I was talking about the language revival and the reason why the policies adopted over the years had not been successful from the point of view of reviving the language. In his speech, I think the Minister, with a certain amount of reason, expresses some concern at the fact that year after year an opportunity is taken by Deputies on this Estimate to discuss the whole question of the language revival, when really, as he says, it is a matter the responsibility for which is very much wider than that covered by his Department.
However, it would be very difficult to discuss the question of the language revival without referring to the factors which influence anything he may do in his Department. At the same time, I think the most powerful influence of all from the point of view of persuading people to reject or become indifferent to the language lies in the schools. The policy of the language revival in the schools has been such as to create a certain amount of hostility among some children and a certain amount of indifference among others. Because of that, the Minister must more closely examine the factors in the educational system which tend to create that result.
From my point of view, the most important factor appears to be that the language is taught as a dead language on much the same lines as most of us were taught to read and understand Latin, but we were unable to converse in Latin. From what I can see, that is so in regard to the teaching of the language in the schools. That is the finding of the I.N.T.O. plan for education when they considered the question of the revival of the language. They say it is commonplace to get boys and girls who, though they may have passed the Intermediate and Leaving Certificate examinations, cannot carry on the simplest conversation on the most elementary topic.
That is a perfectly logical sequel, having regard to the way in which the language is taught. I have the experience of my own children trying to learn poems in Irish, a language which they do not speak, as yet, with any fluency. I think that learning poetry in any language is difficult. It certainly is difficult in a language you do not understand. It seems to me diabolically designed to create antipathy for the language to have to read something which one does not understand. That was a difficult problem to overcome. As I said earlier, it is probably an insuperable problem.
A child spends one hour in four of his life at school. In that one hour, a certain amount of time is devoted to other subjects. Consequently, only a minute period of that time can be devoted to the language revival. The child has to go home where the home language is not Irish in the majority of cases. The child finds himself overpowered with a plethora of English everywhere he turns. You have the cinema, the radio and nowadays television. You have English in the buses and the churches. Everywhere the child goes, the influence is terribly powerful against the language. Without any sense of hostility on the part of anybody, it is a perfectly natural phenomenon, insofar as English is the language of the home in the majority of cases, that the child and the teacher must fight against that. Inevitably they are overwhelmed.
I do not subscribe to the view that the learning of the Irish languages as a separate subject has been responsible for the high level of illiteracy which is found in the schools. I think there are more cogent reasons why a child might not have developed to the level designed by the primary school course. Incidentally, I think the figures I gave the other day were inaccurate and not in my favour in relation to the question of the number of children availing of primary education. The figure is something like 20,000. The proportion of children who reach the standard laid down by the Department is very much higher than I thought.
The overcrowded schools, overcrowded classes in many cases, working in very difficult circumstances, the relatively few opportunities for the backward, maladjusted or mentally defective child are factors which contribute to the failure of the revival rather than the language itself. I do not want to delay the House on this Estimate. There are so many aspects as to why the language is failing that one could talk for a week upon them. The general impression whether it was intended or not, parents and children get, as a result of their school courses, is that the language is compulsory. They must learn the language compulsorily in school.
It has been associated with the passing of examinations, the getting of jobs, the passing of tests in the Civil Services and promotions generally. In the underlying psychology as to how to restore the language this adds up to a sort of souperism. You are going back to the time of the soupers when, if you were bribed sufficiently, you would change your attitude. That attitude was a very wrong one, as it was wrong at the time of the "soupers". It was wrong, in our time, to try to bribe or browbeat or blackmail people into doing something. That they should be bribed or browbeaten or compelled to speak the language, which is a very beautiful language, for which they should have an innate love and regard, seems to me to represent a very major misunderstanding of the basic personality of our people. The net result of that attitude has been that the attempt to revive the language compulsorily as the spoken language of our people has failed. I do not think there is any doubt about that.
There are other considerations. The general impression has got about that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy about the anxiety of politicians to revive the language. Ministers in the Cabinet, Deputies in the Dáil, pass legislation insisting on other sections of society doing something that they themselves will not do, that is, speaking the language. They make knowledge of Irish a precondition to getting an appointment but do not make it a precondition of their coming into the Dáil or being in the Cabinet that they should speak the language. Presumably, there are reasons for that, but, unfortunately, generally speaking, the people do not understand; they see a discrepancy between the insistence, on the one hand, that they should do something and the non-insistence that Deputies should do it.
There may be 19 or 20 candidates for a job or for promotion. They may include people who are not very talented. One is appointed because of his talents. The others are not appointed because of failure to qualify in subjects other than the language. They immediately blame the language. It is the easiest thing to blame. The result is that a number of the 19 who do not succeed become enemies of the revival movement, blame the language and all their friends and relations blame the language, whereas it was not the language that was to blame for their failure but some defect in their knowledge, training, ability or qualifications. The net result is to create a considerable volume of opinion quite wrongly hostile to the language.
One has to deal with the consequence of policies of that kind. The consequences are, over the 25 or 30 years this policy has been in operation, a considerable growth in indifference and, in many cases, hostility to the language; failure to retain the population of the Gaeltacht areas, to improve the standard of living there. I do not believe in keeping the Gaeltacht as a kind of Whipsnade, where native speakers are maintained in order to be the showplace where the language is spoken. The people in the Gaeltacht are entitled to as high a standard of living as the people in the rest of the country enjoy. We have not given them that.
Some Governments have done what they could to try to establish industries in the Gaeltacht. The industries did not flourish in very many cases. There was the curious position in a number of these factories that the worker down the line would be a native speaker and the manager would be an English-speaker who did not speak Irish or did not have any regard for the language. That seemed to me to create the impression in the minds of people generally that the native language was spoken by what would be contemptuously described as "the peasantry", and, like the Russian aristocracy speaking French in the old days, our aristocracy speaking English. That is an unfortunate development. The people in the Gaeltacht areas should have been trained to take over these factories so that they would feel that they were controlled and managed by their own people.
I do not know whether the flight from the Gaeltacht areas was preventible or not, but, having failed to hold the people in the Gaeltacht areas, we lost irrevocably a tremendous source of the living language. Instead, we tried to substitute for a very beautiful and mellifluous tongue, ersatz, pidgin Irish, in which words are manufactured by people on every side of the country. We have a language which has one of the largest vocabularies of any language in the world, but words for which there were old Irish words were manufactured. I do not mind such words as "telefón", "bus", and so on, for which there are not comparable words, but I do object to such words as "agricultúr", "teicniciúl" and "eacnamaic". Nobody with any kind of ear for music or sound could possibly like to speak such a language, particularly when there are very beautiful Irish words for these terms.
There was the tendency to ignore the very beautiful idiomatic Irish and to establish literal translations from English to Irish, so that there was no point in speaking this language which was merely a literal translation of English into direct Irish, where there were, admittedly difficult, but still accepted idioms to express the same idea in the native language. The attempt to revive the language should have been based on the retention of the native-spoken tongue. I know that that would be a very difficult thing to do, but it seems to me to be sacriligious in ways to have taken this very beautiful tongue and to have tried to impose on it this, perhaps more-readily spoken language, which was manufactured, which did not grow over the centuries as the native-spoken language had done in the Gaeltacht areas.
The first and most important thing should have been to use the native speakers as widely as possible throughout the country and at all costs to try to retain them in our society in order to keep the language as it has been spoken for centuries as the natural flowing and intelligible language, rather than to create a completely new language, the creators of which appeared to think would be more easily spoken. If you go, say, to France or Germany to learn the language, they do not make it easy for you to learn. You learn their French or their German. They tell you to train your tongue, to train your memory and your mind and to speak their language as it should be spoken. The fact that we have not done that has helped in the deterioration of the interest in the language. There is nothing more beautiful than the native spoken word. Admittedly, people on this side of the country or elsewhere had a certain envy or jealousy towards the native speaker, but for one reason or another, the native version has been squeezed out and the new, artificial creation has failed to survive.
Another factor which has militated against the language revival is the suggestion that the primary aim of our society should have been to revive the language. Of course, it should not have been. There is no good in pretending that that is the most important function of a Government. It is a very important one, but not the most important. The primary aim of the Government must be to maintain our society in reasonable economic and social conditions and then, as a byproduct of that, to create a prosperous society in which people will be in a position to develop an interest in the language and in their own native traditions.
It seems to me that there has been a certain feeling amongst the people that if successive Governments, if these politicians on all sides of the House had decided that they would pursue the establishment of a just social order, instead of trying to pursue the revival of the language as a primary object, we would have prosperity, and that the fact that wrong policies have been pursued is the reason why we find ourselves near bankruptcy, with high emigration and unemployment rates, and so on. The language has been a distraction to our successful politicians and a necessary distraction for our successful politicians.
I see that the Most Rev. Dr. Lucey subscribes to that point of view. It is not often I quote the Hierarchy here, but I wish to quote a report of what Dr. Lucey said recently on the subject:—
"...to give saving the language priority over saving the people was a gross preversion of national value. What made matters worse was that, in actual fact, neither the language nor the people were being the saved. The fact was that there were far fewer Irish-speaking homes in the country now than there were 30 years ago."
He continued:—
"To pretend otherwise is the grossest disservice not only to truth but to the language revival itself. The present policy of reviving the language has been a tragic and complete failure."
It is a very desirable development indeed that the bishops should speak out openly on these matters of public importance, but the interesting point is that if there is a condemnation in matters of political interest which suits the politicians, it becomes immediately a matter of moral law irrevocably binding on everybody, but when they make speeches on a subject like this, nobody seems to take any notice of them.
However bona fide the intentions of those seeking to revive the language have been, they have tried as hard as they know how and have failed. Those people who have been the effective voices in devising policy on the language have made a monumental failure of that job. I would suggest to the Minister that in setting up the new commission to consider the best way of reviving the language, those people who have been prominent in the revival movement are the people who must at all costs be avoided in determining nomination to this commission. They are the people who clearly have no idea as to how successfully to revive the language. It is about time that new minds were brought to bear on the subject, minds which are not hidebound or hagridden by old discredited ideas. This is not just a personal view. There is evidence on all sides. It is the view of Dr. Lucey and it is the view of the I.N.T.O. It has been established that Irish was spoken to a lesser extent in 1945 than in 1922 and to a lesser extent in 1952 than in 1945.
The depressing thing is the number of times that recommendations have been made by experts in relation to the language and ignored. In 1941, a committee of the I.N.T.O. investigated the revival of the language and made a number of recommendations. I do not think any significant ones were accepted. They made the observation, for instance, that the teaching of Irish exclusively in infant classes, where the home language was not Irish, was very undesirable. The first obvious fact which emerges from that inquiry in 1941 is that the majority of teachers of infants were opposed to using the Irish language as the sole method of instruction where English was used in the homes. The great bulk of the members supported that view.
I would ask the Minister to bear that in mind. All of us are anxious to see that the language is revived to the greatest extent humanly possible. However, the people who have been responsible for the language revival have been given every facility; they have devised plans which have not worked, and that is a fairly simple test of success or failure. I should like to quote what the President of the I.N.T.O., Mr. Liam O'Reilly, has to say on this question:—
"Let us have it one way or the other. If we reject it, let us, in God's name, have the honesty and courage to say so and admit our mistake. If, on the other hand, we consider the language worthy of preservation, let us not act like hypocrites asking little children to shoulder our responsibilities."
In passing, may I refer to the fact that the Minister has not accepted the suggestion I made to the predecessor a number of years ago in relation to radio services. I was very surprised that he, a young Minister, did not consider this long overdue provision of radio for schools. I do not think I should make a case for it, because it seems to stand on its own legs. We have now reached the stage where neighbouring countries are providing not only radio but television services for schools. The school television programme is probably the best programme but that would probably be too ambitious for us at the present time. Magnificient dramatisations of history, historical events, plays, lectures by scientists and specialists on scientific and other subjects can be made available to schools through radio at a very small cost. These could not possibly be made available in the ordinary way. I would ask the Minister to consider the question of providing radios for schools and establishing schools broadcasts in Radio Éireann.
I think the Minister has again neglected consideration of the fact that we are an agricultural community. This seems to have been neglected in all the activities of our society for many years, but in particular it has been neglected in education to orient children to take an interest in agricultural ideas. There are 134 schools out of about 5,000 in which rural science is taught and obviously this is grossly inadequate. One of the obvious anachronisms, or paradoxes, or bizarre realities is that we, as an agricultural community, were prepared to find money to set up a School for Cosmic Physics before we set up an Agricultural Institute which, of course, is inestimably more important to us. It is a necessity in such a society as ours and it should have been provided years ago. It is probably too late now, like everything else.
The Minister gives me "poor mouth" answers most times when I ask him to spend money on such things —these are all small items arising out of the Estimate—and when I ask him why he allows a reduction in the money provided for scholarships, which I understand is being reduced; why he reduces grants for free books for necessitous children and why at the same time he allows the grant for advanced studies in cosmic physics to be increased. If he is so hard up, is the School of Cosmic Physics so important? Very few people know what it is doing. Why, if he is so very hard up for money that he cannot consider providing radio in schools, build sufficient schools, increase the number of teachers, reduce the classes and do various other things, does he allow these increases for such a relatively unimportant body as the School of Cosmic Physics. I would have more sympathy for him if he had put his foot down and said: "If there are to be economies, they will be shared equally. If the grant for free books is to be hit, you must not hand over the saving on that to the School for Cosmic Physics."
I think the Minister's attitude to corporal punishment in the schools is unfortunately the same as that of his predecessor and I wish that he would think a bit on this question because I assure him there is a considerable revolution in thought—it is really over, I think—there has been a revolution of thought about the question of corporal punishment in the schools. Personally, I cannot understand how an adult should ever be permitted to lay hands on a child at all. I know that is a minority viewpoint, but it cannot be completely dismissed. In regard to the beating of children in schools, I do not mind how lightly they are beaten or for what reasons: I do not think an adult should ever use physical violence on a child.
One has to deal either with a child too young to understand—in which case, of course, there is no sense in beating it; it does not understand why it is beaten and you create a sense of injustice—or with a child who is able to understand your arguments and reasons and if so, it is rational and will respond to reasoned arguments. I do not think that can be controverted. It seems to me that all of us who believe in the power of persuasion as we try to use it on each other here must accept this power of persuasion equally in regard to children. The children differ from us only in that they are younger and less experienced, but they are perfectly responsive to arguments and reason. One must accept that, and, if that is accepted all the rest follows. Beating a child teaches it that the final argument in any discussion—and that is what any attempt to teach a child is, a discussion—is violence. In that way, we destroy his faith and his trust in us and we create an unhealthy interest in the child in violence. It teaches the child the power of violence.
When I was speaking the other day somebody shouted something about teddy boys. It is that violence on the part of teachers—in law, it is, I understand, assault—that teaches the child that the use of violence is the final argument in any situation. Children are very imitative, particularly where adults are concerned. They accept the example of adults. When they see violence they vent that violence on the next, usually the smaller, child. They see that the adult teacher gets away with it and consequently they use their violence on the smaller child. There are the bullies whom we castigate; there is the bully whom a district justice in Cork castigates for his brutal behaviour to young children.
This is going on in our schools all the time—big people hitting little people; grown-ups hitting children. It is in the schools they learn brutality. It is for that reason they like the brutality of our films, which our adults make to show them—the awful shootings, murders and hangings of our films. Their liking for these things comes because of their attempt to sublimate the frustration which results from living in a reign of fear. Most of them do live in a reign of fear in schools where physical punishment is used.
It took a long time for the use of force to disappear. We do not use it with adults any more. All the arguments used now against the abolition of corporal punishment, in a minor key, of course, were all used against the abolition of the flogging of human beings which used to go on 100 years ago—that there would be an increase in the incidence of various types of crime and so on. I am sure the Minister knows more about that than I do. All those arguments are completely discounted now. Flogging is not used to punish any crime where an adult is concerned.
I would ask the Minister seriously to consider that there is a good case for considering the abolition or prevention of corporal punishment in our schools. As far as I am aware, it is only in the backward sort of schools in Great Britain, the public schools—where they are less progressive than the municipal schools or local authority schools—that beating is still retained. Most of the other schools have abolished it. I have met many school teachers from English and American schools who have never laid a finger on children at all. They are not permitted to do so, but they would not wish to do so either. It is about time that it should be accepted that the beating of children is not desirable or even effective.
The teacher is in a difficulty. I sympathise with his problem. He has 35, 40, 45, 50, 60 or 70 children in his class, all coming from different backgrounds and having different upbringing by their parents. The only sanction they know is force. The class is grossly overcrowded. The only thing he can do is to try and keep order as best he can by fear—fear of the cane or whatever it is. While that is understandable, and I sympathise with his problem, that is punishing the wrong person. If the child is punished in order to keep him quiet, because of an over-large class and if he cannot be kept quiet in any other way, it is not the child is responsible; it is the people who put the child into that class and put the teacher to teach that class in an overcrowded, dilapidated or insanitary classroom. You must not punish the child for something for which he is not at all responsible. If some people feel the only way they can keep order is by using the stick, cane or rod, that cannot be justified in ordinary justice.
I know that the general practice is to beat children. I know that from my own experience in school here, although it is a long time ago. But I know it still exists. I should like the Minister to consider the question and first of all to accept that it is unnecessary, that in many schools thousands and thousands of children go through the whole of their educational careers and never see a stick, cane or strap. Even here in Dublin I was glad to see at least one Catholic school in which they say in their notes, as I know to be true: "Perhaps the best commentary on the excellent spirit of work, behaviour and discipline prevailing amongst the pupils is the fact that corporal punishment in any shape or form has been found quite unnecessary." There are about 170 young boys and girls in that school, Dubliners coming from all strata of society. It is not a special school; they are taken from all strata of society.
It is quite clear to me that the time has come for the fact to seep in that the beating of children is a very bad thing, that it creates an interest in violence, respect and regard for violence, and that it teaches children in their turn to use violence. But the most important point is that it is completely unnecessary. The only thing that follows from all that, I am afraid is—and this may seem slightly impertinent on my part—that the teacher could not be denied the right to use force against the child if the parent was not equally denied it. If the only sanction the child understood was force, the teacher would not be successful. I think by considering this matter the Minister would make a very important contribution to a solution of this question. The delightful thing from his point of view is that it would cost him nothing at all.
There was some difference about figures regarding the number of children who get post primary education. I want to be clear on this. I would be interested in the Minister's figures. The Minister told me some time this year that he was not in a position to furnish the information I required in regard to the percentage of children who obtain no education beyond primary school level. I asked the question at that time but the Minister was not able to give the information. The figures I gave were 11 per cent. in respect of those who went to vocational school and 20 per cent. in respect of those who went to secondary school. I should like to know whether those figures are correct or not.
I am not interested now in children who stay on doing the primary course and take a longer time over it than they should or those who do a glorified primary course and take a longer time over it than they should. I am interested only in post primary education as it concerns giving a child a useful craft or skill which will bring him into a skilled class or profession, where he does not have to do manual labour simply because he has got this qualification which our educational system should give him.
The figures taken from the travel permits issued in 1951 are significant and bear out my contention that the vast majority of our children who emigrate end up in the coolie-labour class. In that year, 3,391 unskilled labourers emigrated, 31 per cent.; agricultural workers, 4,371, 40 per cent.; industrial workers, 12 per cent.; other skilled workers and clerks, 17 per cent. If we take industrial workers, agricultural workers and unskilled workers, the percentage totals 70 per cent. Admittedly, one is limited in analysis because the figures cover only one year. Since, however, the Minister has no definite figures to put before us, these seem to me to give a reasonable indication as to the type of training our young people have when they leave this country.
On the female side, we have 5,122 domestics, 55 per cent.; nursing, 543, 6 per cent.; clerical, 317, 3 per cent; agriculture, 201, 2 per cent., and then factory workers and so on, 3,144. If one takes domestic workers and factory workers, 55 per cent. and 34 per cent., one gets a total of 89 per cent. Those figures tell their own sad story and they bear out the contention of many people that our educational system is seriously defective.
I want to correct the figure I gave in relation to the need for additional teachers. Instead of 4,000 additional teachers in order to achieve 30 pupils to a class—that was the recommendation of the council—the number required is 3,000 additional trained teachers and 3,000 additional untrained teachers, making 6,000 in all. In order to turn out that number of teachers, one would need to double the training facilities.
I would ask the Minister to increase the secondary schools' scholarships to 2,000 and university scholarships to 500. Vocational education should be free. The total capital needed to do all these things would be £15,000,000 spread over ten years. I am sure the Minister has access to more reliable figures than I have at my disposal and he can make his own calculation, but I think that does represent the sum required. It is not a tremendous amount of money when one considers the return one would get.
I started with the I.N.T.O. and I shall end with them. I know the Minister has a tremendous regard for this organisation. Amongst other things, they said in this booklet: "An education which ends when the pupil is only on the threshold of mental development cannot possibly cater for any of these needs and is neither vocational nor liberal. The society which tolerates such a system is a negation of democracy for democracy aims at providing equality of educational opportunity for all its citizens." That is the pronunciamento of a very responsible body, the I.N.T.O.
As I said at the outset, I was a very disappointed at the obvious complacency of the Minister. He did express, in passing, some commiseration and regret but he does not seem to appreciate that he holds what is probably the most important post in the Cabinet; the decisions he could make could do more to create prosperity, that prosperity which the country so badly needs, than would the decisions of any other Minister in Government.
