Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 4 Jul 1924

Vol. 8 No. 5

INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION (AMENDMENT) BILL, 1924—SECOND STAGE.

The MINISTER for EDUCATION (Professor MacNeill)

I move the Second Reading of this Bill. The Minister in charge of the Bill which was under discussion just now was accused of galloping. I think that Deputy O'Connell smiles at what is in my mind with regard to the present Bill. Notwithstanding the purely technical appearance of this Bill, it is, in fact, a revolutionary measure. At all events, it is the legislative completion of a revolution in the system and the basis of secondary education, as it has existed since the passing of the Intermediate Education Act of 1878. Under that Act, the basis of all financial assistance given by the State to secondary schools was the results of examinations. That system of paying schools in respect of the results of examinations had more than one vice, and I think it is now a matter of general agreement that the removal of that system, and it has been removed except for this particular enactment which becomes necessary to complete it, was necessary, and can be counted on in future as beneficial. The object of the present Bill is not apparent on the face of it. The Bill is necessary in order to abolish the payment of grants on the results of written examinations, and in order to substitute for that method payment by capitation which, I think, is the form of grant almost universal in modern educational systems. I may sum up the conditions of the financial provisions for secondary education in a few words. The grants that up to the present have been payable to the Intermediate schools come from two sources —first from the income on a capital fund which was created by former legislation for the Intermediate Education Board, and secondly, from public funds, voted annually. The present income on the capital sum belonging to the Intermediate Education Board amounts to about £27,360 annually, and there is also, under an Act of 1890, an annual payment from the Local Taxation Account, amounting to £35,000. These two annual amounts bear all the cost of administration and inspection, and the cost of examination, and further a joint income of all the schools obtaining financial assistance—about £30,000—has been paid in the form of grants based mainly on the results of the annual examinations.

There is, first of all, what is called the Teachers' Salaries Grant. The Intermediate Education Act of 1914 provided an annual grant for the purpose of increasing the salaries of Intermediate teachers. This grant amounted to £30,750 in 1922. It is distributed to the schools—it is also practically based on the results of examinations— in proportion to the amount of grant which has been paid in the past on the results of written examinations, and so it may be regarded as a supplementation of the income of the Intermediate Education Board that I have already mentioned. There also has been up to the present an annual grant called the Duke Grant. The annual amount of that grant for all Ireland originally was £50,000; the proportion for the Free State is £39,000. This sum is paid to the schools also as a capitation grant, with the exception of about £4,000 which is set aside for special purposes, Summer Courses and special grants to struggling schools. It will be seen that out of the four sources that I have mentioned of State-provided income for secondary schools, no less than three have been dependent up to the present on the results of examinations, mainly on the results of written examinations, and that dependence is statutory. The object of this Bill is to repeal the provisions which make these payments dependent on the results of written examinations. The particular provisions of these Acts— not the Acts as a whole—are specified in the Schedule. There is the Intermediate Act of 1878, the Local Taxation Act of 1890, and the Act of 1914, which provides the Teachers' Salaries Grant. I do not know that I can add anything further in explanation of the purpose of this piece of legislation.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

I agree with the Minister when he attempted to convey that the Bill is not quite as simple as it looks. The object, as he explained it and as I understood it, is to rearrange the basis upon which grants have hitherto been largely paid for the purpose of Intermediate Education. Grants were, as the Minister stated, payable to a considerable extent on the results of examinations, and it is now proposed, and I quite agree with him that it is right, to change that basis. But for the first time I have learnt that it is proposed to substitute a capitation basis. That does not appear on the face of the Bill, nor am I aware that any regulations have yet been issued to provide that grants will in future be paid on capitation. I take it from what the Minister has said that is the intention. As the Minister has stated, the Fund which is known as the School Grant comes from two sources, that is, from the interest accruing on the old Grant that was made in 1878 from the Church Temporalities Fund, and from the money derivable from the Customs and Excise Grant, or what used to be familiarly called the "Whiskey Money." So far as the first and second portions of the Schedule are concerned I have no objection to make beyond saying what I said in the beginning, that I was not quite clear of what basis the Minister proposes to introduce for the distribution of the grants. The repeal set out in the first portion of the Schedule where it is stated that these words will be deleted, namely "dependent on the results of the public examination of students." As I say, I have no objection to that, and the same practically applies to the second one. But when we come to the third mentioned in the Schedule, a new and wholly different question arises.

I would like to dwell on the origin of this Act of 1914. The Act was passed principally, if not entirely, because of the agitation which was carried on for a considerable number of years by the lay intermediate teachers. The Act in the first section set up a Registration Council, and the second section, which it is now proposed to repeal, I shall read to the Dáil, because it is important that the Dáil should be aware of its terms. This is the section:

"From and after the commencement of this Act there shall be provided to the Board in each year out of moneys provided by Parliament a sum not exceeding £40,000, and an amount equivalent to the sum so paid (in this Act referred to as the Teachers' Salaries Grant) shall be applied by the Board in the manner provided by rules made by the Lord Lieutenant under this Act, and approved by the Treasury."

Now, the Teachers' Salaries' Grant was what its name implies, and was intended for the teachers, and the rules made under that section contained what I may call the Magna Charta of the lay teachers. It was the first time that even the existence of the lay teacher was recognised in the Intermediate system. Under no previous Act was there any reference whatever made to the lay teacher. The rules which were made under that particular section provided there should be a minimum salary for lay teachers. The minimum salary was fixed at £140. Even in 1914 that was not very much, but it was something; it fixed a minimum salary. There was also a provision in these rules that one lay teacher should be employed for every forty pupils. It is known as the "one in forty proportion." There was a guarantee secured thereby that a certain number of lay teachers would be employed in the schools.

Now that did not mean that that particular regulation, the one in forty proportion, should apply to any individual school, but it was arranged rather by what is known as the group system—the Catholic schools and the Protestant schools—that in each group that proportion would be observed. I may mention in passing that that proportion, so far as one group is concerned, the Catholic group, was, I am informed, never observed, although to some extent it was observed. That, however, does not get away from the fact that it was there. It gave a certain guarantee that lay teachers would be employed. There was a further regulation in these rules that a lay teacher would have a three months' contract of agreement. Before that there was no such regulation and the people responsible for the schools might, at the end of the school year, simply tell the lay teacher, the very day on which the school was breaking up, that he might not come back after the summer holidays. One of the provisions of the rules made under this particular section was that there should be a three months' contract. It is proposed in this Bill to repeal this section which I have read. I maintain, and I think there can be no possible doubt about it, that if the section is repealed, all these rules made in pursuance of the section must fall, because it states here that a sum not exceeding £40,000 must be set aside and shall be applied in the manner provided by the rules made by the Lord Lieutenant under this Act. If it is the case, and I think it will be generally admitted that it is, that if the section goes, the rules made in pursuance of the section must, as a matter of course, go also.

Then the position is this, that by this simple act you are wiping out all the advantages which were gained by the lay teachers under the Birrell Act of 1914. That is what it comes to in a nutshell— the teachers go back to the pre-1914 position. It seems to me that that is clearly and obviously the effect of repealing Section 2 of the Intermediate Education Act of 1914. If it were absolutely necessary, in order to establish the principle which the Minister says he wants to establish, and which I agree is necessary, there may be some reason for repealing this particular section but I hold it is not essential. In the other two Acts it is definitely set out that the moneys which are paid depend on the results of examinations, but in this case, it is nowhere stated in the Act of 1914. What is stated is that this money shall be applied by the Board in the manner provided by the rules made by the Lord Lieutenant. The rules are made by the Lord Lieutenant and I take it, of course, that the Department has power without legislation to alter the rules which were made by the Lord Lieutenant then. That being so, if there is anything in these rules which makes the payment of grants dependent on results, I hold that the Department can change that particular portion without wiping away all the rules.

So far as I can discover in the rules, there are two or three sentences, one of which says, in Rule 2, that certain sums shall be distributed annually by the Board amongst managers of the intermediate schools to whom results fees are paid, and the words "result fees" occur in at least one other place. I maintain that if the word "grants" were submitted for the words "result fees" in the rules the position would have been fully met and the Department could not be charged with simply wiping away all these rules which do preserve certain rights for the secondary teachers. I need not point out to members in this Dáil the deplorable position, I may say the scandalous position, in which secondary teachers find themselves to-day. They are crying out for improvement in their positions, and the improvement is admittedly long overdue, but under this measure, I maintain, the effect will be that even the little modicum of right given in 1914, after a severe struggle and long continued agitation is wiped out as a matter of course. It is not necessary that that should be done. It is not necessary that it should even get the appearance of being done because, as I say, it is open to the Department to alter the rules, and the alteration required is not very much. But if alteration is required in the rules, it is obvious that no alteration is necessary in the section which I read out, because it clearly provides that the grants may be applied according to the rules.

If alteration is necessary it is in the rules and the Department are there without repealing the section to alter the rules to bring them into consonance with the objects they want to achieve. My position in the matter is this, while I agree with the principle which is announced—the necessity for changing the basis on which the grants are paid—I do hold that it is not necessary for that purpose which the Minister has in view, to have that second section of the Act of 1914 repealed. I hold, further, that if it is repealed a grievous wrong will be done to the lay secondary teachers in the Saorstát, because it will be taking from them whatever rights they have secured. They are not much, but such as they are, they are there without giving them anything in exchange, without giving them anything in return. At present, as I say, they have a right to contract, a right to a minimum salary, a right to be employed in certain proportions, and if you take out this section of the Act and take with it the rules which must go with it, what is left to them? Nothing. They are just back to the position in which they were before this regulation was passed. I do not see my way to support the Second Reading of this Bill unless I am assured that at the next stage of the Bill this section, to which I have called special attention, will be deleted. I do not know, when the section was inserted in the Bill, whether the full effect of it was adverted to. I can hardly believe that it was, but I hope when the Minister is winding up the debate that he will give and assurance that the deletion of this section will not be insisted on. As I say, if it is, I will have no other course open but to oppose the Bill as strongly as I can, and ask every Deputy in the House who knows, and from that knowledge must of necessity sympathise with the position of the lay secondary teachers, to oppose it also.

Professor THRIFT

I rise also to oppose this Bill. I pass over the fact that it is introduced, as we hope, towards the end of the session. I pass over the fact that it really does a great deal more than what is apparent on the surface. The Minister very straightforwardly acknowledged that in his opening statement, but he will remember that that statement was made to a small number of Deputies in the House. That was not his fault, but nevertheless the fact remains. I oppose the Second Reading chiefly on this ground, that it is purely a destructive measure, without a single constructive feature about it. I am not going to argue at length a thing which is admitted— namely, the grievous case of the secondary teachers. We know that they have practically no tenure.

We know that they are wretchedly paid. We know that they do not know in a particular year what their income will be. We know they have no right to pension. The Minister knows that, the President has admitted it, and everybody knows it, and says that something must be done, but nothing is done. We have urged this on various occasions in the Dáil, and we have been expecting every time that something would be done. At length, after two-and-a-half years we are faced with a Bill which has the effect of removing everything that was favourable to the teachers, leaving them without anything to support them. The Minister stated that it was proposed to remove payment by results in order to substitute payment by capitation. The Bill does not even say that. We do not know what the Ministry are going to do, or how they shall pay. We shall know nothing if we pass the Second Reading. All we know is that payment will be on results. What is to be paid? What position are they going to be put into? I oppose the Second Reading because the fact that we want to get rid of payment on results—and the Minister wants to get rid of that—is one of the levers we hope to use in order to get a constructive Bill from the Minister. If we accept in this way the repeal of this section which Deputy O'Connell has properly called the Magna Charta of teachers, up to the present, we shall have no lever to use.

I also agree with Deputy O'Connell that there is no urgency about this repeal clause. The third reason why I oppose the Second Reading of the Bill has been extremely well put by Deputy O'Connell. If you take away the boon that was given the teachers in 1914, by repealing the second section of the 1914 Act, you are really removing a very great advantage from them. It was pointed out that they have very little tenure. They have at least under that clause to be engaged under contract, and must receive at least three months' notice before dismissal. If the second section of the 1914 Act is repealed, I agree with Deputy O'Connell that the Bill is taking away that right of contract from the teachers. While that is not the most important ground for asking the Dáil not to agree to the Second Reading of this Bill, I think it is a very important one. I hope the Minister will realise, after this period, that when he asked the Dáil to pass an Intermediate Education Bill he ought to make it one that will be constructive, and not merely a Repealing Clauses Bill. On these grounds, principally, I would ask the Dáil not to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Mr. ALTON

I desire to support the position that has been taken up by my colleague, Professor Thrift, and by Deputy O'Connell in this matter. Last night Deputy Johnson tried to tempt the Minister for Education into stating his general educational policy. I do not think the Minister was drawn very much. This is the first real indication as to what that policy is. It is a policy of obscurantism judging by the Bill before us. It is a terrible specimen of legislation by reference. Who would believe that the repealing of Section 2 of the Act of 1914 would mean so much, while apparently in the Bill it means so little? As we know, the secondary teachers have been the orphan children in Ireland. They have always been kicked and shown the door. They had very few friends. With great difficulty they got their case heard. I do not know whether it was Mr. Birrell himself or his advisers decided to recognise that they had some rights as citizens. These rights were incorporated in the Schedule of the Act of 1914. That was their charter, and a very small charter, indeed. The first positive Act of the Ministry of Education is the repeal of that charter.

I have heard of a stone being given for bread, but here you are taking away the bread and giving nothing. I am not in favour of very revolutionary methods of education, and when the Minister stated last evening that he was in favour of moving slowly I assented to that attitude. But I want to move forward slowly. This is moving backwards. It is a crab-like movement, going back to the dark ages. Certainly I am not going to assent to the repeal of this section until I know that the secondary teachers are going to get something at least as good as what the section implied. If the section is to be repealed I do not see why these rules that it involves should not be re-enacted. I appeal to the Minister who, as we know, is a man of liberal views, and with the courage to express them, to re-consider his decision in this matter. I do not know what his difficulty is or why the section should be repealed at all.

Mr. JOHNSON

Before the Minister replies I want to support the contentions that have been made by Professor Thrift and by Deputies Alton and O'Connell. Unless they are thoroughly misinformed they made a case that is unanswerable. Unfortunately I have no personal knowledge, nor actual acquaintance with intermediate education anywhere, but I do remember the tremendous agitation that took place some years ago and resulted in the passing of the Intermediate Education Act of 1914 and also the rules formulated afterwards. I know that a great amount of feeling was stirred up and that a great deal of relief was expressed when something in the nature of a settlement was arrived at.

I think the contention of Deputy Alton is perfectly sound, that by repealing two sections of the three Acts we are going to remove certain assurances in regard to payments without any substitute assurances, and we are going to remove from the lay secondary teachers the assurances that are provided to them in the Statutory Rules and Orders, 1915, No. 229, and that you are committing a grievous blunder which would not even be remedied, I am afraid, by the promise, which is a verbal promise, from the Minister, that he proposed to do certain things. I think we should always bear in mind the risk of mortality—the risk surrounding Ministries—and it is a great risk for us to let go one thing until we are sure we have got hold of the other.

I was going to say that I was satisfied with the Minister's intentions, but that would not be right. I waited last night long and patiently for something that would give me ground to be satisfied. I dare not say now that I am satisfied with his intentions, but I still have faith in the Minister's goodwill, which is something different from his intentions. But I do not think that is enough to rely upon if we are going to pass an Act in July, 1924, and perhaps have to wait until October before we can bring forward a substitute Act. The Minister may have power to do things by rule, but I suggest he should bring the rules to us now before we pass this Act. The secondary teachers have been for two years, since their condition came into the hands entirely of an Irish authority, hoping and expecting and pleading—and they have been promised by that authority—that their condition would be improved.

Every Deputy in the House who has ever spoken on this matter has declared his sympathy and his desire that the position of the lay secondary teachers should be improved and that secondary education generally should be improved. If we are to pass this Bill, or even to give a Second Reading to this Bill, with the information available, it will be tantamount to telling these secondary teachers that all our sympathies were groundless, that it was only so much talk to put them off, and that we were not really in earnest in these assurances of sympathy. They would have good ground for so thinking unless we are prepared to put something positive before them before we go any further in the process of taking away what they have already got. If we could see, before this Bill goes any further, what the positive intentions of the Government are, and if we could see their proposals formulated and set out in actual order, and if we could see the actual Bill, in that way we would know with precision what the intentions of the Ministry are in this regard, and, then, I have no doubt, a case could be made for passing this Bill. But I am convinced, ignorant as I am of the Intermediate Education System, from statements made by those who are intimate with it, that there will have to be a very conclusive reply from the Minister before I would agree to the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. HEWAT

I do not rise with any professional knowledge on educational matters, but rather to point to some matters in connection with the Bill that is before us. The Ceann Comhairle was going to call upon the Minister for Education to conclude the debate, but I venture to suggest that the Minister might commence. First of all, I want to ask why this Bill is put in amongst a mass of legislation that is coming before us now. The amount of work involved in preparing the Bill can hardly be advanced as a reason for not bringing it forward at an earlier stage. The Bill is a very short one and an innocent person like myself would not gather very much from reading it. It asks us to repeal certain sections of Acts of Parliament passed in another place. Were it not for the explanation given by Deputy O'Connell very few Deputies would have read into the sections of an Act of Parliament that we are asked to repeal anything more than a very innocent proposal. I take exception to a Bill being brought forward in that way, especially at a time of great pressure like this, when we hardly have time to say our prayers. The Bill asks us to repeal 4 & 5 George V., Section 2., but then we have to find out what Section 2 is. To bring a Bill forward in that way seems to be to ask the Dáil to take a great deal on the faith of the Minister and rather shows that the Ministry of Education or the Minister for Education is hardly up to date. We have had instances recently where the protests of the Dáil have had the effect of improving the method by which Bills have been put before us. A case in point was the Bill we had before us yesterday. That is a Bill that was preceded by a very full explanation of its provisions, and it was followed up by a very close analysis of its provisions by the Minister for Justice. I suggest that this Bill now before us in its present form is a contravention of the demands of the Dáil for a reasonable explanation of these measures. It should not be put before us to have it shoved through by chance. If a Deputy like Deputy O'Connell was not in the Dáil we would know no more about what we were passing than the man in the moon.

General MULCAHY

I regret I was delayed outside the Dáil and was not able to be present when the Minister was making his statement, but I desire to join in the concern expressed by a number of Deputies here as to the position of secondary school teachers. I understand from Deputies on those benches in this side of the Dáil that the Minister has not made it clear at all what is the immediate necessity for repealing the enactments that were mentioned here. Perhaps he would let us know what is the pressing necessity for bringing forward this Bill at this particular moment.

Professor MAGENNIS

Deputy Hewat reminds me of a French remark that there are some compliments that, like a cannon ball, sweep your head away before you are aware of what is happening. Deputy Hewat does not appreciate the compliment that the Ministry of Education has paid to the Dáil. It assumes that we all have such an ardent interest in educational affairs that we know all the Acts of Parliament and all the rules regulative of secondary education.

Mr. JOHNSON

And all the other Ministers do the same with all the other Bills.

Professor MAGENNIS

Deputy Hewat, as a business member, ought to appreciate the laconic character of this Bill. It save expenditure upon printing and it saves a great deal of time and labour in reading. Deputy Hewat would prefer to have Bills modelled on the Intoxicating Liquor Bill, which is prefaced by a memorandum that dispenses with the necessity of reading the Bill, so that Deputies may hold forth eloquently and long on the Second Reading without the necessity of acquainting themselves with the terms of the proposed measure. Deputy Hewat was mild as compared with my professional colleagues, Deputy Thrift and Deputy Alton. One declared that it is a policy of obscurantism, and the other announced that the Bill was purely destructive. Both these Deputies and Deputy O'Connell applauded the new educational policy which derides and would remove the payment of teachers on a test applied by a written examination to the character of the work done. It is quite the fashion now to attack the written examination and to regard it as educationally indefensible. These Deputies are keen for the new progressive idea to substitute payment on capitation. Very well, then: they must be consistent. If under the existing law the new regime is to be introduced of payment without reference to the result of written examination, the statute which prescribes that the moneys must be distributed on the basis of the results of written examination has to be got rid of, and so far the earlier portion of this measure should win their favour, because it does away with the written examination. I suppose I should be regarded as reactionary, and in any case I am not quite sure that I should not be out of order if I were to discourse even for a moment on the disadvantages to education of these sweeping changes.

The Minister in introducing this Bill spoke about it as revolutionary. It is revolutionary. Deputies on the general policy of education yesterday evening were unanimous in attacking the fruitlessness of the primary system. Now, the primary system has been at work all these years, that is the method of inspection without written examination, and there is absolute unanimity as to the bad quality, the utterly wretched quality, of the work done in the national schools although there have been cohorts of inspectors inspecting these schools and writing endless reports about them. I am sufficiently a believer in written examinations well conducted to regret their passing. They have done good work. They brought into existence excellent schools, and they have helped to create the Intermediate Education system, against which very few stones have been thrown, while all condemn the primary system. Those who are acquainted with the high standing of secondary education in Ireland, and with the great work done by the vast majority of the schools, and the excellent quality of the teaching imparted in these schools, will agree that the methods by which these schools were brought into being, and in a large measure financed, cannot have been wholly bad. We are now to substitute for that system a system of inspection and of capitation grants. I am quite willing to admit with the Minister that the written examination had its vices. There was one notorious vice it lent itself to—cramming. The schools that were not resolved to do honest work, but that were anxious to secure as much of the results fees as they could secure by cramming, injured their boys for life, and defrauded the parents of the boys, and were, in short, public enemies. That vice, however, was in a large measure corrected by the methods pursued by the late Intermediate Board setting out from the year 1900. It was the examiner who was condemned; it was the administrator of the system who was condemned where cramming had free scope, and where the crammer got off with his loot.

I see advantages in a mixed system of part inspection and part examination. There are qualities that can be developed in the pupil by preparation for examination of a highly special kind, qualities of character, and it is largely because the written examinations take no account of that great educational element that they are to be condemned but where the examination system is supplemented by the inspection system the corrective is healthy and useful. The Minister has explained to us that he proposes to substitute the capitation system. In other words, the policy begun by the late Intermediate Board is to be extended, and what it recommended is to be carried out—a scheme of leaving-school certificates and the further intermediate school certificate, which will be accepted as an entrance qualification for universities and for a variety of other professional purposes. I take it, that it is to get rid of the hampering restrictions of the statute that the first portion of this Bill is intended. We now come to what is usually called the Birrell Grant. That is the Act of 1914. I wonder is Deputy O'Connell correct in saying that if the section of that Act of 1914 that is to be repealed, is repealed, that the rules must fall? He says it will wipe out the rules, and that the teachers will go back to the 1914 position. Others have said that a grievous wrong would be done. That assumes that the Ministry of Education is a Ministry hostile to the education of the nation. It assumes that unless the British Statute is perpetuated the advantages that accrued to schools and teachers under it will disappear.

Professor THRIFT

I protest against any such misrepresentation of the arguments used.

Professor MAGENNIS

The words I am quoting I am asking a question with regard to. The words I quoted are from Deputy O'Connell, that if the section be repealed the rules must fall. Again, he says: "Wipe out the rules, and the teachers go back to the 1914 position." He means the pre-1914 position. "A grievous wrong will be done.""A grievous wrong" was repeated by Deputy Johnson. "The Act is simply destructive," in the words of Deputy Thrift. Surely those quotations in themselves are not misrepresentations. The misrepresentation must be in some supposed use I make of them. I ask the question. I am glad that asking the question has touched the educational, and the political, conscience of Deputy Thrift. I ask the question are we to suppose that advantages that accrue to the schools and the teachers under a British statute will cease to be theirs if a section of that statute be repealed, and there will be left in sole control not the Lord Lieutenant of former times but the Ministry of Education? Deputy Johnson suggested that to speak as I am speaking is to make an act of faith which might be defeated by some casualty or some disaster to a Minister. After all, the policy of the Government, of this administration, is not so completely personal as all that. Deputy Alton says I want to make it personal. On the contrary I want it to be understood that there is an educational policy which has the approval of this House.

Mr. JOHNSON

We have to hear what it is.

Professor ALTON

What is it, sir?

Professor MAGENNIS

So far as this measure is concerned it has been explained by the Minister. This particular Minister has spoken in previous debates in this House in favour of the claims of secondary teachers.

Professor THRIFT

What about the Act?

Professor MAGENNIS

It is an Act to clear away and get rid of certain embarrassments in the pursuance of a policy with which I have candidly confessed I am not wholly in sympathy, because it is dictated by a design which sweeps away the examination system to a large extent. The Deputies who applauded this forward policy are in a strange position of inconsistency. If they object to the Minister taking the requisite steps to put into execution the very policy they applaud.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

My whole point was that the repeal of Section 2 was not necessary to carry out the Minister's intentions.

Professor MAGENNIS

I quite see that. The Deputies imagine I am arguing against secondary teachers. I challenge any Deputy in this House to make even a simulacrum of a case that I am not as whole-hearted a champion of secondary education and secondary teachers' rights according to the measure of my little capacity as any of them. I am merely trying to state here what I conceive to be the purpose of this measure. If it were intended to do away with the position that teachers have secured under the growth of public opinion in this matter as expressed in legislation and in the code of practice I should oppose it bitterly. I am merely taking my stand against a supposition that the deliberate policy of the Ministry of Education and of the Government as represented therein is to do a grievous wrong to secondary teachers.

Professor ALTON

I protest against that. I have distinctly stated that I have the greatest confidence in the liberality of the Minister's views, and I think that Deputy Magennis has no right to suggest that any of the Deputies who spoke had any other opinion about the Minister's intentions.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The point appears to be that the Third Repeal in the Schedule involves a consequential abolition of a set of rules with the consequence of what the Deputies conceive to be a wrong.

Professor MAGENNIS

My contention is that it does not mean an abolition. Those rules refer to the distribution of moneys following the distribution of results dependent upon written examination. When results, dependent upon written examination, are no longer possible, that language has no meaning, and so a clean sweep is made to clear the ground. There is no attack intended to be made. I really must be particularly stupid, because I cannot understand the indignation of Deputy Alton. I have taken the statements of Deputies Alton, Thrift and O'Connell. I have quoted them. They do not repudiate or question the accuracy of the quotation. Is then what is objectionable some interpretation I put on their words?

Professor THRIFT

The objectionable thing is the insinuation of motive, made by Deputy Magennis.

Professor MAGENNIS

I have insinuated no motive and disclaim any desire to insinuate a motive. I protest I am making honest criticisms of criticisms made with equal honesty. Those Deputies dread something which is calculated to disimprove the position of the lay secondary teacher. I allege there is no ground for that mistrust. It is surely unnecessary to argue that the Bill is not a complete Secondary Education Bill. It is not claimed that it is, but so far as it goes, the only feature that seems to be objectionable is this repeal of the section of the 1914 Act. I am directing my attention to that almost exclusively. To me that repeal need not have the results Deputy O'Connell and others fear. I say if it had, I would attack this Bill as strongly and as obstinately as any Deputy in this House, because it cannot be entertained that under the guise of policy to improve the education of the country, a step back of such a serious character would be taken. It is unthinkable.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

Might I ask the Deputy if he is prepared to show why the repeal of this is necessary for the objects for which the Minister says the other repeals are necessary?

Professor MAGENNIS

I have said there is language in the rules with regard to the distribution of money which is unintelligible once the first repeal is made, the repeal of the principal Act.

Mr. O'CONNELL

Might I draw attention to the definition clause of these rules which says the expression, results fees means fees payable by the Board on the results of examination or inspection, and might I further interrupt the Deputy to say that it is not necessary to repeal the section in order to alter the rules?

Professor MAGENNIS

That is quite true; it is not necessary to repeal it.

Mr. O'CONNELL

That is my point.

Professor ALTON

That is my point.

Professor MAGENNIS

Deputy Alton now says that is his whole point. I never for a moment believed that Deputy Alton would speak with such feeling on a mere technical point.

Professor ALTON

May I correct the Deputy; I said that is my point, referring to what I said.

Professor MAGENNIS

I am not referring to the Deputy's speech. One would imagine from this constant fusilade of interruptions that I was speaking against the interests that these Deputies stand for, whereas the reverse is the case. I deprecate giving to the public, through the Press that will report this debate, the idea that something is being done which is bound to have in the natural course an injurious effect on the Secondary teachers. These Deputies do not desire to create such an impression, but what other impression could the ordinary reader derive? These Deputies have not mentioned a very important factor of this situation, and I dealt with it on the last debate on the secondary education estimate, that makes the problem of lay teachers. If this were a complete Education Bill, in which exhaustive treatment would be accorded to secondary education, as it is called, if it were an attempt to set up by legislation an entire scheme of intermediate education, this highly complex, delicate, and difficult subject would have to be dealt with in all its details. For the moment a mere fragment is being dealt with in the Bill.

The great advantage that teachers have, and which they secured under the Act of 1914, was that at last the educational authorities prescribed to the schools conditions that made for fixity of tenure, or comparative fixity of tenure, and recognition of the position of the teachers. Everybody knows that the cardinal difficulty in this matter is the fact that secondary education is not upon the same basis as primary or public education. The secondary schools are private property. It is most essential to remember that is the creator of infinite difficulty. Every secondary teacher is in private employment. That creates the legal difficulty of providing pensions for the teachers so employed. In so far as legal interference was legitimately possible it was made in the interests of the teachers, that is to say, grants were not payable unless the schools conformed to certain requirements. That is really the efficacy and the operation of these rules. That is undoubtedly the charter for the lay teachers. If that charter is to be taken away, that is to say, if the policy in so far as regards secondary schools is to be condemned as reactionary, we ought to have evidence, for it should be more than mere suspicion. Deputy Alton has the utmost faith in the Minister, and while he professes the utmost faith in the Minister——

Professor ALTON

I really want to correct the Deputy. I have complete confidence in the Minister's good intentions, though his intentions are very different from his acts, and secondary teachers can only rely on acts. They cannot sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, even if it is a big one this year.

Professor MAGENNIS

Quite right, and consequently it is most beneficial for the teacher, that a supporter of the Government and of the Minister should announce in clear, unequivocal language, that his faith in the Minister is not a faith that is consonant with the suspicion that the scheme is to the detriment of the teachers and of the schools, and declare that if he thought it were he would not support it. I am quite sure the Minister himself will disabuse these critical Deputies of any suspicion they have. It is intended henceforth that money will be payable on the basis of capitation. In schools in which teachers are employed, who are registered, and properly qualified teachers, and who have a proper contract that secures them from being tenants at will, so to speak, and who have now got a fair prospect of being treated as men of their professional standard are entitled to be treated——

Professor THRIFT

It is not a question of the Minister's intentions one way or the other. The question is what the Bill should contain.

Professor MacNEILL

With regard to Deputy Magennis's defence, so far as it was a defence of the examination system, I think that the vices of that system went further than he indicated; for one thing bringing the children of a certain standard and class over the country into one competition annually I think was a crazy system at all times. And it had other vices besides that, of which I could give illuminating details. Only the other day a boy spoke to me and said that a half an hour before the Intermediate Examination he was instructed, to his own surprise, and to the surprise afterwards of his parents, that he was not to be allowed to enter the examination that year. Those are the vices inherent in that system an an illustration of these vices and they are the sort of thing we want to get rid of. Now I have been surprised really—well no. I have not—at some of the criticism. Deputy Hewat thinks this is an extraordinary form of legislation; that instead of having enactments repealed here I should have set out the Act of Parliament in full, and the sections in full, and the rules based on them in full, and that they should all appear here in the Act, and that in fact the business of a Minister is to carry a kind of bottle to administer pap ready made and that the Deputies are not supposed to have any intelligence at all. They are simply to take everything as I say in the most ready-made form. I do protest also against Deputy Thrift's statement that this is a destructive and not a constructive measure. Things may appear to be destructive that are really constructive. I suppose if you destroyed a few miles of the bottom of the Barrow river, in a sense, so as to enable it to flow more freely, you could be accused of only carrying out a destructive measure whereas as a matter of fact it would be a constructive measure. There was a destructive limitation put upon the supply of funds to those schools in the original Intermediate Act, and some Acts that followed, and the object of this Bill is to remove that destructive limitation. And the Act itself will prove in its working to be constructive.

Professor THRIFT

I suppose the Minister would substitute something for the bottom of the Barrow in that case.

Professor MacNEILL

This is really another example of the Innocent Abroad. I do not think that Deputy Thrift would convince himself that I am going to leave this particular Barrow without a bottom, or that the passing of this Act, if it were passed now, was going to leave things in that condition. It removes the unfreedom that was placed by previous Acts on the Intermediate Education Authority with regard to the distribution of the grant. It does not, therefore, by making them more free to distribute the grants, leave any blank whatsoever. Now, again, Deputy Johnson made reference to my shortcomings with regard to the discussion on the Estimates yesterday evening, and I think I heard his remark cheered by Deputy Alton. I was asked for a policy. It seems to me that it was not a policy that Deputy Johnson expected me to produce at all, but a programme in detail. That certainly was not what he asked for. I did give a statement of policy. A policy consists of generalities.

Mr. JOHNSON

If the Minister will read the report I think he will find that I asked for the details.

Professor MacNEILL

If there were any details asked for and I did not supply them, I thought the occasion was appropriate to a general discussion. I am preparing to answer questions of detail in future, and the opportunity is given in the Schedule. Now let me get to the point that was raised by Deputy T. O'Connell, and that is, the effect of the repeal of the third item in the Schedule. It is purely a legal matter, a matter of legal construction. Really, if the Deputies could think of it, what they have been finding fault with in me is that I did not produce their interpretation of that particular item instead of my own, and that I did not give an explanation of that item which is not my explanation of it. Now the second section of the Act of 1914 provides that £40,000——

Mr. O'CONNELL

"A sum not exceeding £40,000."

Professor MacNEILL

Of the funds available shall be a separate grant. If that Act remains unrepealed, that £40,000 will have to remain in the future as a separate item, and a separate grant from the rest. Evidently if it were not for the belief and the opinions put forward by Deputy O'Connell and the other Deputies who have spoken, if it were not for the belief that certain other things with regard to the status of secondary teachers are dependent on that section, they would never for a moment advocate that we should continue as a separate item, as provided by a separate Act of Parliament, a separate grant of £40,000, as distinct from the rest of the funds provided for this purpose. Now the object of placing these items in the Schedule is to do away with the separation of that particular part of the funds from the other funds.

Mr. O'CONNELL

Is it proposed to do away with the separate grant which is income from the Church Temporalities Fund and from the Local Customs and Excise? It is not provided in the Act or the argument has not been used that this should remain a separate grant.

Professor MacNEILL

These are not grants in the same sense.

Mr. O'CONNELL

This is not a separate one.

Professor MacNEILL

Really, the object of this Bill is that it consolidates the funds from which the expenses of secondary education would be defrayed. Now I will deal with Deputy O'Connell's explanation of that section, which explanation is also adopted by Deputy Thrift and Deputy Alton, namely, that if that section be repealed the rules which were made consequent upon that section will also be repealed. I do not hold that is so. I do not see that it can be so.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

What is the justification for the rules, if the section goes?

Professor MacNEILL

The section, if any Deputy reads it, does not require any such rules as these to be drawn up. The section leaves it entirely at the option of the rule-making authority, whatever it might be, as to what rules it will draw up. The section does not contain, even by implication, this Magna Charta.

Professor THRIFT

Does the Minister hold the rules can be validly applied for the application of a sum if you take away the section that applies to the giving of the money, and on which the rules are founded?

Professor MacNEILL

I hold that the effect of this repeal is to consolidate that £40,000 with the rest of the fund. In consolidating it, it consolidates any conditions attached to the expenditure of that £40,000 also with the rest of the expenditure. In fact, my opinion is that so far from weakening the basis upon which these valuable guarantees for secondary teachers are based, it broadens and strengthens the basis, and instead of having only the guarantee of the Birrell grant of £40,000, that Magna Charta, when you repeal that Act, has the guarantee of all the funds that are at disposal.

Professor THRIFT

Will the Minister explain where the £40,000 go if you take away the section which states that it is to be given, subject to certain rules? What happens the £40,000? There is no authority for giving it in law.

Professor MacNEILL

I am not pettifogging about this, nor do I desire in the slightest way to leave the slightest misunderstanding on anyone's mind. It is surely inconceivable that any person carrying the responsibility I carry, and having cognisance, as I have, of these rules and that grant, and the connection between the two, should approach this matter with the idea of getting rid of those rules and filching them away in some subterraneous manner.

Professor THRIFT

I did not mean that.

Professor MacNEILL

Consequently it follows that the responsibility for maintaining those rules remains as fully as it existed before this proposal was brought forward, and as fully it will remain when this Bill, as I hope it will, is passed into law and becomes an Act as complete as it was before.

Professor ALTON

I would ask the Minister is that the opinion of the Attorney-General? I am not a lawyer, and I would like to be certain upon this matter.

Professor MacNEILL

Until this discussion to-day I had not the slightest notion that it would be necessary to see the Attorney-General about it, but now I see it will. I assure you that I give every guarantee to Deputies who have spoken that I am not going to permit regulations favouring the secondary teachers to be impaired, much less done away with, by implications through an enactment of this kind. I think it will smooth the way if I undertake that, before this Bill passes through its next stage. I shall endeavour to have that point completely cleared up as to whether this repeal would mean depriving secondary teachers of the protection of certain rules. If it is shown to me, or if authority which I am bound to accept as better legal authority than my own satisfies me there is any such danger, I undertake, so far as in my power lies, to remove that danger. I do not know whether it is necessary for me to give the assurance—I am not too proud to give it—but it has never been the intention of the Ministry to invade, impair or diminish in any way the position which has been created with, I think, general public approval, for the body of secondary teachers on whose behalf Deputies have levelled their artillery at me here to-day. I move the Second Reading of the Bill.

Question—"That the Bill be read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, July 9th.