Deputy Hannigan referred to the matter of the school-leaving age, and perhaps I should first take the opportunity to say, as I mentioned in my opening statement, that the provisions of Part V of the Vocational Education Act continue to be applied with satisfactory results in the City of Cork, and all young persons between 14 and 16 years of age, who would otherwise come under no educational influence at that formative period of their lives, are required to attend a part-time course of continuation education. I mentioned also that a beginning had been made during the past year in the application of this measure to the City of Limerick and that arrangements for its extension to the City of Waterford are at present under consideration. The next centre in which it is proposed to apply these provisions is the City of Dublin.
As I have already explained, another scheme is being introduced to deal with the problem of young persons in this city who are not attending school or who are not under any educational influence, by the establishment of training centres, and I should like to pay a well-deserved tribute here to the manner in which the special committee, Comhairle le Leas-Oige, have approached this problem. The chairman of the committee, the Rev. Dr. Vaughan, and all its members have been unsparing in their efforts to do the very best for the young persons who come under the influence of the training centres. Attendance at these centres is, however, on a voluntary basis and their benefits may not reach some of the young persons who are most in need of them. In order to ensure that all young persons between the ages of 14 and 16 years receive the advantage of further education and training, it is proposed to apply the provisions of Part V of the Vocational Education Act to the City of Dublin as soon as the necessary arrangements for the purpose are made by the Vocational Education Committee. To avoid misunderstanding, I might add that, owing to the size and complicated nature of the problem involved, the making of these arrangements will take considerable time, and I could give no definite indication at present as to when the measure will begin to operate here in Dublin. I merely wish to make it clear that the problem is not being overlooked and that it is my intention that the necessary preparations be made with as little delay as possible.
Deputy Mulcahy raised the question of large classes in some of the city schools. That is a problem which has been engaging attention for some time past. In a small number of city schools, we have exceptionally large classes, and I think the position which had been serious, but which the figures this year indicate to have grown graver in these special cases, was due to the fact that we had a very high percentage of attendance during the early months of this year and indeed all through the winter. The comparative mildness of the weather and the fact that there was, with some exceptions, a general absence of epidemics contributed to making the situation in that respect better than usual, and that and the fact that we have had the schools' meals service may between them have contributed to that result. I have asked the inspectors to examine the situation carefully, not alone in Dublin, but in other centres where large classes exist and to report to me their observations as to whether this problem is one of staffing.
The position, as I understand, in previous years was that, generally speaking, in the average school, if the work is distributed properly and if the school organisation is carried out on the lines which the Department officially recognise, there will not be very large classes. I am not sure that these instructions are being carried out in the cases which have arisen. It may happen, for example, that there is a greater concentration of teaching power in the higher classes than in the lower. If there is a secondary top in a school, there may be an intensive concentration of power there which may affect the staffing in the lower classes. The grouping of the standards also has a good deal to do with the most efficient utilisation of the school staff, but there is one matter which makes it extremely difficult to deal with this problem where it occurs, that is, where there is lack of accommodation, where there are not in fact sufficient rooms or where the rooms may not be sufficiently large to accommodate the number of pupils in attendance. In that case, it may be that no solution is possible of the problem of very large classes, if there are such in a school, except the provision of additional accommodation.
I have asked the inspectors, however, in giving me their observations, to report if suitable accommodation is not in fact available under any reorganisation of the staff, and it is found necessary to ask a certain number of pupils not to continue to attend these schools, to ask the managers of the schools to take steps to regulate the numbers in attendance where alternative accommodation will be found. If the inspectors report in these special cases that the trouble is one of lack of staff, the matter will certainly be dealt with on that basis, but I feel that there is a number of circumstances that will have to be taken into consideration and that we shall probably find that the question of accommodation and the organisation of the school affects the situation also.
Deputy Lynch and Deputy O Briain referred to the "marriage ban" in respect of women teachers. This ban was not introduced originally with a view to solving the unemployment problem or assisting in its solution. It was brought in on its merits. Since that time, unemployment among teachers has grown. Under the panel system, the older teachers have been guaranteed a certain security of tenure. It is true that they have to change to another district, perhaps with inconvenience, but their positions are secured so long as they accept the vacancies offered to them. That reacts on the employment of young teachers. Besides, we have had a fall in our school population and even if there is a slight trend in the other direction, it will take a number of years, as I said in my opening statement, before we know whether this slight upward trend is going to be substantial, or in fact whether it is going to continue.
At present there are teachers unemployed. I have explained to the teachers' organisation officially that, in spite of the fact that women teachers may have difficulty in providing substitutes, it is not the case that there is no unemployment. On the contrary, there is so far as I know a good deal of unemployment among teachers. We are trying to get more up-to-date figures, but I believe they will corroborate the estimates which we already have in the Department showing that there is a definite number of unemployed teachers. I believe that these young teachers are averse to going long journeys at present and particularly to out-of-the-way places for a period of weeks to act as substitutes for other teachers. They prefer to remain at home or in the larger centres, in the hope that employment of a permanent nature may be available for them. That may not be the explanation, but in any case our figures do not tally at all with the statement that there is no unemployment at present.
If we were to interfere with this matter of the "marriage ban", as it is called, where are we to stop? Deputy O Briain referred to the Coláistí Ullmhucháin. I had been under the impression that perhaps he wished us to exempt only those teachers who had entered for training, but in fact he mentioned the preparatory colleges, and, if we are to open the door at all, we shall be asked to do more. That is always the position. The teachers got good notice of the bringing in of this rule. I think it is necessary and can be justified on general grounds, and, in view of the unemployment situation, I regret that I cannot hold out any hope at present that it can be modified. The position is that we have had to ask women teachers to resign at 60, even in cases where they had given very exceptional service, because we had to try to provide for the unemployed teacher. We had to bring in that measure as one of a number of measures, in order to try to relieve the unemployment situation. It is only in cases of special hardship where the woman teacher has no other income except her own, and where she has young children at school or perhaps invalids depending on her, that I feel we can make an exception.
When Deputy Lynch referred to the junior assistant mistresses as being better off than the teachers who had gone on for training, perhaps he did not consider that the junior assistant mistresses have to work at a much lower rate of pay. They remain junior assistant mistresses, but the girls who are in the training college will become assistant teachers and will have an opportunity of becoming principals. Their remuneration and status will be better from the moment they start teaching than those of the junior assistant mistresses, so, if it is said that we have made a concession to the junior assistant mistresses which we have not made to the others, nevertheless, the others also have an advantage. The Deputy said that if we equalise this matter every genuine grievance the teachers have will be removed, but I am of the opinion that every genuine grievance they had in this matter has already been removed.
As regards the pensioned teacher, I cannot do anything in the case of one class of public servant drawing superannuation from public funds unless something similar is done in the case of all other classes. Take the case of civil servants. The Minister for Finance has had representations made to him on behalf of retired civil servants and probably there are numbers of these also who are on comparatively low pensions.
Deputy O'Sullivan, in moving that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration, mentioned two important matters and I propose to deal with the second point first—that is, the question of the primary schools certificate examination. I think that in the same way as he claimed credit for the institution of the present programme in the national schools, adopted when he was Minister for Education, the Deputy might also have claimed credit for the institution of this primary certificate examination. There was a committee set up in 1927 on the inspection of primary schools. They reported on the 16th February, 1927, and they dealt with the whole inspection system, made recommendations as to a reorganisation of the system, and, included in their recommendations, was one regarding the primary schools certificate. They said:
"We recognise the advantages of a State primary school certificate which would testify, with the full authority of the Department, to the creditable completion of a primary course and which would have a standard value all over the country. Though the institution of such a certificate at the present time involves many difficulties, we believe that the following plan could be put into operation with the minimum of expense."
This plan was adopted by the Department then and has been in operation since. The report also said:
"While we strongly suggest that the above scheme should be adopted, we recognise that it is not possible or advisable in present circumstances to make it obligatory on teachers to present pupils for this examination.
The examination which we suggest should be merely a qualifying one, and all publication of results, either by managers, inspectors, teachers or the Department, should be forbidden. Its standard should be well within the reach of any diligent pupil of average capacity. The certificate should testify merely to the successful passage through the sixth standard of a primary course and be given to all pupils who attain the specified qualifying percentage of marks.
By the adoption of this scheme, teachers would get a clearer knowledge of the standards after which they are expected to strive. The formal character of the examination would be a powerful stimulus to the pupil. The certificate would come to be recognised as qualifying for entrance to post-primary, continuation, junior technical or secondary schools and should have a considerable value for the purpose of obtaining employment."
The Department issued a circular regarding the regulations for the award of the primary school certificate in March, 1928, in which it was stated:
"(1) A scheme for the award of a primary school certificate to pupils will come into force during the 1928-29 school year.
(2) The certificate will testify to the successful completion by the pupil of standard six course of the school programme and will be awarded as the result of examination to all pupils who attain the specified qualifying percentage of marks.
(3) It is expected that all schools will present pupils for the examination, but for the present it is not obligatory upon them to do so."
As I have said, the examination has been in progress since on this basis, but in no year since its inception have more than about 20 per cent. of the schools presented pupils for examination. Amongst the schools submitting pupils, convents and monasteries were largely represented.
If these schools were excluded from the reckoning, less than 17 per cent. of the lay schools utilised the examination. Not more than one-quarter of the eligible pupils have been presented in any year. The position is that the percentage presented has fluctuated from 17 per cent., roughly, to about 22 per cent. Last year it was 20.7 per cent. The number of schools presenting pupils, while showing an upward tendency for the past two years, is on the decline and only 1,101 schools presented pupils in 1942 as against 1,294 schools in 1929.
Owing to the failure, therefore, of the examination to attract greater support, for which it was thought the methods of its constitution might be partly responsible, it was appreciated that an effort should be made to provide a scheme which would enlist considerably greater support, though retaining the optional basis. In 1934, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation submitted a scheme making teachers and the Department jointly responsible at all stages for the examination, including the setting of the paper. The scheme did not commend itself to the Department, largely because of the surrender of Departmental responsibility involved; but, before consideration of the proposals had been completed, the Teachers' Congress passed a resolution calling for the abolition of the examination and instructing its representatives on the central joint committee to withdraw co-operation. This was a committee representing the teachers and the Department's inspectors which submitted recommendations as to the standard of the paper after each examination and investigated the marking as done by the local examiners. For the past eight years, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation has not been represented on the committee and only members of Orders of Brothers have served on the committee on behalf of the teaching element. The resolution I have referred to was passed in 1935 by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation Congress.
In 1936 and 1937 the Department proceeded with this proposal and in June, 1937, submitted for the consideration of the managers and teachers this new scheme, which provided for greater decentralisation than the original scheme and not so much delegation of responsibility to the teachers as their own scheme had involved. The scheme still was to be voluntary. The Managers' Association made no objection to the scheme but the Irish National Teachers' Organisation refused their co-operation. In 1939, in an effort to formulate a more satisfactory scheme than the one in operation, it was decided to accept, with certain modifications, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation scheme of 1934, but although the executive were apparently willing to consider the proposals favourably, a special congress held in October, 1939, rejected the idea of co-operation. In 1941, in view of the failure to achieve co-operation on a voluntary basis, it was decided to proceed with the consideration of a compulsory scheme.
I do not think, in view of the history of our negotiations with the teachers, and of the fact that this matter is one of considerable importance to parents and children and to our educational future, that I would be justified in postponing the matter, as Deputy O'Sullivan seems to suggest until a later period. I found that we could make the necessary arrangements to carry out the examination. Of course, it is a very big task, the holding for the first time of an examination in every national school in the country, an examination at which, as I have said, possibly between 40,000 and 50,000 pupils will attend. I am confident that parents will do everything possible to cooperate. I am happy to say that managers have shown that they are keenly interested in this matter and that, generally speaking, we have their hearty co-operation in trying to carry out the examination successfully.
I would appeal for the support and co-operation of all concerned in making this very big experiment which we are starting this year a success. Not merely, as I have said, will it show parents that the work in the schools is being satisfactorily carried out but it will give pupils who obtain this certificate an opportunity, I hope, later on of utilising it, if necessary, to secure employment if it is not of any use to them in pursuing an educational career. I think that parents generally will welcome it as being in the educational interests of their children and that they will be gratified that we have now a scheme, as I said in my opening statement, which gives an equal opportunity to all pupils of receiving a certificate that they have satisfactorily completed the primary programme.
As regards the question of teaching through Irish, this is a matter that has become a hardy annual. I emphasised when speaking to the teachers recently the tremendous and unparalleled nature of the task that we are asking them to fulfil, to revive our national language. I said that in no other country in the world had teachers been asked to carry out such a task as they were asked to fulfil. Not alone were we asking them to do the ordinary educational work that teachers have to do in other countries, but we were in fact giving them a double task. I said that I fully appreciated the difficulties of the burden that has been placed upon the teachers in their endeavour to carry out this task successfully. If they were not devoted to the work, if they did not feel that the matter of Irish was in a very special category and that it could not be treated merely as a school subject, that it was a big national purpose which we had asked them to carry out, we could not expect to achieve the results we hoped for. We never expected in the Department of Education that quick results could be obtained in this matter but we did expect that if the teachers were earnest in their work, if they applied themselves to it in the spirit—perhaps it would be difficult to attain that standard—of the workers in the old days of the Gaelic League, then certainly great results could be achieved.
Deputy O'Sullivan and Deputy Mulcahy made play with a remark of mine in my opening statement on the Estimates, when I said that the struggle to save Irish is a linguistic war that has to be waged, not merely against English, but against human nature. They seemed to think that an argument against our policy and our methods, on the grounds that we should not carry on war against English and that if the struggle was one against human nature, then there was something wrong in our methods in the schools. Of course the war against human nature is not the struggle that is taking place in the schools. It is the struggle the schools have to wage against the Anglicised world outside which inundates the children with English every day when they leave school and, when they finally leave it, drowns the Irish they have learned in the schools under a deluge of English for the rest of their lives. When I referred to making war against human nature it was in this connection. I meant, of course, that human nature goes normally with the stream. Most people go with the crowd and I wanted to emphasise that it was this mighty flood of English bursting upon each one of us in our everyday lives and in all our occupations that we have to resist. Human nature tends to go with the current instead of struggling against it. If there is objection to the words "linguistic war against English", there is no use, I suggest, in blinking the fact that for over 700 years there has been a linguistic war in Ireland between the invading language and the native language, that the invading language has carried on this war with every weapon, laws, bans, social and commercial prestige, and that for over a century it has been driving the native language back to its last fastnesses.
If anybody thinks that I am exaggerating I should like to read a little statement I took some time ago from a statistical account of a parish in County Kilkenny, Tullaroan, in the year 1819. I think the local parson was the author of the passage dealing with this parish. This is what he said in relation to the language question at that time:—
"Both the English and Irish languages are spoken in the parish. The latter is greatly on the decrease, and must continue to decrease rapidly, both here and in every part of the nation, from two principal causes: first, the hedge schools, where English alone is taught, and secondly, the necessity imposed upon the country people of speaking English in all their trafficking. They are fond of bargaining both in buying and selling, and, as very few of the corn and pig dealers and town shopkeepers can speak Irish, they feel the want of English a serious inconvenience, and they cannot bear to traffic through an interpreter. Our paper circulation, likewise, makes it necessary for them to read English, especially as they have suffered so severely by the failure of country banks, in consequence of which a country fellow will often walk about a fair with notes in his hand asking every person the amount and the bank, etc., and is scarcely satisfied with the answers. Through this the English language rapidly advances, for so anxious are the people to speak it in the country that the mountain farmers who cannot speak English and who send their children to hedge schools will scarcely allow them to speak Irish when at home.
Irish will thus soon fall into disuse in the South, and probably also in most parts of Ireland, and it is desirable that it should be disused amongst a people who think themselves a sort of aboriginal race, and that the majority of the land holders are invaders and intruders, which, added to their natural jealousy and hatred of the English, keeps up a spirit of discontent and suspicion of oppression that make them ready instruments of insurrection in the hands of agitators, for those men instil into them the opinion that their connection with the English nation is the cause of all their sufferings, and the prejudices of their education induce a ready assent to this doctrine. Hence, everything that tends to destroy the distinction between the two people, as to their language, manners, dresses, or other similar points, would assist greatly in removing these invidious feelings."
I think it is quite clear to anybody who has a knowledge of the ebb of the Irish language for the past few hundred years that a deadly linguistic war has been waged, not a war on English but a war to save Irish, which was being attacked and defeated and slaughtered. In one of La Fontaine's novels somebody complains about a hunted beast: "Cet animal est très mechant. Quand on l'attaque, il se defend”—that animal is very naughty; when one attacks him, he defends himself. On that principle it is undoubtedly wrong of the Gael to wage a defensive war against English, but I think Deputy O'Sullivan can hardly mean that, and, unless he does, his objection to the words I have quoted is unsustainable. However, it is not to a form of words or to a phrase picked out of speeches that we ought to devote our attention, but to an examination of this whole matter of the revival of our national tongue.
I think the fact that the question of Irish is not discussed publicly except on a single occasion during the year in the National Assembly, and that even then so few persons speak in Irish, would go to show that a lead is badly needed from those in control of affairs in this country, and in particular from the members of the Oireachtas. I have a good deal of sympathy with the teachers when they point to the discouragement that they feel at the fact that progress is not being made in other directions, and that, after 20 years of effort, everybody still seems to regard the schools as the main avenue, the sole instrument, for the revival of the language. That was the object of the programme instituted in the national schools in 1922, and renewed in 1926, after the Report of the Conferences of 1925, but I think that those who signed that report and those who brought it into operation must feel, if they would voice their opinions, that after such a long period of time we certainly should have results in other directions too.
I think that Deputy Byrne perhaps illustrated the situation very well when he suggested that I ought to speak to the children in Gardiner Street in Irish, and I would see what kind of reply I would get. The fact that I would get a reply of that nature—if I did get it—from the children in Gardiner Street would not really make me blame those children, but would make me blame their parents and those who have to deal with them generally for not giving them that encouragement which is necessary if they are to accept the language as something about which they have to make an effort, and if they are ever to understand that it is something which they are expected to use outside the schools. How can children be expected to use Irish with complete strangers if they receive no encouragement from those who are dealing with them, particularly their own fathers and mothers, every day of their lives, and if, instead of receiving encouragement, they receive discouragement, or, as Deputy O'Sullivan said, possibly hostility and indifference?
As Deputy Lynch said, even if Irish were taught in the most attractive manner possible, if there were some easy way in which Irish could be acquired without that mental toil and stress that are necessary for learning any school subject, and if in addition to that easy method they had the full encouragement of all the teachers and all the parents and all the adults who come into contact with them, it would be difficult to believe that even then Irish would be as popular with the children as some of us would like. But I fear that in fact outside the schools little encouragement is given to the children. Therefore, since the children do not understand the meaning and the purpose of the endeavour to revive Irish as the spoken language of our country, and since those to whom they are immediately responsible do not explain to them the position that Irish holds or should hold in our national life, in our history and in our traditions, it is very hard for the poor children to get to understand that for themselves.
Most of us knew very little about nationality and took very little interest in the language movement until long after we had left school, and during our period we had, as Deputy O'Sullivan mentioned, a wonderful spirit of national enthusiasm which not alone carried us to the point of having an Irish State set up here, the first for hundreds of years, but, through the momentum which it caused, had the effect also of putting into operation this Irish programme in the schools which is being so much criticised at the present time. Even if we had not a civil war, and the dissensions amongst ourselves which tended to spread a spirit of cynicism and defeatism, even if we were united, we were bound to have a certain ebb after that tremendous national effort. Tremendous national movements of that kind do not spring up except over long periods of time. I am hoping that we older people, who took part in that movement, people like Deputy Brodrick and myself who learned in Galway Gaol the meaning of those things in a way that Deputy Byrne could perhaps not understand, will see please God in our time the young people rising up in a similar movement, because it would be a mistake to think that the schools by themselves can ever accomplish this work.
The people as a whole, in a great national movement, must also participate in it if it is going to be successful. I do not think there is any greater hostility or indifference about Irish to-day than at any time, but we are in a period when, as I have said, the generation which took its full part in one great national movement is passing away, and the rising generation has not yet come to the stage, which I hope it will reach in the not far distant future, when it will take up this work of reviving our language in the same serious way that we took up the work in the struggle for national independence.
I am glad that the matter is not being discussed on the basis of Party politics, and, although some people may be inclined to use it in order to secure votes at the present time, I am very glad to hear from my friends on the back benches generally who are interested in this matter that there is no disposition whatever to under-rate the extent of the task that we have to face, nor is there any tendency to stand back and assume that there is some easy way to get that task accomplished. They realise, as I would expect them to realise, that we must all be enthusiastic or we cannot have the success that we would wish. In the same way, if we are going to treat it, from the point of view of the teachers, as a matter in which trade union principles must rule, instead of in the spirit of Pearse and Tomás Ashe, we are not likely to get the results that we would wish. We have, as I have said, the children who cannot be expected to be keen on Irish, even in homes where, very often, everything possible has been done to make Irish attractive to them and to encourage them. It may be that in some cases parents are disappointed with the response. You cannot expect parents who are not able to give their children the assistance they would like to give them, as a result of the work being done through the medium of Irish, to feel very enthusiastic about the matter. While it is perhaps natural that parents would feel disturbed at not being able to give their children the assistance they would like to give them, it is also natural that they would be more disturbed when the child starts off at school by being taught Irish, later on is taught subjects through the medium of Irish, and then there is a sudden reversal, in the middle of the child's school course, to an English curriculum, where subjects would be taught through English.
That is the difficulty at the present time. It has been our difficulty for some time past, and I think it will be a difficulty for some years to come. It must be remembered that we are only in a transitional stage and that the programme in the schools was definitely intended to be transitional. You will also have the difficulty that some parents, and even a large number of the teachers, say that the Irish programme in the schools is affecting adversely the children's future, and that, so long as that programme is there, they will not get the same chance to prepare themselves for the battle of life as they would get otherwise. It will also be argued that the language is not essential for national culture: that you can be just as good a citizen, from the point of view of national culture or national interests so long as you are domiciled here and belong to the Irish community, as if you were an Irish speaker.
You have all these arguments, and it seems to me, in view of the attacks that have been made on the Gaelic League, that the making of the case for Irish is left very largely to me in these annual discussions. I should like to repeat some of the points I have already made with regard to the inquiry which the teachers set up on this matter of the teaching of subjects through Irish in the schools. At the outset, I should like to discount the statement that I have treated this report with contempt, or that I ignored it. The fact is that before the report was published it had been a subject of discussion between the teachers and the inspectors. It had been the subject of consideration by the higher inspectors in the Department, and the Chief Inspector on the primary schools' side had devoted a good deal of attention to examining it in detail. As well, therefore, as having my own opinions on the report, I am fortified in my opinions by having the advice of the higher inspectors in the Department, in addition to that of such officials as the Secretary and Assistant Secretary —all men who have spent a lifetime in dealing with educational problems.
It has been suggested that this body of public servants has some axe to grind. I should like to know on what basis that accusation can be made. Why is it necessary, if there is some other way of making Irish the spoken language in the schools and, eventually, in the country, to allege that these officials are prejudiced against other superior methods of reviving Irish when their attention is called to them? We have found no answer to the case I have frequently made: that out of the 14 or 15 hours of the child's waking day, he spends about four or five hours at school, and that he spends eight, nine, ten or 11 of the remaining hours, in many cases, in a wholly English environment. I asked last year what chance there was for the restoration of the Irish language if, in addition to the eight, nine, ten or 11 hours outside school, when the child lived his ordinary life in an English environment, there was not to be an Irish environment for the four or five hours the child spent in school, and if Irish were to be relegated to the position of an ordinary school subject, instead of being the ordinary vernacular of the child which, eventually, would be the medium through which he would be taught other subjects.
The conference which reported in 1926 carried on the programme which was instituted as a result of the recommendations of the teachers themselves in the 1922 programme, and when this report was being made in 1926, it was not, therefore, an entirely new thing. A certain amount of experience had been gained. On page 9, of the 1926 Report, the signatories say:
"We believe, however, that, at the present time, circumstances are far more propitious for our educational future than they were three years ago. As the aim of the national programme has gained more general acceptance, and as the qualifications of the teachers for forwarding that aim are now considerably improved, there is more reason for hoping that a successful working of a new programme may be achieved.
We have striven so to frame this new programme that it may set before our schools the same high purpose which the national programme set before them, and will differ from the national programme only in so far as it will be transitional, being indicative of gradual steps in a steady progress towards an ideal, and being adjustable to the varying circumstances of our schools."
Not alone, therefore, were the conference in a position to get their programme going under improved circumstances in the country, generally, but they gave advice, in the course of their introductory statement, on some of the difficulties which the teachers had to contend with in the initial stages of its operation in the schools. On page 10, they state:
"It was in connection with Irish that the chief causes of trouble were found. Some teachers and managers —but not many, we think—understood that the Department's circular of November, 1922, modifying the application of the programme rules about Irish, was a tacit renunciation of the programme ideal as being unattainable."
There are some people who will always regard inquiries as renunciations of the ideal.
"Others—the majority—made strenuous efforts to carry out the programme in its perfection. In the cases of teachers who were sufficiently qualified, those efforts were crowned with gratifying success. Where, however, teachers were not adequately prepared—and most of them were in this condition—their efforts, while entailing a severe strain, sometimes resulted in an impairing of the educational value of their work."
On page 10, the following appears:
"Some teachers, in thus striving to do the impossible, were moved by their own excess of zeal; many of them imagined that they were carrying out the intentions of the Department and many alleged that they were being urged on by express or implied wishes of the Department's officials. To what extent this last charge is sustainable we had no means of investigating and no authority to do so. Nor had we any need to do so; the one fact which was of importance to us was made perfectly plain—namely, that there existed a widely-felt impression (whether well-founded or not) that unreasonable demands were often being made on the teachers."
It was as a result of this impression that the conference went on to make the greater number of the suggestions which they placed before the people. The first—and perhaps the most important—was this:
"One of the leading characteristics of that programme is its insistence 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 argued 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."
On page 11, it is stated:
"Yet, in this matter of teaching Irish to the very young children, it was felt by us that the principle of the motto festina lente is especially applicable. The Note, which in the national programme stood at the head of the course for infants, while in some cases it proved of the greatest utility, in other instances had some harmful results. Its wording, being absolute and making no allowance for difficulties, made a literal obedience to it sometimes impossible and often inadvisable.”
Continuing, the report says:—
"The same principle guided us with regard to the teaching of Irish in the standards. We were much impressed by the success which rewarded the generally good spirit of the teachers and enabled so many of them to impart to their pupils a fluent power of dealing with various subjects in the Irish language. At the same time, we received evidence that when — as often happened— teachers were insufficiently prepared, the effort to teach history, geography or mathematics through Irish resulted in an indifferent teaching of these subjects and, consequently, in giving colour to some adverse criticism of the general teaching standard of our schools. Though we believe that some of this criticism was inspired by prejudice or exaggerated by foolish rumour, we are also convinced that some of it was quite well-founded."
The House will see that some of the complaints made in the teachers' report had been made already in the early stages of the programme in the schools and that they were dealt with by the conference, which re-affirmed the principles already laid down— that the schools were to be regarded as the main, if not in many cases, the sole instrument of restoring Irish as the true vernacular of the country and that, in particular, efforts should be made to teach Irish to children between the ages of four and eight years. It was felt that, in that way, the best preparation would be made and the foundations of the vernacular laid. The conference also went on to affirm what had been previously agreed upon—that the extension of the use of Irish as a teaching medium should be made gradually and progressively through all parts of the school. On page 28, they laid down the principles which have guided the Department since and which are embodied in the official circulars and instructions to teachers managers and inspectors:—
"Where a teacher is competent to teach through Irish and where the children can assimilate the instruction so given, the teacher should endeavour to extend the use of Irish as a medium of instruction so far as possible. When these conditions do not exist, such teaching through Irish is not obligatory. Teachers who hold bilingual or higher certificates will, unless there is evidence to the contrary, be regarded as competent, but the possession of these certificates is not an essential condition for such teaching."
The conference of 1926, on the evidence before them and on their knowledge of the operation of the programme for the years preceding, were, presumably, confident that they were doing the right thing by the language in recommending the substantial continuance of the then existing programme and they took into account the fact that, at that time, the machinery was not as efficient as it is now. They must have realised from the evidence given that the teachers were not very well equipped for the task. A great many of them would have had no certificate in Irish—even the ordinary certificate —while only a smaller number would have had the higher certificate which would enable them to carry out the programme recommended by the conference. The programme, which I have said was transitory, might be described also as being an ideal and an aim. I have not the slightest doubt, however, and I do not think that anybody reading it will have the slightest doubt, that the representative men who recommended it felt it was an ideal or an aim which should, certainly, be attained when circumstances were more favourable and when the teachers would have acquired the necessary qualifications.
In the year 1926 the number of teachers who had higher qualifications which would enable them to be regarded as possibly qualified to undertake teaching through Irish was only 1,100. In 1936, when the teachers' report was published there were 7,800 teachers so qualified, and since then 1,200, approximately, have secured these qualifications. So that there are now over 9,000 teachers who are qualified to give instruction through Irish. That does not mean, however, that all teachers have these qualifications. It means that about two-thirds of them have obtained the qualifications necessary. A further period of years will be necessary before the other one-third attain these qualifications, and the question arises whether, until all the schools are equally well equipped and until it is clear that all our teachers are qualified to teach the programme laid down so far back as 1926, we are not apt to come to wrong conclusions if we undertake an inquiry in the meantime.
There is no doubt that the foundations have been laid, but, because results are not visible outside, we cannot, as I suggested in the beginning, blame the schools for that. The task of the teachers is to see that the children are equipped with a fluent oral knowledge of Irish and to maintain the existing standards of education in the ordinary primary subjects. As the Taoiseach explained last night, we are rather apt to think that in our own school days we were more brilliant than we were. We think of the best pupils in the class and we think of those who could do the examples in Haugh's Arithmetic, but most of us realise that what we did know was really very little. The Taoiseach, who seems to have been an earnest student and who has shown his earnestness by the fact that he is able to recall at this stage what he learned in the national school in some detail, must have done better than the remainder of us. If we bear clearly in mind what the standards were at that time and up to the period when the Compulsory School Attendance Act was introduced, I think we need not have the slightest doubt that the results now are better.
I would certainly like to invite Deputies, Senators and public men to go to the schools themselves—they will be welcome visitors—and compare the results which are achieved in the average school where the work, or some of it, is being done through Irish, with the results which they remember from their own school days.
Evidence was given before the conference by one of the most distinguished educationists of our time, whose death was such a great loss to our country, the late Rev. Dr. Corcoran. He undoubtedly had a very big part in the formulation of the principles laid down in this programme, and I think it was largely as a result of his experienced and specialised evidence that certain of the recommendations were made. In any case, it is clear that the policy was to teach the language in the infants' classes so that, leaving the infants' classes, the children would have a sufficient vocabulary in Irish to enable them not only to have a colloquial knowledge of the language and to keep up conversation with their equals or perhaps even with their elders, but would have a sufficient grasp of the language also to follow instruction through it in other subjects when they reached the higher classes. There is no doubt whatever that if the practice in the infant classes, which is almost universal in the country, of teaching them Irish solely, is not kept up in the upper classes, if the teachers are not in a position to maintain the continuity, then there is likely to be serious loss, and not only is there likely to be serious loss but, as I have suggested, there is likely to be disgruntlement and dissatisfaction and, unfortunately, it is the language that is likely to suffer. But even in the period in which we are now living, and for some years past, the amount of teaching through Irish is not as great as some would lead one to expect. One would imagine that there was a policy of badgering teachers and schools into doing everything possible to extend the use of Irish as a teaching medium. I am informed by the inspectors that there are very few classes now in our schools in which a a little more teaching through Irish could not be adopted, and that there are undoubtedly numbers of classes in which more could be done without any harm whatever to the child educationally.
About 6 per cent. of our schools in the Galltacht, leaving the Fíor-Ghaeltacht area out of consideration, are doing all their work through Irish and a further percentage, I think up to about 50 per cent., are doing a certain amount, in certain classes, sometimes teaching the whole of the class all the subjects through Irish, sometimes teaching some of the subjects through Irish, sometimes teaching subjects partly in Irish and partly in English. As this is a fluctuating matter, it is difficult to give precise estimates but, in any case, 54.3 of our schools where there are infant classes teach everything through Irish to the infants, 30 per cent. of similar schools teach one subject or more than one subject through Irish to the infants and in 15.7 per cent. of such schools nothing is taught to the infants through the medium of Irish except Irish.