In Committee on Finance. - Vote 45—Office of the Minister for Education. – Dáil Éireann (10th Dáil) – Thursday, 16 Mar 1939

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 45—Office of the Minister for Education.

Aire Oideachais (Tomás O Deirg)

Tairigim:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £127,632 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1940, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Oideachais.

That a sum not exceeding £127,632 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1940, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education.

Tá beart de sheacht vótaí—uimhreacha a 45 go 51—déanta de sna Meastacháin i gcóir Seirbhísí an Oideachais atá agam á chur fé bhráid na Dála anois, ag tnúth le n-a nglacadh. Is é iomlán an tsoláthair i mbliana £4,913,952, agus sin £81,323 de bhreis ar an mbliain anuiridh.

Má glactar na vótaí insan órd ina bhfuilid i leabhar na Meastachán, tabharfar fé ndear go bhfuil £5,381 de bhreis ar chostas riaghalachais agus cigireachta. Do b'éigean dom uimhir na n-oifigeach cléireachais i mBrainnse an Bhun-Oideachais do mhéadú, chun luathú le hobair na hOifige, obair atá imithe i líonmhaireacht agus i gcas-tramacht. I leith na cigireachta, tá beirt chigiri de bhreis curtha le Brainnse an Mheadhon-Oideachais; agus duine le Brainnse an Oideachais Teicniciúla.

Is é iomlán vóta an Bun-Oideachais £3,749,697, agus sin £18,322 de bhreis. B'fhéidir ná beadh ann ach an ceart dom a chur in iúl don Dáil nach dóigh liom go dtaisbeáneann an bhreis bheag so an toradh deireannach ar obair na bliana le n-a bhfuil coinne agam. Tá dá bheartúchán dá iniúchadh agam fé láthair, agus, dar liom, cuirfidh sin d'fhiachaibh orm teacht ós cóir na Dála arís i mbliana le Meastachán Breise. Leis an ndroch-bhail atá ar mhúinteóiríbh scurtha a bhaineas an ceann is tábhachtaighe aca san; fuarathas nár leór an méid a dheineas cheana chun a gcás san do riar. Tá an uimhir leanbhaí ar scoil ag laghdú fós, agus níl aon tsúil, anois, go bhféadfar an oiread múinteóirí agus a bhíodh ann roinnt bheag blian ó shoin do chur ag obair arís. Taisbeánann na huimhreacha is deireannaighe go raibh tuairim 260 fear-oide agus 195 ban-oide gan post seasamhach an chéad lá de Mhí Mhárta 1939; agus go raibh 37 eile de bhan-oidíbh oilte ag obair mar Mháistreásaíbh Conganta Sóisearacha. Agus raghaidh donacht mhór ar an suidheamh so i Mí Iúil seo chugainn, nuair a thiocfas 62 fhear-oide eile agus 138 mban-oide eile amach agus a bheid san ina n-iarrthóiríbh ar fholúntasaíbh insna Bun-scoileannaibh. Na beartúcháin bhreise seo atá luaidhte agam chun na faidhbe do réiteach, tá coinne agam go bhféadfar iad do chur ar fáil sara fada. Ní nach iongnadh níorbh fhéidir costas na mbeartúchán san do chur insna meastacháin seo atá ós bhúr gcóir, agus is deimhin, nách mór, go gcaithfear meastacháin bhreise do thoirbhirt, agus, an uair sin, beidh caoi agam ar a mhíniú don Dáil cad é atá ceaptha chun faidhbe seo na díth-oibre imeasc múinteóirí do réiteach.

Is é an dara borradh a raghaidh i bhfeidhm ar chaiteachas so an Bhun-Oideachais i hbliana, go gcuirfear i ngníomh an chuid sin de Thuarasgabháil Choimisiúin Iniúchta Mhodha na Scol Ceartúcháin agus Saothair le n-a moltar go n-íocfaí as deóntaisíbh Stáit an Bhun-Oideachais costas oideachais literadha; agus gan é íoc as gnáth-dheóntaisíbh i gcóir cothuigthe, etc. Tá áireamh ar shocruithe i geóir múinteóireachta insna scoileannaibh seo á dhéanamh fé láthair, agus, chóm luath is bheidh sé críochnuithe, socróchar ar mhalartú riaghluithe i gcóir na múinteóirí agus a n-íocaíocht ar choingheallachaibh a bheidh cosúil le gnáth-choinghill na mBun-Scol.

Déanfar gnáth-mhúinteóir Náisiúnta de gach múinteóir aca a breathfar a bheith oilte go leór chuige; cuirfear ar shuidheamh pinsiúin iad, agus iocfaidh Brainnse an Bhun-Oideachais a dtuarastal. Ní féidir a chostas san a áireamh go dtí go mbeidh an t-áireamh iomlán againn le haghaidh gach scoile, acht is cosúil gur tuairim £30,000 sa bhliain a bhéas ann. Nuair a bhéas an scéal ullamh le cur i ngníomh beidh me ag iarraidh udaráis ar an nDáil i gcóir an chostais a bhéas riachtanach.

Bíodh go mbeidh costas breise ag gabháil leis na tairiscintí a bhaineas le réiteach fadhb na n-oidí díomhaoine, cúiteóchar an bhreis sin le sábháil a dhéanamh ar na Coláistí Oiliúna agus ar na Coláistí Ullmhúcháin toisc níos lugha mac léighinn a bheith ionnta. £8,000 méid na sábhála sin ar na Coláistí Oiliúna sa bhliain 1939-40 agus £2,527 ar na Coláistí Ullmhúcháin i gcomparáid leis an mbliain 1938-39.

Chífear nach bhfuil aon tagairt i mbliana do dheontaisíbh le haghaidh Scoláir-Oidí. Níl a thuille gnó againn den mhodh sin chun abhair oidí d'fháil agus ní glacfar insna Colaistí Oiliúna feasta ach iarrthóirí ó sna Coláistí Ullmhúcháin agus ón scrúdú comórtais poiblidhe.

Tá fo-mhír nua (A. 4) againn den chéad uair i vóta an Bhun-Oideachais chun deontaisi a thabhairt do Choláisti Gaedhilge ar son cúrsaí Gaedhilge d'oidí Náisiúnta. As vóta an Ghairm-Oideachais a hioctaí na dcontaisí sin go dtí seo, ach ceaptar nach bhfuil an t-éilcamh sin feiliúnach don vóta úd. Is mór an tairbhe ath-chúrsaí Gaedhilge na gColáistí sin do mhúinteoirí a chaitheas cuid dá laethanta saoire samhraidh sa Ghaedhealtacht.

Tá laghdú de £4,313 (ó £10,805 go £6,492) ar chostaisí taistil ar muir agus ar tír. 'Sé is bun leis an deifríocht mór ná an costas neamh-choitchoianta a bhain le scoláirí do thabhairt ó cheanntar Chroimglinn — Cammuighe chun scoileanna cathrach i mbliana, go dtí go mbeidh scoileanna nua tógtha dhóibh sa nua-cheanntar líonmhar sin. Bhí súil againn go mbeadh na scoileanna nua san ullamh um Cháisc. ach is deallrathach anois ná beidh siad ullamh roimh dheire saoire an tsamhraidh.

Meastar go gcosnóchaidh téidheamh is glanadh na mBun-Scoileanna £45,000 an bhliain seo chughainn, sin breis de £15,000. Tá sé ráite agam cheana san Teach seo go bhfuil fonn orm deire chur leis an tsean-nós a bhí i bhfeidhm i bhfurmhór na scoileanna le n-a nglanadh cuid de na daltaí an scoil tar éis obair an lae. Chun deire do chur leis sin do bhogas an tAire Airgeadais chun teora an deontais d'árdú ó £14,400 go £65,000 agus dubhras leis na bainisteóiríbh go n-íocfadh an Stát leath an chostais dá bhfostóchaidís mná oibre nó lucht oibre eile chun an glanadh do dhéanamh ar thuarastal.

De bharr an chleachtadh atá againn anois tá ceist gheinearálta téidheamh agus glanadh na scoileanna á breithniú arís agus tá súil againn go gceapfar scéim chun na scoileanna do théidheamh agus do ghlanadh go sásúil.

Tá item nua annso den chéad — £16,500 le haghaidh deontaisí chun leabhra scoile do sholáthar in aisce do leanbhaí bochta. Bhí an scéal so á phléidhe go minic cheana san Teach seo, agus is áthas liom a rádh go bhfuil tús déanta ar aon chuma chun an t-ualach sin d'éadtromú do na bochtaibh.

Le linn na seacht mblian seo caithte do dháil an Roinn Oideachais £1,234,305, agus do dháil Comhairlí áitiúla £428,917, le haghaidh foirgneamh do Bhun-Scoileanna. Do cuireadh an t-airgead sin ar fáil chun 274 scoil-tithe nua do dhéanamh, chun 153 scoil-tithe d'fhairsingiú, agus chun feabhsú foirgnimh do dhéanamh ar 1,691 scoil-tigh eile. Tá comhghair réasúnta scoil-tithe ins na cathracha agus ins na mór-bhailte, ach amháin i gContae-Bhuirg Bhaile Átha Cliath, áit ina bhfuil deacracht fá leith mar gheall ar fhás na cathrach agus mar gheall ar réiteach na gceanntar ploduithe. Ar an abhar sin, béidh sé mar phríomh-chúram, feasta, ar an Roinn féachaint chun scoil-tithe nua do chur dá ndéanamh gceanntair tuaithe agus i mór-Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath.

I gCathair Bhaile Atha Cliath, le linn na sé mblian seo caithte, do rinneadh ocht gcinn de scoil-tithe móra—rud is ionann agus áiteacha do chur ar fáil do 5,254 páiste. Tá ocht gcinn eile do scoil-tithe nua dhá ndéanamh, agus béidh áiteacha ionnta sin, eatortha, do 6,572 páiste. Táthar chun trí scoiltithe móra do dhéanamh i gCroimghlinn Thuaidh, agus trí cinn eile i gceanntair Ellenfield agus Cnoc na Fuiseoige. Béidh áiteacha do 4,500 páiste ionnta sin, agus tá a bpleananna ar aghaidh go maith. Ina theanta sin, tá ionaid curtha ar fáil do shé scoil-tithe nua i gceanntair na Cabraighe agus Domhnach Cearna.

De thoradh léir-bhreathnuithe atá déanta ag an Roinn, is eol dúinn gur riachtanach 605 scoil-tithe nua do dhéanamh i n-ionad scoil-tithe atá ann, i gceanntair tuaithe, fá láthair. Le n-a chois sin, tá feasbhsú mór ag teastáil ó thrí chéad eile de scoil-tithe fá'n dtuaith.

Maidir le deisiú na mBun Scoileanna agus le n-a gcoinneáil i ndeagh-chruth, tá an Roinn ag tabhairt aire go dícheallach don cheist sin, freisin.

Ní móide gur taitheamhaighe aon taobh den oideachas ná an bhreis atá ag dul i gcomhnaí ar líon na leanbhaí ag a bhfuil caoi indiu ar meadhonoideachas d'fháil. Tá breis tar éis teacht gach bliain i ndiaidh a chéile ar uimhir na ndaltaí ins na meadhonscoileannaibh. Le deich mbliana anuas do mhéaduigh na huimhreacha ó 25,375 go 36,647. Gan aimhreas, tá breis caithimh, dá réir sin, le cur i bhfáth insan meastachán seo i dtaobh an méid sin fáis, agus tá £12,055 sa bhreis (i gcomhgar 6%) le haghaidh deóntaisí do na scoileannaibh agus £8,700 (4%) sa bhreis le haghaidh na múinteóirí. Tuairim £6,000 den bhreis i ndeóntas na scoileanna isé an fáth atá leis ná cúiteamh in aghaidh an 10% laghdú a rinneadh sa mbliain 1931.

Sin rud nua atá insan vóta le haghaidh Meadhon-Oideachais—£4,000 a meastar a bheith riachtanach i gcóir an easnaimh i gCiste Pinsin na Meadhon - Mhúinteóirí. Nuair a bunuíodh an Scéim Pinsiún dóibh sin sa mbliain 1929 ní dearnadh socrú ar bith, le bun-tsuim ná eile, i gcóir an méid múinteóurí a ghaibh leis an scéim an unair sin gan aon phréimium a bheith íoctha aca i dtaobh sean-sheirbhíse. Le deich mbliana anuas níor leór an t-ioncum ó scoileanna agus ó mhúinteóirí chun íoctha an bheagán pinsiún a tháinig chun bheith iníoctha, acht, le himeacht aimsire, ní fhéadfadh an Ciste gan tuitim i bhfiacha, agus ní foláir, anois, glaodhach ar airgead vótálta d'fhonn án easnaimh do leigheas, do réir comhachta a bheirtear fan Scéim Aois-Liúntais.

'Sé athrú an chláir scoile an cheist is tábhachtaighe ar chúram na Roinne fá láthair maidir le Meadhon-Oideachas. Is minic adubhairt teachtaí annseo, agus is minic adubhairt aithreacha agus máithreacha agus daoine nach iad a bhfuil suim acu ins an scéal, go bhféchtar leis an iomarca oibre a dhéanamh ins na Meadhon-Scoileanna, go gcuirtear dá bhrí sin an iomarca saothair ar na daltaí, agus gurb é an toradh a bhíos air sin gur minic a bhíos an t-eolas a bhíos ag na daltaí mí-chruinn agus mí-cheart. Scrúduíodh an scéal go cúramach agus fritheadh tuairim Chumann na mBainisteóirí agus Chumann na Múinteoirí i dtaobh an Chláir a fheabhsú. De bharr an scrúduithe seo tá sé ar intinn roint atharú a dhéanamh ar an gClár. Sé brí na n-atharú seo go ngiorróchar na cúrsaí staidéir ins na habhair éagsúla agus go ndéanfar níos cruinne iad. Leagfar amach, cuir i gcás, leabhra áithride i gcomhair scrúduithe i Laidin, i nGréigis, i bhFraincis agus i mBéarla i leabhaidh na gcúrsaí leathna atá leagtha amach fá láthair i gcóir na dteangan sin.

Ar eagla go mbeadh faitchíos ar aon duine de na Teachtaí go gcuirfeadh na hatharuithe atáthar ar intinn a dhéanamh isteach ar an deagh-obair atá á dhéanamh ar son na Gaedhilge ins na scoileanna seo ba mhaith liom a rádh nach bhfuil aon bhunús leis an bhfaitchíos sin. Níltear ar intinn aon atharú a dhéanamh ar chúrsaí staidéir na Gaedhilge ach amháin go ndéanfar níos cruinne agus níos soiléire iad maidir le pointí áithride. Mar adubhras, pé moladh a tiubhrfaí don obair atá á dhéanamh ar son na Gaedhilge ina lán de na Meadhon-Scoileanna ní bheadh an moladh sin iomarcach. Bhéarfaidh an t-atharú atámuid a dhéanamh anois ar an gclár deis do na scoileanna go léir tuilleadh oibre a dhéanamh ar son na Gaedhilge agus sin a dhéanamh níos fearr, agus níor mhiste a rádh gurb é sin an príomhughdar a thug orainn na hatharuithe seo a dhéanamh.

Tá Ceárd-Oideachas agus Oideachas Gairme Beatha ag dul ar aghaidh i leabaidh a chéile. Tá £23,349 nó 7½% d'árdú i mbliana ar na deóntaisi do Choistí Oideachais Ghairme Beatha. Is leis an árdú a rinneadh i gceanntar Chorcaighe ar an aois a fágtar an scoil a bhaineas £7,350 den tsuim sin.

Ní mór an fás a tháinig in áiseanna do ghairm-oideachas insa tseisiún so d'imigh tharainn. Do hoscladh scoileanna nua i gCathair Chorcaighe agus i gCathair na Gaillimhe, agus do rinneadh méadú tábhachtach ar scoileanna Dhún Dealgan. Do hoscladh dosaen nua-scoileanna beaga i gceanntrachaibh tuaithe. Acht tríd is tríd, do tugadh níos mó aire do chomhdhlúthú na hoibre a bhí ar siubhal cheana ná mar tugadh dá leathanú i gceanntrachaibh nua.

15,600 dob uimhir don lán-tinnreamh ar chúrsaí lae, agus bhí 13,700 di sin ina tinnreamh lán-aimsearach: sin 500 de bhreis ar an tseisiún roimbe sin. Tá oiliúint luachmhar le fáil insna cúrsaí sin i gcóir gnótha, agus is áis iad chun beartanna d'fháil do mhórchuid daoine óga, ach ní chun beartanna d'fháil a thigeann an t-aos óg chucha anois acht do bhrí gur dóigh leo gurab é an gnáth-rud é agus gur tairbheach an nidh é oideachas iarbhunaidh a bheith aca. Ar shlightibh is maith an t-atharu é sin, agus is maith an tuar é ar rath na scoileanna.

26,800 an lán-uimhir do dhaltaí a bhí ar chúrsaí ceárd-scoileanna oidhche, tuairim an méid céadna a bhí ionnta an seisiún roimhe sin. Istoidhche a bheirtear furmhór an cheárdoideachais, agus ní fuiris a mhalairt sin do shocrú do dhaoine a bhíos ina ngnáth-obair i rith an lae. Acht tá fás tar éis teacht maidir le ranganna lae do phrintísigh i ndénamh troscáin, in obair leictreach, agus i gceárdanna eile. Gabhann tábhacht le cuid de na nua-scéimeanna do phríntísigh. Bíonn triail ionnta sara dtosnuighthcar ar an bpríntíseacht; bíonn se éigeantach tinnreamh do dhéanamh ag ranganna speisialta sa ló i rith na mblian tosaigh; bíonn céird-triaileacha ann don tsóisear agus don tsinsear fá Sceim na Roinne, agus tá mór-fheabhsanna eile tar éis teacht ar an seannós a bhí ann maidir le príntísigh.

Tá mór-bhreis tar éis teacht ar an méid daoine a chuir isteach ar scrúdúcháin na gCeard-Scoil—ó 8,914 sa mbliain 1936, an bhliain a cuireadh tús ortha, go 10,961 sa mbliain atá fá bhreithniú againn. Tá tuilleadh Clár Scrúdúcháin dá thairgsin le haghaidh bliain a 1939 i saoirseacht, in obair séimhéireachta agus i ndéanamh mótorchabhlacha.

I rith an tseisiúin do cuireadh cómhdhála ar bun d'oidí, d'fhonn go ndéanfaidís tuairimí do phléidhe le chéile ar chláir oibre, ar mhodhanna teagaisc agus ar phointí mór-thábhachtacha eile. Do ceapadh cinnirí le haghaidh gach cómhdhála as cigirí na Roinne, príomh-oidí scoile, agus oidí mór-chlú. Do cheap na cinnirí cláir ghnótha agus thugadar treóir don argóint. Níl aimhreas ná go dtáinig mór-thairbhe as an obair sin, agus tá beartuithe ar chómhdhála a bheith ann le haghaidh aicmí eile oidí.

Do cuireadh ath-chúrsaí ar bun d'oidí i rith saoirse an tsamhraidh. Do bhí an tinnreamh go maith, agus bhí deagh-thoradh ar an obair.

Níl aon atharú ar an méid atá riachtanach i gcóir Eolaidheachta agus Ealadhan (Vóta 49) mar nár thárla aon nidh a chuirfeadh atharú air. Tá £1,500 de laghdú ar an méid atá á chur ar fáil le leabhra litridheachta geinearálta, etc., i nGaedhilg a fhoillsiú. Ní hé go bhfuil aon chumhangú á dhéanamh ar an obair ins an gcás seo, ach thárla sin de bhrí gur cuireadh costas bliana agus ceathrú san áireamh i gcaiteachas na bliana 1937-38 mar go mb'éigin atharuithe cuntasíochta a dhéanamh nuair a rinneadh atharú ar an bhfo-cheann seo agus nuair a rinneadh gnáth-fho-cheann de. Séard a bhí ann roimhe sin deontas-i-gcabhair.

An meastachán le h-aghaidh Scoileanna Ceartucháin, tá sé árduithe ó £3,155 go dtí £4,960. Is é is príomhchúis leis sin an t-atharú a bhéas ar dheóntas an Riaghaltais ón ladh lá den Aibreán seo chugainn, .i. 10/- an duine sa tseachtain, i n-ionad 8/- an duine. Táthar ag súil go méadóchaidh na comhairlí áitiúla a gcion féin de'n chongnamh airgid a bheirtear do na scoileanna seo, agus is áthas liom bheith inann a rádh go bhfuil sin déanta cheana ag Bárdas Bhaile Átha Cliath. Tá an bhreis chonganta sin ag cur leis an moladh do rinne an Coimisiún Fiosrúcháin.

Ón ladh lá den Aibreán seo chugainn béidh 5/- an duine so tseachtain de dheóntas Riaghaltais le fáil ag Scoileanna Saothair ar son páistí fá bhun sé mblian d'aois. Tá an deóntas sin, freisin, ag cur leis an moladh do rinne an Coimisiún Fiosrúcháin.

Táthar tar éis liaigh-chigire do cheapadh le haghaidh Scoileanna Ceartúcháin agus Scoileanna Saothair, ionnas nach baoghal do pháistí na scoileanna sin gan an aire chóir d'fháil i ngach aon chaoi maidir le n-a sláinte.

Do mheas an Coimisiún Fiosrúcháin gur cheart an tuarastal do theacht ón Stát chuig na múinteóirí atá i mbun cúrsaí léighinn i Scoileanna Ceartúcháin agus i Scoileanna Saothair, agus cuirfear an méid sin, freisin, i bhfeidhm. Tá cuid mhaith déanta, cheana, de'n réimh-fhiosrúchán atá riachtanach le n-a aghaidh sin.

Ní féidir cuid de mholta an Choimisiúin do chur i ngníomh gan achtú Oireachtais, agus tá damhna Bille á scrúdú fá láthair sa Roinn Oideachais agus ins na ranna eile a mbaineann an gnó leó.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister's statement on the Department of Education this year is a singularly uninspiring document, but in the course of it he forecasts the amendment of the secondary schools' programme, and, to judge from his very cursory reference to that proposal, it would now appear that we have travelled the full circle and are getting back to the worst features of the old intermediate programme under the British Administration, in which pupils were presented with a series of standard text books, the contents of which they were required to master for the purpose of passing an examination, and the person who got the highest mark in the examination was not the educated youth or girl, but that boy or girl who had most successfully learned off by heart the contents of the rescribed textbooks. How the Minister can satisfy himself that that is a progressive reform in the secondary education of this country, I do not know.

I, however, am concerned, and greatly regret, that no reference is made in this statement to any intention on the part of the Minister to institute any adequate enquiry into the notorious scandal of the system of teaching that is going on in our primary and secondary schools at the present time. I have asked repeatedly, not that the Minister should unreservedly accept my view, but that at least he should establish some kind of a competent body to enquire into the existing state of affairs in the primary and secondary schools, so that interested parties could come before that body and state their grievances, and that expert body could impartially and objectively examine the situation as it is and say, in their judgment, whether the policy of the last few years has produced satisfactory results or not.

I think that, without being intolerant of any minority view in the country, it is fair to say that an altogether overwhelming majority of our people would wish to see the Irish language re-established in this country as the vernacular of the majority of our people, and that at least any child going to a public school in this country would be afforded an opportunity in the course of its education of acquiring a satisfactory mastery of the Irish language. I am aware that there is a minority of the people who think that Irish should be abandoned, but I believe that they would be quite prepared to agree that, so great a majority of the people want the other thing, it would be fair to arrange in the school programmes for adequate instruction in the Irish language. I use the word "adequate" designedly — instruction sufficient to afford any child that wanted it a thorough acquaintance with the language and an ability to speak and to write it when it left school.

That being so, that volume of goodwill for the language being there, it seems to me wicked, from the language point of view, to kill it, as it is being killed at the present time. Without that goodwill we cannot revive the language. If a day should ever dawn in which the majority of our people say "The game is not worth the candle," then the language is irretrievably killed. I say that the present policy is turning people who love the language away from the language; is making out of friends of the Irish language, enemies, and I sympathise with those persons who are, in despair, turning their backs on the cause of Irish revival, because these people feel that their children are being sacrificed, and unnecessarily sacrificed, for the particular policy that the Department of Education at present believes in.

Is there any conceivable justification for taking infant children, who go into the primary school for the first time, not knowing a single syllable of the Irish language, and compelling their teachers to use no language in addressing these children except a language that they had never heard? Just imagine if we laid down a rule in this country that no teacher should speak a word of any language but Persian to the infant children going into the schools. It would not be a bit more extravagant. It is no easier for an infant child, who has never heard Irish spoken in his own home, to understand a teacher who speaks to him in Irish than it would be if that teacher spoke to him in Persian or Sanskrit. Is that reasonable? And that is being done in every primary school in the country. In the infant classes no English is used at all and the children going in there, outside the Gaeltacht, know no word of Irish.

Let us be as clear as crystal on this, so that there can be no misrepresentation. I believe that the language of instruction of children ought to be the language of their homes. I believe that in the Gaeltacht, and for children who are brought up in Irish-speaking households, the language of instruction ought to be Irish. I believe for children born outside the Gaeltacht, in homes where the vernacular is English, the language of instruction ought to be the language they know, English. I would regard it as just as great an outrage to force English as the language of instruction on native Irish-speaking children in the Gaeltacht as I think it is an outrage to force Irish as the language of instruction on English-speaking children outside the Gaeltacht. There is not, I believe, a single responsible teacher in this country who is in favour of this plan and I deliberately state that but for the fact that the teachers believe that it would react unfavourably upon them, 90 per cent. of them would tell the Minister that it is folly.

I state now that one of the best Irish teachers in this country had the following experience. She was the teacher of an infant class and she sought to fall in with the regulation of the Department of Education and teach these infant children and talk to them exclusively through the medium of Irish. She found that it produced chaos, that the children were bewildered and rendered nervous and intractable, that they were getting nowhere. Being a conscientious woman, she weighed her duty to the Department and her duty to the children and determined that her first duty was to the children put in her care. She abandoned the practice of addressing these infant children exclusively through the medium of Irish and she proceeded to talk to them in English and in Irish with a view to perfecting and improving the infants' knowledge of the language. At the end of two years, either the Minister or one of the high officials of his Department, visited her class and he expressed admiration and amazement at the progress those particular children had made. He laughed as he said that this was the answer to anyone who said that teaching infants through the medium of Irish was not the best method. That teacher discreetly held her peace. But the fact was that the class which the Minister laid to his soul as a soothing unction was made efficient and the children were made Irish speakers by flying straight in the face of the Minister's own regulation. The teacher who had achieved that had attempted the Minister's system and said she reduced her class to chaos and the children to nervous wrecks but, by doing the exact opposite, she produced the result that the Minister ambitions and that I ambition too. She had a happy class, a well taught class, and an Irish speaking class, at the end of her two years.

That is what astonishes me: that where you have evidence under your very nose of the futility of the Department's programme, they will not even consider an inquiry into the rights and wrongs of it. I am not asking them to take my view. All I am asking them to do is to set up some autonomous body that would not be in fear of its life of the Department's inspectors. Most people concerned with primary education in this country are in fear of their lives of the Department's inspectors.

It is not expedient or right to refer to the official of any Department in this House; it is the Minister. The general impression amongst those engaged in primary education is that the Minister is an intolerant, narrow-minded man; that he has certain cranks and prejudices and, if you do not fall in with them, he will get you in his own good time. They are not far wrong. I am speaking now of the Minister as his Department. You may claim the letter of the law if you are a teacher or an interested party; you may do what is strictly right, but the general impression is, if you show yourself out of sympathy with the Minister's prejudices in this matter, that he will get you and that you will be watched and circumscribed and that sooner or later you will be done down. That is why the Minister can get no representations from the teaching profession or from persons interested in this, except those which correspond to his own particular prejudices. That is why that conscientious teacher, whose case I have described, made up her mind that the best way to get these children fluent Irish speakers was simply to disregard the Minister and do what she knew was right; and when the Minister complimented her on the condition of her class she held her peace and thanked God that she was able to do for the children what it was her duty to do for them and that she had managed, by this expedient, to avoid censure at the hand of the Minister to whom she was responsible.

I do not think any sane man can defend the treatment of these infant children in the classes. I have never heard any sane person attempting to do so. But, take the children in the higher classes. We are told by the Minister that his regulations are that no teacher who is not capable of teaching the children through the medium of Irish is requested to do so. I am well aware that I will bring down on my head a deluge, but I do not give a fiddle-dee-dee. Not 15 per cent. of the teachers in this country are qualified to teach through the medium of Irish. That is the plain fact. I quite agree that a very large number of them are walking around with Árd-Teastasaí and Mean-Teastasaí and other Teastasaí. I have got the Mean-Teastas.

Donnchadh O Briain

Níl a leithéid ann.

Mr. Dillon

Whether there is or not, I got it, and I would not be able to teach a man of 40 the A B C through the medium of Irish, much less a class of young children. I am not asking the Deputy to accept my views. All I am asking the Deputy is to help me to get an independent inquiry into the state of affairs as it at present is. I do not deny that a great many of these teachers are fluent speakers in the language but to say they are capable of instructing children, whose knowledge of the language is most imperfect, through the medium of the language, is laughable. Take the average individual that you meet in the street. He is not capable of teaching children through the medium of English. The man who has an ordinary cursory knowledge of a language, sufficient to get about his business, is by no means qualified to employ the nuance and finesse of language necessary to gain control of a child's mind.

Teaching is not an easy thing. The actual business of teaching is in itself a great strain on any conscientious man. If you add to that the request that he is to conduct this extremely delicate and difficult operation through a language of which he is by no means a master, can any reasonable man contemplate, with equanimity, the results? Surely all will agree with me that a teacher teaching young children ought to be able to devote his whole mind, his undivided attention, to getting the hang of those children's minds, to bringing home to the children the particular precept he wants to communicate to them. Can any teacher do that if, at the same time, he is watching the very vehicle through which he is teaching, when he doubts his own correctness, when he has to think of his words, when, in fact, he is thinking in English, and translating what he is saying into Irish? Is it reasonable for anyone to imagine that that man is teaching children as they ought to be taught?

I speak French twice as well as 90 per cent. of the teachers of this country speak Irish and I would not attempt to teach anyone through the medium of it because I do not think in French. It is only a person who is a native speaker or who has been so long in contact with native speakers that he can completely change over and think in Irish, who is competent to teach through the medium of Irish at all. I know that. We are all like that.

I know men who love the language and who have learned it so well—who lived so much in native Irish-speaking surroundings for the purpose of gaining that quality of fluency—that they do think in Irish now when they speak the native language. But who is going to contend with me that the majority of the primary teachers in this country think in Irish? Do not we all know that they do not?

Donnchadh O Briain

Níl fhios againn cioca.

Mr. Dillon

Surely the Deputy will not argue with me that if a teacher is, in fact, a conscientious earnest man and has first to make up his mind as to what to say to a child, and then translate that into a language of which he is not a past master, his efficiency must be gravely impaired. Picture the result of that first on a child. The child is not getting the instruction that it ought to get, and then picture the effect of it on the teacher who is doing his best: who finds that what used to be a pleasurable day's hard work, that hard as the work was it was pleasurable to a man who had the teaching vocation. He finds what used to be a pleasurable day's work turned into a day's torture. He is struggling to do what he used to be able to do easily, fluently and efficiently, and now finds himself with a millstone around his neck attempting to do his job with an instrument of which he is not a a master. That man is overwrought under the constant strain, and he must inevitably suffer in his nervous constitution, sooner or later. And so you get the vicious circle: you get the child failing to get the instruction that he ought to have, and you get the teacher made nervous, irritable and exhausted by imposing on him a task that he ought never have had to do, and your general efficiency and your entire teaching medium sinks.

There is abundant evidence of that. Look at the children coming out of the primary schools to-day. They cannot read, they cannot spell, they cannot add and they cannot write. What is the point in closing our eyes to the facts that we see about us? I have seen boys coming out of primary schools and they write an Irish "a" instead of an "z" when writing English, and not infrequently mixing up the two scripts. Nobody here will argue that the children coming out of the primary schools to-day can add or write as they did 15 years ago. It is common knowledge that the average child coming out of school to-day cannot read or write a legible hand. I wonder if any members of the House have ever tried to get the children of to-day to do simple sums.

I have seen them, I know that whatever sort of a shot they may make at them on paper, that any kind of mental arithmetic is quite beyond them. They simply throw up their hands in despair and do not attempt it. Really, unless we are all mad we cannot go on that way, and more especially those of us who are anxious to see the language revived. How can we imagine that the parents of the children of the country will stand for it. It is only now that the victims of this insane system are coming out into the world and experiencing the effects of the handicaps that have been put upon them.

How long do Deputies think parents will stand for this? I think there will be an uprising one of these days, and when that comes it will take the form of an attack on Irish and not on the Minister's system, because the people do not understand that it is the system that is playing the devil with the children and not the Irish. What the people think of is the Irish. Have we not all heard them saying that there is too much Irish in the schools? They blame it on the language. They do not realise that the evil is teaching children through the medium of a language, and that the children do not know how to use it. Now, in the name of common sense and in the name of the language itself, can we not get right reason, moderation and commonsense to operate in this matter. I am not asking Deputies to take my view. I am asking them, if they like to look upon my words with suspicion and doubt, but at least to admit this: that I do speak for a considerable section of the people; that we may be all wrong, but that that is what we believe. Now, that being so, all I am asking is that an objective, detached body be set up, primarily concerned with good education and sincerely solicitous to see the Irish language effectively taught in our schools, and with those two terms of reference to examine the situation as it is, with no intention to apportion blame or to go back on what has happened in the past, but to say now what we ought to do in the future. That is a representation founded in moderation, and with no desire to impose my mind on the other side or to allow the other side to impose its mind on mine; but to get an objective examination of the problem, so that whatever may be necessary to be done can be done, and that the education of the children in our primary schools will be at least as good as the education they get in Great Britain or elsewhere.

That is not much to ask, and God knows if this kind of concession is not made in Parliament, what is the use of Parliament? If nobody is ever to get a concession unless they blow something up, what is the good of pretending that constitutional agitation or political work is of any value at all? Nobody maintains that a parliamentary opposition has the right to bull-dose a government and compel it to abandon its policy. They have the right—and it ought to be admitted, recognised and protected by this House as distinct from the Government—to get adequate inquiry where they are entirely satisfied that an inquiry is urgently wanted, and there certainly is a sufficient volume of opinion behind the representation that I now make in this country to secure that kind of inquiry. If that is got, that is all that we want.

General Mulcahy

Is it not a fact that mathematics need not be taken by boys in the intermediate certificate examination in future?

Mr. Derrig

No.

Mr. Dillon

Mathematics are to be made an optional subject for girls in future, or that matter is under consideration. Is that a reform calculated to promote the cause of teaching Irish in our secondary schools? I am not asking the Minister to take our view. I am making these representations solely for the purpose of submitting to the House that there is cause for inquiry and that is all. The Minister's reaction to that is intense irritation and loud protests. All I want is an autonomous body, which does not depend for its existence on the goodwill of the Minister and his Department, which will inquire objectively into this question and tell the House and the people how they think things are going on now, and what would be the proper steps to improve things in the future. That seems to me to be as moderate a demand as ever was made by anyone who feels as strongly as I do on the proceedings going on at present. If that demand is rejected, it is self-evidence of the fact that the Minister himself knows that what is going on does not bear inquiry. Inquiry can do no harm. If there is anything to be cloaked up it is because the Minister is afraid to let it appear.

I am convinced that if an inquiry were made available we would have an overwhelming volume of remonstrance in respect of teaching in the primary, and indeed in the secondary schools, through the medium of Irish, except in the Gaeltacht, and except where the home language of the children is Irish. We all know that there are in this city and elsewhere schools specifically designed for children whose parents have brought them up as Irish speakers. In these cases, of course, the language of instruction should be the vernacular of the children, which is Irish. I am talking only of the children whose vernacular is English, whose home language is English, and I say that against the policy of teaching those children through the medium of Irish there must be in any rational community an overwhelming volume of protest, as there ought to be. I allege that the present system is turning the children out of the primary schools uneducated and unequipped to earn their living; and I say that in the secondary schools there is a fraudulent pretence that those taught through the medium of Irish are better educated than those taught through the medium of English. It is not true. Far from getting an adequate education, more than half the children are being turned out uneducated, the minority, the small minority, properly educated, and the remainder bewildered. Those conditions require urgent inquiry and, in my judgment, immediate action.

I mentioned on an earlier Estimate my views on the Summerhill House of Detention and so forth. I see that the Minister has a dismal paragraph at the end of his statement on the subject of industrial schools and reformatories, which simply means that he is going to give the industrial schools and reformatories a couple of shillings more than they got heretofore. The representations of the schools are closely listened to; they are going to get a few shillings more than before. But the unfortunate children are going to be left very much as they always have been left, shifted out of the way, got rid of. I think that is deplorable, and that it shows the Minister is quite incapable of understanding the real significance of this problem. I sometimes despair of getting anything done. How any Minister in any country could continue to make himself responsible for the Summerhill House of Detention and the conditions obtaining there I do not know. But inasmuch as I have ventilated that subject on the previous Vote and got an assurance that the Minister for Education is dealing with it, although he makes no reference to it in his statement, I do not think it necessary to add anything to it. I do not despair, however, that public opinion will abolish that disgusting institution, the Summerhill House of Detention, and substitute for it a properly-run place, where children who are sick and in misery and distress will receive the minimum treatment requisite to redeem them and make decent citizens of them, as they have every right to expect from the State responsible for them.

There are two other matters to which I want to refer. The Minister forecasts his intention of replacing 605 rural schools and repairing 300. In rural Ireland, we are afflicted with a sparsity of population. We have read in the report of the Department that the child population is steadily going down, precipitating a further crisis in regard to the school teachers. But it it also reacting unfavourably on the schools, because where you have an average attendance of 15 or 20 children it is almost impossible to provide a decent school for them, with the result that we are all familiar with the little band-boxes scattered about the country, which are not sanitary and are inadequate in every sense of the word. Is there any objection to trying what is being tried in every civilised country in the world, and that is, the consolidation of a number of these schools into a central school and, instead of providing an inadequate and insanitary band-box school in the middle of a bog, providing a shelter and a bus to bring these children into a central school where you will have, say, 100 children, where you will have shower baths, playing room, classes with a decent staff of teachers, proper heating, and accommodation ultimately to give these children a meal in the middle of the day? Their numbers are dwindling. We are apparently fated to have a falling population. For such children as we still have can we not do that?

Does anyone deny that it would be desirable, or does any Deputy think that it would be better to leave the country children in these little band-boxes which are damp and where there are no proper facilities for the children to dry their clothes when they come to school in wet weather and where their wet clothes are left hanging up in an already damp and stuffy classroom along with the children? Does anybody deny that it would be much better to bring these children into central schools? Even though it may be admitted that that would be a good scheme, I can quite understand some prudent man coming along and saying that it might not be practicable. Very good. At any rate, let us try whether or not it would be practicable. After all, it would not cost a king's ransom to experiment on it. Possibly, the experiment might break down, but I do not know why it should not work here, since it works in America, England, Australia, New Zealand, and every country that I have been to. They would laugh at you in these countries if you suggested that you should leave the children in these dirty little dog-kennels of schools that we have in this country. It is true that they used to do that in the old pioneer days in America. In or about 1835, you would have found in the back blocks or backwoods of North America the kind of national schools we have in this country, but there they have removed all these things to the museums now, and people can go and look at their models, with suitable backgrounds of attacking Indians painted on them, and so on, and of Buffalo Bills coming to protect them from attack. That, however, is the kind of thing we have provided, and we think it is grand. As a matter of fact, if anybody told us that we were proceeding along the lines of the backwoodsmen of North America 100 years ago, we would be highly indignant and say that the people who suggested that were not Gaelic and did not understand Gaelic culture. Well, if it is an example of Gaelic culture to put children into the dirty, damp and inadequate bandboxes that we have up and down this country, instead of into decent and comfortable schools, then I should doubt if Gaelic culture is as good as we take it to be.

In Northern Ireland, for instance, where the base, bloody and brutal Saxon has his heel on the necks of the down-trodden Gael, look at the schools they have there! I doubt if any Deputies have bothered to do that. I admit that it is true that in Northern Ireland these magnificent schools, in effect, are reserved for non-Catholic children, but if that "Protestant Government for a Protestant people" can do that for their people, surely to God an Irish Government for an Irish people could do as much for ours. It is a humiliating thing for this country to have to take example by that "Protestant Government for a Protestant people", but I believe that in that matter we could very well take example from them since they are better to their people than we are to ours. I should like to see our Government being better to our people than they are to theirs, because I should like to see our Government providing proper schools for the children of the people of this country, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jew or Quaker, unlike the Northern Government which confines itself to providing good schools for the Protestant people under a Protestant Government.

Now, I am not asking for very much here. I am not asking the Minister to put on a white sheet and admit that he was wrong in the past. All I ask is that, if the scheme is considered good, he would experiment to find out whether it is practicable. Of course, the Minister will probably say: "Yes; provided that some school manager comes to me and expresses to me his willingness to try the experiment, I should be willing to co-operate"; but when the school manager comes along and expresses his willingness to try the experiment, the Minister points out that the cost of that will be, let us say, £15,000, and he says to the school manager, who is generally the parish priest: "I will contribute half of that sum, provided that you are able to raise the rest of the money locally." Now, seeing that the parish priest down the country could not raise £7,500 in a thousand years, what he does is that he goes out into the middle of the bog and builds a school there, for £350 or £400, and the Minister provides the balance of that. I hold that the Minister should provide the money for the first experimental school in order to see if the scheme is practicable.

If the Minister were to say that he would provide the money for such an experiment for the first parish priest that would come to his office and expressed his willingness to try the experiment in a suitable parish, I venture to say that Upper Merrion Street or Marlborough Street would be blocked with parish priests willing to try that experiment. If, on the other hand, the Minister says: "I am waiting for a parish priest to come along who is willing to put up half the cost of the provision of such a school, with the heating and lighting installation, the cooking facilities and all the other kind of facilities we want," then the Minister will wait till the cows come home or until Grattan closes his fist down there in College Green. I want something done. I think it is worth doing and I invite the Minister to address his mind to this matter.

The last matter to which I want to refer is this: The Public Accounts Committee get many odd jobs to do in the course of their work, but the last and oddest job is that, as a result of the terms of the Statute—and it became my duty, as Chairman of that Committee, to direct their attention to it—they were required to examine into the case of each teacher on the panel and to see (1) that teachers on the panel were given employment when it was available, and (2) that teachers on the panel who were offered employment took it and did not remain on the panel, thus forcing an additional teacher on to the public purse. It is not our job on the Public Accounts Committee to discuss the public policy or to determine what is good or bad. Our function there is to determine that the Orders of Dáil Eireann have been carried out and that the money appropriated has been spent in accordance with the law. All I want is that the Minister, in fairness to the teacher, should establish some code of rules now which could be applied to the several cases. No such code of rules appears to exist, with the result that ambiguity arises and individual teachers may feel that they labour under hardships inasmuch as they think that some other teacher got a concession that they did not succeed in getting for themselves.

It has to be borne in mind that this panel system is a material concession to the teachers in the difficulty in which they find themselves, because it does involve a substantial additional charge upon the Exchequer. That charge has been gladly accepted by the Oireachtas, but we ought to know, or there ought to be some certainty as to what are the obligations devolving upon the teachers resultant from this concession. This difficulty is typical of the problems that arise. A teacher is on the panel—a married lady, let us say, with perhaps a family; a vacancy occurs in the diocese 40 miles away from her home. If she will not go to that vacancy, it means the appointment of a new teacher. Suppose she is the only teacher on the panel—a new teacher must be appointed, thus filling that position and leaving the redundant teacher drawing her salary. Is it fair, on the other hand, to go to a married woman, with a home and a family, and perhaps with her husband working in the district, and ask her to leave her home and family and take up a job 30 or 40 miles away? If that is the kind of case that should be excluded, then exclude it, but lay down a general rule that a married teacher with a family may not be required to go more than ten miles, six miles or four miles from her normal place of residence to take up a position, and that unless a vacancy occurs in the diocese within that distance she should not be required to do so. That is a very substantial concession, because it leaves a teacher in a school where she is not wanted, and allows her to stay there until a vacancy occurs within a very limited area. I do not know whether that concession should be made or not, but if it is going to be made, let it be made for all teachers.

It would be tedious to go into all the queer kinds of cases that may arise, and I do not think it is possible to draft any rules dealing with the circumstances that are bound to arise and which will cover all cases. I, therefore, suggest to the Minister that he should lay down general principles based upon excessive hardship, reasonable employment and so forth, and that he should then institute in his Department something in the nature of appointments commissioners' machinery, so that, suppose a teacher refused to comply with the terms of the transfer, and the Minister felt that that refusal was of a character which should remove her or him from the panel, and from the benefits conferred by remaining on the panel, the teacher would then have a body to which she or he could say: "The proposed transfer was unreasonable, or was invalidated under one of the general heads the Minister has laid down as invalidating every proposed transfer."

I do not know whether I make myself quite clear. Suppose the Minister says that a teacher on the panel is entitled to the first vacancy occurring but that the teacher shall not be removed from the panel, unless he or she refuses to accept a vacancy without any cause, then would follow the causes for which a teacher may legitimately refuse to accept a vacancy—excessive hardship, the great distance from her or his home or special family considerations. He would lay down a group of excuses of that kind. I want a body then to be set up to which the teacher could go if the Minister says that he or she had improperly refused a transfer and that he proposed to remove him or her from the panel. The teacher could go to this board and say that she had not refused the transfer but that the distance was too great or that there were certain special considerations which brought her within the exemptions I have mentioned. The teacher could claim the right to remain on the panel even though he or she had not accepted the vacancy when it turned up. If the Minister's Department agree, then appeals could be heard, say, on the 1st of every month and the Minister could appoint three anonymous individuals, not established officers, but three persons of his own choosing, so that they would not be open to extraneous representation on behalf of any individual teacher. If the Minister should make the mistake of appointing to this board any number of his own officers, then every T.D. will be sent post haste to Marlborough Street to make exceptional and supernumerary representations on behalf of this, that and the other teacher. Instead of being ordinary ambassadors here, we should then become Ministers plenipotentiary and we should all be expected to explain how extraordinary considerations applied to the particular cases in which we were interested. If, however, the Minister and Deputies are in a position to say that the matter has to be determined by three persons whose identity they do not know, and cannot know, because they are not going to be appointed until a short time before they sit to hear the appeal, it will save a good deal of trouble for all concerned.

If the Minister is approached he can say that he has nothing to do with the matter, that if he goes looking for membership of the body he cannot find them, because they are in petto like the Pope's cardinals. Machinery such as that would give the teachers a fair opportunity of appealing against decisions which they felt were unjust and it would protect the Minister from the exercise of an unreasonable discretion which it is always painful to exercise in any case. It would ensure further that the panel scheme would work smoothly and that the Public Accounts Committee would have some foot rule to work upon because they could see whether when a case was brought before this board, the board had found that the teacher properly refused the appointment. In such circumstances the Public Accounts Committee could pass the expenditure but if the committee were informed that the refusal to accept the vacancy was not justified, then the Public Accounts Committee could say that in their view, the expenditure was one that should be justified before Dáil Eireann.

I do earnestly appeal to the Minister for Education in the cause of the Irish language to prevent a cleavage being established amongst those who feel that education itself is being imperilled not by the teaching of Irish but by the system at present in operation. The way to avoid that cleavage, the way to unite everybody who is concerned to see the language improved, is to establish some impartial objective body, that will hear all sides and then declare what in their unbiassed judgment is the true state of affairs, and what is the most effective means of promoting the cause of the Irish language and of maintaining a high standard of education in this country. If the Minister will do this, he will get a measure of co-operation that he does not expect from sources to which he has never looked heretofore. In my judgment, by doing so, he would render a material service to the language movement as a whole which I think is dearer to the hearts of many people than some of the enthusiasts believe.

Mr. Hurley

In his statement in moving this Vote the Minister gave us the impression that certain problems which beset primary education in this country are to be solved in the coming year. That is very pleasing news to the teachers and especially to those who are directly concerned with those schemes to which he has referred. I refer to the fact that the Minister told us that the unemployed teachers are to be absorbed. He gave us the figures of 260 men and 195 women as representing the number of teachers unemployed. I do not think these are correct figures because, quite recently, in this House I asked a question in reference to this matter and the numbers then given were much larger than those given here. However, it is very pleasing to find that the problem is to be definitely tackled and got rid of. The Minister referred also to the fact that industrial school teachers are to be paid out of the State grants for primary education.

That again is a very long desired and long delayed reform because these teachers are doing the work of the nation in that they are charged with the education of the children in industrial schools. That is very important work and, at times, very exacting. Now that they are to be included as ordinary primary teachers, it is certainly a step in the right direction.

The Minister also referred to the fact that free books are to be provided for necessitous children. I should like him to go a little further, so that books should be given free to all children in these schools. There is a provision in the Constitution, Article 42 (4), which states that "The State shall provide for free primary education...." The literal meaning of that, I take it, is that school books form part of the requisites of primary pupils, and should be provided free. It is, of course, a matter for congratulation, that necessitous children are to be provided for, because there have been very grave hardships, owing to the fact that children could not be provided with books by parents, and they had to fall back on other sources for them. I hope that as much as possible will be done to eliminate any stigma which might be put on children receiving these books. Some method should be devised by which children who, through the economic circumstances of their parents, will receive books will not suffer under any stigma.

The Cork experiment was referred to. I have some knowledge of it, as I am a member of the Cork City Vocational Committee, charged with the running of the innovation. While it is a very laudable project, and one that has met with a good deal of success, at the same time, the provision made under the Vocational Act is hardly sufficient to meet the ideas of those who look forward to a continuation of education after 16 years, or for a raising of the school-leaving age. Under this scheme the children are required to attend only for one hour per day per week, or five hours a week, and the committee has arranged, so as not to create any unnecessary hardship, that the five hours can be worked on one day. For instance, children who attend on Monday do not return to school until the following Monday. That takes away a good deal of the discipline that is so necessary for school work. The experiment is succeeding, with all its limitations, and we find in Cork that the employers have released children who are at work to attend one day of the week. Unfortunately, we had a case at the last meeting of the committee, where a young lad, who was an apprentice in a printing office, and who would not be 16 until this month, was dismissed on account of the stipulation that he should attend the school. Representations have been made to the employer. That is the only case in which we have had any difficulty. Even that one case has, to a certain extent, caused a good deal of uneasiness, because this boy's future is probably jeopardised by the action of the employer. The experiment has been a success, I am very pleased to say, but I think there might be an extension of it to the population of school age so that they might attend school every day of the week.

The Minister also referred to the fact that the pupil teaching system was now finished. I have my own views on that system of recruiting teachers, and I think it served a very good purpose. Certainly, a definite apprenticeship was served, and during that course, and the examinations which were part of it, the system was such that if a student was a failure there was a definite chance of weeding him or her out before arriving at an age when they would have to leave the teaching profession. Another important point mentioned was the extension of the heating and cleaning of schools. In this year's Estimate it looks as if the amount provided was up by £15,000. Last year £65,000 was first allocated for heating and cleaning, and a good deal of that money was not expended, the reason being that the system of allocation was such that a parish or local unit had to provide pound for pound with the State grant. In many parts of rural Ireland the custom was for the local people to supply turf or firewood for heating schools, and because that did not exactly come within the definition of "cash", the managers were not able to receive grants. It is true that large schools in cities and towns benefited by the grant. The Minister has stated that he hoped to devise a scheme by which schools would be adequately heated and cleaned. In many parts, where they were not able to partake of the grant, the children had to clean the schools after the day's work, and to provide firewood and turf, where nothing was given as a State grant. I ask the Minister to look into the matter to see if he could not devise a scheme to get over that difficulty. It is apparent that the difficulty was there, because a large portion of the £65,000 was not spent.

There is a very big problem with regard to children who leave school at 14 years of age, who do not go to any other educational institution, either secondary or technical, and who are on the streets at that tender age, and open to all the temptations and difficulties that beset the path of the young. That is a problem that the Department of Education and the Government, as a whole, will have to tackle. Some of the lads that I speak of get into blind-alley jobs or get no jobs. I have known boys to leave school at 14 years of age and to reach manhood without doing any form of useful work. I am sure the Minister is aware of the truth of that statement. That is a problem that will have to be seriously tackled. There is a big unemployment problem here, and there is also the problem of youth. There are societies at work on the youth problem, but it is too big for any societies, and must be tackled by the Department or by the Government. Deputy Dillon referred to the detention home at Summerhill and the evils which could be eradicated by the system he suggested. Probably by an extension of the school-leaving age, it might be possible to do something to help in that direction, because there must be thousands of children involved year after year who, on leaving the primary schools at 14 years of age, never again enter any kind of educational institution. That is a tragic fact that must be definitely faced up to.

I have certainly to congratulate the Minister on the progress he has made during the year, especially in primary education. There is one part of that primary system that is causing a good deal of discontent and uneasiness amongst the teachers and that is the inspection system. The inspection system, as it obtains in the primary department, has been more or less inherited from the British regime. It carries with it, I am afraid, the idea that obtained in this country during the British regime—that was that unless the teachers were watched, inspected, labelled and ticketed they would do very little work.

I think the policy of the Department of Education should be to put more trust in the teacher. After all, the teacher is under the supervision of the local parish priest or manager. He is also under the supervision of every parent of every child in the school. There are exceptional cases where the parents do not worry their heads about what their children learn in the school but we all know that the average parent takes a keen interest in what the child learns. The teacher would be criticised if he did not do his work properly. There are so many supervisors over the teacher that I think the system of inspection is too rigid and severe.

I have known cases of teachers who have given years of faithful service to the community, but because, in the opinion of some inspector, towards the end of that teacher's time the mark which the teacher usually received up to that was lowered, the teacher suffered. That may have been in some cases justified but I think the system which allows such a hardship to be inflicted on a servant of the State, after long service, should be remedied. I know teachers who have been long years in the service, and have given good service to whom this has happened. I have in mind and can cite a half a dozen cases, where the teacher cracked in that service, not so much from teaching but from the strain of what may happen at the inspections.

I would seriously commend to the Minister that there is need for some really radical change in the inspection system. The facts are there to prove that hardships are being created; a good deal of harm is done, not only to the teacher and children, but to education itself. The inspection system is too rigid. Every teacher is labelled "efficient" or "highly efficient" and so on. I know there are cases where the teacher is almost on the verge of "highly efficient" or else a hair's breadth between "efficient" and "highly efficient." I do not think there is any inspector or anybody else who is able to judge the efficiency of any teacher so finely as that. I think it should be good enough as in the secondary or vocational side of the Department that the teacher is doing his work efficiently. They can be good enough without this rigid and very misleading designation of "highly efficient" or "efficient." The teacher has either been doing good work or he has not. I would commend that to the Minister. I know that teachers suffer from a good deal of uneasiness owing to the inspection system.

I would like to stress on the Minister the necessity for speedy action with regard to the absorption of the unemployed teachers. There have come to my notice cases where some of these unemployed teachers were forced to work on the relief schemes on the reads in different parts of the country. These are not isolated cases. If there is any position vacant, controlled by the vocational education committees, teachers come to me and tell me that they have been trained so many years and never got employment. The case of the unemployed teacher is so pressing and urgent that the Minister should make every effort to bring ameliorative measures forward very speedily.

I am not going to go into the question of the teaching of Irish in the schools. That has been raised by Deputy Dillon. It is a question for the Minister but I can say that in my experience as a teacher the hardships that Deputy Dillon referred to were not present. I have children of my own and I teach children in school. These young children naturally pick up the language of the schools. I have one young lad who is going to an infants' school. He is being prepared for the Sacraments through the medium of Irish and he does not find any difficulty there. It is the Minister's job to deal with that question. I am only giving him my own experience as a teacher and parent. If we are going to adopt this system of getting the children to acquire a knowledge of the language as early as possible I do not know how we are to aim at the ideal which Deputy Dillon put before the House—having a sound education, Irish and otherwise.

There is also, I think, the need for more and closer co-operation between the different sections of the Education Department. We have the primary, secondary and vocational schools and the university. I think it would be no harm if the Minister had an inquiry into the position with regard to the function of each of these sections in the Education Department. For instance, in the old days the primary school was looked on as the poor man's university. The children of the ordinary people never went beyond that school, so that everything possible was crammed into the primary school syllabus. We know that there were some very brilliant students who got some very high places under the British régime in the Customs and Excise, and other Departments of State, and they went to no school except the primary school. Various opinions have arisen as to what exactly are the functions of the primary school, where these functions exactly terminate, and where the functions of the other sections commence. It is time that we should have an inquiry into the position of each of these sections in the community and in the nation.

With regard to the secondary schools and secondary education, I have received from the secondary teachers a complaint as to their grievances with regard to the pensions scheme. While the pensions scheme on the primary side is nothing to be enthusiastic about, still it has one advantage and one concession for which the secondary people are looking. That is that if a teacher dies in the service of a primary school, the children or dependents of that teacher get a year's salary. The secondary teachers have not got that concession. Why they have not got it I cannot understand. The work of the secondary teacher is very arduous. It is a profession that requires a good deal of training and a good deal of education. I think on any pension scheme there should be some provision in the case of the secondary teachers, so that a year's salary should be given to the dependents of those who die in the service. I think that, both for primary and secondary teachers, some provision should be made whereby a lump sum would be granted on retiral. That obtains in Civil Service and other schemes of pension, but it does not obtain in the case of primary or secondary teachers. There is need for a recasting of that pension scheme, so as to provide for the principle I have suggested—to provide that a lump sum would be given to teachers on retiral, and that the secondary people would get the same concessions.

Then they complain of the salaries. Well, the primary teachers also complain of their salaries, and I do not think it is of any great advantage to say that the primary teachers are reasonably well paid. Under the British Government a scale of salaries was laid down in 1920 which was to be the scale for normal times. I am sure you, Sir, and the House have heard over and over again how that salary scale was treated, and I am not going to go into it. Recently the Government did refund the 5 per cent. salary deduction, and the teachers are rightly pressing for the return of the full amount which was deducted under a native Government. That is a matter, of course, that must come up and will come up in various forms to the Minister and to the Government, because unless you have teachers who are well paid, unless you have contented teachers, in other words unless you have the ideals of Pádraig Pearse carried out, education is going to suffer, and education is a very important item in the life of the community. The progress which the State will make will, to a large extent, be based on education. Now, I do not speak of education in the bookish sense, but of education in the wide sense of training the boys and girls of this State to be useful citizens—training them especially to have a love of work, and a love of the vocation or the occupation which is to be their future. I think there should be a little more stress on agricultural education in rural parts. Probably in the technical schools more of a bent towards agricultural education should be given, so that we would not have that bookishness which I am afraid is a feature of our educational system.

On the whole, a Chinn Chomhairle, I must certainly say that the speech of the Minister gave me very great satisfaction, because I saw that things which have been worrying the teachers for a number of years are now definitely on the road to being tackled. There is another very big problem in regard to which I am quite satisfied that the Department of Education is doing its best, as far as it can, and that is the problem of school buildings. The Minister says that from a survey it transpires that it will be necessary to rebuild 605 existing rural schools. Certainly, some of those schools are a disgrace to civilisation, and I am afraid that there is a slowness about tackling the problem definitely. I brought certain cases to the notice of the Department of Education, and also to the notice of the Board of Works. I had one case in particular—it was not even in my own constituency—where, as I think I said in this House before, on wet days the teacher had to open his umbrella in school. He had the chalk in one hand and the umbrella in the other. That is quite true, and I am quite serious in saying it. I brought the matter to the notice of the proper authorities. I thought it was finished with, and that the new school was in process of erection, but after six or eight months I had another letter from the teacher, referring to his previous one and telling me that a colony of rats had invaded the school. He said he thought they were musk rats.

It was so serious that he had to arm the senior pupils with clubs—I am quoting the teacher's own words—and with the help of three or four blue terriers they were able to keep the rats in subjection. That is a case in point. I am not exaggerating a word. There are many schools not quite so bad as that probably, but in a very bad condition of repair, in fact beyond repair, so that if, according to the statistics of the Department, there are 605 rural schools to be replaced, I think there should be a definite push in order to replace them within a reasonable time. The children are suffering and the teachers are suffering in those schools. The conditions in some of them are beyond description. On the other hand, I must pay tribute to the new schools which have been built both in Cork and in Dublin. Schools have been built recently in Cork City which are certainly a credit to the Department of Education, and a credit to the State, but I would urge on the Minister again the urgent necessity for tackling this problem of school buildings.

It is gratifying to know also that the position with regard to secondary schools has been carefully examined, and that the programme in those schools is to be improved. Again, I would suggest to the Minister that the time has come to inquire into the position of the primary school, the secondary school and the vocational school in our system of education. I think it would be very useful to find out and allocate to each particular section the work which is expected of it. Again, in the secondary schools you have that cramming. It is a relic of the old days when everything of higher education that was to be done had to be done in the secondary schools. It is about time that this programme should be improved. Incidentally, I hope that there will be a cutting down of home work for the pupils. At the present time students preparing for examinations are working from the time they come home from school until late at night. That is not conducive to the health of the children, and it is not good educationally. I think, therefore, there is necessity for the curtailment of that homework, and that, as suggested here, the programme should be improved. There is really no necessity for that driving. Of course, it arises from the fact that there is competition—I would call it unhealthy competition—in regard to the results of examinations. When the results are announced you see the different schools flaunting the successes they have achieved. That, I think, is unhealthy, and there should be some way of putting a stop to it. I think if there was not that incentive there would not be in the secondary schools the cramming and hardship to which I have referred.

With regard to industrial school teachers, I take it from the statement of the Minister that the arrangement with regard to the bringing in of those industrial school teachers under the Primary Education Vote will be done in the near future and that it will not require legislation. There are parts of the report of the commission that inquired into the industrial school system that will require legislation, but I assume that that portion with reference to the absorption of the teaching staffs under the Education Vote will not require legislation. If that is so, I think that there is no need for any further delay, because the facts with regard to those teachers are already in the Education Department, their services, qualifications and other particulars. When it does not require legislation, then I think they should be brought in as soon as possible. I would like, in conclusion, to convey my appreciation of the work of the Education Department and their efforts to bring about very necessary reforms.

Mr. Moran

There are just a couple of points I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister. The first point is one that, perhaps, the Minister is not aware of—perhaps the Minister thinks it is not a matter for him, or comes under his control—that is, the practice in certain rural areas of teachers compelling some of the children to clean the schools. Several complaints have been made to me, and several representations have been made to me in my constituency in connection with this matter. I think this is something that should be stopped. I think it is a pity, whether there is a grant made available to teachers for this purpose or not, and certainly the people to do this work are not the children. I would like the Minister to look into this matter and see that this practice ceases for all time in the rural areas.

I suppose it does not apply except in rural areas. In the towns with which I am acquainted, I know it is not so. In the schools conducted by the De La Salle Brothers, the schools they have in Mayo, they pay a man to do this kind of work, but the practice of getting children to do it is very prevalent in the country areas, the backward areas of my constituency.

I was not here for most of the Minister's opening statement and I would like to know from him whether he has gone any distance toward the standardisation of school books in the primary schools. I think if the Minister tackles this question and if there are books provided of a standard type that can be used by the younger children, that they can get from their older brothers and sisters, it would be a great relief to parents throughout the country.

On the question of the teaching of Irish, I think I listened to the greatest slander that I ever heard on the Irish teachers, from Deputy Dillon. He told us the teachers are not capable of teaching Irish. He suggests that it is essential in order to be in a position to teach Irish that the person must be a native speaker and he says that not 15 per cent. of all the teachers in this country are in a position to teach Irish to the children. It was an extraordinary statement. It is a most extraordinary thing to say to the teachers who have, at all events, by now brought the position of Irish in the schools to this height, that the children can be and are being taught all subjects in certain schools through the medium of the Irish language.

I do not know was the Deputy serious in his suggestion. I do not know whether he is serious when he suggests that it is essential for a teacher to be a native of the particular country whose language he teaches. I wonder does he suggest that there is no Irishman capable of teaching Greek, Latin or French? There are quite a number of Irish teachers who are teaching those subjects.

Deputy Dillon declares they are not capable of teaching them, because they are Irish and not natives of the countries whose languages they teach. I think that marvellous strides have been made in the schools with the teaching of Irish. I think it is a subject every Irish child finds much easier to master than anything else and if we are serious about this question of Irish, if we are going to make any headway, surely we must start with the infant classes; surely, that is the time to give the children their initial training and teaching in Irish? Has Deputy Dillon the idea that we should leave it until they are ten or 12 years of age before we start imparting Irish to them? I do not know what particular ideas he has to improve on our present system.

And the compulsion as regards mathematics stops there. I am talking of what is the position up to the present. Now it is proposed that mathematics will not be compulsory in the secondary education course for girls at any stage. As soon as they enter the secondary school then, nothing in the world, at any rate nothing in the secondary school programme, is going to require that girls will do any mathematics. As far as boys are concerned, the only requirement there will be in the regulations will be that boys will be required to attend the course, what is called the junior course, from 12 up to 16, and do a shortened course of mathematics there, but there will be no compulsion, outside of that, either in respect of the study of mathematics or of examination. I say that that is an astounding position to arrive at, and I think it is symptomatic of a very serious position in the primary schools.

I think it explains a lot of the complaints that we hear from, say, Deputy Dillon and others about the Irish language, and the effect of the Irish language on education. In my opinion what is really wrong in the case of the primary schools is, in the first place, the exclusion of grammar from the programme, and, secondly, the lack of attention paid to mathematics. I want to say a word now on the mathematical side. The Rev. Dr. Corcoran is the Professor of the Theory and Practice of Education in University College, Dublin. I want to call attention to some evidence given by him on the 22nd and 23rd September, 1925, before the then Primary Programme Conference Sub-Committee appointed by the Dáil to examine into the programme of the primary schools. Paragraph four of Dr. Corcoran's evidence reads:—

"The subject of methematics should be emphasised and strengthened Efficiency in mathematics was perhaps the main element in Irish popular schools, from 1750 to 1900: it placed us easily ahead of any other civilised country in all that period. It was deliberately depressed in 1900, to make room for numerous `fad' subjects. This was done especially in girls' schools and in women's training colleges, to their heavy loss. There is no foundation (save mere blind routine failure to think) for the view that girls cannot, or should not, do mathematics (primary, secondary, technical, university courses) quite as fully and as successfully as boys.

"Strengthened by the annexation of drawing, and unified into one course, using both arithmetical and also algebraical and geometrical and trigonometrical processes throughout, mathematics should be our educational lever for turning the whole people towards industrial efficiency. There is great natural aptitude in this direction all over Ireland. It affords a great chance of putting our schools ahead of the best in Europe within five years."

That is in the written statement of his evidence. I want to concentrate on something that he said later on with regard to industrial efficiency. On page 24 of his evidence he says:—

"There was a `mathematical tradition' of teaching in the primary schools of Ireland from the beginning of the National Board system down to the end of the 19th century, under which the whole mathematical quality of the teachers was far above any quality and range required by the National Board."

He emphasised in his evidence—

"I am no subscriber to the doctrine that the main aim of education is a kind of in vacuo mental development. I think the whole of education in all courses has always gone on this line: Choose subjects because they are substantially serviceable, and make them intellectually valuable by the way you teach them. I would apply the same rule in the technical and in secondary curriculum.”

Again he says after he had advised that summer courses had reached their limit of immediate fructifying power in the Irish direction, and that they should turn to mathematics:—

"I think this would be the most important thing for the economic progress of the country. We cannot get the true technical system, using modern methods of production, without a considerable addition to mathematical power. The countries that have lowered mathematics—and I may tell you that they are below ours, the American schools distinctly below ours and English and French schools extremely low—are the countries left behind in the technical production race."

I propose to give some further quotations from Dr. Corcoran's evidence because I think that what the professor of the theory and practice of education in the National University says is a thing that we should call to mind now before it is too late, and because if what is being done with regard to boys and mathematics and girls and mathematics in the secondary schools goes on, then the reaction on the primary schools is going to be very bad, but the reaction on the future character of our people as far as the cruinneas that the Minister speaks about, and their proper preparedness for any kind of technical or economic development, is going to be very considerably impaired.

On page 20 of his reported evidence Dr. Corcoran says:

"The views I put forward here under Section 4 are those that I have worked out and long thought over. A distinct strengthening of the mathematical position in our schools could be achieved without any great dislocation of the existing system. It is the one line on which we could put ourselves ahead of the whole world in a very few years. I have had the duty of investigating this question from the historical point of view, from the period 1770 to 1850 in this country. I am thoroughly convinced that we were ahead immensely of any place in the world, and particularly immensely ahead of England in localised mathematical knowledge during that period. It was the main contributing cause to the high efficiency of the people as a whole."

Here he adds a very striking sentence:

"The intellectual quality of the average Irish farm labourer and the small farmer from 1775 to 1850 was ahead of the world, and in consequence they were able to take concerted action of a public character that no other people in the world at the time were even able to think of. It was largely developed by the presence in the country of a vast number of efficient mathematical teachers always called `mathematicians' even in print. I have gone over different areas of the country, traced the teachers and the books used. I say that no country in the world could approach us as regards quality of valuable teaching power at that time. Of course this reflected itself too in the actual work. Most of the countries that have gone in for enriching the primary curriculum with subjects of infinite variety, manual subjects and the like, have let the mathematical work of the schools go down to an extremely low point. America and large parts of France are down very low in this respect at present. If we are to make economic, agricultural, and technical progress we must have the mathematics of the schools raised to a high level. I would almost say that next to Irish we should rely on mathematical quality and endeavour to promote it."

I think it would be better if I read the whole paragraph, because it is very important that we should get a clear view of this. It reads as follows:—

"The standards in mathematics were lowered greatly after 1900, with a view to making room for subjects which I think it is not hard to call `fad' subjects. I would strengthen all mathematics by putting in drawing of the practical order. I see no reason for limiting mathematical work to what are called arithmetical processes. On the contrary, I would advocate the use of geometry, trigonometry, and algebra freely even at an early age in mathematical work. Never attempt to limit problems and things done to one way of doing them. They can be done quite as well by trigonometry and algebra as by arithmetic. In other words, I am entirely opposed to the limitations of the mathematical programme, as they were fixed, especially between 1900 and 1920. I say it was against the traditions of the country, and it was a deadly blow to the remnants left in the country of mathematical teaching power."

Then, in reply to questions as to what mathematical teaching powers existed and what could be done, he said:

"Admitting fully the great damage that has been done to the teachers themselves by the lowering of the standards, which of course would have to be retrieved, and admitting that this would require time, I say that, even as the situation is at present, a very marked improvement could be got; and that even a moderate amount of effort would put us very well ahead of the world. We have the talent and the ability to do it, and mathematics is the most important factor for technical efficiency afterwards."

Following on that, he suggested that the summer courses which had done a certain necessary amount of work involving the Irish language question might be diverted to mathematics in order that there might be a recovery of the mathematical teaching capacity that we had in this country and which suffered from the limitation of the mathematical programme from 1900 to 1920. Now, we are creating a situation here under which no girl, going from the primary to the secondary school needs to be able to add up as part of her attendance at a mathematical class and that, as far as boys are concerned, they will attend an obligatory course of mathematics reduced from what it was, to 12 years of age, but if they go for the leaving certificate examination at 15 years of age they need not be examined in mathematics and can drop mathematics.

Cormac Breathnach

Is that quite true?

General Mulcahy

That is the draft programme, and that is what is going to happen unless the people who are interested in education and in the objective of education in this country step in and learn something about it.

Cormac Breathnach

Well, that would be wrong.

General Mulcahy

It is bad enough to do that, but to do it in the light of the reports that you have from primary schools, as to the position with regard to the teaching of mathematics, is certainly to throw away any possible chance you have of keeping up the tradition of which Father Corcoran speaks where, in his own words, he says:—

I think these words should be printed and hung up in the schools. Goodness knows, if there ever was a country where concerted public action of a sound kind was required, it is in this country, standing on the threshold of 1939, and if there ever was a country where we wanted to conserve what the Professor of Theory and Practice in Education in the National University describes as the foundation of all technical progress, both in agriculture and industry, it is this country. If there ever was a time when that was required in this country it is now. As I say, to my mind it has always been the case that the things that are grumbled about with regard to the Irish language and the effect of Irish in our schools, such as some of the complaints we have heard here to-day and that we hear elsewhere, arise, not from the fact that Irish is being taught in the schools but to the fact that the position of mathematics in our schools is as it is at present and that grammar, comprising the rudiments of language, is being left out of our primary schools or has been left out for some time. Anybody who goes into a secondary school in connection with teaching must realise the difficulties of teaching French or other languages because of the lack in the pupils of the rudiments of ordinary grammar. However, I do not want to get away from the one important point here, and that is that what is proposed here with regard to secondary education, under the new proposals, is going to dig the grave of what I might call the character of our people for cruinneas and for a real, sound appreciation of problems and of facts, and, in the words of the Professor of the Theory and Practice of Education in the National University, it is going to throw away the traditional capacity of our people for mathematics, of which he speaks there, and which, in relation to our future economic development, he considers so important.

Are we to think anything of the opinions on this matter of the Professor of Theory and Practice in Education in the National University, or are we not? Is that all stuff and nonsense, or is it worth sitting down and pondering about it? If it is, has the Department of Education thrown its mind back to the things that were said at that particular time? I am afraid it has not, and I am afraid it is necessary to do so. I welcome the stirring that seems to be taking place. It appears to me that Deputy Breathnach has some feeling of sympathy with what I am saying here.

Cormac Breathnach

Yes, I have.

General Mulcahy

I would ask anybody who is interested in the question —they may have to have a certain knowledge of Irish—to look into the reports of the Department of Education as regards the primary schools and the secondary schools, particularly those parts of the reports where they deal with mathematics. You will not see much recently in the secondary education side on mathematics. I do not know why, but if you do go further and come on to the technical education side you will see that the report of the Department of Education, more and more, is forced to give increasing space to the technical side of things. The last report tells us, under technical education, about the sugar beet industry, about motor garage work, about electric welding, cinema operating, radiotelegraphy, cabinet-making, bakery technology, hotel chefs, woollen industry, handloom weaving, boot and shoe manufacture, electrical engineering, tanning industry, manufacture of nails and screws, ready-made clothing, button factory, toy making, pottery, fishing industry, advertising and publicity, and national health insurance. It brings us more and more into a consideration of the economic future. It brings more and more before the students of our schools the economic objective of education in so far as our education is intended to qualify them for what they will have to do in after life in the economic sphere.

While development is in that direction so far as technical education is concerned, as if what Dr. Corcoran says with regard to the relations between our mathematical capacity and our capacity to progress agriculturally, economically and industrially, had been all forgotten, too, any reference to mathematics is gradually going out of the secondary side of our reports.

I shall just read over and give a rough translation of the report dealing with mathematics in the primary schools for 1936-37. The inspectors generally report that there is a retrogression in the teaching of arithmetic and in the results therefrom, and that it is a weak subject in a lot of schools. In some schools, it is stated, that the fault is that the subject is being taught through the medium of Irish without the children having sufficient Irish; that in a lot of schools, in which no part of the blame can be put on Irish by reason of the fact that the teaching of arithmetic is done in English, it is the opinion of the inspector that there is a weakening of the effectiveness of the teaching. Here are some reasons for weakness in arithmetic: too many or long questions are being put out of text books which have no connection with life, and sufficient attention is not given to oral arithmetic, to the explanation of principles, and to going back on the tables in the middle and higher ranks. Here is what one inspector reports on this question:

"If more time were spent on simple oral questions and on the fundamental principles of rules you need not spend long months struggling with each one of them and you can do more effective work. Very often you have children struggling with crooked questions when they are not able to do the simplest questions. Very often they have to handle rules and formulas without the least bit of understanding as to the fundamental work that they refer to. Algebra and euclid are only taught in the larger schools to boys and the teaching is usually satisfactory."

That is the tail-end of a long series of miserable reports on the position of arithmetic in the schools in which, year after year, it is complained that the teachers do not read the notes sent out to them and that, generally, the position of arithmetic in the schools is in an unsatisfactory way. Where are the arithmetical, algebraical, geometrical and trigonometrical processes that the Professor of Education in the National University thought out to be grouped together as one particular subject— mathematics? All is thrown aside. You can see no continuance of the tradition of mathematical capacity that is spoken of so strongly by Dr. Corcoran in his evidence before the Primary Programme Conference. I should like to ask the Minister whether he believes the evidence given by Dr. Corcoran before that conference; what he is going to do with regard to the long string of reports by inspectors as to the condition of mathematics in the primary schools; and what on earth has brought him to drop mathematics as a compulsory examination subject for any grade in secondary education.

I think I should stop there, because I hope I have covered the ground. But I just want finally to suggest to all concerned that the draft scheme which has been sent to the teachers and to the managers is going to find its way into actual operation, except some very definitely formed public opinion in the country intervenes, turning our back on our tradition in mathematical capacity. We hear a lot about Irish culture and Irish tradition and national this and national that, and all the things that we are expected to suffer because they are supposed to have roots in the past; we see the rules made with regard to these things; and yet we see so effective and so useful a part of our national tradition as our mathematical capacity thrown overboard without a single word being said about it.

I want to leave that subject, and anything else I have to say is very minor fry after it. But there are a few things I should like to say. Deputy Hurley wants some kind of examination into the primary school programme and work of the kind that has been carried out in connection with secondary education. He thinks, as it were, that something like the 1925 Conference should be established over again to make a review. I have urged before that the Minister should take a group of his most competent teachers, seasoned in the profession, real technical experts, and put them out as a tribunal or a committee to report on the conditions, say, of mathematics in the primary schools as a separate job for a separate subject; to do that again, say, with regard to English and the way in which it is taught; to do it again with another focal subject in our primary programme. An examination of that particular kind would be a much more effective and satisfactory way of seeing what the position is at present and how it should be remedied even than the bringing together of the work in the reports of the inspectors.

What position do we find ourselves in? There are at present 260 men teachers and 222 women teachers not employed. Thirty-seven of the women are employed at a class of work which is not their normal work. After July next the number of male teachers who will be without work will be 322, and the number of female teachers 370. There you have 690 teachers, mostly of the young type, fresh out of the training colleges. They have been given the benefit, in the training colleges and in the preparatory colleges, of all the new technique of concentrating on Irish and teaching subjects through the medium of Irish. Again getting back to arithmetic in the primary schools, it will be seen that where there is an improvement in the primary schools it has been at the hands of some of the younger teachers.

Domhnall O Ruairc

Ní fíor é sin.

General Mulcahy

Béidir nach fhíor é. An gceapann an Teachta go bhfuil na sean-mhúinteoirí níos fearr anois ná mar a bhí? I am not saying that the new teachers are better than some of the old teachers. What I am saying is that the Department of Education, after bemoaning for years upon years the position with regard to arithmetic in the primary schools, have recently reported that where there is an improvement it is due to the younger teachers.

Domhnall O Ruairc

Ní aontuighim leis sin.

General Mulcahy

The only alternative explanation is that some of the teachers have been asleep for a long while, and they have now wakened up. I do not believe that. I believe they have been doing their work as well as they could all the time. The Deputy is not surely so jealous of the younger teachers coming out of the modern preparatory and training colleges, as to doubt the possibility that they have contributed something towards the improved position of mathematics in the primary schools. That is the point which I want the Deputy to appreciate. In July next you will have 692 teachers who will have no work. I want to have them used in the best possible way, in a way that will enable competent and skilled men and women, with a tradition of service in primary education in the country, to stand back, scrutinise the condition of education in these schools and give us their reports. I want some of the best men and women teaching at the moment released, so that they can be utilised by the Department to go in inspectorial groups of a special kind, and to take up the position with regard to mathematics, English, grammar and such subjects, and particularly the position with regard to Irish, so as to get a proper appreciation of the work that is being done for Irish.

The Minister has handed over to him the greatest opportunity that any Minister for Education could have. Normally a person who is running a big concern always feels that if he only had another 20 people, what could he not do with them. Here is the Minister, and he is handed over 690 teachers, a large number of them fresh from training, who could be put into schools throughout the country so that he could release people with more experience and greater judgment to carry out a real examination of the general condition of primary education in the country. I would urge on the Minister, if he is concerned with what is happening in the primary schools, if he is concerned with the position of the language, if he is concerned with seeing that misunderstandings and misrepresentations are not going to be allowed either to injure the prestige of the teaching staffs of the country or to damage the great national work that is being carried on in the schools, to take advantage of the opportunities that Providence has given into his hands. I suggest that he should make use of these young people so as to set free some of the more seasoned people—a sufficient number to carry out a thorough examination of the conditions in the primary schools, setting aside separate groups to deal with separate subjects. Then when he has got their report, he might set up a tribunal of persons interested in education, both parents, teachers and professional persons, who might be expected to review the whole ground of the objectives of education as bearing on the economic life of the country. He could set before them the reports of the groups that I speak of and get a report from them as to what they think of the present position and invite their recommendations for the future.

I feel so keenly on these two questions that I am satisfied to let them blot out any other matter that I should like to raise now. I do think that the report that the Minister has made here, in a very flimsy and meagre way, of proposed changes in the secondary education programme makes us aware that we are on the threshold of very serious decisions with regard to our education in the future.

I wish in these circumstances that the Minister had not been so meagre, as Deputy Dillon suggested, in introducing the Estimate. I hope he will not spare himself or spare the time of the House when replying and when he comes to deal with the general objectives of primary and secondary education.

There is just another point that I should like to stress. Disparaging words have been spoken here as to what is being done in secondary schools through the medium of Irish. The Minister will always find himself, where the Irish language is concerned, in that position. I urged the Minister before to set up a small group, absolutely unofficial if you like, to go and consult with him and advise him, a small group comprised of persons who are dealing with Irish in the university and of suitable people who are dealing with Irish in the secondary schools, to get some kind of a joint private discussion and understanding as to what linguistic power exactly in Irish is being attained as a result of secondary education through the medium of Irish. There are serious superficial defects that to persons outside indicate a weakness there. It would seem that during recreation hours, in some of the A schools, Irish is not the language of the children and that, to a very large extent in the case of children going to A schools in the City of Dublin, there is not the same tendency to talk Irish amongst themselves as one would expect from children attending A schools. That is one side. It has nothing to do with the other examination I asked for, but indicates a weakness in teaching through Irish in the secondary schools. The examination wanted is a discussion between people in the universities and in the secondary schools on that particular question. I urge that the Minister should really consider it, and do something, because there will be a lot of uninformed, ignorant, and perhaps prejudiced expressions of opinion on the question of Irish in relation to education. You are bound to have that, and it is bound to continue. Therefore, the Minister should leave nothing undone to strengthen his mind, by having a clear and full understanding of the position from people who are doing the work, by people who can give him information and who, because they are doing the work, are sympathetic.

Cormac Breathnach

Ba mhaith liom aontú leis an méid adubhairt an Teachta Ó Diolúin i dtaobh coiste fiosrúcháin do chur ar bun mar gheall ar cheist na Gaedhilge sna scoileanna. An bhfuil aon Teachta, aon Aire nó aon duine sásta go bhfuilimíd ag dul ar aghaidh mar is ceart? Is dóigh liom-sa ná fuilimíd ag dul ar aghaidh mar is ceart. Tá an cheist seo, ceist an choiste fhiosrúcháin, á phlé le támall maith agus ní thuigim cé'n fáth ná fuil an t-Aire sásta an Coiste do chur ar bun. Is eol do gach duine annso go bhfuil aon bhaint aige leis an nGaedhilg nach bhfuil dul ar aghaidh chó maith agus bá chóir á dhéanamh againn. Muna bhfuil, ba chóir duinn suidhe sios, mar a deirtear, agus a fháil amach conus atá an scéal. Aontuím leis an Teachta Ó Diolúin nuair adeir se gur ceart coiste do chur ar bun.

An Ceann Comhairle

Sin ceist ná baineann leis an Vóta seo.

Cormac Breathnach

Tá múinteoirí ann agus dá gcuirtí cúig bliana le na seirbhís, d'eireochaidís as a bpost le háthas. An bhfuil cead agam tagairt do dhéanamh do'n Ghúm?

An Ceann Comhairle

Tá.

Cormac Breathnach

Ní thuigim scéal an Ghúim. Cé'n sórt céille atá ag lucht ceannais an Ghúim nuair a chuireann siad Gaedhilge ar leabhair Bheárla agus an Beárla mar adhbhar riachtannach sna scoileanna? Bhfuil aon chiall leis sin? Tá siad ag cur Gaedhilge ar David Copperfield agus leabhra den tsórt sin agus an Bheárla mar adhbhar riachtannach sna scoileanna. Dá mba rud é go gcuirfidís Gaedhilge ar leabhra Frainncise, nó ar leabhra Gearmáinise d'fhéadfainn é do thuigsint ach ní thuigim an scéal fé mar tá sé. Tá comhacht agus cead ag an Aire dul isteach sa cheist seo agus é do scrúdú mar tá airgead á chailleadh ar leabhra Beárla d'aistriú.

Is mithid an coiste fiosrúcháin do chur ar bun. Ní féidir leis aon díobháil do dhéanamh. Má tá an scéal ceart, agus má bhíonn coiste oiriúnach agus ciallmhar ann, déarfa siad an méid sin; ach, muna bhfuil cúrsaí mar is ceart, inneosfa siad sin dúinn. Aontuim leis an méid adubhairt an Teachta Ó Díolúin mar gheall ar an gcoiste sin.

Mr. S. Brodrick

With regard to the question of school buildings, the Minister informed us that 600 schools were still required. The fault I have to find in this matter is with the slowness of either the Department of Educationor the Board of Works. Apparently they do not work together, as through the country, and in the constituency I come from, there are several schools that have been condemned by medical officers of health. One of these schools, to my knowledge, was condemned seven years ago as being unfit for use. In recent years the medical officer again visited and condemned that school. Several applications were made to have a new school erected. In my constituency I find that sites for schools were procured, that the Board of Works' engineers came down on three or four occasions, and then the matter ended. Were the sites not suitable? It should be quite easy to deal with that matter inside six months. There should be more cooperation in the selection of sites between the managers of the schools, the Board of Education, and the Board of Works. A good deal of unnecessary expense is incurred and unnecessary time taken in the selection of sites. I find that these two Departments are very slow to act until the parents are prepared to take action. The action I saw some parents taking in one district was to refuse to send the children to school until the Department did something or made provision for a new school. That was done, apparently, with effect. It is a very bad sign that the Department did not act until the parents came along with a threat to keep the children away from school. Again, once an application is made for an additional classroom, it takes practically two years before that classroom is erected, and by then, in some instances, the average has gone up, and the school is entitled to another classroom.

What I find fault with is the slowness of the Department in these matters. Certainly, I admit that the Department has gone a good way in the erection of good schools, but in the past few years there has been slowness, and year after year we find that money provided in the Board of Works Estimate was not spent. That should not be so. The Board of Works and the Department of Education have inspectors practically walking over each other, and accordingly what I have mentioned should not take place. It is all right to talk about education and matters connected with it, but how can there be real education when there are such schools in use as those that Deputy Hurley referred to in Cork? I could mention a school that is practically in as bad condition. We cannot get along on such lines. Deputy Moran dealt with the cleansing of schools. I have had the same experience as he had in that respect. A large amount of money, £45,000, is allotted for the cleaning and heating of schools and outoffices. I should like some information from the Minister as to how much of the money was spent on cleaning, or whether, as Deputy Moran stated, the children in rural districts have to clean the schools. I should like to know what amount was spent in heating schools, or if the children have to provide heating in the rural districts. If the Minister makes inquiries I think he will find that in many instances the parents of the children have to provide heating for schools. I think that sort of thing is most unfair. I am aware that it does not happen in the towns. The money is paid there all right for the cleaning and heating of the schools. The Minister should certainly find out as to what is being spent in the rural districts. He should ascertain what is spent between cleaning and heating the schools.

There is another matter to which I wish to refer, and that is the transport facilities to the rural schools. In a good many instances one finds children having to travel from four and five miles away to their schools. I think the Department of Education is rather slow in providing transport for children that are not within a reasonable distance from the school. I know myself of cases where the children travel four or five miles to school. That certainly is a hardship on the youngsters, some of whom would be only about seven years of age. They are not able to travel that long distance in the winter. Children even in some tworoomed schools in those districts should have some form of transport provided. I hope the Minister will hurry up and instil a bit of life into the Board of Works in the matter of the erection of schools. There is very little use in passing money here year after year and finding at the end of the year that that money has been unspent. I again ask the Minister to look into the matter as to whether and how that £45,000 provided for cleansing and heating the schools has been disbursed.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

Níl morán le rá agam ar an meastachán so ach níor mhaith liom an díospóireacht do leigint thairm gan rud éigin a rá mar gheall ar an méid adubhairt an Teachta Ó Diolúin. Tá an Teachta ag caint ar an meastachán so le bliana agus tá sé ag tagairt do mhúineadh na Gaedhilge le bliana agus ní bhíonn aon rud nua le rá aige mar gheall air. Tá uaidh coiste fiosrúcháin do chur ar bun. Ní hé an Teachta an t-aon duine amháin atá ag gabháil an scéal céanna. Tá dream beag cráidhteach ann—ollaimh ollscoile agus a leithéidí —ag gabháil don scéal sin. Ní dóigh liom go bhfuil eolas cruinn ag an Teachta Ó Diolúin ar an gceist seo. Bhí cúpla coiste fiosrúcháin ann cheana maidir leis an gceist seo. Cuireadh Coimisiún ar bun i 1926— Coiste ar Chlár na mBun-Scoileanna— agus bhí beirt chomhalta den Dáil ar an gcoiste sin—Risteárd Ua Maolchatha agus Cormac Breathnach. Is suimúil anois na rudaí adubhairt an Coimisiún sin i dtaobh múineadh tré Ghaedhilg do léigheamh. Ní léigfidh mé ach alt amháin den tuarasgabháil sin:

"One of the leading characteristics of that programme is its persistence on the principle of teaching the infant classes through the medium of Irish. The members of our conference agreed on the supreme importance of giving effect as far as possible to this principle; and in confirmation of their belief they received authoritative evidence, It was agreed with much weight that a `direct' method of teaching Irish, continued during the length of an ordinary schoolday for a few years between the ages of four and eight, would be quite sufficient—given trained and fluent teachers—to impart to children a vernacular power over the language; while in the case of older children, it was shown that such a result would be more difficult of attainment. The members of the conference were, therefore, at one in holding that the true and only method of establishing Irish as a vernacular is the effective teaching of it to the infants.

Sin alt as an tuarasgabháil a cuireadh os cóir an Aire i 1926, 13 bliana ó shoin, nó mar sin. Molaim do'n Aire agus do'n Roinn leanamhaint leis an obair atá ar siúl aca. Nílim ar aon aigne leis na Teachtaí atá ag iarraidh Coimisiún mar sin do chur ar bun. Tá cuspóir ag an Aire agus ag an Roinn, cuspóir fé leith, maidir leis an nGaedhilge—sé sin, an Ghaedhilg do chur in uachtar. Má deintear é sin, caithfear an Beárla do chur amach as na scoileanna indiaidh a chéile. Ba cheart an obair sin do thosnú leis na naoidhneáin agus leanamhaint leis indiaidh a chéile in gach rang eile sna scoileanna. Ní chloisim aon chúis ghearáin o sna tuismitheoirí, nó aon dream eile mar gheall ar mhúineadh na Gaedhilge. An t-aon ghearán amháin atá ag na tuismitheoirí, sé sin ná fuil go leor Gaedhilge sna scoileanna. Tá an Teachta Ó Diolúin agus Teachtaí eile ag gearán mar gheall ar ghléas múinte sna bun-scoileanna, ach tá daoine ann atá mí-shásta toisc ná fuilimíd ag dul ar aghaidh chó tapaidh agus ba cheart. Tá gléas oibre leagtha amach agus níl le déanamh ag an Aire ach é do chur i bhfeidhm.

Nílím ar aon aigne leis an Teachta Ó Diolúin mar gheall ar na múinteoirí. Thuigfeá ón gcaint a bhí ar siúl ag an Teachta go bhfuil a lán múinteoirí ann ná fuil in ann an Ghaedhilg do labhairt ar aon chor. Ní fíor é sin agus tá fhios againn go léir nach fíor é. Do réir mar tá na sean-mhúinteoirí ag dul amach agus na múinteoirí óga ag teacht isteach ó sna Coláisti, beidh feabhas ag dul ar an scéal sin. Tá cuid de sna múinteoirí gan aon Ghaedhilg agus cuid eile acu ar bheagán Gaedhilge. Níl aon leigheas air sin ach imtheacht na haimsire. Do chaith an Teachta Ó Diolúin a lán ama ag seinm an phuirt chéana a bhí ar siúl aige anuraidh agus gach bliain roimhe sin. Más mian leis cabhrú leis an nGaedhilg agus má tá sé dáríribh i dtaobh na Gaedhilge, eireochaidh sé as an gcaint sin. Ní dheineann an chaint sin aon mhaith don teanga, do sna múinteoirí, do sna páistí nó do sna tuismitheoirí. Dhéanfadh aon díospóireacht amháin i nGaedhilg anso níos mó maitheasa do chúis na teangan ná dá mbeimís ag caint i mBeárla go dtí lá Philib an Chleite. D'féadfadh an Teachta Ó Diolúin agus Teachtaí eile ag a bhfuil an Ghaedhilg é sin do dhéanamh dá gcuirfidís chuige.

Táimíd ag cáineadh na múinteoirí agus gan faic á dhéanamh againn fein chun deagh-shompla do thabhairt don tír. Caithfidh an Ghaedhilg teacht ón Tigh seo chó maith le o sna bun-scoileanna agus na meán-scoileanna. Molaim sin go láidir do'n Teachta O Diolúin agus don Teachta Ua Maolchatha agus do sna Teachtaí eile ag a bhfuil an Ghaedhilg. Tá áthas orm go bhfuil an tAire beart do dhéanamh chun ceist na múinteoirí atá ar ceal oibre do réidhteach. Ag an am céanna, iarraim ar an Aire gan bheith róchruaidh ar bhan-mhúinteoirí le n-a mbaineann an rial nua a chuireann d'fhiachaibh orra eirighe as a bpostanna nuair a shroisid 60 bliana d'aois. Tá cásanna ann agus ba cheart do'n Aire iad do scrudú go cúramach. Molaim an tAire mar gheall ar an deagh-shompla a thug sé nuair a thug sé an Meastachán isteach i nGaedhilg. Is truagh nách fuair sé ach beagán congnaimh ó sna Teachtaí a labhair go dtí seo.

An Dochtúir Ó Tubraide

Ba bhaith liom cúpla focal a rá faoi dhá ré ar a bhfuil an tAire ag caitheamh airgid faoi lathair. Ní dóigh liom go bhfuil an t-airgead á chaitheamh chó maith agus is féidir é. An chéad rud go mba mhaith liom tagairt a dhéanamh dhó, sé sin tithe na máighistrí scoile. Deirtear—agus tá fhios a'm gur fíor é— go bhfuil na tithe seo á leigint amach ar cíos do stráinséirí. Ní dóigh liom go bhfuil an rud sin coithcheanta san tuaith ach tá fhios agam gur thárla sé i gConamara thiar. Tá pointe eile go mba mhaith liom tágairt a dhéanamh dhó agus pointe beag 'seadh é. Do labhair an Teachta O Bruadair agus Teachtaí eile faoi ghlanadh na scoltacha agus faoi theigheachan na scoltacha. Tá cinéal náire agus faitchís ann mar gheall ar an dóigh in a bhfuil an t-airgead sin á chaitheamh. Ní maith le daoine é sin do rá agus is deacair a fháil amach cadé mar caithtear an t-airgead seo atá curtha i leath taoibh faoi choinne glanadh agus teigheachan na scoltacha. Is ar na scoláirí a bhíos an scoil do ghlanadh tar éis obair an lae. Is aisteach an rud é nach gcuirtear stad leis sin. Ní folláin an áit an scol nuair a bhíos sí á glanadh agus ní ceart cead a bheith ag aon mháighistir scoile na scoláirí do choinneáil istigh chun an obair seo do dheánamh. Ní ceart an t-airgead seo do thabhairt do mháighistrí scoile ná do shagairt paróiste.

Tá an t-airgead sin agu dul amú in a ián áiteacha agus tá fhios agam féin cásanna den tsórt sin. Cuireann siad an t-airgead in a bpóca féin, agus ní chaitheann siad é ar na scoltacha. Is mithid an scéal sin do réidhteach. Ba cheart adhmad agus móin do choimeád sna scoltacha agus ba cheart an dualgas bheith ar dhuine éigin a fheiceál go bhfuil an scoil te sul má théigheann na scoláirí isteach. Is minic a bhíos siad fluich báidhte agus nuair a bhíos an scol druidthe, caithfidh siad leathuair a' chluig do chaitheamh ag glanadh na scoile, agus ocras orra tar éis an lae. Tá an t-airgead sin ag dul amú in a lán áiteacha. Ní abraim go bhfuil sé ag dul amú in gach áit, ach tá fhios a'm go bhfuil sé ag dul amú in áiteacha áirithe.

Mr. Cogan

I desire to express at least my disagreement with those who have protested against the policy of employing children to assist in the cleaning of schools and in the brightening up of those schools. I think that the whole attitude towards this question is altogether wrong. I think that everybody—at least every normal parent—will approve of children being allowed to contribute a little useful manual labour in the course of their attendance at school. It may be suggested that the purpose of education is not to teach children to do manual work, that they can learn that in their homes, but at the same time I think it will do no harm to the development of the children's character or even to their mental development if they are taught and encouraged to contribute a little useful manual work. We are told that education, to a large extent, is adopting an anti-rural bias, but I think that at the present time judging by opinions expressed by some Deputies here to-day education is cultivating an anti-work bias, or at least an anti-manual work bias, and that is a most undesirable state of affairs. There is no normal parent who will object to children being allowed to help in the cleaning and brightening up of their schools, and there is no normal parent who will not agree that it would be an advantage to those children to have a slight break in their hours of work, or rather a change from mental to manual work, and that when the children have contributed an hour or even half an hour per day to manual work their minds will be fresher to turn to ordinary education.

I think about ten or 12 or perhaps 20 years ago a very intensive effort was made to develop school gardens attached to all national schools. This development has been to a large extent abandoned, and I think it was a most undesirable thing to have abandoned the teaching of gardening in our national schools. Nothing could be more desirable than to teach children in their early days a love for improving their surroundings. At the present time we hear a good deal about the drab condition of our schools, but there is no doubt whatever that the teachers and the children could do a great deal to brighten up those schools. There is no reason whatever why every school should not be provided with a small plot—a very small plot, I suggest—where the children of the higher standards would be taught and encouraged to do a little plain gardening. There is no reason whatever why the children should not also be taught and encouraged to help in the preparation of school meals. Those things are useful. The whole object of education is to make children useful citizens of this country. One cannot imagine a useful citizen who is unable to do a little gardening, or a useful girl or woman who is not educated in household duties. There is no reason why, even in our primary schools, an initial attempt should not be made in directing the tastes of the children towards useful manual work.

A good deal has been done in recent years in promoting vocational education, and on this question there is, I think, a considerable amount of uneasiness amongst the people of this country, and particularly amongst parents. There is a strong feeling that the vocational schools or technical schools, particularly in rural districts, are not really worth the money which is being expended upon them, and that if the policy of the Government is to be extended in that direction a lot of useful money will be wasted. Apparently the present policy of the Department of Education is to duplicate every national school, or almost every national school, with a vocational school, so that the children leaving the national schools would be able to continue to obtain free education. But we must remember that such a policy will involve the expenditure of a colossal amount of money. We must ask ourselves, and I think it is the duty of the Minister for Education to ask himself, whether we are going to get a really useful return for that expenditure. To my mind it is absolutely impossible for teachers in those rural vocational schools to give an adequate return for the expenditure involved in that branch of education. It is impossible for one teacher to teach the variety of subjects which must be taught in those schools, and I think it is also impossible for one teacher, particularly a young teacher, to maintain the rigid discipline which is absolutely necessary in a school of that type. It must be remembered that in those rural schools we have boys and girls from 14 to 18 years of age. I cannot imagine that it is possible for a young vocational teacher to maintain the standard of discipline which is required in such schools.

Personally, I believe that secondary education and vocational education, as far as rural areas are concerned, must be directed on other lines; that is to say, that the Department must undertake the provision of residential agricultural schools for boys and residential domestic economy schools for girls. Such schools would be far more useful and would turn out far better citizens than the type of vocational schools upon which a lot of useful money is being spent at present. As far as the large towns and cities are concerned, I have no doubt whatever that the technical schools are doing very useful work, but I think it is altogether wrong that in rural areas there should be continuation schools which, by their very nature, must concentrate mainly upon the teaching of commercial subjects, such as shorthand, book-keeping, typewriting and other subjects of that kind, which must inevitably tend to encourage boys and girls in rural areas to leave the country districts in which they were reared and to take up commercial life in our cities and towns. I think that policy is altogether wrong and ought to be discontinued, or at any rate that no further expenditure upon vocational education in rural areas should be incurred until the whole question has been very carefully examined.

As far as the subject which has been mentioned here to-day—the subject of teaching children through the medium of Irish—is concerned, I am perfectly satisfied that the policy is wrong. I am satisfied from experience, as one who has children attending a national school, that the strain imposed upon children in endeavouring to adjust themselves to an entirely new language at such an early date is more than their physical and mental strength can bear, and I believe that it is tending not only to weaken those children intellectually but also physically. It is too great a strain. There are only two policies in regard to the teaching of Irish to children. One is to isolate the children, so to speak, from all contact with the English language, so that they will acquire the Irish language from infancy. Where that is not possible, I think the alternative is to allow children a certain amount of mental and physical development before compelling them to undertake the study of a new language. For that reason I would suggest that children should not be compelled to acquire a knowledge of Irish, at least until they reach the age of ten years.

We must remember there is a great disparity between children in regard to mental development. There are children who do not learn to speak the language in their homes until they reach the age of four, or even five years. This is a fact that must be faced. These children may be considered as backward, but they are not unintelligent. Having acquired, with great difficulty, one language, it is too great a strain to compel these children, within a year or two afterwards, at six or seven years of age, to undertake the study of an entirely new language. The result is, of course, to weaken the mental development of those children. There is no question that children, having acquired the English language in their homes, will continue to think in that language until at least they have acquired a working knowledge of Irish, and even when they have acquired a working knowledge of Irish, to compel children at such an early age to think in one language, and to speak and learn in another, is altogether more than the intelligence of any child can bear. Therefore, I would suggest very respectfully to the Minister that he should consider postponing the introduction of Irish until the children have reached the age of ten years, at least.

I am sure it is the desire of everyone in this country to see Irish becoming popular. There is absolutely no possibility of Irish becoming the spoken language of the country unless it is popular with the people, with parents, teachers and the children. If you endeavour to force children to do something which is absolutely impossible— that is to learn a second language before they have properly acquired a complete knowledge of the language in which they are reared and which they speak, you are doing something which will place a barrier on the road to the development of Irish. You will create a situation in which those children will develop a hostility towards Irish which they will continue to have for many years and which will retard, to a great extent, their ability to acquire a real knowledge of the mother tongue.

It is also important to consider that the physical and mental development of children may be injured. I have been told by teachers that children have become nervous and physically weak as a result of the strain imposed upon them. This is particularly true of backward children, who do not acquire a working knowledge of the language of their homes at an early age. I think it is absolutely cruel for the Government or for the Irish people or for this Parliament to insist upon inflicting such an injustice on defenceless children. The children cannot retaliate or give expression to their views on the matter. As a result of this policy they are being mentally and intellectually injured for the rest of their lives. For those reasons I trust the Minister will consider the suggestion I have made, will investigate the whole question impartially and will endeavour to secure the real opinions of the teachers. I know that the teachers do not always speak as clearly as we would like on this matter; as clearly as would be desired.

Mr. Moran

What is to stop them?

Mr. Cogan

The fact is that the policy of the Government is directed to the intensification of the teaching of the Irish language and, because that is the Government's policy, teachers are not anxious to identify themselves with any course which might be regarded as antagonistic to the development of Irish. Teachers are public servants and they must be very careful as to how they express their opinions in relation to matters of Government policy.

Mr. Hughes

While we all agree that it should be the ambition of the people of this country, and of the Minister and his Department, to restore the Irish language as far as possible, I do not think the system that we have in our primary schools to-day is going to help us, the system of cramming Irish all the time. I believe it is not going to cultivate a love for the language at all. It will have the effect on our young people of developing a hatred for the language. They get so much of it day in and day out, week after week and month after month—Irish and nothing else—that it will tend to develop a hatred for the language. That is the position in our schools and I think it is going to be harmful to the Irish language in the long run. The policy in our primary schools is to develop a knowledge of the Irish language and to sacrifice every other subject. That is what is being done.

The primary aim of our educational system should be to give a good ground knowledge of the essential subjects, so as to equip our people for the particular spheres in life that they are going to occupy, to equip them for the battle of life. We know that the majority of our people in future life will be engaged in this country in agricultural pursuits. I do not think the aim of our primary education is to equip them for that particular walk of life. It is not very helpful, at all events, and I think there could be development much further along definite lines that would be useful in after life. There are some subjects that have been seriously neglected. First of all, we have to consider that the majority of our young people are the children of small, hard-working farmers and agricultural labourers and they can never hope for any secondary education or even vocational education. They have to rely absolutely on whatever education they get in the primary school. I find that to-day the young fellow coming from a primary school has much less knowledge than the boy who left school 20 or 25 years ago.

Deputy Mulcahy referred to a very important matter, and that is that in both the primary and secondary schools the knowledge of arithmetic is being neglected. I know young fellows, agricultural labourers' and farmers' sons, coming from the sixth standard and they cannot step off or lay off an acre of land. That is a serious defect.

Mr. Hickey

That is not because there is any Irish, I hope.

Mr. Hughes

We have concentrated too much on the Irish language and we have absolutely neglected other very essential matters. I would like to point out to Deputy Hickey that we cannot live on Irish. The first essential in this world is that we should live and that we should equip our people for the battle of life. By all means have the Irish language. I have no objection whatever to the Irish language, but I certainly do hope that the Minister for Education and his Department will pay more attention to equipping the majority of our people who have to live on the land. It may be said that other people have to live by other methods in other walks of life, but they that have to go away from the land are generally equipped through vocational schools.

Mr. Hickey

My experience is that small farmers' sons are most anxious to learn Irish.

Mr. Hughes

I am not saying they are against the learning of the language. I think Deputy Hickey is misunderstanding me or trying to misinterpret me, I do not know which. I am not saying the people have an objection to learning the language, but I do say that the policy at the present time of having so much attention paid to the learning of the language and to teaching all subjects through the medium of the Irish language is having a detrimental effect on the education of our young people in other very important essential subjects.

I was anxious to point out that a big percentage of our people, small, hard-working farmers' sons and agricultural labourers, have to go directly from the primary school to the land. Some of the small farmers cannot afford to send their children to a secondary school or they have not the time to send them to a vocational school or there is not a vocational school within easy reach. They have to rely on the knowledge they gain in the primary school. I would point out that their knowledge of arithmetic is very poor. It may seem to some people that the farmer does not require a knowledge of arithmetic. An up-to-date practical farmer to-day requires to know a good deal about measurements. He needs to know how to seed accurately an acre of land and to distribute artificial manures over an acre of land. I find a number of young fellows coming from school, and some of the young fellows that work with me on my own farm, completely lacking in that knowledge—the elementary knowledge of how many square yards in an acre of land, and how to lay off an acre of land for a straight line, and that sort of thing. One is amazed to find that is the position, but we cannot deny that fact.

With regard to the textbooks, I think they should treat much more of agricultural subjects than they do at present. In fact, textbooks treating of agricultural matters would give a good ground knowledge of many matters that many young people lack at the present time. It may be said that that type of subject would be wasted to a great extent on people who had to earn their livelihood in other walks of life. As I said, those people who have to earn their livelihood in other ways will have to go further than the sixth form of a primary school. They certainly will have to go to a vocational school or spend some time in a secondary school and even if they are forced to read textbooks dealing with agricultural matters it will not do them any harm. It would certainly equip the majority of our people for the very important business of living on the land.

We hear a lot about the drift from the land, but can anything be done by the Department of Education to stem that flow from the land at the present time? Probably the root cause of the drift from the land is that agriculture is not at the present time a profitable undertaking. That is the main reason why you have a drift from the land. There are other reasons as well. People want to get into the cities and towns where they enjoy themselves and think there is a greater opportunity to enjoy life than on the land. Is our educational system making any attempt to put the minds of our young people right in that respect? To appreciate nature at its best, a man must live in the country.

No attempt has been made by any of our textbooks in the primary school to develop the young minds of our people to appreciate the beauties of nature and to appreciate the great work that is given by nature to agriculturists all over the world in winning the very essentials of life from the land. I think a lot could be done in that respect. I think, as a matter of fact, if we are going to stop the drift from the land that we would have to start in our primary school and make our young people there realise the great advantages in many respects which country life has over town life. Possibly, at the moment, or at any time, it may not have the monetary advantages and the hum and bustle and excitement of town life, but it has enormous and real advantages over town and city life. The vast majority of our people have to live in the country on the land and an attempt can be made, and should be made, by the Department, through their textbooks, to make our young people at the present time feel that they are going to gain nothing by running away from the land and that possibly they are going to gain everything by remaining there if it is possible to do so. I think the Minister ought not to lose sight of that.

Deputy Cogan referred to the school gardens that we had 25 years ago. I think it is a pity that the school garden idea was ever dropped. I know some boys who went to a course of gardening in school at that time and it made them very keen and they got very useful knowledge of gardening. It developed a taste for gardening which I am sure would not have been there but for the fact that it was started in the primary school. It may be pointed out by the Minister or Deputies here that that is being done in our vocational schools at the present time, but a good many of our young people are not in a position to attend vocational schools. Even if there is a vocational school close to them, a good many of our hard-worked, hard-pressed farmers begrudge the time that a son or sons may take after leaving the primary school to attend those vocational schools. I think it was a grand idea of having school gardens. It developed a sound knowledge and a technical knowledge, not only of gardening but observing how a plant grows and the peculiarities of the growth and germination of the various seeds sown in the garden. They were able to carry that knowledge further, from the garden into the field. There is no doubt that it was very helpful in their work on the farm, apart from the garden altogether. It gave them a technical knowledge—a limited knowledge, I admit—and attracted their interests in the germination and the growth of plants.

Progress reported. Committee to sit again on Wednesday, 22nd March.

The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 o'clock on Wednesday, 22nd March.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 16 Mar 1939

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 45—Office of the Minister for Education.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 16 Mar 1939