With regard to inspections there are no absolute standards of efficiency fixed. The standards are relative, and inspectors know that. With regard to inspectors fixing absolute standards in their own minds, that depends on the personality of the inspector; there is no guarantee against it in any sense, but it is clearly understood that the standard is relative, and that the circumstances and merit of the work done in the schools is a thing to be taken into account. The complaints that have been made here to-day about inspectors not attending conferences, I cannot answer because I have heard of them now, and so far as I am aware, my Department has heard of them now, for the first time. When any such complaint arises, then it certainly will be my duty, if it is referred to me, and it will be the duty of the Department, if it is referred to the Department, to go into the question of the complaint.
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - THE DÁIL IN COMMITTEE.
Might I explain that, as a matter of fact, the complaints reached me only within the last few days, and my object in mentioning them was to give the Minister an opportunity of saying what exactly is his policy with regard to these conferences. I did not mention them by way of complaint, but really to show that that state of affairs existed, and to ask whether he is in favour of such conferences.
I think I have made it quite clear that I regard the inspectorate not as a censorship over the schools. While censorship is necessary of its work occasionally, its principle work is to assist and develop the work that is being carried on in the schools. It seems quite obvious to me that the holding of a conference with teachers should be a useful way of arriving at that development, and I am quite in favour of such conferences being held. Deputy O'Connell appeared to think that the inspectors would require to know the questions to be asked at the conference. I do not know what exactly he had in mind; whether he would be threatened with questions, and what sort the questions might be. A conference would not be helpful if the parties were to meet as opponents, or if one side were to pillory the other or the inspectors' side were to pillory the teachers with regard to their defects. I must say the same thing with regard to the complaints of teaching other subjects through Irish. I have not heard that complaint till now; if I had any details in a complaint of that kind I would have it examined. We do not want to do anything absurd, or to attempt anything absurd in the matter of teaching. While I say that, let it not be supposed that I am going to be carried off my feet by catchwords such as we have had on a previous occasion of teaching the unknown through the known. That is only a catchword; that is one of these things, the sort of education that Deputy Heffernan referred to, to enable people to use phrases like that without knowing what the meaning is. We hear them on platforms and read them in papers—phrases, words, formulæ.
But the realities at the bottom, the facts, the people do not think of. We can get a reputation for ability in politics, and ability in journalism, and ability in other respects by our ability in the use of these phrases. Now, it is possible to teach the unknown through the unknown. We would never learn anything if we only learned through what we knew already. We are acquiring fresh knowledge every day in a thousand ways. It is quite possible that in a school in which the children had a limited knowledge of Irish they could be taught arithmetic quite efficiently through Irish, so that I do not want to be tied down to any hard and fast generalisations about that. I only say that where it is shown to me that the kind of teaching that is done is actually on a wrong basis and not achieving its results, or achieving its results in a way that is too painful and too difficult in proportion to the effort, I will try to have it rectified. As for inspectors alternating between different classes of schools as they are classified at present I must say that I have been for some time past discussing that subject in my own department. I do not know at present, and as I said on a previous occasion, not having anything definite to say on the subject at present I am not going to say anything about it, but the desirability of it is certainly under consideration.
Before passing from this phase of the subject I would like to ask the Minister whether there is likely to be any change in connection with the policy of his department. The reason I ask is this: an Act was passed here not very long ago—the Judiciary Act—which was a very great revolution in the direction of decentralising. I think in the Department of Ministry of Education the policy in the past has been a very centralised one indeed, and looking at it from the commercial point of view, I think it has already been expressed in the Dáil that the results have not been commensurate with the very large cost of education to the country.
I would like to ask the Minister if he, or his department, has considered the question at all, and if there is any change in that direction as regards the decentralisation of the work of the Ministry of Education in connection with the inspectors. Possibly decentralisation might be in the direction of the inspectors having a closer intimate knowledge in the area with which they are particularly concerned, and possibly the matter that Deputy O'Connell has raised would seem to indicate a want of a close intimate connection between the inspectors and the teachers. I am not sufficiently conversant with the procedure of the educational instrument but it seems to me that that would be a very useful aim for the Minister to have before him if it would tend towards closer working as between the inspectors and the teachers.
As the Minister referred to my name in regard to the question of teaching other subjects through Irish, I would like to make a slight further explanation of what my intention was. I would remind the Minister that I did not use any catch-phrases; in fact, I was not aware of the catch-phrases which he mentioned. But as an ordinary commonsense practical proposition I put it to the Minister, and to anybody in the Dáil: Is it practicable for a teacher who has only a partial knowledge of Irish, or even a full knowledge of Irish, to teach any subject through Irish to pupils who have no knowledge, or a very slight knowledge of Irish? It may be a practical proposition, and it may be possible by doing so to increase a pupil's knowledge of Irish. But my point is this, that the pupils at present are not getting sufficient time, owing to one reason or another, to learn the ordinary, absolutely necessary subjects, and if this method is adopted of teaching subjects through Irish time will be wasted and pupils will learn less about the ordinary subjects, although they may learn more about Irish.
This question is purely hypothetical. If positive cases in which complaints are made are put before me I shall endeavour to deal with them, but I should not be asked to answer hypothetical questions.
Deputy Hewat seems to be under the impression that we had not that kind of decentralisation he speaks of inasmuch as the inspectors are allocated to districts and remain in the various districts for several years. On this question of the Training Colleges I need hardly point out to the Dáil that the training which the teachers undergo is of the highest importance in the educational system, and I would like to emphasise what the Minister said, in the course of his general remarks on Thursday last with regard to the part which the University should play in the country. He said that the foundation of education is the University. One would draw from that the conclusion that those who are charged with the giving of education at least should have the benefit of a University education. Teachers are trained in colleges under private management, and in my opinion the training they receive in such institutions does not fit them properly for the great work which they are called upon to perform in after life. Of course it is often said that a teacher who has only to teach elementary subjects need not have a University education. I am not thinking of actual scholarship when I speak of the benefits and the necessity of a University education for teachers. It is the broadening influence that such education would give them that is the chief benefit that they would derive. It is often said, and possibly with some justice, that teachers are rather narrow in their views, and have not a full conception of practical life. I think that comes to a very large extent from the manner in which they are trained. They are trained in these private institutions, and they are brought up as if they were little better than secondary school children, whereas when they are in these colleges they are grown men and women. They go out afterwards, and in their schools they are dealing with children all day and they have not the opportunities which people who were trained in the University and who mixed with students who are preparing for other professions acquire. They have not these advantages, and I think it is essential that something should be done to bring the training of the teachers of our schools into relation with the work of the University.
I think, personally, that the main work a university should perform in the country is the training of the teacher. After all, if university education is useful to a country, and there can be no doubt on that, everybody in the country should benefit from the university. It is not open to all to attend and to listen to the lectures provided by the university, but it ought to be open to all to profit indirectly by the universities, and they can only do that if the teachers who conduct both primary and secondary schools have the benefit of university training. This matter has been raised and discussed for several years. Some considerable time ago, on the first discussion we had on education in this Dáil the present Minister made a statement something to the effect that, if those concerned in the universities and the teachers came to him with a scheme he would consider it. The matter was taken up between the representatives of the teachers' organisation and the universities and eventually a scheme was evolved and we came to the Minister nearly two years ago now, or at least a scheme was put before him certainly 12 or 15 months ago, and we have not yet seen any development. Something has been done by the universities but not by the department concerned. At least, I do not know what exactly has been done towards extending to the teachers the benefits of university training. Now, there are one or two other matters. Under sub-head C, page 174, there is a note as follows:—"It is estimated that the number of students in training in 1924-25 will be approximately 385 men and 360 women." That does not mean the number that leave the training colleges. Half of them will leave the training colleges and I would like to know if the Minister has any figures to show the number of teachers who leave the service in any given year, and are likely to leave the service in any year in which students will be coming out of the training colleges, because it is essential that the number of teachers in training should approximate to the number of teachers who are estimated to leave the service either through resignation or death or any other cause.
There is just one other question I would like to get information on. Some years before the establishment of the Free State the old Dáil established the system of Dáil scholarships, and I wonder what has become of that scheme. The idea was that students in the Irish-speaking districts, and students who are Irish-speaking, would get special encouragement to go in for the teaching profession. They had two objects in view, and I think they were commendable. It gave opportunities to the children in the Irish-speaking districts; it opened the door for them in the first place, and in the second place it ensured that people with a good knowledge of Irish—native speakers—would go in for the teaching profession. I do not know what the position is, and I cannot gather from the Estimates, because there is only one small reference on page 174, "Grant to students in training colleges, Dáil scholarships, £140." That is the only reference I see, and I do not know what has become of it, and I would be glad of the information.
Arising out of this matter of the training colleges, there is one very important matter which I wish to refer to. Our enthusiasm for the Irish language, and what is behind the Irish language, from the point of view of our history, and tradition, and culture, comes not from our books and classes of the Gaelic League attended here in Dublin, but from the men who made the Gaelic League movement and saved the Irish language to the extent it has been saved, and drew their inspiration from the language and what it stood for, from the people in the portion of the country where the language is a living thing. And anything we do for the language in the primary or secondary schools in counties like Wexford or Dublin is work that will be of little value if we do not attend properly to the language and properly to education through the means of the language in all those counties where the language still lives. If we do not pay attention in a systematic and a proper way to Galway, to Donegal, to Clare, and to Kerry, then we are simply occupying our minds and occupying the minds of other people in the country with something that is not going to lead to anything in dealing with the problem in other parts of the country. I draw attention to this aspect of the matter to ask from the Minister what prospect is there of the setting up of a training college to accommodate a small number of teachers. I do not mean as a beginning to accommodate more than a small number of woman teachers, but a training college, the whole work of which would be done through the medium of Irish in the training of teachers for the Gaedhealtacht and the leath-Gaedhealtacht.
More, we can show in brief discussion here that we can bring to the Gaedhealtacht highly educated and highly trained men and women who have received their training and education through the medium of the Irish language and therefore have that self-confidence, that poise, that full and proper expression that our teachers who deserve to be called teachers will require. The matter is of the utmost gravity, I think, from the point of view of the cultural development of the country, and apart altogether from that, and viewed in the light of what we say here, with regard to Irish, and what we do in the Estimates with regard to Irish, we are neglecting a most important matter judged from the abstract and comparative point of view, if we do not see we are going to do something definite no matter in how small a way, to rear up young teachers for the counties where Irish is a living language, and to rear them up in an absolutely Irish atmosphere.
I rise to prevent a misconception arising from some criticisms which Deputy O'Connell directed against the Ministry. The connection between the training colleges and the universities—I am speaking now for my own university—is a fact and has been for the last three years. I am sure that Deputy O'Connell must be aware of that. The point of this criticism is that the Government makes no contribution towards defraying the cost of the training of the students in the university. I can assure Deputy O'Connell, particularly on behalf of the university which I have the honour to represent, that the universities are fully conscious of their responsibilities as trainers of the future teachers of the country.
In connection with the training of teachers, everyone is agreed that they should be men who are as highly skilled as possible. There is another aspect of the training that appeals to us industrialists, and it is a very important aspect. During the discussion that has taken place on the subject of education it has been mentioned several times—it was mentioned by the Minister—that the output of our National Schools was rather in the direction of producing clerical workers than in the direction of producing industrialists. We in industry, like those in agriculture, have to complain that the brilliant boys from the National Schools do not come into industry. They go into the Civil Service or they take up clerical appointments. For that fault I think we have to blame our teachers. The teachers, to my mind, have more influence in moulding the future of those attending schools than anybody else the children come in contact with. Therefore, if we care to have the minds of those children trained to the advisability of going into industrial pursuits when they leave school, we must have persons in charge of them in the schools who will have influence over them and who will be fully aware of the national importance of industry in the success of the State. Therefore, I would impress on the Minister that it should be an essential part of the training of these teachers to take courses in industry wherever they are trained, and also courses in agriculture, so that they may be capable of putting these important national problems before the minds of those whom they are called upon to teach.
What Deputy O'Connell said on this subject appeals very strongly to me, and more particularly when I look at this account here. The sum in the Estimates for training colleges is £72,866. Turning to page 174, I find that that sum has been expended on approximately 385 men and 360 women. That works out somewhere in the neighbourhood of £95 or £96 a year on each student. It seems to me that the money might be better spent and more effectually spent in a thorough University training for the teachers embracing all the subjects that are dealt with in the training colleges. Apart from the benefit to the teachers themselves, I think it would be highly important to have these teachers going out straight from the Universities to the country schools. In my opinion that would be an inestimable benefit to the country as a whole.
I would like to make just a few remarks on some points that were urged by Deputy Hewat. One is that the complete training of a teacher and the taking of a University course cannot be accomplished in two years. It would take a good deal more than that. It is, of course, a question which we will probably solve by experience: that is, as to how much of the course which they require for training can be made simultaneous with the University course, and as to how much ought to be consecutive, one with the other. The other point he made was that he objected to the expenditure of £90 a year on the training of a teacher in the training colleges. I should like to point out to him that that includes the complete cost of upkeep and maintenance of the student as well as the cost of his instruction. While I am on my feet I would like to refer to Deputy Mulcahy's remarks and to draw attention to their real importance in connection with the teaching of Irish. I think he really struck the nail on the head when he said that what was of importance in that connection was the training in Irish of those who can teach those who naturally think and speak in Irish themselves. That, I think, is a most important matter. There is another side to the question, and I take this opportunity of making a mild protest. I am not greatly excited about it, but I desire to make a mild protest against compulsory Irish. I think in that respect we are suffering from a re-action, but we shall get over it soon. At least, I hope so. I do not agree at all with those who say and think that the development of Irish everywhere is necessary for the development of the national life.
Language and the growth of language obeys definite natural laws, and they are stronger than anything we can do by our means of compulsion. I daresay Deputies have heard of Mrs. Parkington and her contemplated sweeping out of the Atlantic rollers breaking in under her kitchen door. If there is a definite natural bent in the Irish language towards its growth and complete spread throughout the country, I am not going to be Mrs. Parkington trying to sweep it out with any kitchen broom. If, as I believe to be the case, the trend of national development is something quite different and something tending more towards world development, and that the real development of this country will not be through the language, which would make us more insular than we are, but through something which would make us of far greater utility in the world, then I think any measures of compulsion will be more like Mrs. Parkington's broom, because they will be trying to keep out the real demand, the growing national demand of people throughout the country for an education which will fit them for their place in life combined with the mental and moral development which education ought to give them.
Sitting was suspended at 6.25 p.m., and resumed at 7.15 p.m., An Leas-Cheann Comhairle in the Chair.
Under Estimates C. 1 and C. 2 (Training Colleges) I notice "decrease," which is the interesting column for 1924-25. The decrease is more than £7,000. That reduction, as will be seen at page 174 of the Estimates, where the details are set out, is chiefly in respect of the fixed grants payable to the colleges. This is, perhaps, a mare's nest that I have discovered. I hope it is. But if there is no explanation forthcoming for this reduction, except that of pure economy —and that is an explanation I refuse to forecast—I should be obliged to hold that in this important respect, at any rate, the admirable policy of education expounded by the Minister has not been followed either in the spirit or in the letter.
I think, perhaps, it would obviate discussion if Deputy Magennis would allow me to interrupt him at this point. In order to be explanatory a note should appear at the end of that item. That note appears somewhere else.
That is to say a smaller number of teachers in training?
No, a smaller number of training colleges. The training college of St. Mary's, Belfast, was in our Estimates last year, and is not this year.
I am glad to know that that is the explanation. A very important consideration is this —the Estimate for this year preserves the language of former years "Training Colleges under private management." They are all under private management, and that is the source of one very considerable grievance, which I occupy the time of the Dáil in setting forth. Under the late regime it was the custom to make grants to these colleges, bearing in mind the number of students that were in training. As a Commissioner of National Education I proposed in reform of that, a consideration which I take the liberty of repeating, for the educational authority the chief concern ought to be the efficiency of the training colleges. The training college evidently does not carry in detail home to the mind of the readers of these Estimates, what the part is that is played in the educational system by a training college for primary or national teachers. The French have a very convenient word for describing something which is essential to a whole fabric—the central bolt of a great machine—the clou which if withdrawn makes the whole machine merely a mass of scrap, but which, if replaced and put together, organises what would otherwise be scrap into an effective machine which functions perfectly. Now the clou of the whole educational system so far as regards primary education is the training college.
It is in the training college that the teacher is trained to be an effective teacher and trainer of youth. It is not merely that he goes, as Deputy Heffernan has in contemplation, to the college to learn more. That is the least part of the work done—the increase of knowledge or the enlargement of the range of information of the teacher in training. He is re-taught the subjects that he had learned before with a special view to proficiency in the impartment of that knowledge to young pupils. Now that is a very difficult art to acquire, and it is an art that can be imparted or can be learned only under the direction of experts. I dwell upon that because so many people allow the name "training college," to flow trippingly from the tongue and consider it no further. It is some sort of college, a college in which teachers pass a number of years. But it is really a centre for vocational development as well as cultural development. The interesting thing with regard to the training of a teacher is that what will be a cultural element for the ordinary student of any one of the colleges of the usual type is not only an element of culture in regard to the teacher, but is part of the very subject matter in which he is to work. Consequently the way in which the teacher in training learns the subject in the training college, and the tests that are applied to his acquisition of knowledge in the training college are altogether different in character from those with which we are familiar in colleges of the usual type.
The professors or lecturers who form the teaching staff of a training college are men who until recently were not paid those salaries which would lure them into the service of the training college. I dwelt on this in another context, in connection with the University professors, and you will pardon me perhaps for dwelling upon it again in this connection, because it is of the last importance in the consideration of money grant for institutions of this type. For professors a training college is in competition with the University colleges and with the high schools. As regards some subjects it is really in competition with the larger extensions of public life, and more notably with the professions. It is difficult, therefore, to get the proper type of professor for one of these training colleges and difficult to keep him when he is got. Now, the unfortunate thing with regard to these training colleges is that they are living, so to speak, from hand to mouth. They are private property in effect, and they are under private management, like so many of the Intermediate schools, and the annual grants that are given to them are not sufficient to enable them to create a pension fund. I examined, before the National Board, the principals and representatives of the principals of these training colleges, and they admitted that a full-time professorship in one of their institutions should be a pensionable office, and is not. The only explanation is that they are under private management.
Quite recently one of the most distinguished professors in St. Patrick's Training College was taken with a very serious illness, from which he died only a few weeks ago. The college was in this difficulty that it could not very well treat him as a civil servant in a similar position might be treated, because the Minister for Finance, if he were granted that allowance, would immediately rule that the college was receiving more money than it needed, and deduct the amount accordingly. That is an undoubted hardship. It is not merely a hardship with regard to professors in the training colleges, but it reacts injuriously upon the efficiency of the college and through that upon the whole educational work of the country in so far as that depends upon the teaching in the national schools. I hold, if you allow me to repeat, that unless the training college is all that it ought to be, the future teachers of the country who are trained there will not, except occasionally, be all that they ought to be. Long ago the idea was that the moment a man got a degree in a University, he might immediately turn teacher. He has been facetiously called by Professor Laurie —one of the most distinguished philosophers of Scotland to-day, and himself personally interested in and actually engaged in training college work in Scotland—as "a teacher by the grace of God." I do not know whether he was alluding to the inscription with which we are occasionally made familiar by looking at the obverse of a coin—"Queen Victoria by the grace of God Queen of Great Britain." Those teachers were teachers also through whatever natural gift they had —a natural calling for that particular work—but they had to train themselves by practice upon the victims of their first few years of occupation.
That has been rectified. New ideas, such as the Minister for Education stands for, have come into play and there are training colleges for teachers. But there is no use in having these colleges unless the requisite grants to make them effective are provided. There is one reform—an easy reform— by way of administration that would to some extent meet the case: if the grants were payable, not as hitherto under one heading but under three separate headings—so much for maintenance of the buildings and repair of these buildings where necessary; so much for the upkeep of the students and the resident administration staff, and then, most important of all, so much for the proper remuneration of the teaching staff. It ought to be obvious that whether there is a large number of teachers in training in an institution, or a comparatively small number, so long as the institution is not closed up altogether, through failure of numbers, it must be kept to the pitch of efficiency, and consequently the outlay upon teaching staff is bound to be as large as if the students were twice the number. That, I hold, is an obvious truth. It only requires to be mentioned to be accepted.
In regard to the Estimate, it has been said by that severe critic of all these things in the Farmers' Party—Deputy Heffernan—that education is worse now than it was in his younger days, some twenty years ago. A young artist who was making great efforts to develop his talent, complained to an elderly lady, who had patronised him by buying of his pictures, in the following words: "I feel I am not painting better than I did last year; I am making no progress." She artlessly and tactlessly replied: "You are painting infinitely better; it is merely that you have better taste this year than last year, and that you are in a better position to judge." Would Deputy Heffernan be offended if I were to point out to him that in the past twenty years education has not been growing worse but Deputy Heffernan has been growing not merely in physical but in mental stature; he is better able to take stock of the type of education and he feels himself raised so far above that level as to think that the teacher of his primary days ought to have left him at that level which, as Euclid would say, is absurd. In one respect there is something to be said for the Deputy's contention—as regards teachers in boys' schools. The competition for the class of man which it is desirable to retain for these schools is becoming fiercer and that was one of the unanswerable claims for increasing the salaries of National School teachers —in order that a man with a natural bent for teaching, and a desire to make that his career, could really afford to yield to the vocation and take up that type of work. If Deputy Heffernan is under the impression that education has gone backward——
Primary education.
If Deputy Heffernan is under the impression that primary education has gone backward, if there were no collateral influences at work, it would really be an indictment of the training colleges. That is what I want to impress upon him. It it were true that, all other things remaining the same, the education imparted in the primary schools was worse to-day than twenty years ago, inasmuch as it is in the last twenty-five or thirty years that these denominational or private-management training colleges have been doing their work and doing it in their best way, then it would mean that the training there was a failure. No one has made that accusation. There are very severe critics of these institutions. There are some who, like Deputies of the Business Party, would like to transfer the training of teachers wholly to the Universities. Yet even advocates of that have never suggested as a reason for such transfer that the training colleges had failed. There is a very important point that must not be overlooked by the Deputy who spoke for the Business Group. As I have already mentioned, there are two courses of study which the teacher in training pursues. But the dominant idea is that he should leave the training college a trained teacher. Therefore if he is imbibing, as he is, scholarship, it is with a view that by the method of acquirement and through the training he has got in educational work, he may have not merely the enlarged mind, the greater scope of information, but the greater faculty developed—the organised faculty for teaching.
When, as Deputy O'Connell reminded me, the National School Teachers' Organisation and the National University representatives in combination proceeded to frame a scheme for bringing the advantages of the National University within the reach of the teachers who are, or have recently been, undergoing training, we had to take into account that these teachers, or potential teachers, would have to satisfy two authorities. The educational Ministry tests would have to be satisfied to show that they were competent in their profession, and the University authorities would have to be satisfied that they had the right proficiency demanded of a University graduate.
When one considers the arduous day of a teacher in training who goes to the practising classes, and who is really like an apprentice with a master craftsman, for so many hours of the day, I need hardly stop to point out it would be impossible for the teacher in training to satisfy both of those requirements, even if there were no physical disabilities attendant on it in the same way as an ordinary University graduate would be able to do it. Consequently, what could be done by the ordinary undergraduate in two years should in fairness be expected to be done by the teacher in training in less than four years. The teachers are allowed only two years in the training college. That is an unsatisfactory situation due to limited finances, and it is a great pity that there is no scheme by which promising students in the training colleges might not, by scholarships, be assisted through the further course of the University. We had, on the general debate, disquisition upon physical education, and all the time from all sides upon intellectual education. I should have loved had there been time to ride my hobby. One very important thing that we ought to keep repeating when we come to discuss education, but that we occasionally seem to forget, is that the whole object of education is to produce a good citizen of the good State. In our programmes at the training colleges recently there have been introduced elements of citizenship, so that the future teachers may repair the omission that was sadly prominent in the school programmes of the past. It is in the training colleges that the religious and moral influences are brought to bear upon the future teachers in their formative period, and that is an advantage which cannot be provided in undenominational institutions. I need not stress that point. When the subject of moral training of pupils came into my mind I thought immediately —I wonder was it thought transference or telepathy from some of the other Deputies?—on the Christian Brothers— and then I noticed in the estimates that provision is made for approximately 385 men as students in training in 1924-25. No one in this country needs to be told about the Christian Brothers, and the great, constructive, prominent work they have done in building up not merely the pure sense of nationality and citizenship in hundreds and thousands of pupils, and for what they have done for general morality, or religion, or, let me say, Christianity. They are rightly called the Christian Brothers, the Religious Congregation of the Christian Schools.
There is no longer any reason why these schools should be excluded, if they themselves are willing to come in, from the operations of our Ministry of Education. I am speaking now in ignorance as to whether they are willing or wishful to come in. I am speaking in total ignorance of what conditions would be imposed on them if they came in. I am merely noting the fact that the reasons which kept them out no longer exist, and if anyone were under the impression that those bars would be maintained and perpetuated it would be a deliberate infringement of our Constitution which says "Neither the Parliament of the Irish Free State nor the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall make any law so as either directly or indirectly to endow any religion"—those are passages I should like to emphasise—"Or prohibit or restrict the free exercise thereof or give any preference"— again I emphasise these words—"Or impose any disability on account of religious belief or religious status or make any discrimination as respects State aid between schools under the management of different religious denominations." Everyone is aware that the practice in the Christian Brothers' Schools is to exhibit religious statues and pictures, and for students to wear religious emblems. School day opens and ends with prayer, and religious instruction is given at a certain portion of the day. That congregation has a training college which provides for the schools which are their property and under their control. I wonder would the Minister give the same status under the Ministry of Education, and the same advantage to their training college as to those which are also denominational and under private management. It seems to me a great pity if those who were so strong for co-ordination of the schools should fail to see that this problem was worked out many years ago with the utmost success in the Christian Brothers' schools. In the same building, under the same roof, but in different class-rooms, and under the control of different teachers, you had the primary system and the secondary system worked out in intimate conjunction so that the boy who displays marked capacity in the primary classroom is passed on rapidly into the other division of the school. So that the very ideal the Minister stresses and that Deputy Johnson has spoken so forcibly on behalf of, is an ideal realised in those schools. Need I say this, I hold no brief for the Order, except in so far as I am willing to entertain for it an admiration and a feeling of respect that words cannot adequately express. I know the work they do. I have been in a Christian Brothers' school myself for years, and I know the quality of the men who have devoted themselves to the service of these schools.
I have examined their pupils as an Intermediate school examiner; I have seen their work in the case of colleagues who in their early life have been pupils of the schools, and I have had the most ample opportunity for understanding the great and high quality of the work they do. It is not merely through that sense that I make this plea—or, rather, it should not be called a plea—as I really address it to the Minister in the form of a query. The Training College question, I again repeat, is the one that goes to the root of the whole future of this country. Everyone of us has his own panacea for the national ills. The Deputies who represent what, at any rate, are called the Business Party, believe that instruction in business methods is the great desideratum. I believe, with the Deputies who have spoken to that effect already, that the work in the primary school is purely educational and not vocational. That does not say that it need have no trend in the direction of the future vocation. It is a common mistake to imagine that if the educator has not his eye upon utilitarian ends in the framing of programmes and the arrangement of schemes that he is going to produce someone who is pre-occupied with abstract things and unfit for life.
It is a very curious thing that those who have laid stress upon what they call the three R's will, at some other moment, be found eloquent on democracy and the rights of the people. Are we to doom through ineffective Training Colleges all the children who can go only to those first schools, into which they enter in their earliest years, to a low type of instruction which will merely enable them to be hewers of wood and drawers of water? Are we not to consider them as men and brothers, who are entitled to have their minds so cultivated, and their souls so enlarged, that they may have all the height and depth of life through the span of years that belongs to them? To talk of imparting only the three R's in the primary schools is to stand for privilege and caste. The Deputy who spoke in these terms would not do that if his attention were consciously directed to it, but by implication he has advocated a system of things in which all that is best in life would go, not to those who began with a handicap, but the richer pearls would go to those at least with a better social status.
One of the great things with regard to the Christian Brothers' Schools is that they have brought within the reach of the poorest and humblest all the advantages of the highest type of education, and they have done that with the personal sacrifice of themselves. I have known Christian Brothers who, in view of their attainments, educational and otherwise, were well fitted to be University professors, and who could discharge the duties in a University with that thoroughness and completeness that they did in the schools among the boys. They were saints amongst men, as well as being effective teachers and scholars, who gave their services to these schools without reward or honour. I think they inspired pupils with ideals of life, because it must be impossible for the open-eyed boy in school who has growing ideas of what life is, and what things in life mean, not to be inspired with respect for men of that sort, to feel that there are values in life of different standings, and to be differently computed from the standards of life that are computed in business. I am not opposing anyone who speaks for education in business. It is a necessary part of the national greatness and national stability, but let us not forget that not by bread alone doth man live. We declare in our Constitution that we would not stand for privilege. It may be that I appear to enthuse in attributing all these things to training colleges, but I am speaking now about my business; about things that I do claim to know; what a training college is and what a training college does. I say without any fear of being declared guilty of exaggeration, what I said earlier, that the training college is the clou, the central bolt, of the whole educational fabric.
With regard to training colleges and the endowment provided for them, it may be at once admitted that our provision is not adequate, and not complete. Again, it is one of the things we have taken over. The small provision for training provided, and the shortness of time allowed, is, as it appears in these Estimates for the public service for Saorstát Eireann, 1924-25, except in mere matters of detail, almost a repetition of what might be found in the Estimates of the British Government for the same service in the years 1914-15. I may point out that at that time, at all events, provision was only made for two years' training for teachers. No provision was made for them having access to the benefits of University teaching. No provision was made for having the professors in training colleges placed in a position, with regard to remuneration, relative to what they ought to occupy in regard to their knowledge, skill and power in their work. All that is part of the inheritance that I spoke of before. In Belgium four years is, I think, the term for training in the normal training college. I am sure that consideration would appeal to those here who take up the stand of being the representatives of business and of industry. Belgium, I think, is counted, and counts yet, very high in the world with regard to success in what is called business and success in what is called industry.
As for bringing the training of teachers into close relation with the work of universities it was pointed out here that mediaeval universities regarded their work mainly as consisting of the training of teachers. I think it would be an excellent thing if universities of the present day reverted to a large extent to that position, and if that service were expected and required of them by the public in general. As a matter of detail, a scheme for training in connection with universities has been put into operation. Again we are only at the beginning of things. The inspectors of this department, and the university examiners have already met and a scheme for the training of teachers in connection with universities has already begun to operate. Details of it have, I think, been published some time ago in a publication called "The School Weekly."
Mr. O'CONNELL
Will the Minister say if it is not a fact that the only regulation made is that there is only one examination to be passed by the student leaving the training college to enable him to be accepted by the university? Is there a regular scheme whereby the student will go on to the university?
As I stated, we are only in the beginning of things and we are only finding our way. Deputy Mulcahy raises a question which, to my mind, is one of great importance, and that is of providing a system of training which for the purpose of utilising the Irish language and giving it its position in education would bring in as teachers capable students who are already native speakers of Irish. We had a plan. A question was asked about it, and it is called the Dáil Scholarships. It figures in the Estimates in a rather insignificant way. That plan was not a success, but I have on hands a proposal which, I think, will lead up to the systematic training of teachers trained from the Irish speaking districts, and I trust that in a very short time it will be possible to establish within the Irish-speaking districts a number of preparatory training schools for the purpose of preparing teachers. I propose to commence with two such schools for girls and one for boys. I hope I have made it quite clear, but, if not, I am going to make it clear now, and if the Christian Brothers' Schools come into the system of public education under the ordinary terms applicable to other institutions, they have the right to come in, and it is not a question of the will or the wish of a Minister or a department. The same would apply to their system of training. Their system of training comes into the system of public education, and when I say that, I do not mean that that means any turning upside down or anything of that kind, but it does mean accepting the supervision of this department, the test of standards and so on. If things come to that stage it seems to me it is not a question of decision for the Minister of the Department, but it is simply a question of exercising a public right.
resumed the Chair.
I must point out in that connection to the Dáil that if and when those events come to pass the Estimate which appeared before you to-day will have to be considerably amplified. Deputy Magennis dealt with the point of the special sort of work that is being done in training colleges and the special qualification which ought to be required from those who ought to do that work and the corresponding special provision which ought to be made by the State to enable that work to be done. I may say that I am in agreement with his argument on that point. I think that a professor in a training college ought to be a man of very exceptional qualifications. He is not only teaching particular subjects, but he has to teach how these particular subjects are to be taught, and he has to teach how they are to be taught under conditions quite different from those under which he is teaching them. Deputy Hewat, I think, put in a mild plea against what he termed compulsory Irish. I am not going to enlarge on that except to say that I gave a list of subjects which constitute our present basic course of elementary education.
It was Deputy Thrift, I think, who referred to that.
It was a mistake in my notes. These subjects are very few in number. They are Irish, English, Mathematics, and so on. I want to make the position perfectly plain. Remove Irish from that list and what is the effect? Remove Irish from that list of subjects which you require as a basis and what is the effect? You at once proscribe Irish by doing that. A subject which is made voluntary in competition with a list of subjects which are made compulsory is a subject which is placed under a disability. If that be the public demand, the public mind ought to be clear about it. No one raises the question of compulsoriness in the sense of coercion, for example, about the teaching of arithmetic. It is not held to be oppressive. It is not held to be an interference with liberty that the student is required to learn arithmetic. Consequently certain subjects are, will be, and must be compulsory, and I repeat you can either put Irish inside or outside that list. If you put it outside that list the result is certain. You will also put it outside the schools. If that be the public demand the public must make that demand clear. It is entirely in opposition to my idea of what is right and what ought to be done.
As regards sub-head E the first thing, I suppose, that will be noticed is that there is a reduction under this sub-head of £314,000. That, of course, is due to matters which have been brought to the attention of this Dáil on another occasion. It is due to the 10 per cent. reduction in teachers' salaries. I do not intend at this stage to make more than a passing reference to this for the reasons, first that this particular Ministry is not entirely responsible, possibly not at all responsible, for the reduction. It is a matter of Executive policy and is an Executive decision. In the second place, all I have to say on the matter was said on a previous occasion here. A greater reason is that the legality of the action of the Ministry is a matter which will in the very near future be decided in another place, and they will there have an opportunity of justifying their action. I mention it in case my neglecting to mention it might be misinterpreted and taken that the people whom I specially speak for were satisfied with the decision. As to this heading of "National Schools," I am not quite sure how many schools are in operation in the Saorstát at the moment, and, perhaps, the Minister would be in a position to tell me, but I think, judging by the statistics, which are now four years old, there are something like five or six thousand schools in operation in the Saorstát. In my opinion, the number of schools, after making due allowance for the nature of our population, is too large, and I believe it could be very considerably reduced, and that the reduction would not only make for economy, in the sense it is understood sometimes by the Government, that is, the saving of money, but it would make for economy in the wider sense and certainly make for efficiency. I never could understand why you have side by side and under one roof two separate schools. They are called schools, two separate institutions, one attended by 35 or 40 boys and the other attended by 35 or 40 girls.
In each of those institutions you have the standard duplicated, necessitating, of course, an increased staff. I have called attention to this before, and repeatedly the attention of this Ministry has been called to the large number of schools which we have and which is undoubtedly adding to this Vote very considerably. I must say that I am not satisfied that the Ministry has made a real effort to deal with this matter. There is a regulation—it is not a new regulation—which existed since the time of the old National Board to the effect that where any two such schools are possible of being amalgamated and where a vacancy occurs, amalgamation must take place, provided the average number of attendances in such schools is less than 35 at the time the vacancy is created. That is the rule, which would help so far as it goes. I maintain those figures of average attendance should be increased at least to 50 or 60. That is, where you have two little schools beside each other, and where the attendance is up to 50 or 60, it should be amalgamated, especially when a vacancy takes place. There is no reason why it should not be amalgamated without any vacancy taking place. There are instances where even the existing rule has not been insisted on. There is a belief and a general feeling that if the manager or somebody or other objects to the amalgamation and puts up a strong enough fight the Ministry will give way.
Now, as I say, there are cases—I have a couple in my mind at the moment—that happened within the past year or two, where that rule, such as it is, and it does not go far enough, has not been carried out, just because the local manager possibly had some reason to think that amalgamation should not take place. I do press on the Ministry the necessity of dealing adequately with this question of the amalgamation of schools. I must not be taken as urging the creation of big unwieldy schools. I do not believe in the school of a thousand pupils by any means, but that is a different question to what I am dealing with at the moment. Then there is the question of two or three little schools inside an area of half-a-mile or so. I think serious efforts should be made to get in such places a central school where the teaching would be very much more efficient than in these small separate schools. These are matters that ought to engage the serious attention of the Ministry. Then as against that there is the inclination on the part of people sometimes to apply for the erection of new schools. I have no statistics with regard to these, and perhaps the Minister would be able to give me statistics as to the number of new schools which have been taken into connection or which have received sanction. I do not mean in this connection any new schools which are replacing old ones, but schools erected in places where previously there was no school. I think it was the Minister himself on one occasion who said in such cases it would be better if provision were made for taking children who may be living in an outlying district or a long distance from the school, by way of a motor van into school rather than to take the trouble of erecting a new school to be attended by a small number of pupils. As I am on this matter of the erection of schools, might I say that a good deal could be done to relieve present congestion in regard to school accommodation, if something in the nature of temporary school premises were erected, and I think that could be done cheaply and quite effectively.
There seems to be nothing in this part of the Vote about the erection of schools. We have this question of school buildings over and over again.
Mr. O'CONNELL
I was taking advantage of the heading.
The heading does not mean national schools physically.
Mr. O'CONNELL
I have said all I intended to say on that matter anyhow. I come now to the question of the teachers. There is a matter in this connection that I think is not generally known, and a matter to which sufficient attention is not given. I refer to what I might call the security of tenure of the teachers. A teacher is a public servant in the fullest sense of the word. He is trained at the expense of the State largely, he is paid by the State and his conditions of service are settled by the State, but he is not a State servant in the sense that a policeman or civil servant is a State servant, inasmuch as once he is employed, he is not continued in employment as a matter of course by the State. His employment depends on the number of pupils who may be attending at the school. If a certain number of pupils attend the school an extra teacher is appointed. If the number of pupils decreases for any reason—it does not matter that it may not have, and it generally has not, anything to do with the teacher himself, but there is a decrease owing to a movement of the population—the teacher, often a man who has given twenty or thirty years service, finds himself out of a position, and there is no provision in the Department whereby a position is found elsewhere for that man. He simply has to go out and as best he can seek another position.
That does not seem to me to be proper. It is absolutely necessary that when a man occupies the position of teacher, and when, as well, he has given satisfactory service, he should have security of tenure in his position. Various proposals have been put forward from time to time to deal with this matter, but the simplest seems to me that such a teacher should be continued in that particular school until suitable employment is found for him in another school, and that while there are such teachers available, no new appointments should be made. There are instances where such teachers are available, highly qualified and experienced teachers of twenty years' service possibly, yet new teachers are being trained, and sometimes untrained teachers are being appointed. That is a question that should be tackled by the Ministry. It is a question that affects assistant teachers mostly, but the same thing applies sometimes to principal teachers also when the average comes below a certain figure. There is no provision made for the teacher, in the way of finding other employment.
The only other matter I wish to refer to is E 9—the grant towards the heating of schools and the cleansing of out offices. That grant is £13,500, and as I take it on the basis of the number of schools, would average about £2, £2 10s. or possibly £3 per school. I am sure everybody will agree that that sum is not sufficient, not nearly sufficient, to meet what it purports to meet. The conditions under which it is given are, that an equivalent sum will be found by the locality. Anyone who knows the conditions of the schools and the provisions that were made for the heating and the cleaning of the schools will know that it is a matter that is not done in the way that it should be done.
Two sods of turf.
Mr. O'CONNELL
I think that practice has gone out now.
I know places where you get two sods of turf yet.
Mr. O'CONNELL
Possibly there are places where it still lingers, but there are some schools where even that provision is not made and there is often doubt on the part of the teacher as to what steps he should take when he finds that nobody is making provision for the heating of the school. Some instances have been brought to the notice of the department where a teacher wired to the Education Office to know what she would do on coming into school on a winter's morning and finding no provision made for the heating of the school, in spite of the fact that such a state of affairs was brought to the notice of the manager, who is supposed to make this provision. The manager of the school is supposed to make this provision. Sometimes he does not make that provision, whether it is from inability or unwillingness I cannot say; but it shows the position that we are in with regard to the matter, the want of proper provision for the heating, cleaning, general upkeep and maintenance of the schools. It is a peculiar commentary on the position that public buildings, such as local hospitals, gaols, courthouses and asylums, are all provided for. Special provision is made in our legislation for them, but so far as the schools are concerned there is no such provision. There is this very small grant which was given on certain conditions, and which is quite inadequate to meet the very great need there is for keeping our schools in a proper condition.
I would like to acknowledge the obligation I feel under to the Committee for the educational progress that we are individually benefiting by, because I am learning a great deal more about schooling than I ever did before. What strikes me about this is that the total cost is put down at £3,389,855. That is to say, that this one Vote for national education represents in a year about £1 per head of the population of the whole country.
Is it too much?
took the Chair.
Of course that may seem a small sum to contend with, but one must remember that it is a very small proportion of the population that is being educated, in these schools, and I would like very much to know what amount per head of the children that £3,389,000 represents. At all events, I have no hesitation in saying that my point of view is that that is a very excessive sum for the amount of value received. I can quite believe that Deputy O'Connell is right when he says that there are far too many schools. I believe that must be so, and I believe it is so to the knowledge of every one of us. There is a tremendous number of schools, and the number of different schools in certain places cannot, I imagine, be for the good of the general education of the country. I think that as far as that is concerned we can class two things together; too many national schools and too many public houses.
Not doing the same harm, though.
Without going into detail, I would put it to the Minister that this country cannot afford to pay the amount of money that is in the Estimates for the amout of educational work that is being done. I maintain that a very much more perfect system of education could be set up for less money. Deputy O'Connell may say that that means cutting the teachers' salaries. I do not think it does. I agree with him in this, that a high standard of teacher would be beneficial to the schools; a far less lesser number of teachers would be to the benefit of the pupils, and in that way a very considerable economy could be effected for the whole system. I only got up to emphasise that one point, that the amount is more than the country can afford, and at all events if we are to be compelled to contribute on this scale, certainly that amount of money ought to give us very much greater efficiency in connection with education.
I merely rise to refer to the point that Deputy O'Connell raised. Both he and I have brought it before the Dáil previously, and I wish to support as strongly as I can his remarks as to the possibility of economy in this respect securing greater efficiency in the schools. I do not think there is any real danger of that economy leading us into the other pitfall of too large schools, and I quite support his contention that there is a great possibility of economy, without falling into that danger. As to what the limits of the amount of that economy would be I do not suppose any of us could really form an estimate without having access to official information on the point; but for my own part. I am convinced that there is a possibility of very large economy. Of course, it is not an economy that could come about rapidly, but I do not think we are really moving appreciably in the direction of effecting that economy, and I do put it up to the Minister that it is one of the things that he ought most seriously to take into consideration and have investigated, to see in what way and to what extent we can curtail the number of our schools, without necessarily curtailing the amount of money that is given to education— because I have never taken up the attitude that it is too much—but to have more available for expenditure in other directions.
I want to say a word in regard to Deputy Hewat's statement. He refers to this large sum of three million odd pounds. He speaks of it in relation to education, but he thinks of it in relation to taxation and income tax. He speaks of it in relation to education, and he says that we could be getting a very much better system, a very much better return in educational results. I wonder what test the Deputy is going to apply. Does he think that because this sum is perhaps thirty per cent., possibly fifty per cent. —I do not know the amount—above what it would have been five or seven years ago that he is now in a position to assess the value he is getting for three million pounds? I suggest to the Deputy that he cannot tell; he does not know whether he is getting value for this sum to-day or not. What we are suffering from now, all these complaints about the position of boys and girls coming out of primary schools, is the result of the earlier policy, the starvation policy. One cannot tell whether the value is being received for these three millions, and you will not be able to tell for quite a number of years yet.
After all, money spent on education is largely spent in faith; one has to have certain intelligence in the application of the faith, but you are relying on what you believe will be the result, and you are not going to assess it within a year or two of the expenditure of the money. It is quite a mistaken notion that you can take the sum of three million pounds and relate that to what you conceive to be the educational results to these boys and girls. You may quite legitimately criticise the method of the expenditure, but to take hold of this sum of money, as Deputy Hewat did, and to say that the education returns are not good enough for the expenditure of the money, I say is looking at the matter falsely, and prejudicing education and the Ministry in a way that is not fair to either.
I think it is quite right, and very desirable, that having decided to spend this sum of £3,389,000 for teaching, we should insist on doing everything possible to secure that the quality of the teacher, the capacity and character of the teacher, should be such as to ensure that the money will be well spent, but you cannot judge that by the results you see in this year of 1924.
I just want to say a few words with regard to Deputy O'Connell's statement concerning the amalgamation of schools. If such a system were to be carried out in, say, my own county, it would mean that some means of conveyance would have to be provided to take the children to school. In my county there are schools which are two miles, and in some cases, a longer distance apart.
Mr. O'CONNELL
When I spoke of the amalgamation of schools, what I was referring to were boys' and girls' schools side by side.
I misunderstood the Deputy, then, in the point he was making in that. I may say, however, that in my opinion small children have, in most instances in the country, to trudge too far a distance to school, and I think that something might be done in the way of providing a conveyance for these children. I know, of course, that that implies expense, but still it is deserving of consideration. I know that in my own case I had to travel three Irish miles to school. I left home in the morning at 8 o'clock and did not get back until 6 o'clock at night. During that period I had to do with a very light mid-day lunch. Such a system as that imposes a very severe strain on a child's physique.
In your case it turned out a good national footballer.
I maintain that the children now going to the primary schools are not as well educated as the children attending them, say, twenty-five years ago. That is my contention, and it is the general opinion throughout the country. It is not a case of what a Deputy says here that matters, but that is the general opinion throughout the country, that the children are not as well educated now in the primary schools as they were a quarter of a century ago. The point I make is that the three primary subjects: reading, writing and arithmetic, are not as well taught now as they were then. I find it is a very difficult matter to get any young fellow in the country engaged in farming pursuits to take up such a simple position as the honorary secretaryship of the local branch of the Farmers' Union. There are very few youths in the country who, from an educational point of view, are qualified to take up such a position. I remember the time when the pupils from the national schools in the country were getting places in the Civil Service. They were able to pass from the National School into the Second Division of the Civil Service, and some even got higher places. Pupils are not now being turned out from the national schools who are able to take these high places. The Minister will say, I expect, that that is not an ideal to be aimed at. I acknowledge it is not an ideal to be aimed at for boys to get places in the Civil Service or in a shop or employment as a clerk.
The Minister may also say that they turned out good Civil Servants in the past, but that they did not turn out good farmers. What is the position now? We are not turning out young men from the national schools who will make good Civil Servants or clerks, and neither are we turning out young men who will make good farmers from the scientific point of view. They are not good either for the one or the other occupation. In saying that, I do not believe that the fault lies with the teachers. I have been in fairly close association with the teachers, and I believe that the teachers are just as competent and as painstaking, and that they are giving just as good a service now as ever they gave. I do not say that for the purpose of giving lip service, but I believe it is a fact. I believe there is something wrong with the system, and that some change ought to be made in it. Otherwise, instead of having an educated country we will have one which will earn the term that it is the worst educated country in Europe. It is useless to talk about cultural education. Deputy Professor Magennis, in the course of his speech, implied that the children of the poorest parents have the right to a cultural education just as much as the children of the richest parents, but his statement, I think, implies class education. I asked Deputy Professor Magennis what is the use of talking about cultural education if a boy cannot read or write. I am not against culture. I presume the Deputy thinks that we on these benches dare not raise our voice when it comes to a matter of education.
No, no.
I presume the Deputy thinks that we are supposed to know very little about education. I would say to him, and to other Deputies, that we come here to do the work of the nation just as much as any other representative in the Dáil. We may have a bias towards farming, but we are interested in the general work of the country and we are particularly interested in the matter of education, because we are convinced that the future of the country and the future of the calling to which we belong depends on the success of our educational system. We are aware that an immense sum of money is being spent on education. We have not proposed any reduction in this Vote, because we realise that the money, if properly spent, will be well spent money. What we do complain of is that for the money we spend on education we are not getting proper value, and we justify our view on that by the results as seen throughout the country and on the results of the immense number of children who are badly educated, or at least are not as well educated as the children attending the schools a quarter of a century ago.
In dealing with this Estimate of three millions. I think there is a good deal in what Deputy O'Connell stated as regards the amalgamation of schools. The main idea with all of us is that the education of the youth of the country wants to be improved. I fear that Deputy Heffernan did not follow quite accurately what Deputy Professor Magennis, Deputy Professor Thrift, Deputy O'Connell and Deputy Johnson said on this subject. He spoke of these Deputies as having referred to a cultural Ireland, and seemed to think that the bedrock of that cultural Ireland has got to begin in primary education. There is one thing that I do not believe Deputies in the Dáil are likely to forget, and it is that the whole basis of education in this country has to begin in the primary school. The education has to be continuous, and if the grounding which the pupils get in the primary schools is not good then these children will not be able to go to the secondary schools or to the Universities to continue their studies. The first essential is that they should be well instructed in the primary school. That they have not been well instructed in the primary schools has been one of the failings in the whole of our educational system. That is why our technical education system has been a failure, because in the technical schools they have to do the work which should have been done in the primary schools. The childrens' education was so sadly neglected in the primary schools that they were unable to take advantage of the instruction given in the technical classes. To my mind this Vote of three millions is altogether inadequate for education, but inadequate as it is, I think it could be handled to better effect in the country and with greater benefit to the children if the local school attendance committees would do their duty. From a return I saw in the daily Press lately, school attendance in Ireland is one of the lowest in Europe. In fact it is an absolute scandal.
I do not think the Deputy can go into the question of school attendance. That is a matter which requires legislation. The Minister has a Bill which he proposes to introduce relating to compulsory attendance at school, but I desire to point out to the Deputy that there is no Vote for school attendance on this Estimate.
At present there is an Act in force by which these children could avail themselves of this education which is costing this State over three millions a year. There is an Act in force quite outside of whatever necessary legislation the Minister may intend to bring into force to make up for the deficiencies of the present and the past.
Deputy D'Alton must have misunderstood my ruling. This is a Vote for the conduct of national schools, to find the salaries for the principals, assistants, pupil teachers, monitors, and so on. On the discussion of it I have allowed a little latitude, but we must not go too far. We are now discussing education as carried on in the national schools. On this Vote School Attendance Committees do not come in. Under this Vote there is nothing on it as to the expenses incurred by School Attendance Committees or anything of that kind. That has been discussed as a general question already.
Unfortunately I was not present when the general discussion took place. I refer to it largely on the grounds that the statement was made by a previous Deputy that education in Ireland is not as good now as it was twenty years ago, and I refer to this fact about School Attendance Committees as being one of the reasons why the children are not attending schools. I believe that, in the hands of the Minister we have, the future of education is secure. I believe that these three millions, if properly expended under proper supervision, and, above all, if a proper amalgamation scheme for schools were carried out, the standard of education in these schools will be greatly increased. The inspectors will have far greater power of supervision where you have an amalgamation of schools than they have at present with schools in which there is an attendance of less than 35 in many cases. I support Deputy O'Connell's suggestion for that reason, because I see in it an opportunity for bringing these schools up to the standard that they should attain to, and I hope that the Minister will take a note of the remarks that the Deputy made on the subject.
rose.
Before I call upon Deputy Magennis I would remind him that the Dáil is in Committee, and consequently that there is a ten minutes' limit to speeches and he has already spoken for 35 minutes. I will call on him if he wishes to speak on this point, but I will enforce the ten minutes' limit.
May I remind you, as Chairman, that it was arranged by the Ceann Comhairle that on certain estimates the ten minutes' limit was not to be observed. Furthermore, that when the other Deputies had spoken for 40 and 45 minutes I refrained from speaking altogether, and if the committee does not desire to hear me on an educational matter of course I can only bow to the necessities of the situation.
May I ask if the Deputy speaks on one sub-head whether that is counted as one of the three occasions on which he can speak.
On the Vote as a whole?
On the Vote as a whole he can, I think, speak three times. Is that your ruling?
The ruling of the Ceann Comhairle which I think Deputy Professor Magennis slightly interpreted, was that in the general discussion which preceded discussion of the different sub-heads there was to be no time limit, but no Deputy was to speak more than once. That was subsequently, I am afraid, disregarded, but I hold myself bound by it and my ruling is that on a sub-head a Deputy must not exceed 10 minutes. and if he exceeds 10 minutes he will find it difficult to catch the eye of the Chair again.
How often may he speak on a Vote as a whole? Am I to understand that your ruling is that he can only speak three times on the Estimate as a whole, or that he can speak three times upon each one of the sub-heads?
He may speak three times on each of the sub-heads.
Has Deputy Magennis spoken already?
No. But I was reminding him——
If, as a punishment for speaking, I should find it difficult to catch your eye it would not be, let me remind you, for the first time.
Is the Deputy reflecting upon the conduct of the Chair? If the Deputy is reflecting upon my conduct in the Chair he knows there is a constitutional manner in which he can do so, but, while I am in the Chair, he must not do so as a point of repartee. I now call upon him to speak on the sub-head.
Will you allow me, as a point of order, to remind you that you began in calling upon me with a reflection upon my behaviour in the House by your distinct and explicit reminder to me that I must be brief; that is, by innuendo, I submit, a reflection upon my conduct, and I am entitled, as a member of the House, to express my view of that. I have, between the beginning of November and May, spoken in this House only twice——
I never suggested that the Deputy spoke too often. I suggested that in the early stage of the proceedings he contravened a Standing Order by speaking for 35 minutes.
May I remind you——
The Deputy must not rise while I am on my feet; he must sit down. I made no reflection on the Deputy whatever beyond reminding him that there was a time limit of ten minutes on speeches in Committee. There is a certain latitude usually given to a Minister to reply. I made no reflection on the Deputy whatever. I certainly did not intend to do so. If Deputy Magennis imagines I did that, I certainly withdraw it.
I accept that disclaimer. There was a general concensus of opinion that there were too many national schools in the country. That view was echoed more than once on the occasion of the debate upon the estimates last year. But that reference was not altogether the representation that Deputy O'Connell makes this evening, because what some of us had in view was that in country districts possibly to meet the requirements of a sparsely populated country there was a multiplication of small and consequently of unsatisfactory school houses. Now, that defect of the administration of the national school system was realised, even under the late National Board, and a policy had been inaugurated of reducing the number of such schools as far as possible. It is a very difficult problem to deal with for a variety of reasons. First of all, the multiplicity of schools is not in every case due to geographical requirements; there is the consideration of the various Christian sects who like to have their schools representative of their own religious views, and to have these staffed by members of their own religion, and none of us that belong to the religion professed by the majority of the population, would care to propose or to suggest even that the number of schools should be reduced by incorporating the existing schools to the detriment of any particular denomination.
As regards what is quite free to deal with, it would be possible, I have maintained, and I have seen no reason to alter my views in these years, to amalgamate the schools and provide not merely for the health of the pupil through living in a better constructed school-house for so many school hours of the day, but to minister also to his intellectual benefit by the result being achieved, that the larger centralised school could be better staffed and better provided. Now the difficulty that was raised against my contention on a former occasion was that it is not always good educationally to have very large schools, that difficulty would arise of too large schools only in the city. I do not think it is necessary to consider the possibility in the case of country districts. A provision for bringing children from distant places to the schoolhouse is not an insuperable difficulty, because, as I pointed out on many occasions and I may repeat it again, in Saskatchewan, Alberta, a distant province of Canada, and in Scotland the local authorities provide covered vans. and in some cases even motor vans. for taking the children from their homes and delivering them in the schools and returning them in the evening. Such a provision as that would not cost any more than the saving that would be effected through the amalgamation of small schools. Furthermore it would enable the public authority by having a smaller number of schools, to have more frequent inspection and also would enable the provision as is taken account of here of the free grants of books and equipment to be less costly to the State. Now there is one point in the Estimate.
My limit of time is not yet exhausted and I would like to deal with this. "E 7, Evening Continuation School, £5,000." I seem to have a natural capacity for exciting antipathy at public meetings. The last time that I addressed an assembly in the Mansion House I aroused the wrath of the Chairman, the Lord Mayor, by declaring that the great need of the city at the present moment is adult education. He interpreted that as an attack upon the interrupters in the audience. The provision of continuation schools is an arrangement by which in Great Britain they have dealt with the problem of extending the education of those who unfortunately were taken away from school prematurely and have had therefore no opportunity of continuing their mental development. In Ireland the utmost provision that we have been able to make, so far, is that of the evening elementary school and that is usually contemplated as meant really for youths, not for adults. I miss from these Estimates anything towards the providing of schools for adults. It is a curious fact that it is supposed that after a man or woman has reached a certain age he or she is not to be expected to learn any more. That is a most narrow-minded view to take and it presses with undue hardship upon the adults in cities, especially amongst the working classes. In England an effort has been made to provide University Extension. University Extension Lectures can be made use of, and the fullest advantage derived from them only by those who have not lost all traces of the results achieved in their schoolboy days. In order to provide the proper type of audience for University Extension Lectures it seems to me that the elementary education side should be advanced to meet the need. Anyone who sees the avidity of the citizens of Dublin for lectures, and who observes that they will come to hear a lecture on any subject no matter how repellant it is or seems to be from its title, will realise that there is at hand in our towns, and above all in our large cities quite a considerable body of evening school-goers who would take advantage if they were given the opportunity. So it seems to me that the Minister might extend his aims—and they are great aims that he has expounded to-day—in that direction most profitably.
The Professor—I am speaking in a generic sense and not of any particular professor—is a formidable person. When 20, 30, 40 or 50 pupils come into the presence of a professor, the amount of ascendancy that he is able to exercise over them is one of the marvels of our civilisation. But I find myself here one pupil in the presence of, I do not know how many authorities, all equally formidable to me and all at once. Some concrete facts might be useful and I am sorry that those who asked for them are not here at present to hear the answers. Addressing, through you, sir. some of the vacant seats here, I wish to say that——
The Minister must address himself solely to the Chair, not use the Chair as a medium.
I withdraw, sir. Addressing you, sir, for the future possible benefit of some absent members of this Assembly, I wish to say that the actual cost of primary education per pupil in this country is about £7 10s. The actual expenditure per head is about £7 10s. in Scotland, and £10 in England.
The number of schools in operation at present within the area of jurisdiction of Saorstát Eireann is roughly 5,700. Everybody who has spoken has been at one as regards the question of amalgamation. I am speaking in the presence of two former Commissioners of National Education who, I think, have a thorough appreciation of the position with regard to the multiplicity of schools and the problem of amalgamation. Getting down to actual figures, the year before last the number of schools was diminished by 80, and last year it was diminished by 40. On the other side of the account, the number of new schools the previous year was 12 and last year it was 16. It is sometimes necessary to open new schools even under present conditions, when there is such a large number of schools in the country. Deputies here know that, because I have been approached by Deputies from every part of the House with regard to the necessity of opening new schools. We have been steadily trying to deal with this problem of reducing supernumerary schools. Continuously and incessantly it has occupied the attention of my department. If my department were not as keen on that matter as it ought to be, it has at its back the Department of Finance. I can assure the Deputies present that the Department of Finance is in no respect lacking in its pursuit of this particular object—the reduction and amalgamation of schools. The opinion of Deputies who have spoken here this evening represents, I take it, the opinion of those Deputies who have not spoken as well. This is a problem that belongs to the rural districts almost entirely, and I would suggest that each Deputy would come to me with a list of the schools in his own constituency which he thinks ought to be amalgamated. It would be an excellent exercise in public responsibility if the Deputies would publish those lists locally before they come to me with them. Deputy Heffernan was absent, I think, when I spoke the other evening about provision for school gardens, because he recommended this course this evening. That would arise properly now and I hope some of the Deputy's colleagues will draw his attention to what I said the other evening.
That does not arise now. It arises on F. 3.
Yes; but in order to prevent it taking up too much time again it would be well if Deputies who were not present last evening would refer to the report of what was said on the subject. There were other points made that I think were more points for debate than anything else. Deputy Heffernan insists on the all-importance of the three R's. Some of the most remarkable men that ever shaped the course of events in this world knew nothing about the three R's. William the Conquerer could not do the simplest sum in arithmetic but yet he constructed a great State. I noticed that when Brian Boroimhe went to Armagh he had to get another man to write his name in the Book of Armagh. I presume instances of that kind of great men who have really accomplished great work without the ordinary education could be multiplied without limit. I am not pretending that the three R's are not valuable things and not of importance, but let us not go on our knees before things of that kind and adore them. There are other parts of education beside the three R's., and if these other things enabled other men to do great things in the past they can enable other men to do great things in the future— especially with the assistance of the three R's. I would be strongly inclined to fall in with what Deputies say about a higher grade of Civil Servants and a higher grade of clerks having been produced in a former generation, or at some other time than the present.
When I throw myself back for the space of a generation, I find that I was a Civil Servant and I would like to think that I was very much superior to the kind of Civil Servants we have at present. But the fact of the matter is that I do not believe a bit of it. I believe we have just as good a stamp of Civil Servant and clerk now as we had 30 years ago. The defects of the National School were said to be the cause of partial failure in technical education. I do not think that is so. I think the failure results from the gap of time between the leaving of the school by the pupil and his going back to learn things in the technical school. We are all subject to that. I think if Deputy Thrift or Deputy Magennis or any other of the most learned Deputies that we have were separated from the particular subjects in which they are eminent and distinguished for a number of years, they would find that a certain amount of depreciation had taken place in the meantime and that applies even more to pupils from the primary schools. When their education is interrupted and when they go back to get primary instruction, as they have to do, in the technical schools it is quite a natural thing that a great deal of what they learned before has to be learned again. It is a large figure, one of the largest votes we have in comparison per head of the pupils educated. It is very much less than what is spent in England, or than what is spent in Scotland.
The next item is sub-head F.
This deals with manual and practical instruction. In this connection I would like briefly to refer to the subject of practical instruction which was referred to by the Minister in his address on Thursday, and to which he was about to refer when you called his attention to the fact that it came properly under this Vote. The Minister spoke of his experience some weeks ago. When he spoke of horticulture I might take the liberty of saying that the term was not properly descriptive of the subject which was under consideration.
took the Chair at this stage.
Mr. O'CONNELL
I am sure the learned Professor to whom he referred on that occasion will be the first to say that there was a very, very marked distinction between horticulture as such and rural science as such. There is no doubt, to those who are intimately acquainted with the subject, a very great distinction, for while horticulture might treat merely of the technical methods of growing plants and flowers and that sort of thing, rural science teachers, and purports to teach, a different thing. Rural science is important in a country like this, and I am rather disappointed, therefore, that under this heading of manual and practical instruction, while provision seems to be made for organisers of elementary science, musical instruction, drawing, kindergarten, and various other things, no provision is made in this Vote for an organiser or inspector of rural science. Some years ago, in 1914-'15-'16, especially 1916, this subject was one which was receiving growing attention in the national schools. The number of school gardens taken in connection with the schools was yearly increasing up to 1918 or 1919. Since then there has been a falling off. One reason, no doubt, is that the question of school time again comes in. Provision cannot properly be made in the school time table for the teaching of this very important subject, but I think all the same that it is a question of proper organisation of school time. That is why I regret that a special organiser or inspector who would have special knowledge of this particular subject is not provided for, because I think it can be shown that many of the subjects which we speak of as ordinary school subjects, such as reading, writing, arithmetic, science, and so on, could be taught through the medium of, and in connection with, rural science. There is no reason why composition should not take the form of writing on an experiment on the growth of plants, or on the various systems of manuring, for instance; neither is there any reason why arithmetical calculations should not have some connection with the work the pupil would do in his experiments in rural science. There is no doubt whatever that it is in that direction that the bias which the Minister speaks of, and which we all acknowledge to be necessary, can be given. For this purpose it is essential that provision should be made for setting aside plots adjacent to schools.
But this is one thing I would like to impress on the Minister, that to get the best advantage from this particular subject that could possibly be got in a school, it should be taught by a man or woman who has a special interest in that subject. If you begin by compelling, or trying to compel a man whose taste does not lie in that direction to teach ao subject of this kind, you do much more harm than good. I believe some provision is made, and the Minister referred to it last Thursday, in the training colleges whereby the students are given the opportunity of doing something in connection with this subject of rural science. What I urge is, that it ought to be encouraged in the schools where there is the opportunity, and where teachers are prepared and ready to take it up. It should be encouraged in every way in that connection. A small point to which I wish to refer is that of special fees for the teaching of mathematics as extra subjects, which means that they are subjects taught outside the ordinary school hours under special conditions, and special fees are paid in such cases. I see, under D, the word is not "fees" but "grants" for gardening, and I was just wondering whether the fees available some years ago, when this subject was effectively taught, are still available. The distinction seems to be that these are not grants in the way of fees, and I would like to have some information on that point.
I quite agree with what our friends in the Farmers' Benches have said repeatedly as to the necessity for training the children, in our rural schools especially, to have a love for the land. I know of no way in which an interest in the land can be so well created as through this subject of rural science. Interest in this case is derived from knowledge, a knowledge of the science underlying everyday operations. A person who has a knowledge of rural science will see a new interest in every clod of earth, in every spade of earth that is turned up, and in every plant and flower along the wayside. If you want to make this country what we would like to see in the matter of agricultural education, it is along that line we must work. I do not for a moment say that this subject means the keeping of gardens. That is not the intention at all. It is not intended that gardening as such should be taught. That would be in the nature of technical education, or specialisation, and the garden is used only as a medium for teaching the science which underlies plant life, and farming and gardening operations.
It is unnecessary to say that I agree heartily with what Deputy O'Connell has said about rural science, but there is another kindred subject, so far as girls attending national schools are concerned, that is, the subject of domestic economy. I notice that, in so far as italics indicate the aims and desires of the Ministry, the schools were, and have been, provided with a head organiser of domestic economy, and eleven assistant organisers at fairly respectable salaries. For 1924-25 we are permitted to have one head organiser at a lower salary, with ten assistants. I spoke upon the application of this subject on a previous occasion, but, unfortunately, as far as I can judge, it was treated as a jest on my part. If I had spoken of the brightening of the home, I might have been taken seriously, or if I had dwelt upon the basis of domestic happiness in a well-ordered home, and then had addressed good citizens on the beneficent influences of the good home life, it would not have been regarded as a jocose criticism. I am looking, not merely to the acquisition on the part of girls attending the national schools, of the knowledge of the ordered house, as indicated by domestic economy, but I am thinking of girls who will go into domestic service when they have left school.
One of the extraordinary ideas that have survived out of the Victorian age into the present is the idea that domestic service is something inferior—that it is a type of occupation of which those wholly engaged in it ought to be ashamed. It is the fault of the employer, if that is so. I am not unwilling—let me put it in that mild form— to confess that I joined in a movement to organise employers of domestic service, so that domestic servants in their turn might be organised as a union, and that it be a reciprocal action that those who employ, and those who were employed, in this very vital service, should come to a mutual understanding and that the community should have its conception of things so widened and so enlightened as not to speak of, say, a successful cabinetmaker as marrying beneath him if he married a parlour-maid, a cook, or a kitchen-maid. These are part of the social reforms that are not unworthy, I think, of the attention even of the Dáil, to have, through our accepted institutions, provision made for the well-ordered life. I think it is one of the scourges of life in the rural community that farmers' wives, or farmers' servants, are altogether uninitiated as regards the great art of running a house, that is, the great art of domestic economy. In the training college for women teachers—one of the training colleges to which I referred recently— considerable attention is given to this, but unless the guiding force of the Ministry of Education is applied through these organisers of domestic economy, and the teachers are kept up to that pitch during the years that follow after they have left the training college, the subject will get into the background again and lose its interest, and the old false notion will dominate the schools and dominate the homes, that it is not the sort of subject that can be learned or lectured upon. I think the Ministry would be well advised to pursue their first ambition and set up a well paid Department for this purpose.
There is one other respect in which the organisation of the staff appears to me to be defective, and that is as regards drawing. As a subject, drawing seems to the superficial view to be a type of accomplishment, whereas it is one of the most important of the educational agencies. It is not merely a question of turning out a good draughtsman, or someone who can draw well, it is a training in accurate observation, as tested through accurate reproduction. It is more than that. It provides the boy who becomes the craftsman later in life with a capacity for work, without which he is maimed and truncated in his work. There are types of employment in which it is essential that a man should be able to draw, draw to scale, and work from drawings. Unless at the time of pupilage his mind is directed to that, and unless he is given facility for it in the exercises of the school, he will not acquire the requisite proficiency later on in life, and he remains the inferior workman and cannot rise in his craft. It is a most important subject in the school curriculum, and I cannot understand the narrowness of view that prevails by which it is regarded as one of the subsidiary and unimportant subjects. If a boy has a natural talent for it, the teacher will try, if he can, to make arrangements in the school hours to let him have half an hour twice weekly, instead of the thing being made part of the discipline of the whole school, just as it is said, in respect of singing, that everyone has a voice of some sort, and that a good voice producer could make something of it.
Everyone has the capacity to draw and when it comes to explaining one's requirements, the capacity to draw is a tremendous economy of time and words. If we could only draw our views here, the ten minutes' rule could be abolished, and the Chairman's difficulties reduced considerably. That is why I would urge upon the Minister that it seems insufficient to have one single organiser of drawing. Anyone who has seen the work done in the training colleges by the teachers of drawing will simply be amazed. Teachers who will not impress one profoundly with regard to other subjects will surprise you by the facility they have in adapting, say, the leaves of a plant, and illustrating their lessons on a blackboard, with really vivid little pictures. The capacity of the ordinary boy or girl attending an ordinary National school is beyond belief until those who have seen what can be done, and done in a limited time, are able to appreciate it. I am sure the Minister and those associated with him in the Ministry are as well aware of that as I am, and I am confident that in the provision for future years, more allowance will be made for a subject that is really so important educationally, as well as in other respects of utilitarian consideration.
I would like to say a few words in connection with the teaching of cookery, to which Deputy Magennis has referred. This is a matter upon which there is discussion as to the advisability of introducing it into National Schools at an early age, and whether it is not more important for technical schools. That is a point I do not wish to discuss at the moment. I do say, wherever it is taught it is essential that proper facilities should be provided. An attempt was made some years ago to have cookery taught in the day schools of the country. We had the example in one room schools, as they are in the rural districts, of the teacher attempting to teach cookery at the fire with a class sitting around, the other children being also there. The cookery, to make things worse, was the last lesson of the evening. I think Deputies can fancy the feelings of the children down at the end of the school while the cookery was going on at the upper end of the school.
I think they were lucky in the early stages.
Mr. O'CONNELL
Sometimes they did not wait until the cookery was finished. I think that is not a proper condition of things. I think if cookery is taught that it should be confined to those places where there is adequate accommodation for teaching it in a separate room. I should like to see the cookery class conducted in a neighbouring cottage on the actual conditions under which the cookery has to be done in the homes of the children. There is little use bringing children from the ordinary home in the rural district and putting them through cookery lessons in a modern equipped room, because these conditions will not be the conditions under which they will be asked to do the cooking at home. I think it might be a good thing in this connection if there were attached to the school a model cottage, in which not alone the cooking should be done, but which should be used as a model in the matter of cleanliness and tidiness in the way a cottage ought to be kept. This, too, could be kept in connection with the school plot, and the whole thing could be worked into a very nice educational scheme.
I do assure Deputies that as far as I was guilty of that exhibition of cookery which was described by Deputy O'Connell, I am sincerely penitent. It is a difficulty, certainly, how far such a subject as cookery can be effectively taught as part of the ordinary school programme. Such suggestions as Deputy O'Connell made in regard to the utilising, say, of neighbouring houses and so on may possibly be achieved in particular instances, and, if they are, it is so much to the good. It is not possible to make arrangements like that in the case of all schools, or even a large number of schools. Still, if managers, teachers, and the parents of children would interest themselves in a development of that kind, even in a few localities, the effects spread around generally. It would be wrong to suggest that there has been a reduction—I do not know whether that was the suggestion—in the salaries of organisers and sub-organisers. There has been no reduction. The figures that appear there in italics are explained in the foot-note as "Provisional figures for the previous year." It is the old story of man proposes.
It was an ambition.
With regard to rural science, the grant which appears here under the head "school gardens"—as to which a question was asked me—includes fees, and mainly consists of fees. We do propose to provide an organiser for rural science, and I think it would have been done earlier if the combination of the educational side of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction with the other branches of the Ministry of Education had been made earlier. We hope to be able to make use of that combination in the future for this particular development. I do not think there is any other point. There were some illuminating things said in the course of the discussion, but I think I have dealt with the main points of criticism.
I think the explanatory note with reference to sub-head G. appears on page 176. It appears to me to be misplaced, but it does show that there are, as far as I can read the note, something like 1,600 residences built in connection with schools. We have 5,700 schools. I should say there is no good reason why there should not be attached to every school a suitable residence for the teaching staff. It is essential that the teachers should be properly housed, but we know that in some of the rural districts especially, teachers have to go very long distances every morning to school. This is not good for the teacher himself, and it does not add to the effectiveness of his teaching if he comes into school tired and, very often, wet. I do not wish to dwell on the point now except to call the attention of the Minister to the fact that a few days ago, when we were discussing the Vote for Public Works and Buildings, when this matter was raised the Minister for Finance said that they had set aside in the Estimates this year a Vote for local loans and at the moment they were considering the matters to which these loans could be applied. I want to impress on the Minister the advisability of approaching the Minister for Finance at the earliest possible opportunity and impressing on him that the provision of loans for teachers' residences is very urgent and is one of the matters to which these loans could be usefully devoted. On this matter, too, of teachers' residences, I would like to draw the attention of the Minister to a point I made a few days ago when the same matter was before us, that is, that he should take steps to see that when a residence is built by a public loan supplied by the State Funds that it should continue to be used for the purpose which was originally intended, namely, that of a residence for a teacher. There have been instances where such houses have been devoted to other purposes and one or two cases, in which the residence has been actually sold by a person who had no moral right to do so in any case, inasmuch as it was his property only by accident. The loan was provided by the State. It was paid off by the rent paid by the teacher and partly by the contribution made by this Department, but because the school manager happened to be the legal owner of the site on which the house stood he claimed the legal right to sell the house, and did so. There have been one or two cases of that. There have also been one or two cases where the house has been given to, say, a local curate or somebody else besides the teacher. I think it should be the duty of the Minister to see that in such cases where such a house is provided for the teacher it should be devoted to that purpose and to no other.
I will bear in mind the point that Deputy O'Connell has raised in regard to the provision of loans for residences. No instance has come to my own knowledge, but it would certainly be a very great abuse if residences provided for teachers, really as part of the school provision for a district, and provided at the public expense, should be converted to any private purpose by sale, occupation or otherwise. I do not know whether I mentioned that the case is analogous to what was in my mind, at all events, when I was speaking about the horticultural plots, or agricultural plots as I think they might be better called. While it is possible, where the Land Act is operating in a district, to have such plots set aside for schools, the greatest care would have to be taken against allowing public plots of that kind, just the same as schools, being converted——
I must remind the Minister that we are not discussing the question of plots now.
I am just showing, with the amount of intelligence that is at my disposal, the complete analogy between the two things; that whether in the case of residences or in the case of plots, it would be a gross abuse to allow such a provision to be converted into private property or to be turned to a private purpose. I do not know of any such case, but I am taking the opportunity of reinforcing what Deputy O'Connell has said, that so far as this Ministry can exercise legal powers to prevent any abuse of that kind taking place, I hope it will exercise it.
I only rise because of what has been said during the discussion in connection with teachers' houses and because the Minister seemed to endorse what Deputy O'Connell has said as regards the right of the teacher to dispose of his house, which Deputy O'Connell informs us is paid for by him in the shape of rent.
That is a mistake.
I wish to explain. I did not claim any such right whatever for the teacher. I claimed only the right of occupation where he is the teacher of a school. When he ceases to be the teacher he ceases to be the tenant of the residence.
That is assuming that the teacher has not repaid the loan. If the loan is made to the teacher for the purpose of providing his house, surely when he finishes his part of the contract the house becomes his. If that is not so, of course it is all right, but if that is so, and if the teacher in course of time pays off the loan which is advanced by the State, I do not see how Deputy O'Connell, or anybody else, can say that that house ceases to be the property of the teacher, whether he remains a teacher or not.
May I explain? The loan is not made to the teacher in the first place. The loan is made to the manager of the school as the representative of the locality. The loan is really made to the locality and not to the teacher. The intention of the Act of 1875 was that the residence should be a free residence, and, in some cases, it is a free residence. The locality, through the manager, pays the local moiety of the loan, but, in the vast majority of cases, the teacher pays the local portion of the loan. He is the locality for the purpose of paying the portion of the loan. But that does not give him any right to it, and his agreement is that he occupies the residence while he is the teacher of that particular school. What I claim is that even when the loan is paid off, the residence should be used as accommodation for the teacher, whoever the teacher may be who is teaching in that particular school. I should explain, too, that it was not the teacher who sold the residence I referred to. He had not the right to sell it. It was not the teacher I was complaining of, but rather the manager, or somebody who purported to represent the locality, and who insisted on his legal right to sell.
Deputy O'Connell has now cleared up what seemed to be very involved before, because as I understood it, the argument was based on the teacher having paid back the loan. I understood the teacher had sold the house in the instance given. Apparently, the loan is given to the locality and the teacher merely gets the use of the house.
As to sub-head H, "Superannuation of Teachers," I suppose it is only proper that at the end of the day we should now come to superannuation and pensions. I do not intend to deal with that matter as fully as I would like to do. It is a very important matter. There are, however, one or two things I should like to point out for the benefit of such Deputies as Deputy Hewat and those who are hearing these things for the first time now. In the first place. I would like to say that teachers, although they are public servants, and almost in the same position as civil servants so far as their relation to the State is concerned, have not the same conditions in the matter of pensions as civil servants have. They do get, after forty years' service, a pension equal to one-half of their average annual income, but they do not get what civil servants get, a lump sum equivalent to one and a half-year's salary. That is a very important difference. There is also another difference. Teachers contribute four per cent. of their salaries to a special pension fund; civil servants have a non-contributory fund. That, too, is an important difference. The amount contributed in this way by teachers in the Saorstát to the pension fund for the last year for which we have statistics was, approximately, £116,000. This year, I think, it would be about £135,000. That should be remembered when we are speaking of the salaries of teachers—that a deduction is made from their income each year.
There are some other advantages that civil servants have in the matter of pensions and which teachers have not. I do not, at the moment, press for the reforms which were almost about to be made at the time when the slump came in 1921, when the Geddes axe came down in Britain and prevented the British Treasury from making the reforms which they had practically promised to make in the pensions of Irish teachers.
Several conferences were held at that time between the educational authorities and the teachers' organisation, and to us it seemed only a matter of a short time until those concessions would be granted. I do not at the moment press for these concessions, because I know the position. I quite realise it. But there are one or two things that are urgent and that I think ought to be dealt with. The first of these is that we have practically 2,500 whole-time teachers, who have no pension scheme whatsoever. They are paid directly by the State under exactly the same conditions—I do not mean the same conditions so far as qualifications are concerned, but so far as the employment is concerned—as the ordinary teachers who are pensionable. I think Deputy Magennis, speaking earlier in the day, gave us an explanation of why training college professors were not pensioned. He said the only explanation was that they were employed under private management. That explanation does not hold good here. These teachers are what are euphoniously called junior assistant mistresses. The term "junior" was used to cover the fact that they were employed at £24 a year. But, in fact, they were adult persons, some thirty and forty years of age, and some of them are now reaching the age of sixty, and no provision whatsoever is made by way of retiring gratuity or pension for these people. That is a matter that, I hold, is extremely urgent, and I think it is one phase of the pension question that ought to be dealt with immediately. I do urge strongly on the Minister the necessity of taking up and dealing with that particular matter, that is, the placing of these 2,000 or 2,500 junior assistant mistresses and the lay teachers engaged in convent schools on the pension list.
There is just one other matter, and that is the question of the old pensioners. An Act was passed last July which to some extent gave relief to them. It was not much relief, and I dare say that it did not raise the average pension of these old teachers who retired before the new salaries came into operation to more than £52. I doubt, indeed, if the average pension of those pensioners who retired before 1920 is £50 a year, and I think anyone who knows the work which those old teachers did must admit that that is a very poor reward indeed to offer the men and women who gave their best years to the work of the nation. Many of them served for 40 and 45 years and they, too, contributed to the Pension Fund. It is sad to think that in their declining years they are faced with the task of keeping body and soul together, as many of them are. The Act which was passed in 1920 to cover the case of these pensioners made provision on a percentage basis. As I pointed out on several occasions here, the percentage basis does not meet the position. Some of these are getting the old age pension. They have now suffered a cut so far as that is concerned, and the hardship is increased. I believe that the Teachers' Pension Fund would be able to bear the additional claims on it, without even adding to this Vote, which would be necessary to give a substantial increase to those old pensioners. Their number is small, comparatively speaking. It would grow gradually less, and the teachers in the service now would certainly not object if the fund were drawn upon to an extent that would be necessary to give substantial relief to these old men and women in their declining years.
I have only a few words to add to what Deputy O'Connell has said with regard to these old pensioners. I understand that this relief to them was given in 1920. I have had some correspondence in connection with this from teachers of this class who are now living in the Six Counties and who taught in Southern Ireland. After they got their pensions they went to live in the Six Counties, and now it seems that they have not been granted the relief that has been given to the old pensioners in the Free State. I brought the correspondence under the notice of the Minister for Finance, and he promised on two occasions to have the matter looked into. He thought it was a matter that ought to be dealt with justly and fairly, and I gathered from him, at all events, that he thought that these old teachers in the Six Counties were entitled to relief. I wish to call the attention of the Minister to this fact.
The particular point in this connection to which I wish to draw attention refers to a certain number of teachers who, under the terms of the 1923 Act, were not entitled to an increase of their pensions. I agree with Deputy O'Connell completely in his reference to the inadequacy of the total pension, but in certain cases that is working out even more harshly than it is in the general case. I think it was due to a technicality in the Act, which, I understand, also occurs in a similar Act that was passed in the Six Counties but has there been rectified by subsequent legislation, and I think it is due to that kind of technicality that there are a certain number of these old teachers who only got the benefit of one increase in their pension, whereas there are others who got the benefit of three separate and distinct increases, culminating in the 1923 increase.
The matter is a very complicated and involved one and I do not think there would be anything served by going into it to-night, more particularly perhaps because I am not sure that I understand all the points that are involved in it. I do not think I have met anybody who does, but I want to make out a case that this matter really requires investigation. I am particularly sorry that the Minister for Finance is not with us, because more strictly this comes under his sphere of operation than it does under that of the Minister for Education. It is under this Vote, and therefore, I take advantage of the occasion for raising it. I have brought it already under the notice of the Minister for Finance, and I brought it in this way, that I took two particular instances of nearly the same service, not quite, and merely equal qualification, not quite. But the case with the longer service and the better qualifications turned out to be the case that has now very appreciably lower pension than the other. It arose from the way in which the pension was originally claimed. Under one of two possible alternatives naturally a person chooses the one which would give him the maximum pension at the time, but under the way in which later legislation was framed that, in many cases, turned out to be a pension which was least satisfactory to him in the end, and I do not think that that sort of thing was intended by the legislature. In the two particular cases that I gave the person with the better kind of service, the longer service, has now an appreciably lower pension than this other teacher who was pensioned at about the same time with a somewhat worse record and a shorter period of service. I have not these cases with me, because I supplied them to the Minister for Finance, and he promised to look into them, but I have two other cases.
There is one case of a pensioner of 77 years of age who actually paid over £9 a year premium towards pension and retired on a pension of £55 a year. She retired as a "first of first" teacher, and since then only got one increase, which brought her pension up to £82 10s. There is another case of a teacher who was qualified as "first of first," but who was only recognised as second of the first class—a technical description—but she retired on a pension of £60 a year. She obtained in 1915 an increase which brought it up to £73, and in 1920 another increase which brought it up to £84, and a further increase in 1923 which brought it up to £103; whereas I am informed that if the claim to be recognised as "first of first" class had been admitted by the authorities at the time that teacher would not be entitled to a third increase and her pension would be £20 less than at present. Cases of that kind are sufficient to show that the matter requires investigation. I believe it does, and I think there is real hardship in the case of a considerable number of these teachers, and I want the Minister to say that he will have the matter inquired into.
I rise merely to support the statement made by Deputy O'Connell in regard to the old teachers. I feel Deputy O'Connell has put the case very fairly, but he fell into one error, which I shall point out to the House. Deputy O'Connell said that teachers make contribution towards a pension fund. I think he mentioned that this year they made a contribution of something like £116,000, and that civil servants, with whom he compared them, made no contribution. He is not quite right in that. The salaries of civil servants are calculated on the basis of a contribution for pension, and there is a deduction from the salaries from the very start. That is well known. It is mentioned in Blue Books, before Royal Commission, in the British Parliament's time.
Our salaries were fixed on the same basis.
I want to support the plea that Deputy O'Connell has made in regard to the pensioned teacher, and I am thinking more particularly of the old pensioned teacher. Unfortunately, like some other old people, they still live—unfortunately for them —and, more unfortunately, they taught at a time when wage scales were low, but they have lived through to a time when costs are high, and they have to suffer because of both misfortunes. I feel particularly bound to put in my plea on behalf of these pensioners, first, because the claim is upon a fund which was established for the purpose, and, as Deputy O'Connell says, the existing teachers and contributors to that fund are friendly to the claim that the older pensioned teachers are making in this matter. But more particularly because to-morrow we shall be dealing with another Bill which is going to provide pensions for another set of State servants. Now, the man that served 40 years teaching the youth of the country did at least as good service, notwithstanding the immediate results to the State, as those who served for four or five, or seven or ten years in military operations, and I do not feel that I would be justified in supporting that Bill, which I have done and will do, unless I also support this claim of the pensioned teachers. I feel that there is an injustice done and that we are favouring the youth as against the aged. We are favouring war against peace.
I feel that we are in duty bound, having accepted the principle that pensions should be provided for old State servants, to see that these pensions are sufficient to keep the men and women in something like decency in view of the new conditions under which they are living. Everybody, I think, has spoken favourably towards the claim, and nobody dismisses it as being unjust or unfair. The question seems not to have been dealt with partly because it raises technical difficulties and partly, I am afraid, because it will solve itself in time. That is not the way this should appeal to us, and we should not allow ourselves to be persuaded that if we can keep putting it off long enough all the pensioners will be dead and they will not be able to upbraid us. I hope that we should be able to do better for them than that, and that when we are going to vote for the pensioning of young men who have done military service we can do so with better grace if we have determined that the old school teachers shall be reasonably provided for in their old age.
I would like to join my colleagues on impressing on the Minister to consider the claims for these pensioners who certainly have a grievance, though, like my colleague, Deputy Thrift, I cannot say exactly what the grievance is. I have tried to understand the technicality of the rules by which they have been excluded from the benefits of the 1920 Act. I seemed to understand some of it, but still it remained a surprise, and it must be a surprise, a very unpleasant surprise, to the teachers who are in the position of those that Deputy Thrift mentioned. I have only one thing to add that has been omitted, and that is that the fund can stand it. If I am rightly informed, the Pension Fund at the present moment is about £3,000,000, and in 1922, £170,000 was added as an excess of income over expenditure. I think under these circumstances that the Minister should make it his business to thrust aside these technicalities, this red tape, that has created a sense of grievance, of heart-burning in the breasts of fellow-citizens who have deserved well of the State. An act of this sort will be wronging nobody. It will not mean a penny increase in the Vote; it will only mean an equitable distribution of pension to people who deserve it.
I do not wish to add a further discordant note to what seems to be the general impression that there was some injustice done to these old teachers, that they did not get the benefit of the rise in the pensions. On this subject of pensions, I would like to say that as far as Deputy O'Connell makes out a case for the pensions to be contributory, or so far as the statement that the Civil Service Pension Scheme is contributory, I am satisfied; but I think Deputy O'Connell's case was that it should not be contributory at all. I think that was the basis of his argument.
I did not make that case.
We hear a great deal of importance attached to this question of pensions amongst the civil servants. It is no doubt very right and proper that they should have pensions, but may I point out that amongst the army of industrialists there is no pension scheme provided. It is the big army of industrialists that is paying for these pensions, and make no mistake about that. The big bulk of the pensions, notwithstanding the fact that we hear seventy-five per cent. of the wealth of the country is produced by the farmers, is paid out of industry. The people in industry have to contribute to pensions for other people, whereas they themselves are expected to make provision for their old age during their own lifetime. I do not wish to take away from the merit of the men who have been in the public service and who have retired on pensions, but I do say that a man during forty years in the Civil Service has had as good an opportunity of providing for his old age as the mass of the people in the country, who have no pension scheme provided for them, but who have to contribute to pensions for other classes of people.
You can remedy that.
Give everyone a pension.
I would be glad to have Deputy Johnson's assurance that if I manage to arrive at the period of life in which I am unable to continue my very valuable work, he will assure me a pension from someone. At present I do not know where it is to come from.
I rise to support the case made for adequate pensions for the old people. I admire the spirit in which Deputy O'Connell, on behalf of the existing teachers, said that they had no objection, if I rightly understood him, to allow these old pensioners to partake of some of the benefits of the fund provided at the present day. That spirit is only in keeping with everything that the present-day teachers do. They are a splendid body of men, and they should be supported well. These old age pensioners—I call them that because the phrase is so much in my head that I cannot get away from it— had the misfortune to go out in the wrong time, and if you call it a misfortune, they lived too long. They are living now, and the pensions they get are not able to support them. I was amazed when I heard Deputy Hewat say a moment ago that they had a right to put something aside during their lifetime, and not be depending on a pension.
I think that Deputy Hewat did not know the old school teachers. He has no idea of what they were paid. On the sums they received they were hardly able to rear their families, but they were expected to do so respectably, and be it said to their credit, they did so. The young teachers, most of them the sons of the old teachers and of respectable men, are living in better times. They are charged with the performance of an onerous duty in the country, and if we want good value we will have to pay for it. If we want good teachers we will have to give them a good salary. As I am on my feet, there is another point on which I would like to remind the Minister, if he has not been reminded of it already. Perhaps, it may be no harm to give the Minister a second touch. The point I want to make is, that there are some old schools and they are a disgrace.
The Deputy cannot go into that matter on this sub-head.
I thought that the schools were a next door neighbour to education. As I am not allowed to speak on the schools now I will leave it so for the present. Many other Deputies spoke about the teachers' salaries and other things. All I have to say in conclusion is, that I wish the teachers long life and better salaries.
Good care has been taken to secure my brevity in the matter. Now, I am not Ministerially responsible as regards non-pensionable teachers in the service at present. I think it is another part of my inheritance that this item of pensions appears under the head of this Vote at all. I presume it is in continuation of some old tradition but I have no Ministerial control whatever over pensions. With regard to non-pensionable teachers at present in the service, at the moment I can give no undertaking that would be worth giving. I think it is a thing to be taken note of, however, that we have it here on testimony which no one questions, that it is the will of those who have claims against the existing Teachers' Pension Fund that the older pensionable teachers might be dealt with by making use of that Fund.
Does the Minister want to Vote now before 10.30 or does he want to report progress?
I want to get the Vote now, but as I have a few minutes left to me I will make use of them. It is quite an error to say—and I like to correct errors even if I have only a few minutes to do so—no matter what may be the theory on the subject that the pensions of Civil Servants under the old British scheme were deferred salaries. I was for twenty-two years in the British Civil Service and when I came out of it my deferred salary disappeared. I got none of it and I do not expect I ever shall.
Before the Vote is put will the Minister say in response to the plea from all parts of the House that he will do what he can with the Minister for Finance or whoever is responsible to see that these older pensionable teachers' position is improved?
Yes, sir, personally, whatever I can do I will do in the matter.