gets? The want of security which has been referred to by Deputy Magennis is a very serious question; it has a most unsettling effect upon the teacher. He is on the eleven months system, like the grazier's bullock. He does not know what is going to become of him at the end of his time. I met secondary teachers time after time, and it was painful to hear them complain of the uncertainty of their future. A number of the establishments in which those men and women teach are, no doubt, private establishments, but these men and women are doing national work; the State has recognised that, and the State has that responsibility and must face it. Those people must be put on a proper level.
With regard to pensions, they are in a very bad way. You give a better salary to a man you send down the country as a Civic Guard than you pay to the secondary teacher, and when the Civic Guard has spent his life looking after publichouses, collecting "drunks," and all the other items of his varied profession you give him a fine pension, but the secondary teacher gets no pension. If I were asked to look around for a man under whose paternal care I would place the secondary teachers I would not go beyond the Minister for Education. I am sure there is no need for Deputy Magennis or any other Deputy to commend the hard case of those men and women to him, but it is necessary all the same for Deputies to emphasise the injustice of the position in which those men and women find themselves. They spend their lives in very hard and trying work, and they should be decently paid. They should have security, and they should have a pension. They are engaged in work of a national character, there is a national responsibility, and we should see that they are treated fairly.
This question of the position of the Intermediate Teachers is not a new one. It is well the Dáil should know that it is only a few years since the State recognised that they had any responsibility whatsoever to lay secondary teachers. Before that time these teachers were employed by private individuals, or people who conducted schools and got certain grants in aid of such schools. They were free to employ these teachers, or such persons as they wished to employ, irrespective of the qualifications of those persons, and at whatever rate of remuneration they could get them to accept. Some seven or eight years ago, after considerable agitation, the State did come to recognise that it had some measure of responsibility to these teachers, and it made certain provisions—altogether inadequate provisions, as everybody knows and as everybody admits—to meet those responsibilities. Early in 1921 the position had become so desperate that a conference was convened of the heads of the various Intermediate Schools in the country, in consultation with the Intermediate Commissioners, and this conference agreed upon a scheme. A scheme was submitted to the Government. Unfortunately, so far as the scheme was concerned, it coincided with the time when the government of this country was about to be transferred to the Irish people, and so the British Government did not proceed with it. The Secondary Teachers naturally expected that when their own Government would be established one of the first things they would do would be to take up this question of Secondary Education and the Secondary Teachers. I think it will be admitted that the Secondary Teachers as a body certainly did their part in bringing about the state of conditions which made the Free State possible. In the Northern area their difficulties in setting up a new Government and a new Administration were no less than they were here. The Northern Government within the last year has introduced a very comprehensive Education Bill, and has made ample provision for Intermediate Education and for the Intermediate Teachers. It has set up a scale of salaries and pensions— or it is about to set up a scale of salaries and pensions—and this scale will come into operation as from the beginning of the last school year, 1st September. Speaking some eight months ago or more, when this Vote was under discussion in the Dáil, the Minister for Education (Deputy Professor MacNeill) said:—
There are three points—salary. tenure of office, and pensions—on which I do not think there is a single person alive who, speaking conscientiously, would deny that in these respects the position of Secondary Teachers is gravely unsatisfactory. I do not say it with regard to justice, with regard to the men and women concerned, but in regard to the public interest and the right education of their children.
These are the three points which have been referred to by Deputy Magennis and Deputy Sears, and they form the three principal claims made on behalf of those teachers. There is no question whatsoever that the gravity and unsatisfactory state of the position of the Secondary Teachers has been admitted by the Minister for Education on various occasions and by every Party in the Dáil. But nothing has come of it. It is really heartbreaking to find that when a case is put up to the Minister or the Government the grievance is admitted, but nothing is done to remedy it. No steps are taken by way of remedy. I think it was Deputy Professor Magennis who stated earlier that if it was proposed to increase the provision made for Secondary Education, it is quite possible a howl would go up from the people. I do not know on what he bases that assumption. As a matter of fact, many public bodies, as the Minister for Education knows, have submitted resolutions to him during the past year calling special attention to the position of Secondary Education and of Secondary Teachers, and urging strongly that some remedial steps should be taken. If we can accept that as any evidence of the feelings of representative people on the matter, I think there is no danger that there would be any protest from any quarter such as the Deputy would seem to anticipate.
A year, or practically a year, has passed since these Estimates were last before us. On every occasion on which it was possible in the Dáil the position of Intermediate Education has been discussed. From all sides there has been general agreement that it was necessary to do something. Yet nothing has been done. I do not see how the Dáil would be justified in passing this Estimate as it appears before us, and, if I am in order, I would propose that it be referred back for further consideration. That is the only way the Dáil can show its mind in the matter. There is nothing to indicate that we may not come here again in twelve months time and find just the same work before us. A long list of Bills was put before us yesterday, but no hint was given of a reform in this blot on our educational system. I content myself, therefore, at this stage with moving that this Estimate be referred back for further consideration.
The amendment is that this Vote be referred back for further consideration.
Some short time ago I had occasion to stand up here and draw attention to an Estimate in connection with primary education. In doing that, and in making the remarks I then made, I had in mind this particular Estimate also. I knew the salaries of secondary teachers were only from £180 to £220. I also knew that they had no security and were not entitled to any pensionable rights. What I objected to in the last Estimate was not the money spent on education, but its unfair distribution. I do not think it is equitably distributed. When I was commenting upon the other Estimates, I knew that the salary the primary teacher is in receipt of ranges between £400 and £450, between the salary, Capitation Grants and other allowances.
How many?
All of the first class standard. I knew that the female primary teachers were in receipt of £300, with a Capitation Grant added. I am referring to the first class teachers.
No such thing.
I am in thorough agreement with Deputy Magennis and others who mentioned that the secondary teachers are not getting anything like a reasonable salary. They are not getting anything like justice; they never did. I knew that they were men with a higher standard of educational qualifications and that they were called upon to impart that higher standard of educational knowledge to the youth of the country. I knew that they were capable men and that they did impart it. I knew also that the standard of knowledge as taught in the primary schools could be imparted by people with very little qualifications— A, B, C, D.
Is that the distance you got?
The general practice is that when a young boy or girl reaches eleven or twelve years, they are sent to the secondary schools in order to get a better education. The people who impart that better education are not paid half as much as the teachers in the primary schools. This, in my opinion, ought to be made a national question; the nation ought to face it. I do not know that it ought to be faced in the way that some educational authorities in the Dáil advocate, and that is by reducing the number of primary teachers to about one-third, to get rid, as they say, of the duds. Some of our educational authorities here admit that half the number of primary teachers, or perhaps more, are duds. I have heard that expression used by some of our educational authorities in the Dáil.
Name.
Name.
Deputy Magennis was one. That might be one means of meeting the demand that is now being made in respect to secondary teachers. The other method would be in order, as I suggest, to distribute the funds more fairly, to reduce the salaries of the primary teachers and transfer the amount to the secondary teachers. I am not in favour of having a drastic reduction in the number of primary teachers. This course may be necessary in the minds of men who are capable of forming an opinion, but it is largely a question for the primary teachers themselves whether they will do with a smaller salary or prefer a reduction in their numbers by one-third or one-half. It is no uncommon thing in the country to find going into the homes of primary school teachers a sum of between £700 and £800 per year. The secondary teacher has no means of making this amount. His salary is a bald £180 to £220. I appeal to the Minister for Education and to the Government to devise some means whereby the secondary teachers will be put on a standard of decency and given the fair play that they have not been getting.
I do not think any very useful purpose is likely to be served by a lengthy discussion on this matter, by repeating the battle of books on the floor of the Dáil, or even by passing the amendment which Deputy O'Connell has moved. I dare say what he desires to get is the same as what I desire to get. I think it is most important that we should get from the Minister for Education at the very earliest possible moment a statement that he is going to deal with this matter on legislative lines, and further, perhaps he might give us some statement of the general lines on which he is going to deal with this problem. I think, though I do not very often agree with Deputy Gorey in what he says about education, that there was a certain element of commonsense in his remarks about the matter being possibly dealt with by a re-distribution of the total Vote for Education. I am not at all sure that the Minister for Finance will be glad to hear him say that. In view of the income of the State, our Vote for Education is a smaller one than it ought to be. I am perfectly sure we do not get value for the money, for some reason or another. I am not approaching this matter in the way Deputy Gorey did, by thinking of the salaries of Primary Teachers as being too large, and that they are being over-paid for their work. The work they do is of such importance that it is impossible to over-estimate it, particularly if we are to have at the back of our minds anything like that equality of opportunity to which Deputy Magennis refers. I have always said, and I now contend as an obvious truth, that the most difficult teaching in the world is that which is given at the very commencement of a pupil's education. The very highest qualifications are really required in teaching the young. You cannot have a too highly trained body of Primary Teachers or of Junior Secondary Teachers. When the pupils get older, if they profit by what they have learned in the Primary Schools, they can get along by themselves. I do not want to minimise in the slightest way the work done by the Primary Teachers; neither am I going to spend time stressing the conditions of the Secondary Teacher. We have heard, and probably the Minister for Education will be the first to admit it, that the Secondary Teachers are working under impossible conditions, and as a consequence the State is suffering the greatest loss and harm. By the harm that is being done to Secondary Education in the country by reason of the method in which it is worked we are losing the best of the Secondary Teachers. That matter is urgent, and should be dealt with as soon as possible, otherwise this drain of the Secondary Teachers will go on. I want to refer very briefly to this and to point out that the matter is even wider than as a matter concerning Secondary Teachers only. There is the efficiency of the school itself to be considered. The grants given to Secondary Schools have been really on the down grade. This is owing to two causes; the first is due to the amount of money available, and the second is owing to the number of pupils attending the schools. The grant per head to the schools has been diminishing rather than increasing. Then we have information furnished by Commissions, for example by the Commission that preceded the Macpherson Bill, and the admissions in that Macpherson Bill, that the conditions were intolerable, and should not be continued. Still the fact remains to be dealt with. I suppose I have experience now of 25 years, I am sorry to say, of many Boards and of some of the most successful Protestant schools in the country. I know very little, I am sorry to say, about the others. But I do know the conditions under which these schools have been trying to make themselves efficient. Before the war it was almost impossible. Since the war, with the increase in prices, it has been really impossible. That difficulty has been added to by the fact that the grants to the schools have been diminishing. I merely say this to point out that the matter is vital, and that it cannot be remedied without State aid. The schools have done as much as lies in their power by raising their fees to meet the demands upon their exchequer. But the whole difficulty in raising fees is to prevent the best of the young pupils, who ought to get the advantage of education, from getting those advantages which the Secondary Schools give. I want to give the best brains of the primary schools a chance to go to the Secondary Schools and, if possible, afterwards to the Universities. That cannot be done without State aid. I think it would be important for the country as a whole if we could draw from the Minister some such statement as I have suggested, that he would deal at the earliest possible moment with this problem as a whole, and that he is prepared to bring in legislation to deal with it, Deputy Gorey once said there was too much education in this country. Now, that very statement disproved his statement. I contend that it is of the very first importance. We cannot afford to stint our grants for Education, whether for Primary, Secondary or University Education, or the various branches of technical education, in agriculture or commerce, and in technical branches of science. It is of the very highest importance to us, if we are going to make this country a sound business proposition, that we should develop our education on all these branches. If you want to make your agriculture a success it means that what you want is education on the best and most modern methods of carrying on agriculture. Unless you get that education in the schools or the Universities you will not make your agriculture in this country a sound business proposition. The Assistant Minister for Industry and Commerce the other day used some very wise words with reference to the needs for efficiency in commerce, and said that it was necessary that commerce and business should be carried out on sound modern economic lines. You will not have that done unless you have Schools of Commerce to show business people how modern methods are to be applied, how this business can be worked on sound modern lines. You want your technical industries to be developed by technical instruction. The amount of real technical instruction that is given in the country at present is of the very smallest kind. Most of the technical schools have to spend their time doing what is the work of the Secondary Schools. There are very few schools in the country where technical subjects are taught. I would suggest to Deputy O'Connell that he is not helping this subject by moving this amendment; it is not a practical amendment, and he should join with me in trying to get such a statement as I have indicated from the Minister for Education. That would be of real practical value now. I think it is urgently necessary.
I have a certain sympathy with Deputy O'Connell's amendment, but I do not think it would serve the purpose that he desires to effect. I do not want to go over the whole field of education again. The abstract question of education is a very large one. I would like to press upon the Minister the immediate need of the secondary teachers themselves. They have very few friends. I am glad to see they have a new friend in Deputy Gorey, a most unexpected and welcome friend.
Their case must be a good one.
They have a good case. Unfortunately, however, the teacher has really few friends. To whom shall the teacher go? He cannot go to his pupils. As a body they do not think of his interests. The parents only try to get as much for as little as possible. That has been the history of education for 2,000 years. A schoolmaster 2,000 years ago complained that the parents wanted the children to know everything, to be taught everything, but they wanted to pay nothing. The taxpayer now is burdened, too, and he wants to pay as little as possible. In the meantime the unfortunate teacher is practically starving. He cannot do his work well. His task is hard enough as it is, but it is worse when he has to eke out his living by overtime, by drudgery, by private tuitions and other work. Some of them work 10 and 12 hours a day, and life becomes impossible for such a man. He cannot do his work well. I am not going to touch on the abstract work of the teachers or to foreshadow a scheme. We all know that there must be an examination of the education question in its full length, and some scheme born of this will probably be embodied in the Bill in the near future. The pivot of any educational scheme will be the secondary teacher. He is the man who gives the fine polish to the work of education, for he picks out the flower of the intellectual crop of the year and despatches them to the professions or the Universities. One of the real resources that we have got is the brains of our people. The secondary teacher, too, is a man who discovers the pupils with talents and puts them to the best work. Now, I wish to say that I do hope the Government will see their way to promise something like a supplementary Vote. When I saw that Vote for secondary education this year the same as the year before, I could not help thinking of an incident in "The Old Curiosity Shop." You remember where they were feeding that unfortunate servant, and Dick Swiveller saw Miss Brass going to the safe, bringing out a leg of mutton, and making a great array of sharpening a carving knife, and then cutting off two square inches of meat. "Do you see that?" said Miss Brass. "Yes," said the Marchioness. "Never say you do not get meat in this house; eat it up," said Miss Brass. "Do you want any more?" asked Miss Brass. "No," said the Marchioness. They were evidently going through an established form. I cannot help thinking that in this Dáil we are going through an established form. I really hope that the Minister will be able to give another helping to the secondary teachers. I will not weary the Dáil by dilating on their needs; they are well known to you all. Nor can I cordially support Deputy O'Connell's amendment; but I would urge the Minister to indicate a hope to these, one of the most deserving classes in the community, of better things, and a hope of some immediate relief.
I join with Deputy Alton in deprecating the procedure of sending back this Estimate, while I am at one with Deputy O'Connell in his aim. What we all wish is a promise, or a declaration, on the part of the Finance Minister of something in the nature of a supplementary grant. If that were given, it would be unnecessary to send back the Estimate. It is merely in that sense that I am opposing the amendment, and that, strictly speaking, is not opposition at all. When Deputy Gorey joined the alliance on behalf of education I could not help exclaiming, in Biblical language, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" His support and the support of his Party count for so much in this matter that I rejoice exceedingly. True, he used the support as a sort of shield from which he hurled darts at the primary school teachers. His method. then, is Biblical, like his new position. He would rob Peter to pay Paul. He accused me of referring to one-third of the National school teachers as "duds."
A half.
One half. I must have met Deputy Gorey in some astral plane, and it was my astral body that spoke. However, that is not material to the present issue. I think that there is one danger in this matter, that while time after time we must hark back to plead the claims for higher remuneration, the public will come to the conclusion that the dominant consideration with representatives of educational matters is money. That is one of the false positions into which, not once or twice, the advocates of education have been forced. We are made to appear in a false light. I am standing here again to have an opportunity of making a further plea for the teacher, and this time for educational freedom. It is true that Deputy Thrift is an educationalist—and we all recognise him as an educationalist of very high standing, wide experience, and immeasurable abilities—and with Deputy Alton, is not in favour of discussing questions of educational policy in the Dáil. Inasmuch as there is on foot so much of a reform by way of administrative work, I cannot altogether agree with him. I think there ought to be some criticism. To my mind forefront the question of the programme of studies set out for the schools; next to that the method of teaching; and after that, and an ancillary agency, the test of examination. Putting as I do, in the forefront the question of the programme of study, it is most necessary that freedom should be secured for the really excellent teacher, if not to frame his own programme of studies, under the supervision of the Ministry and subject to correction and advice on the part of the Ministry's inspectors, at least to give him a share, by way of criticism, in the preparation of the programme. The better the teacher the better the assistance he will give in this matter of what is a furtherance of national interest. If you cramp the teacher who is interested and capable, by imposing on him a very old and stereotyped programme you are doing him, his pupils, and his school an injury. You are wronging education. That was the great fault of the system that existed hitherto. There was a cast-iron programme devised in No. 1 Hume Street, sent out on a given day in the year, and from that until the day of the examinations battalions of little boys and little girls in all the schools were regimented accordingly. It did great work, I quite admit, notwithstanding the evil character attendant upon the provision of one programme for all boys and all girls alike. But now that we have a capable body of administrators at work, and the full and complete articulation of all its members, a great deal can be done—a very considerable deal can be done—in setting educational work going upon appropriate lines. I believe that if the teachers were assured now that something in a spirit of sympathy was to be done for them to redress their financial grievances, if they were told that their work is to get freedom or expansion, and their personal initiative is to have full play— that their own personalities, in fact, are to operate not merely in the importing of instruction or the securing of results fees or the adding to the list exhibitioners, but in the forming of character and the development of the spirituality of the pupils entrusted to them, in fact instilling in the pupils a sense of values which are the values of the teacher as a developed personality—if we were able to assure them of that, and that that was the view of the Dáil in criticising the Estimate, we would have alleviated in very large measure the sense of grievance on the part of the teachers.
I know these teachers, and I know the professorial staff in the country fairly well, and while our constant outcry that their remuneration is not equal to the services given, it is not our pre-occupation. The fact is that just as one is often inclined to say about the poor that because of their poverty their patience is the most marvellous phenomenon they possess, the silence of those men—let me call it by its proper name—their extraordinary subservience to the conditions imposed on them, is what ought to strike the public mind. When a few of us are vocal with regard to their grievances, it must not be understood that the teachers are preoccupied with the question of salary; they are far more interested in their work and in the progress of education; and I believe, therefore, that if this message went out to them from the Minister on behalf of his Ministry that the teacher is to be for the future recognised in Intermediate schools, not as a retailer of goods, but is in his measure and according to the limits within which he works on education, that it would be exceedingly helpful. There are ever so many things that are militating against secondary education in Ireland. One is the poverty which necessitated the withdrawal of pupils prematurely from schools. Another is the erroneous idea that secondary schools are intended to be a sort of vestibule to the Universities, and nothing more.
On a point of personal explanation, I think Professor Magennis is under a misconception with regard to one statement I made. I have no reluctance to discuss the question of educational policy, here or elsewhere, but I did not choose to raise this question on this Vote, because the case of the teachers themselves was so extreme that it seemed to me callous to launch out into theories and opinions.
I want to remind the Deputies that the private business comes on at 2 o'clock. The Minister has not spoken, and the Deputy should be very brief if the Minister is to reply.
That is why I stopped in the middle of a sentence. I am very grateful for the reminder.
The Minister says he will give me a minute or two. I merely wish to support this appeal for better financial conditions for these lay teachers. One of the professors in Trinity College told me some time ago that the Head Master of one of the most important secondary schools in the country came to him and said: "Can you give me a first-class mathematical science master for our school; the school has been doing so badly in science at the Intermediate Education examinations that we are going to be wiped out if we do not get a first-class master?""Yes," was the reply, "I can give you a first-class teacher if you pay him well. How much are you going to give?""Well," he said, "£300 a year." The reply was: "I cannot give you a first-class man for £300 a year. I will get you a second-class man for that, but if you want a first rate man you will have to pay £500." They had a consultation in the school, and they arranged to give £500 to this first-class man. The result for science in his first year was extraordinary, so much so that they appealed for an assistant science teacher, and they said: "We cannot give so much salary for this teacher, we can only give him £150 a year." The professor said: "I can only give you a sixth rate man for that, but I can give you a second rate man for £300 a year." A second rate man was obtained for £300 a year, and the results were most extraordinary. Now, I say we can get no good results unless we get first rate teachers, and we cannot get first rate teachers unless we give them first rate pay. I have not the same knowledge and experience of secondary schools as some of my colleagues have, but I have knowledge of the men who come from the secondary schools into the professions, and I have a very intimate knowledge of the amount of the learning these men have acquired, and sometimes of the lack of it. So far as the professions are concerned, I say that if we want to keep up our professional status, we must have the men properly taught in the secondary schools, and again I say, if we are to have the pupils taught properly, we must have the teachers properly paid to teach. I should like to say, in regard to the necessity for proper equipment, that I should like the Government to see that there is sufficient equipment for teaching scientific subjects. Pupils can pass examinations well in other subjects whereas in physics and chemistry, and such subjects as should be taught in the intermediate schools are practically being neglected. We have not been pressing the teaching of these subjects in the schools, because the ordinary English subjects are not to our minds sufficiently well taught at present. I know that the Minister for Education has in his mind that these intermediate schools should be allowed to develop on their own lines and, to a large extent, I would agree with him, and I would even agree with him to be content to do away with all public examinations if there was to be a proper examination of class work in the schools at the end of the year. One other point I should have liked to refer to at more length is, that many of these schools have been started as private schools in houses that were not suitable for schools at all, and as time went on the pupils increased and they were crowded together into rooms that were in no way fit for educational purposes, and the result is that too many of these schools generally are of a denominational character, whereas if one large school were equipped where these denominations could meet together, in my opinion, we would have less trouble and better feeling in the country than at present. Finally, I should like to ask the Minister how much of this £30,750 is set apart for teachers, and how much of that actually gets into the pockets of secondary teachers; in other words, how much of it is used in administration and how much do the teachers get?
I would suggest that the debate should be adjourned, if it be the wish of the Minister.
I was not putting it forward that the Vote would be taken necessarily, but that the Minister might be heard before 2 o'clock.
I find myself in a rather pleasant position with regard to the discussion on this Vote. I should say that any Minister in charge of any particular Department of public administration must feel highly gratified when he finds everybody on every side insisting on driving and pushing him in the direction in which he wishes to go. I will not yield to the temptation of dealing with any of the general aspects of education that have been brought before us by successive speakers. It is a very strong temptation to me. I should like to make my own comment if I had time to think it over, but I have not exactly the same readiness of speech as many of the Deputies have. I should like to make my own contributions to the discussion on the more general aspects of education, especially of Secondary Education, but other occasions will be found for matters of that kind. With regard to the motion before us, to refer back the Estimate, I need not remind the Deputy who makes it, and the other Deputies, that these Estimates are in print and in the hands of the Deputies now for several months. These Estimates were made ready for the printers—and this is a matter which not a single Deputy who has spoken has noted—in circumstances which I do not want to discuss here at all. This country was being subjected to loss at something like the rate of a million sterling per week. It was in that situation that these Estimates had to be drafted. That was a very material consideration in the drawing up of the Estimates, and, having mentioned it, I will say nothing more about—shall I call it—the hyperplexus of the various Deputies who spoke. The difficulty, too, in regard to the proper payment of Secondary Teachers has causes which have not been mentioned. One would think when one sees this thing and hears it discussed that the only person to blame is a hard-hearted Minister for Finance or an indifferent Minister for Education. I do not say it was put forward here, but that point of view has certainly been given prominence to. First of all, one of the things to blame, in my mind, is the form of our education and its peculiar classification. We have been subjected to education in water-tight compartments—primary and secondary. One can see at once if those lines of division did not exist that it would not be possible for Deputy Gorey to draw a distinction between the scale of remuneration of Primary Teachers and the scale of remuneration of Secondary Teachers. I often asked myself what is the meaning of this primary business and secondary business. Why not tertiary or quaternary? What is the exact meaning of it? What is the object of it, and what purpose does it serve? I think that classification has a great deal to do with the present situation. You have two strictly divided bodies, which keep the people engaged in public education in the country on two totally different systems. There are other reasons. Deputy O'Connell told us that a howl would go up from the people and that public bodies have submitted resolutions.
I did not tell you that.
I am not referring to this in a hostile sense. I am simply quoting the words, because I want to make my own use of them.
On a point of personal explanation, I think it was another Deputy who used that statement, and I refuted it by saying that we have had public resolutions on the matter.
It is only the words I am concerned with. I do not wish to ascribe them to any particular Deputy. The solution of this question might be reached if something else, and not a howl, went out from the people, and if public representatives brought something to the solution of these difficulties beyond resolutions. It is evidently a matter of finance; it is a matter of financial provision. No resolution has reached me in favour of raising more money for this purpose. With regard to the acuteness of public feeling, it is right for the Seanad to pass a unanimous resolution, as it did some months ago, on this subject, calling for better financial treatment of those engaged in secondary education, and it is right for members of the Dáil to show its unanimity—I think every part of the Dáil has been represented in the statements that have been made here to-day—calling for an improvement in the position of secondary teachers. These things are right; they are gratifying, but—if I may use the word—not enabling. I never concealed my own view with regard to this, and I suppose people are expected to change their views when they become invested with Ministerial appointment. My views remain the same; I think, as I always thought, that no teacher ought to be a casual hireling. I think that education is supremely the most important work that the nation has to take on hands. I do not think anyone can deny that to himself. If anyone here who has responsibility for children refers to his own case he will find that for him the providing of education in every shape and form for them is the supreme thing. If that be so for him, it is so for everyone else. Therefore it is so for all of us. But when people come to deal with these things from a public point of view they forget that. There is, I think, no exaggeration in what was implied in the illustration brought forward by Deputy Magennis that, while people speak in this way, they do not appreciate the work of teaching as they ought to do. I will give you proof of it. I hope that all our Senators, when they are drawing up their wills, will make as good and ample provision for education as for any other charitable purpose. I hope that the more or less wealthy people of the community, when they are also thinking of how their surplus wealth will be disposed of after they have passed away, will remember—what every testator of Ireland appears to forget—the interests of education. That is one of the reasons why the teachers in our colleges at present are in the position they are in. With all our talk about education, there is no country in the world in which the people of wealth and of means have done less for education than in this country of ours. If some small proportion of the surplus wealth that is disposed of in a variety of ways were directed towards educational purposes, the situation with regard to our secondary schools would be very different from what it is. The situation with regard to the Universities, about which we will probably hear a good deal later, would also be improved. I do not intend to make any statement with regard to the general principles of education, and I do not intend to make any statement with regard to future legislative proposals. I will confine myself to the matter before us. I am quite certain that if it were in the power of the Dáil—if they had the power under the Constitution—the Deputies would unanimously, or almost unanimously, bring forward over the heads of the Ministry, in case they were reluctant, a Vote for a substantial increase of the amount allocated here for secondary education, and make it particularly available for the salaries of secondary teachers. The question was put to me as to how much of this money goes in administration. I have not had time to make close, exact official enquiries, but I believe I can answer offhand—practically none. Any portion of it spent on administration is infinitesimal.
You are referring to the Interim Grant.
Yes, and to all the other moneys that go in that direction. As I have said, I am quite certain that if it were in the power of the members of the Dáil, under the Constitution, to make a substantial increase on this Vote over the heads of the Ministry, they would do so. It will not be necessary for them. I have the authority of the Ministry, and the authority of the Minister for Finance in particular, to state to you that it will be the duty and the pleasure of the Minister for Finance himself to propose a very substantial increase in the amount already set out in the Vote as available for the improvement of the salaries of secondary teachers.
In view of the very satisfactory statement made by the Minister—a statement which I am sure we were all glad to hear—I have pleasure in asking leave of the Dáil to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Vote, I presume, will not go through now?
The Vote need not necessarily go through now. The reason for the amendment, I presume, was to discuss the particular matter on which the Minister has spoken.
There are some other matters to which I would like to refer.
The Minister can move to report progress, and that will provide an opportunity for resuming the discussion.
I move that we report progress.