San oráid a thug an tAire uaidh ar an Mheastachán seo tá a lán rud a chuireann dochas ar dhaoine a bhfuil suim acu i gcúrsaí oideachis sa tír seo. Ní hionann sin agus a rá nach bhfuil rudaí inte nach féidir iad a fheabhsú. Tá rud amháin gur chóir go mbeadh soléir do gach éinne, go mabaineann ceist an oideachais le gach éinne-ní hé amháin na daoine a mhúineann ins na scoileanna, sna bun scoileanna, sna meán-scoileanna agus sna hollscoileanna, na daltaí agus na tuismitheoirí, ach baineann sé le gach éinne.
Ag éisteacht le cuid de na tuairimí a nochtadh anseo—agus cluintear taobh amuigh den Tigh seo iad—do shílfeá go raibh rud éigin bun ós cionn leis an gcóras oideachais sa tír seo. Do shílfeá na fuil na múinteóirí nó na leanaí oilte ach oiread. Tá daoine a deireann anso—agus deirtear taobh amuigh den Tigh seo leis—go bhfuil leanaí na tíre seo, nó cuid díobh, neamh-oilte nó leath-oilte. Im thuairimise, is mór an masla é sin agus ní masla é don lucht oideachais amháin ach masla do na leanaí freisin. Ní dóigh liom gur ceart nó cóir go rachadh ráteas mar sin amach ón Tigh seo gan iarracht cur ina choinne.
Le tamall anuas, tá daoine ag déanamh gearán mar gheall ar an gcorás oideachais agus fílim go ndéaneann siad dearmad ar phríomhchuspóir an oideachais sin—gurb é an rud a bhíonn idir lámha againn ná intleacht na leanbh a spreagadh agus an dalta a chur ar a leas chun a anam a shábháil agus chun a chur ar a chumas saol tairbheach a chaiteamh sa domhan seo. Ní hé cnuasacht eolais ar fad an rud is fearr. Tá a lán rudaí eile ann ach sílim gurb é sin an rud is tábhachtaí atá ann, an leanbh a chur ar a leas.
Tá daoine ann leis a dúirt anseo, agus arís cloistear go minic taobh amuigh den Tigh seo é, go bhfuil dochar déanta don chóras oideachais anso tré Ghaeilge. I mo thuairim féin, agus i dtuairim a lán daoine a bhíos ag caint leo, níl aon dochair den tasghas seo déanta don chóras oideachais agus níl sa tír seo, mar deirtear, "compulsory Irish". Sin rud atá ag cur—ní deirim gach duine, ach a lán daoine—amú so cheist seo. Sna scoileanna sa Ghaeltacht, gan dabht, sa bhfíor-Ghaeltacht, tosnuítear ar theagasc na leanbh trí Ghaeilge nuair a thagann leanbh isteach sa scoil.
San nGalltacht, nuair a thagann an leanbh isteach sa scoil, tosnuítear ar oideachais ansan as Gaeilge ach sna ranganna níos airde leanter leis an teanga a bhíonn aige nuair a thagann sé isteach agus ní bhíonn aon iachall air a thuile a dhéanamh.
Ba mhaith an rud é dá gcabhraítí níos mó sa tír seo le gluaiseacht na Gaeilge agus gan an milleán a chur ar an scoileanna. Dá ndéantaí aon rud, is cuma chomh bheag agus a bheadh sé, má bhíonn na daoine toilteanach é a dhéanamh, bhéadh súil agam agus dóchas agam ná caillifí ar an Ghaeilge agus go mbeadh an abairt sin i n-úsáid arís: "Is Gael mise agus ní thuigim gur náir dom é".
Listening to the Minister's speech and to the speeches of Deputies and reading some of the things I have read on education outside this house, one would imaginer that something had gone completely wrong with the education system. I have listened to Deputies speaking of children as being illiterate or semi-literate. If such Deputies gave time to thinking on the question, they would come round to the view that not alone are the children not illiterate or semi-literate, but that there has been a distinct advance in education.
In his introductory speech, the Minister referred to the system of education and how it came about. School attendance is compulsory for all children between the ages of six and 14 years. Certainly, a far higher percentage of children attend school now than attended school in the days of the school attendance officer who went around the country in his trap.
Having regard to the number of pupils attending secondary boarding-schools and day schools and the vast increase in the number of university students, who is there who will say that education has declined? Irish people who have gone abroad have made their mark in competition with people anywhere. That is still happening. Irish missionaries who go abroad spread the light, not only of the Faith but of learning. The same spirit prevails as prevailed in the past. A system of education that can produced that results is no mean system and there cannot be very much wrong with it basically. Undoubedly, there are points in the system of education where improvement could be brought about by co-operation and discussion between the various elements involved. That would be a very desirable thing. There should be consultation between the various people responsible for education.
At present, there is an amount of discussion and criticism as to the place of the Irish language in our educational system. There are those who maintain that the language is a disadvantage and drawback in the system. I have not heard anyone saying that any other subject in the school programme is a drawback. Subjects are included in the school curriculum for the purpose of training the mind, developing the child's retentive powers and enlarging his vision. I have not heard anybody who has been criticising Irish for the damage it has done criticising the teaching of modern languages or ancient languages, history, geography, algebra, geometry, trigonometry or any other subject.
If it were only for the sake of what a second language can do in helping to enlarge the mind of the child, the teaching of Irish would be useful, just as useful as Latin, French, German, Spanish or any other continental language, but there is far more to the question of Irish, as far as we are concerned. It is the fountain, the well, from which we can draw. If we want to preserve the traditions of the past, we must retain the language that our forebears kept down the years. We should try to recapture the spirit which developed in every country and parish goodwill to those things that were Irish and national. We should try to restore the feiseanna which were a feature of the 18's or 19's, where children sang songs and parents came to take pleasure and pride. That is a matter in which this House might give a lead. The spirit of defeatism should be cut out as well as talk about the language doing damage to the educational system.
There are difficulties and there are faults in connection with the teaching of Irish as a subject or as a medium of instruction but they are not insurmountable. Our greatest need at present is for labhairt na Gaeilge, the speaking of the language, by the children, freely and without too much emphasis on grammar. There should not be too much insistence on grammatical construction. The main thing is to encourage the children to speak Irish and snás and grammar can be attended to afterwards. How many people are there who speak English or any other language and do not speak it grammatically? Is it suggested that when people make grammatical errors in speaking English, they should be made to correct their mistakes?
In regard to the programme in national schools, as I said last year, I do not think it is possible in the programme as it is at present and with the concentration on the revitalising of the language, to include fresh subjects. I know it is a desirable thing. There are Deputies here, and people outside this House, who from time to time have counselled the inclusion of other subjects in the school programme, but there is a thing which should be remembered, that is, that in a good many cases at present, speaking particularly about the constitunecy from which I come, children have in many centres an opportunity of getting secondary education at an early age and it is more the commonplace than the exception that children leave the primary school at approximately the age of 13.
I have heard Deputies speaking to-night about the number of children who go on for secondary education. It is only those children who reach the top classes in the primary school who will go on for secondary school and I am sure the Department officials could tell us what fraction, or percentage of the number on our rolls in the national schools go on for secondary education. If we take the ratio of pupils who go to both secondary and vocational education, it is indeed a very respectable fraction.
In regard to the school building programme, the increasing numbers which are coming on to the rolls of the national schools are a hopeful sign. It is one of the hopeful signs when you find the younger people in the country increasing and that increase is most readily measured in the national schools.
There is an increasing need for schools. The Department, and the Office of Public Works which carries out the schemes for them, have done a good job in those schools that have been put up. As mentioned by Deputy Manley, they are very beautiful and are monuments to our fidelity to that tradition of interest in education. What is needed is to find a means of speeding up the building of these schools, or the provision, as Deputy Manley also mentioned, of an extra room, where necessary, or even the adaptation of a building.
Very often in relation to the building of schools at the present time the slowness is reached when they arrive at the drawing stage. With Deputy Booth, I cannot see why there should not be a type of school suitable, say, to a country area, a type of school suitable for two teachers, three teachers or four teachers, as the case may be. Then the only thing necessary, in all cases when it has been decided to build a new school in a certain area, is to pick out there and then the plan for that school, because it is a two-teacher one or a three-teacher one.
There is one thing I should mention in regard to new schools. We should not make the mistake which we have often made in the past. What is most necessary is that our rooms should be of sufficient size, that they should be bright and airy and that during winter time, they should be capable of being efficiently heated. In regard to the size of the rooms, it would be wise for us to leave an extra room and not to stick to the present idea of having so many square feet for the number of children who will attend the school.
It is very necessary that this House and the Oireachtas should persuade the people that agriculture is our main-stay and that the movement must be back to the land. If that were done, then we could look forward to an increase in the rural population. Then we would not have to be altering a building or erecting an extra room in a few years' time. That applies also to girls' schools. There should be that extra room left in a new school when it is being built and it could be used for cookery, or laundry, or such subjects and if ever there was a need for an extra room, it would be there.
I heard another Deputy speak a short time ago on the question of water supplies for schools. Wherever a water supply is naturally available, undoubtedly it would be availed of, but there are many places in the country where difficulties exist in that respect. I do not think it is a wise thing that we should put off building a school in an area like that, waiting for a water supply. There should be nothing more difficult in preparing an estimate for a school of that type than there is for a preparing an estimate for any other type of building where so much is provided in the estimate for a flush type sanitary system if water becomes available, and then, if not, going ahead with the ordinary dry-type lavatory which can at present be very efficient.
Keeping still to the primary end of education. I heard somebody saying— I think it was Deputy Booth—that he would be against any bribes or threats with regard to the language. I disagree with him. As I mentioned last year, there is nothing which gives and will give a greater fillip to children in the schools than the comics. There is at least one Irish monthly available now, but I should like to see not alone one weekly comic but two, and there should be one available for juniors and one available for seniors. That should be a continuing series which would keep the children interested and they would be practising the language which is the free and easy language of the schools.
Suitable books are, of course, an asset and an addition and in that respect again we should stick first to the spoken word. In the junior classes, I think we should not go in at all for the reading of Irish too soon and certainly we should not go in, up to the third or fourth standard, for the writing of the language. If we could, firstly, get them to speak it and, secondly, to read it the other would follow naturally.
If I might digress for a moment, it is heartening to find that, in 1960, we will take a step towards the integration of that policy in regard to the spoken language. We find the oral test coming into the leaving certificate. Of course, in that there are bound to be a number of difficulties for the Department; and I suppose in regard to the pupils, there will be the difficulty of something new; but I am sure that those who will be charged with the carrying out of these béal-triails will approach the question of this examination in a sympathetic manner. Naturally, the "comhra" that will take place on an occasion like that will be based on such things as pupils of that age would be interested in.
I should hope it would not be just a question of examiners arriving at schools to test the knowledge of pupils as knowledge, but rather, I would hope, the aim would be to test their fluency in speaking the language and expressing themselves on such occasions. I should hope that in the early stages, at any rate, no pupils would fail their certificates because, through nervousness or otherwise, they failed in the oral test.
I think it was Deputy Manley who mentioned on this that there would have to be compensation with regard to the amount of work laid out for secondary schools. The number of books which secondary pupils have to read, particularly for the honours leaving certificate, the books of grammar, corra cainte and so on that have to be dealt with, are a large burden. If there were to be over-concentration on that, then there would not be the time available for the spoken language in the school.
I mentioned the primary certificate examination last year. The one really objectionable feature of such a written examination for children of young age is the fact of its being compulsory. Very often, it is wise and good to advance into sixth class a child who may not be of the required standard in a particular subject. But it certainly is a trial for that child at the end of its time to find that it failed to get its primary certificate. The teacher —since he is the one best fitted to know—ought to be allowed the liberty of presenting for examination those children he considers fit for it.
The numbers in our secondary schools are surely convincing proof of the value which our people place on education; but we should be able to find more time in the secondary schools for what was mentioned here by Deputy Desmond: deagh bheasa, good manners and the ordinary courtesies which are the hallmark of education. I am afraid at present, in our system of testing the education of children by mere examination, we are missing the point very much and we are tending more and more to the cram system. Nothing could be more destructive of real education than the fact that teachers, or pupils equally so, find that they have to devote such an enormous amount of time to the amassing of knowledge, becoming almost walking encyclopaedias of knowledge, and then find the battle royal opens at the end of the year with the people who have set the papers testing the knowledge acquired by these children during the year from textbooks. There ought to be more time for these, things in the schools. In that regard, I know that at the beginning of each year secondary schools send their time-tables and so on to the Department. Then they lay out half days or other time for physical culture and so on. I sincerely hope that the amount of time laid out for these is spent on them. It would be a wise thing to ensure that there would be sufficient time in our secondary school programme for such things as that.
I want to refer to the teaching of history in our secondary schools. It is not as much of a problem in the primary schools because the books available cover the period; but looking at the secondary school programme, one finds a period of history laid down for intensive study, particularly in the Leaving Certificate. It is quite a search to find a book which will contain that period of history. It will either fall short of it or exceed it. In these periods of history, particularly where it concerns European history as integrated with Irish history, the authorship of these books is, in the main, English. There is nothing available for the Leaving Course comparable with the history available for the Intermediate Course. A history of such a type should be made available for the secondary schools or the Department should change the period of history to suit what is contained in the text books now available. With different books in use, it would be possible for an examiner to frame a question on the detailed information in one book which might not be available to the pupils in the schools.
With Deputy Booth, I should like to appeal to the Minister in regard to the capitation grant for secondary schools. That grant has been stationary for quite a time. In a good many of these secondary schools, particularly the residential ones where facilities were made available for the increased entry of pupils desirous of a secondary education, the people who provided the buildings for these pupils find themselves with a huge weight of debt around their necks. It would be a great relief to them to know they could look forward to an increased capitation grant to help reduce it. I am in complete agreement with the Minister's statement that people do not sufficiently appreciate the value of vocational education. Vocational education has been a slow growth because in the past there was a feeling that education of that type was lower than other types of education. There does not seem to be sufficient interest in practical education here. Too many people are turning their minds to what are described as white-collar jobs and, when they achieve the education to equip them for that type of work, they find there are not enough jobs to go round. It would be wise for people to remember that any kind of work is praiseworthy so long as it is honest work. We should not base too much of our education on books.
I was disappointed in the Minister's statement that the number of university scholarships, or the renewal of scholarships, has decreased. Whether or not the students who go to Ollscoil na Gaillimhe find conditions too onerous, I do not know. It would be something to deplore, if such were the case.
A happy development over the years has been the number of firms which have assisted education by way of endowment or grant. In regard to the primary schools, a number of firms are providing charts which are things of beauty in themselves and which convey knowledge to the children as well as cultivating their aesthetic appreciation. That is a development very much to be desired, very much to be commended and very much to be encouraged.
Most people will welcome the idea of an interview for future students desirous of entering the training colleges. It is desirable that the authorities, both in the training colleges and in the Department, should be satisfied that the material is such as will make successful teachers. For the students, it is a good thing that they should learn in time whether or not they are suitable rather than find themselves after a year in college without a bent for that vocation.
There has been a great deal of talk here and outside about corporal punishment. Indeed, these words "corporal punishment" conjure up visions of extraordinary things happening in our schools. Deputy Dr. Browne spoke of grown-ups inflicting punishment on small people, and he made the fantastic statement that the present wave of juvenile delinquency springs from corporal punishment in the schools. How he could come to that conclusion is a mystery. He finds the roots of the maladjustment of those children who come before the courts in the period they spent in the national schools.
As has been said, considering the numbers involved over the whole educational field, there have been very few instances of any thing which would give cause for uneasiness in relation to corporal punishment. Deputy Dr. Browne destroyed the foundation of his own argument when he said he would deny to parents the same right that he denied to teachers. In most countries to-day, it is accepted that there are people who will not obey ordinary, simple discipline or make themselves amenable to the laws of society. Therein lies the root cause of trouble at the present time. Teachers are not desirous of inflicting punishment, but, if education is to be effective, there must be some system of discline which will enable the majority to obtain the education they desire, even should one bold boy decide that he wanted to prevent that aim.
I should be lacking in my duty if I did not refer to the question of the retiring gratuity to pensioned teachers. This has been an annual here since 1950 and each year, in the eight years that have passed, the number who are waiting for that measure of justice grows less. Only a few years more need pass and nobody here need raise a voice because those who seek this gratuity will have passed on. Consider the extraordinary anomaly that exists in the case of two teachers born in the same year and within, three months of each other, trained in the same college, doing the same work in the same kind of school; one retires on 31st December, 1950, and another retires on 31st March, 1951. One gets a gratuity; the other does not. The injustice there should be apparent to anybody. Our desires and the best intentions of the Minister are useless, if they are not backed up with the necessary finances. If the money is not available, we should be honest and say that it is a question of money and that we cannot do it. We should certainly not put forward the excuse that this would establish a precedent for other State pensioners.
In relation to the Art Gallery and the Museum, I should like to add my voice to that of Deputy T. Lynch. We should find more space for our valuable exhibits. The works of art we have, especially in Dublin, represent a treasure house from which an amount not alone of pleasure but wealth of thought can be drawn. I have often felt on occasions that it might be possible to lend some of these treasures to the smaller museums down the country. On previous occasions, we were very pleased in Limerick when the Ardagh Chalice was brought there and a great many people were able to see it.
I have no misgivings about education in Ireland nor about the place of the Irish language. Our plain duty in that respect is to maintain the language and to advance it. It was heartening to hear from Deputy Giles to-night of a further Gaelic centre in Meath. We had one last year at Arus Ida—Foynes —where the children gathered from the areas all about to spend the two months of July and August, and indeed this year it is very heartening to find that there is not sufficient space available for the students looking for accommodation there in the months of July and August. That is something which the State, by way of any grants it can make, ought to encourage, the voluntary co-operation of people gathered together like that to advance the cause not alone of the language but of our culture and heritage which is so richly there.
There was this year also the movement of the daon-scoil which opened at Easter this year. That is something which we hope will grow with the passage of the years so that more people, both in our area in West Limerick and in areas elsewhere, will become interested in this movement—people voluntarily coming together to speak the language, to listen to Irish songs, and to join with the seanachai in the recounting of the glories of the past.
The educational system in this country has justified itself. Those who are concerned with it, whether it be the Minister, who is responsible for policy, the Department officials, who have guided its destinies, the inspectors and the teachers, are all doing something worth-while. The Jeremiahs of this country who bewail and bemoan the lack of advancement should pause and take notice of the actual situation. I would invite them to take note of the position in our secondary schools. Anyone who wants to judge the standard of our Irish children in relation to education ought to compare our secondary school examinations with the public examinations of any other country. We have had children coming here from abroad and they have undergone the same tests as our own children; we have had our children going abroad, and by whatever measure you decide to judge them, it is apparent that the Irish system is as good as ever it was and bears comparison with that of any other country in the world.
I am perfectly certain that Irish did not do any damage; in fact it has enriched the education of the children. I am also certain that in the long run both the children and the nation will gain from the keeping of the Irish language in its rightful place in Irish schools.