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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 4 Feb 1926

Vol. 14 No. 5

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BILL, 1925.—THIRD STAGE.

Question—"That Section 1 stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
SECTION 2.
In this Act, the expression "child to whom this Act applies" means a child who has attained the age of six years and has not attained the age of fourteen years.

I move:—

In line 2 to delete the work "six" and substitute the word "seven."

This amendment applies to the age at which compulsory school attendance will start. A great many arguments could be used in regard to this particular suggestion. It is a matter of opinion whether six or seven is a suitable age at which to start compulsion. My idea is that six is too young and a child is not sufficiently developed either physically or mentally at that stage of life to be compelled to go to school regularly. I do not think parents should be compelled to send a child of that age regularly to school.

This amendment applies more particularly to rural communities, where children have to travel long distances. If this Bill is passed in its present form it will be compulsory on children to go to school sometimes a distance of two miles. I suggest that a child of six years is not sufficiently developed physically to travel that distance. A child of that age should not be forced to travel two miles to school. I am against compulsory attendance in the case of a child of six years. At the present stage I will not develop that argument any further.

I hope the Minister will not accept this amendment. The Deputy has put forward no arguments in support of it, and there are many good reasons why the precedent, established for over thirty years now, should not be departed from. In the Compulsory School Attendance Act of over thirty-three years ago, six years was the minimum age for attendance, and I never heard of any complaint of that age being too low. As a matter of fact, in England, where they had six years as the minimum age for a great many years, they have now reduced it to five, and one provision of the Act of 1918 is to the effect that no exemption from attendance at school will be granted between the ages of five and fourteen. In the North of Ireland, too, the School Attendance Act fixed the age at six years, but they gave power to the local authority to make by-laws to reduce the age to five years. There has been no argument put forward in support of this amendment, except the argument as regards physical infirmity. That is already provided for.

Apart from that, there is in this country a special reason why compulsion should commence at a very early age. It is part of the policy of the Government to teach a new language in the schools, and it is admitted by everybody who has authority to speak on the matter that if children do not take up the study of a language at an early age, its teaching will never be a success. That is one additional reason why the age should remain as it is in the Bill, and as it has been for the past thirty years and upwards. I hope the Minister will not accept this amendment. I would certainly have moved an amendment to reduce the age to five years, only that I thought it would be more valuable to have a year or two extra at the other end. I think the age should remain as it is.

The question at what age the child should be sent to school in the beginning is one on which a great diversity of opinion exists. I know some parents who believe that it is unnecessary to send a child to school before seven or eight years of age.

Or before fourteen.

No. I am speaking of people who have the greatest anxiety for the educational development of their children. If one were to examine into the reasons why school attendance in this country is not as good as it should be, one will find that it is due, in part, to the fact that children at this tender age are not able to attend regularly.

Children of this age are the best attenders.

They are —in the cities.

Yes, and in the country, too.

I put it to anybody that sending a boy of six years, in a rainy climate like ours, two miles, especially in the winter time, is most unreasonable. While it would be all right if the child were physically fit, it is not good legislation to bring in compulsion to send a child of that age a distance of two miles in the sort of weather we have in Ireland. I speak from experience as the father of a family. I believe I am as anxious for the development and for the betterment of my children as anyone else. I seldom send a child to school before seven years of age and I am closer than two miles to a school. We heard of five years being the law in England. There is no comparison between England and Ireland. England is a very thickly populated country. Here you have a sparsely populated country, with the schools far apart and with the children going out in the early morning in bad weather to walk sometimes over two miles. This is especially important since you brought in the regulation closing the schools in the summer. It is unreasonable to compel a child to go to school before the age of seven.

I am entirely with Deputy O'Connell in maintaining the age of six as the commencement age. I think it would be a very great mistake to alter it. My experience is that at six it is full time for any child to begin to obtain the elements of knowledge. The children are much happier at school than they would be hanging about at home doing nothing. I am quite certain that the majority of parents who have the interest of their children at heart take care that they do attend after they reach six, and it has been shown that the attendance of children of that age is extremely good. I have noticed it myself. I know that the number of children of that age that I see going to school is very high.

And then there is the point, as Deputy O'Connell says, with regard to the study of Irish. The study of Irish must be commenced at a low age if the child is to become perfect in the subject. A person can never become accomplished as a speaker if as a child he or she does not start the study of the language young. We all know that, with regard to the continental languages or any other language, that holds good. I am quite certain that a healthy child of six years of age, with only two miles to go to school, would be much better off at school, and that it would be far better for the child and for the nation generally. I think myself that six years is not too early. I hope that that age will not be altered.

I hope we approach this question not from the party view point, but from the view point of what in our opinion is right. I am approaching it from the view point of the parent, and I do say that there is a good deal in what Deputy O'Connell says in regard to the extraordinary ability of very young children to obtain a speaking knowledge, at least, of the language. I have seen it in my own little children from four years upwards. I was struck by the extraordinary knowledge these youngsters seemed to have gained of the spoken word at least. There is another reason; to my mind, the child who is not compelled to go to school before the age of seven must, if that child is to get any fair chance at all, have very careful home training, and must, before that age, have very great care bestowed upon it. Now, we are not dealing with that class of case at all. We are dealing with the mass of the children of the State; we are dealing with the mass of parents, and we want to ask ourselves what care will the average child get if it is not compelled to go to school before the age of seven. From my own observation I say that the average parent in the country will not bestow on the average child the attention it deserves. Some parents, like Deputy Wilson and others, will give this attention to their children, but the average people do not. If it were only even a very small percentage—if it were only ten per cent. of the whole who did not get that home training—I say it is essential that they should be made get it in school. I do think, no matter what view points are put up, that the age of six is not too high. I think that the child of that age must have some knowledge of the first rudiments, and I am inclined to oppose the amendment. I do it not from a party point of view, but from my experience as an ordinary member of the community.

I feel inclined to oppose Deputy Heffernan's amendment, and this point appeals strongly to me:—If you make seven years the compulsory age for children going to school, with many types of parents it will happen that a child will not be sent to school until he or she is seven years of age, and I think that would tend to create a chaotic state in the infants of the fourth standard of the school. You will have a large number of people who will send their children to school as early as five years of age. I think, in considering this amendment, it bears in an important way on the question. I do not know whether it will be argued that children of six years of age are not able to stand the physical strain of going to school less than two miles and back in the day. I believe they are able to do that, and that it would help us to understand that matter better if we understood what were the average hours a child of six or seven had to spend daily in the primary schools.

I do not attach so much importance to what the child learns beyond the question of being trained in good habits. There are very few houses in which attention can be given to a child of that age to train it to do things regularly. I think it is of little importance what particular subject a child of that age is to be taught, but I think the other thing is of great importance with a view to regulating its habits afterwards. I think it would be unfortunate if we were not to maintain the age of six, and, with Deputy O'Connell, I would prefer to make it earlier.

I am in agreement with this amendment. I believe it would be all right to define a child under the Act as a child of six years of age, if it only applied to urban towns or cities, but I feel to compel a child of six to go two miles, badly clad, and to enter a building, which is not suitable in the great majority of cases, and to be kept in it for hours, would be dangerous to his health. I think it would be doing a wrong to compel children in rural areas to go to school and stay there. I think a child under six is better looked after under the care of his parents, whatever class they may be. I do not say that parents are lax in regard to children of such an age. Some children under six will go to school, undoubtedly, but I would not compel children under seven years of age.

I should ask the Minister for Education, even if he does not accept the amendment of Deputy Heffernan, in its entirety, to accept it in part. I am one of those who believe that a child of six years, living one or two miles away from school, would be injured in its health by being compelled to attend school daily. As Deputy McGoldrick has said, it is all very well for children in urban areas to have some compulsion, but other children of poor parents, who will have to go out perhaps on wet mornings, will have to attend school and soak the wet all day long. To compel a child to do that would be bound to have a debilitating effect, and whatever it may do for education it will not help the physical development of the child. I would be a party to compulsion in the summer months, but I would be against compulsion in the winter months.

It strikes me that the real argument in favour of this amendment is an argument against compulsory attendance. The Bill, which passed its second reading, contained the principle of compulsory attendance and if the principle of compulsion is accepted by the Dáil then a question arises as to what age it should begin. It is said by the supporters of the amendment that six is too young. Deputy Wilson suggested that seven is not too young. Deputy Dr. Hennessy uses a different argument which would apply to seven as well as six, to eight as well as seven, and to nine as well as eight. We are really hitting the principle of compulsion. The statement that the position in England does not apply to Ireland because England is urban and Ireland is rural and that it might be convenient and satisfactory to compel children of six to go to school in urban areas, has been made. It is not so satisfactory in rural areas, but experience is that it is at five, and somebody said at four years of age, that children go to school, not compulsorily, I grant. Still six is one of the best ages for attendance. That is the experience. It is not a matter of theory at all. At six there is the best attendance, even in the winter, and in rural areas. We are asked not to compare Irish conditions with conditions in England. May we compare Irish conditions with the conditions in Italy, Norway, Switzerland, or France, all agricultural countries?

There is no rain there.

Then it is a question of rain. They have to live in Ireland, whether as children or men and women, and people have survived in a rainy climate. Is it suggested in this amendment, as it is often suggested by the oldest inhabitant, that the country is getting wetter and wetter? That does not affect the argument. It is quite possible to say—in fact it is provided in the Bill—that recognition would be given to non-attendance in extraordinary cases or in cases where there is reasonable impediment. These factors must be taken into account, but you must fix an age, and the only question is whether it is going to be five, or six, or seven, or what other age. Practice shows that six years of age is rather higher than lower in other countries, and that, as a matter of fact, the best average attendance is round about six years of age, so that the contention of the opponents of the age of six, on the score of inability to attend because of the age, obviously does not hold. I would strongly press the necessity of not agreeing to raising the age from six. Whatever consideration will have to be given to non-attendance should include consideration of the youth and physical condition of the child.

I would like to ask the Minister whether in the new section which he intends to propose he does not take power which would, in a sense, meet Deputy Heffernan's point of view. He is asking for power to limit the application of the Act to particular parts of the Saorstát. In this way local representations might be considered in such places as, for instance, portions of Deputy McGoldrick's constituency.

I was rather surprised at the remarks of Deputy Dr. Hennessy. I would like to know whether we are to take his opinion as authoritative and as being the result of examination and experience. If we are to do so, I desire to point out that they are quite contrary to the experience of those who are charged with the medical inspection of children in parts of the rural areas in England. I spoke of the position in England, and I was met by the statement that England is thickly populated and that there is no analogy between the two countries. This age of five holds good for rural as well as urban areas in England. There are areas in England where the children have to travel two or three miles to school, and I believe that in certain portions of rural areas in England the schools are further apart than they are in this country. That is true of places like Cornwall, Devonshire, and portions of Yorkshire. This question of distance was the subject of special investigation by the Chief Medical Officer of the British Board of Education within the past year or two. He asked the various medical officers, especially those in rural areas, to report with regard to the effect on children of having to travel certain distances to school. The report, generally speaking, was to the effect that there was no physical disadvantage to the children and that, indeed, it was the other way about. "On the whole," he says himself, "there is not much direct evidence that the journey to school is of itself a determining factor (in the health of the school child)." Dr. Robinson mentions that there is no evidence that distance is a factor in producing poor physique. Dr. Thomson considers the evidence available as being in favour of the child who lives at a distance, being healthier and more active (than others). He puts forward a view that such children are, in fact, less susceptible to colds and infectious disease, and this view is borne out by teachers. The main point is that children are not compelled to travel in inclement weather.

An inclement day would be a reasonable excuse for non-attendance, but that is not what is asked in the amendment. What is asked in the amendment is that no child, in Dublin, Donegal or anywhere else, would be compelled to go to school until seven years of age. Anybody who knows the country, knows that children usually go to school at the age of five. That is the average entering age in rural parts, and they go much earlier in the city. They go at the age of three or four, and parents are very often glad to get shut of them for a while at that age. The average age in the country is five, and, in those areas in which compulsion has been adopted for over thirty years, has Deputy Wilson or Deputy Heffernan ever heard of any agitation amongst parents claiming that that age was too low? Did they ever regard it as a grievance up to this? I never heard that they did.

I think that what has been found in practice for over thirty years to be suitable, and what we know is the practice in the countries referred to by Deputy Johnson, should not be lightly departed from, because it happens that in Deputy McGoldrick's area there is an undue proportion of wet mornings. I have always admitted that school buildings are not everything that they ought to be, but I have a doubt as to whether some school buildings, such as they are, are not better than some of the houses in which people have to keep their children. I think that very often children are better off in the schoolyard than at home. With regard to the point which Deputy McGoldrick made about taking children away from their parental influence, I would point out that the time during which they are away from parental influence is comparatively small. If the parental influence is good I do not believe that it will suffer from the fact that children are in school for a portion of the day. I hope that the Minister will not accept the amendment, and that Deputy Heffernan will not press it.

I intend to press the amendment. The point which I desire to emphasise is that there is nothing in the amendment preventing parents from sending their children to school at any age they like, but it is when the promoters of the Bill start to deal with the question of compulsion that we differ from them. Deputy Johnson says that, having accepted the principle of compulsion on the Second Reading of the Bill, we have got to accept the age of six.

I said nothing of the kind. I thought I made it clear that having accepted the principle of compulsion, the question arises as to what the age is to be.

That is what we are trying to decide. Having accepted the principle of compulsion, it is for us to decide the ages within which the principle is to be applied. In dealing with the question of exposure we must take into account the fact that we have one of the wettest climates in the world. We make comparisons with sunny Italy and Switzerland.

You might say Norway even, because it is easier for children to get to school on the dry, frozen ground there than on the wet, sloppy ground in Ireland.

Scotland is possibly less wet than Ireland.

We hold the record.

Deputy O'Connell dealt lightly with the number of hours that a child is away from home. He talked about four hours. My recollection of going to school at that age was that I was away from home at nine o'clock in the morning until five or six in the evening.

That explains everything.

What was the Deputy doing?

It is customary for two or three children to go to school together from the one house, and if the infants are let out from school at 2.30 the elderly children are generally kept until 3.30 or 4—at least they were in my time. Very often the infant child has to wait until the elder children come out, and is then away from home from 9 o'clock in the morning until five in the evening. There is also the question of sustenance. The children are not provided with any adequate food, such as they require at that age, between the hours of nine and five. Generally all they get is a scanty lunch. If we were able to accompany this compulsion with the provision of school lunches, there might be a good deal of justification for it, but I see no prospect of such provision, nor am I in favour of it in the present financial condition of the country. Therefore I do not see that any strong argument has been put forward in favour of compulsory attendance at six years of age.

Deputy O'Connell referred to the age at which children attend the town schools. It is a cause of complaint on the part of many teachers that parents are actually turning the schools into nurseries. They are getting rid of the difficulty of looking after the children by sending them to school at an age when they are unable to look after themselves and when they should be in charge of the parents. There is a school of thought at present which maintains that children should not be taught anything until they reach the age of about ten years. They maintain that children are better left alone to develop naturally, to assimilate the knowledge that they see around them, and that no attempt should be made to deal with them by means of school books until they reach the age of ten years. The Minister may laugh at me, but I am sure he knows that that is the case. There may be something in that. I am not inclined to disagree with the argument that children at that age may imbibe from books so rapidly that they make up in two or three years what they lost in the previous four years. I am only giving that as an illustration; I am not favouring it, because I have given it no study. I still maintain that seven years of age is sufficiently early to start compulsion. There is nothing to prevent the parents sending their children to school at five or six, or at any age at which they are physically fit, but I maintain, from the point of view of health and general welfare, that we should not impose compulsion before seven years of age.

One's commercial training leads one to look at this question from a somewhat different aspect than that from which it has been dealt. At present we find that children going to school at the age of six leave at the age of fourteen with an average standard of education something between the fourth and the fifth standard. It is generally recognised that that is too low, as those children are barely able to read and, in many cases, make a very poor attempt at writing. These boys and girls have had eight years of school life. The proposal now is to take away one of the eight years—to take one-eighth away.

What effect is that going to have on the education of such children? Is it not going to lower the standard of education still further? To my mind it is obvious that it is. What we want to try and achieve is something that will raise the standard. It will be generally conceded that the standard of education of the average boy and girl leaving the National school to-day is very much too low and that it wants to be raised. This amendment is going the other way. As one who has some experience in this matter, I wish to say that if you lower the standard of education of the average worker you are not alone going to handicap the worker in his or her walk of life, but you are going to handicap the industry of the country that we are all trying to develop. Some Deputies may question that, but most of our industries and particularly our staple industry of agriculture, are subject to world-wide competition which is getting wider and keener every day. It has been pointed out in connection with Bills affecting the agricultural industry that a higher standard of education is necessary amongst the workers in that industry in order that it may be able to face competition in the market on the other side. I would ask Deputies to look at this question from that point of view. To my mind, it is the most serious point of view. We want to do everything that will help to develop the trade of the country, and anything that lowers the standard of education of the workers is handicapping the trade of the country. Therefore, I urgently press on Deputies that instead of raising the school age from six to seven, the tendency ought to be in the other direction, and I trust the amendment will not be pressed.

We seem to be very much at sixes and sevens about this amendment. There seems to be very little in the question of one year's difference at first glance, but I think there is a great deal of difference at that age between one year and another. At one time I learned in my Catechism that one reached the use of reason at seven years. I think it would be a wise thing to send children to school before they reach that age. I do not see any reason to depart from what has been stated here to have been the age at which most of the children at present go to school. Having admitted the principle of compulsion by passing the Second Reading of this Bill, the question is at what age shall compulsion be applied? There is a great deal in what Deputy Good said, that if compulsion is to be applied at the age of seven, instead of at the age of six, it might—I do not say it will—deprive the average child of one-eighth of his or her primary education. As has been stated from the Farmers' Benches, there is, of course, nothing to prevent parents sending their children to school at an earlier age if they so desire. But if the age of compulsory attendance is stereotyped at seven years, I do not think there can be any doubt in the mind of any Deputy that many children will not be sent to school before they reach that age. I certainly will not support this amendment.

From the arguments advanced in the course of the debate I am compelled to disagree in one respect with Deputy O'Connell, and that is that we are going to conclude the Committee Stage of this Bill to-morrow. This, I suppose, would have been looked upon as one of the non-contentious amendments. I wonder what will happen when we come to the next amendment. I doubt if we will get beyond it by to-morrow afternoon.

Mr. O'CONNELL

You might be disappointed there, too.

I hope so. Deputy Heffernan complained with a great deal of heat that his liberty, so to speak, was being infringed because when he voted for compulsion on the Second Stage he wanted to make it quite clear that he voted for the general principle, and not for compulsion in detail. I think if you look at the general trend, not so much of this amendment, but of the numerous amendments Deputy Heffernan has down, the trend of all is to make this compulsory Bill, as a whole, an absolute nullity, so far as securing better attendance at school is concerned. He did not accept the very eminent authority quoted by him, namely, that there are educational authorities who think that a person should not be taught anything through books up to ten years of age. I know that at least one very eminent modern authority thought twelve years was the proper age at which to introduce books to children. I confess that that same authority did not believe in schools. I am not quite clear as to whether Deputy Heffernan is a real disciple of his or not.

What are the arguments? They are principally two. One is the physical condition of the children at the age of six, and the other is the distance. Really, they are not two different arguments, but the effect one consideration has on the other. As far as the physical condition of the children is concerned, or the distance, I suggest that the place to discuss that is not on this particular section but on Section 4. I do not object to it being discussed here, but I feel that we will have the same discussion in another form when we come to Section 4. I hope the same arguments will not be repeated. If there was any doubt in our minds at all as to what age we should fix, our doubts were not between six and seven. We varied between five and six. The fact is, that in most countries in Europe six has been made the starting age. I admit that is not an argument why we should adopt it here, but we should consider our own particular circumstances.

When I was in Norway, they told me it was the wettest country in Europe. I find, for the purpose of this argument, it is apparently one of the driest. In the same way, apparently, Scotland enjoys a climate that almost rivals sunny Italy for the purposes of advancing this particular argument. Six is not the age in Scotland or in Norway. Five is the age in Scotland and Norway. I admit that is no reason why we should adopt it here. When we are asked to change the age from six to seven, better arguments should be brought forward than the vague generalities talked here. As to the suggestion of keeping children at home in the country, I would like to know what kind of a child, at the age of six, does not get twice the amount of physical exercise it would get going two miles to school and two miles back. If you divide the amount of physical exercise the child gets in at home, it more than covers that distance.

Deputy Wilson, I think, suggested that the reason for bad attendance was that such an early age was fixed. As has been pointed out by other Deputies, the bad attendance is not at the age of five or six, but from eleven to fourteen years in all the schools. I think that shows that there is very little in the argument about the physical difficulties that have to be overcome.

From another point of view, I am rather sorry we did not put down the age of five, because then I am quite sure we would have got six, just as I am quite sure that if we put down seven, there would be an amendment from Deputy Heffernan suggesting the age of eight.

Why Deputy Heffernan?

Because he put down this amendment, and judging from the general tenor of his amendments. I would like if children could attend at five or earlier. I think there is a suggestion that the best age for learning languages, especially new languages—and now we have determined to teach two new languages—is from four to eight.

Which is the second new language?

There are two languages anyway and the best time for learning these languages is from four to eight. Deputy Heffernan now proposes to deprive us really of all these years except one, as he says he does not want compulsion. It is compulsion that we are really discussing in this Bill and nothing else. There are many reasons why we might have suggested the age of five, and I certainly feel in certain circumstances it may be justifiable, but on the whole it was thought better, and that there is a better chance of getting the Act administered properly, if we took the clean cut at six and made that compulsory. There was no intention in our mind at all of hesitating between six and seven. It was really between five and six. Deputy Baxter made the suggestion why not take under this section—not so much under the section but in reference to the age of six and seven —pretty much the same power that we propose to take under the new suggested Section 23. I suggest he would look at it in this way: if there was no suggestion of taking power of that kind it would not apply between the ages of six and seven but between the ages of five and six. I do not, for various reasons, intend to ask for that power, and I do not think it should be granted. I think you will have a better chance of working the Act if you stick to the age of six and make that the compulsory age.

Question put and declared negatived, Deputies Heffernan and Connor Hogan dissenting.

I move Amendment 2:—

To delete the section and substitute a new section as follows:—

(1) In this Act, save as hereinafter provided, the expression "child to whom this Act applies." means a person who has attained the age of six years and has not attained the age of sixteen years.

(2) A person who has not attained the age of sixteen years but has attained the age of fourteen years and has been granted, in accordance with regulations made by the Minister, a certificate that he has attained a prescribed standard of education shall not be deemed to be a person to whom this Act applies for the purpose of the provisions of this Act relating to attendance at a national or other suitable school if and so long as he is under apprenticeship in accordance with a scheme approved by the Minister, or is receiving technical or post-elementary education, or, being in employment, is in attendance at a specified course or courses of instruction approved by the Minister, during a specified number of hours per year.

I think it will be admitted that this amendment is the most important one that is to be proposed in connection with the whole Bill. I propose it because I felt that on the occasion of the Second Reading, and on several other occasions on which the matter of education was before the Dáil, that there was a general feeling and a general expression of opinion that the age at which children leave school—the age up to which they are compelled to attend school—was too low. I believe that in proposing the amendment I am giving expression to that general feeling of members in all parts of the House. At this early stage of these discussions I want to re-echo what Deputy Gorey said: that none of these amendments are put in a party spirit or will be discussed in a party spirit as far as I am concerned in any case. I feel that fourteen is too early an age to cast a child aside without any care as to its future welfare. That, in effect, is what the position has been up to this. The two years from fourteen to sixteen are, by the experience of a great many who have made a deep study of educational matters in this and other countries, taken to be almost the two most important years in the child's life. It is from that period that most can be done towards shaping the child's character and its inclinations especially in the direction of a vocational career. Up to the age of fourteen the child gets an education of a more or less elementary type without any attempt at specialisation or giving it in any way a vocational character, and it is absolutely necessary, of course, that that should be so. It is at this age that an attempt can be made successfully to direct the mind of the child towards the occupation which he or she is to follow as a future citizen.

As regards this amendment, I hope I shall have the solid support of those who represent the principal industry in this country, because it is the future agriculturists of the country who will be mainly affected by it. Many representatives of the Farmers' Party, Deputy Baxter especially, have from time to time pointed out that the education given or attempted to be given by our agricultural instructors throughout the country is lost to a great extent—that it is wasted because the child has not reached the stage of education at which he can benefit by that instruction. It is during these two years that the child's mind, in the rural areas especially, can be most successfully directed towards agricultural education, and towards getting the necessary foundation and the necessary knowledge of the processes of agriculture and of the science underlying it. This amendment had to be framed in a particular way in order to bring it within the scope of the Bill, but it is not my intention that children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen should be compelled to undergo what is sometimes called primary education. That is not the intention of the amendment. It will be necessary, to some extent in any case, to reorganise our educational institutions and our teaching power in order to deal specially with those children if we are to get them into the schools. But that can be done and it does not present any great difficulty.

If we seek to discover what is done in other countries we will find that the tendency in all modern progressive countries is to take special care of the child between the age of fourteen and sixteen. In proposing this increase in the school age we are not travelling on unexplored ground. We have experience on which we can fall back. A very interesting expriment was made in one of the Canadian States in the year 1919. There was contained in their Compulsory School Attendance Bill a special provision with regard to adolescent children under which children from the age of fourteen to sixteen were specially compelled to attend school. Certain exemptions were made. In the case of a child employed in or about the home of its parents or guardian he got what is called a home certificate, and in certain circumstances where a child was in a particular type of employment he got an exemption also, but for these children special part-time courses were instituted at which they had to attend for not less than four hundred hours per year. While that was made compulsory, there was also taken in the same Bill, powers to compel children up to the age of eighteen to attend part-time or special courses for special purposes.

That was in 1919, and the report of the Minister for Education for that province of Ontario for 1923 tells us how the Act has worked out. It will be interesting to have that experience before us in coming to a decision on this particular question here. This is an extract from the report:—

"The friends of education throughout the province have been watching with great interest the operation of the legislation introduced by the Hon. Dr. Cody in 1919, with a view to securing greater regularity of attendance, and to extend the period of instruction. As he pointed out in introducing his Bill, the efficiency of a school depends very largely upon the extent to which children avail themselves of the instruction offered. It is manifest that, however good the schools, they have no direct influence on children who are outside their doors. Sufficient time has now elapsed to show results from this legislation. The enrolment in the elementary schools has now risen to 601,485, which is twenty-one per cent. of the entire population of the province."

The population of Ontario is not quite 3,000,000—it is 2,933,000—and they have enrolled in their elementary schools over 601,000. Our population is something like 3,200,000 and yet we have enrolled something less than 500,000 in our primary schools. Twenty-two per cent. of the population are enrolled in the primary schools. The percentage here would be about 16. The report goes on to say that the attendance is at a very high figure. It says:

"The enrolment in the secondary schools has risen to 60,395, and shows an increase of 41 per cent. during the two years of the operation of the Adolescent School Attendance Act. The increased attendance since the Adolescent School Attendance Act became operative, particularly noticeable in the upper forms of the elementary schools, and in the lower forms of the secondary schools, would indicate that many juveniles who formerly spent the years of their early adolescence in unnecessary employments, often intermittent and unprofitable, or in actual idleness, are now under systematic training and discipline. The number of young people between 14 and 16 years of age who have applied for home permits"—That is the special exemption allowed under the Act—"or for work certificates has been relatively small, so small in fact that it has been found unnecessary to establish the part-time classes required under the terms of the Act in all but the largest of the urban centres. Progress has been made during the year in organising such classes."

And he says:

"The classes have been established and conducted with little or no disturbance of employment relations and with a minimum of friction. Employers co-operated freely and willingly with the school authorities in making adjustments for the time required for school attendance. The pupils themselves have been quick to realise the benefits which they are receiving from the instruction in these classes. As evidence of this it is pointed out that many of those who are freed from the necessity of attending as they reach the age of 16 ask to be allowed to remain in the classes."

That is the experience of putting into operation legislation such as would be the case if this amendment were accepted, in a country which has a smaller population than ours, with a larger area. The area of the province is something like three times the size of ours, and the population much more scattered than ours. The total expenditure on primary education in that province is £8,000,000—double what ours is. Now these are the people with whom our agriculturists have to compete in the British market, and they have thought and found that it pays them to educate their young people up to the age of 16 years. The plea has been made more than once that the children of the rural areas should be taught rural science and the elements underlying agriculture, and I hold that this is specially and eminently the time and the age when that education can be more successfully imparted, and for that reason I expect and hope that the Farmers' Party will be the strongest supporters of this amendment.

In urban areas there is as great a need for technical education fitting young boys and young girls for industrial occupations. Now there is the question of cost that was mentioned on the occasion of the Second Reading. That is the only possible objection that I can imagine that can be raised to this amendment. The Minister for Finance mentioned certain figures. I do not agree that that amount will at all be necessary, if the reorganisation which is possible in education is carried out. We have in this country, despite what Deputy McGoldrick and Deputy Heffernan said. far too many separate schools, and in consequence of that much of the efforts and much of the time of the available teaching staff is wasted. We hear of large classes and of the difficulty of dealing with large classes. The difficulty is not so much dealing with large classes as dealing with a large number of different classes. That is the real problem we have to meet, and there is room for very great economy in the teaching power in the country. If there is a suitable reorganisation of our present resources made, I do not believe that there will be that big expenditure foreshadowed by the Minister for Finance in putting this into operation. Let us take the facts.

I wonder how many Deputies realise what are the facts with regard to our school buildings and separate schools. There are eighty-three per cent. of the schools in this country taught either by one teacher or two teachers. They are what is called one-teacher schools or two-teacher schools. The figures are 4,680 out of a total of 5,636, and there is no doubt, at least in my mind, that one thousand of these schools are superfluous as separate schools. In many of these schools the teachers are employed dealing with five or six different standards in which the total number of children does not reach 30. As I say, there is room there for very great economy of teaching power. Take two adjoining schools where you have 45 children in each school—boys and girls' schools—amalgamate them and you have a school of 90. There are two teachers in each of these schools at the present time, which gives four teachers in all. The work of the amalgamated school could be more effectively done by three teachers than the teaching is now done in the separate schools by four. One teacher could be set free to do a particular type of work.

We have, fortunately, a great many of our teachers specially trained to deal with rural science teaching. There has been a special effort in that direction for eight or nine years, and teaching staff and power are available with a certain amount of organisation which is necessary. But I do not think we should allow ourselves to be frightened by any idea that there is a big abnormal expenditure involved in putting this amendment into operation. If there was, there is no shadow of doubt in my mind—and I am sure this opinion is held by many people here, and in the country—that there is nothing in which money could be better spent, or that would bring a better return than money spent on education, and especially in educating children of this age, when it can be shown that they are more or less at a loose end. That is the time that children released from school with no employment to go to very often get into mischief, and it is a time that we should be specially careful to keep a watchful eye over them and to guide them in the proper direction with regard to their future welfare as citizens. I do hope that there will be general expression of opinion and that it will be proved by members of the Dáil that their speeches, which we have often listened to in favour of the betterment of education in the country, will not prove to be merely lip-service to education, but that now that the opportunity is given to them they will avail of that opportunity and support this amendment.

This amendment is, I think it is only fair to Deputy O'Connell to say, certainly very clever. I want to raise at the outset the question as to whether or not the implications of the amendment are not such as to raise a question of expenditure of money. In discussing the amendment, I think we cannot leave aside what is included in it namely, that the Minister for Education must make provision for post-primary education. If you, sir, say that there is no question——

I do not say that there is no question of money involved, but I say that the Minister would not be directly compelled, if this amendment were accepted, to provide money for people to get a post-elementary education.

He would not be compelled to provide it?

Not under this amendment, as drafted.

Few people are more competent, from practically every point of view, than Deputy O'Connell to speak on a matter of education. He can speak as a teacher and as one in contact with the teachers; he can speak as a parent and an educationalist, and all round he has a sincere desire to improve the standard of education. I would be very glad if I could support him in this amendment. With a good deal of what he said I am in agreement, and I would sincerely desire that conditions in this country at present were such as would warrant us taking this step. Better education is required. We want to raise the standard of education all round. Our farmers want it to enable them to compete with the farmers in other countries. The rising generation want it to enable them to give better services to their country than is possible when the standard of education is low. But when we consider the question of compelling parents to send their children to school, we have to ask ourselves how far is compulsion in this matter advisable, how far will it give us good results, and how far can the country economically afford to take the step that Deputy O'Connell suggests. He has made reference to conditions in Canada, what is being done there and what was done there how much Canada is spending on education compared with what we are spending. I suggest that Canada is spending a very large sum on education because years ago Canada took steps to compel the children to attend school. The position to-day is that the standard of education all round is considerably raised, the standard of education of the parents as well as the children, and the capacity of the people to do better business and to give better service is improved because of this action taken years ago. The taxable capacity of Canada to-day is greater than ours for that reason. Their position is such that they can afford to spend more on education than we can at the moment.

I agree that we should spend more on education if it were possible, if we could carry the burden, but we have to ask ourselves what is the capacity of the people, and are they able to contribute more to educational services than they contribute at present. We are up against that, and it would be inadvisable that we should make a decision based on partial knowledge of what a country like Canada has been doing under conditions very different from ours. If we could afford to spend eight millions on education it would be right that we should do so.

There is no need.

I believe it would give a return in time, but to ask us to start out to-day to compel the children to attend school up to the age of sixteen in the rural districts in this, our first venture in the matter of compulsory attendance, is, I think, asking something which is inadvisable. The results will not be satisfactory. After a time, when the parents have tasted of this, when they will have accepted it, that there is no alternative but to send their children to school, after a few years, when attention on the part of the parents to the intervention of the State will bring satisfactory and beneficial results, the mentality of our people will be altered, at least to some extent, and if we then feel that there is a necessity for going a little further in that direction, such a step would be much more acceptable than at present.

I feel that that is one strong point that can be urged against the amendment. Deputy O'Connell knows the conditions in the rural districts as well as most Deputies. These conditions, I suggest, differ from those in Canada. When Deputy O'Connell speaks of the co-operation of employers in Canada with the authorities in the matter of compulsory attendance above fourteen years of age, he must recognise that you cannot speak of employers in the same sense in this country as in Canada. In our rural districts to a great extent employers are unknown. The parents are the people who are responsible for sending the children out. They are the people who are demanding their services after school hours and after their time at school is finished, and to ask these people, many of whom were accustomed to get their children to work on their small farms at the age of twelve, and sometimes at eight and ten, to send them to school up to the age of sixteen, is, I suggest to Deputy O'Connell, asking something that is reasonable under present economic conditions. The small farmer is very hard pressed at present. He has had the service of his children in the past. His own upbringing, as a matter of fact, has been such that the first call for his services was at home, and if that is to be changed by one grand sweep I feel that we will have reactions that will be unsatisfactory from the educational point of view. It would be better to advance by stages. We will get better results later on from the experience the parents will have from the operation of this measure, the experience of better education and a better chance of education. If that will not bring us a mentality that will induce parents voluntarily to agree to raise the school attendance age, I do not think the acceptance of this amendment will.

I think Deputy Baxter is under a misapprehension as to the effects of the amendment.

I acknowledge that he has approached it from a point of view that must have some appeal to a large number of people, but he has assumed, especially in the last portion of his remarks, that the effect of the amendment was to deprive parents of the services of their boys from 14 years of age and that that is going to be resented. I think the amendment is of very great importance and that it is of very great importance that it should be accepted by the Dáil. The proposition in the Bill is that the age of 14 shall be the limit at which obligatory attendance at school will be provided for. That is to say, so far as we are concerned and so far as the law goes, after 14 years of age a boy or girl will be free to evade and avoid all attendance at systematic instruction.

Provided he or she has reached a certain standard.

No, 14 years of age is the maximum at which there is an obligation in any case. Our proposition is that the age should be 16, that there should be obligatory attendance at some systematic course of instruction up to 16 years of age, and we are prepared to include in that definition employment, provided that in addition to ordinary employment, there shall be at least a certain specified number of hours' attendance at a certain specified course of instruction in the year. It is for the Minister to say how many hours that should be and what shall be the specified course. There you have the opportunity of leaving a very large discretion with the Minister, and while accepting the general principles of compulsory attendance at school or at a course of instruction, there is still an opportunity given for boys or girls to go to employment after 14 provided they attend some systematic course of instruction which has the approval of the Minister, for a specified number of hours in the year, that number being possibly in the early stages very small and possibly the course of instruction being of less duration and of less importance in the early stages. By accepting the amendment the Dáil will be making it clear that so far as we can lay it down, the youth of this country will be better educated in the future than in the past and that the habit of learning will be engendered up to the age of 16.

I think it is most people's experience that during those years looseness very often destroys all the effect of any previous training in a school. A few hours of work, very often no work at all, and then idleness, listlessness and carelessness. These are the dangerous periods where very much of the benefit derived during the earlier school age is lost. The alternative to something of this kind is, of course, that after 14, the boy or girl will enter employment if he or she can get it, be employed by their parents if they have anything for them to do, or will not be employed. It is very largely to meet the case of those who are not employed that we want to provide for some obligation to attend a course of instruction. I would very much welcome even after 16 years of age—17, 18, even up to 25 years of age —where people are on unemployment pay, that they would be required to attend courses of instruction at technical schools. I would desire that the mind should be occupied even at the ages of 20 and 25, but particularly is that necessary when you come to the ages of 14, 15 and 16. I do not think that the extra cost upon the State of this provision would be anything like so much as Deputy Baxter seems to suggest. Let us remember that the schools are wasted very largely at present. Much of the time they are empty and not used, and so far as school buildings are concerned, and facilities in respect of buildings, there is plenty of opportunity at present.

Might I point out to Deputy Johnson one very important point in the amendment—that they must have attained a certain standard. He would compel them to go after 14 if they had not attained a certain standard.

I would hope everybody would agree to that, even Deputy Heffernan, who is not here. The standard is again a matter which is in the discretion of the Minister, and if it is found that the prescribed standard is going to create a hardship, then the Minister will reduce the standard—I hope not too low—but that is not the point Deputy Baxter need fear. The standard will never be so high I am afraid, and if we have agreed, as we have, that there shall be obligatory attendance up to 14 from 6, I am very well satisfied that the standard will be arrived at by practically all the children likely to be affected.

Progress reported.
The Committee to sit again to-morrow.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. to 12 o'clock on Friday, February 5.
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