I recognise that. I am answering to some extent some of the points that I thought the Leas-Chathaoirleach himself made in his capacity as a Senator in laying part of the blame, perhaps, for the activities of these young men upon our Party political leaders in the past—"upon all of us," I think he stated. I should like just to be allowed to quote the sentences from this telegram to indicate in what frame of mind this agreement was signed, because the telegram to the Irish people referred to it as follows:—
"An instrument which provides a same and constructive solution born of a genuine desire for peace between the two nations has been signed. We bring back an instrument solemnly executed by friendship. This agreement, accepted in the spirit in which it was negotiated and signed, provides a basis of sure and lasting peace. We confidently recommend it to the Irish people."
These are old things, but I do not think they should be forgotten things.
If we intend to alter that agreement, to go back on that agreement, we have a perfect right to do so, but we should negotiate honourably, and not try to pretend that such an agreement was neither signed nor ratified, because it was both.
Now I do not know whether or not it has occurred to many people that, if you are dissatisfied with the way the country is being run in relation to foreign policy or home policy, the thing to do is to start an army. I do not know whether or not people have realised that that example, if it were to be followed by others—by the unemployed, for instance—might have for our whole economy a most disastrous effect. I would ask some of these young men in the I.R.A. to reflect that they are not the only ones suffering form a sense of injustice, and that, in fact, they may not be those who are suffering most from injustice and that it would be extremely dangerous for the whole country if we were to toss aside our Constitution—however much we may criticise it or however frustrated we may feel sometimes within its bounds. It would be dangerous for the whole country if we were to give to every group of citizens the right to take arms privately within the State.
The truth of the matter—and that brings me to the main thing I want to say to-day—is, I am afraid, and I think the Leas-Chathaoirleach would agree with me here, that these young men are undereducated and miseducated. They have been badly and, I am afraid, wrongly taught. I feel that, in relation to this basic question of education, we are not doing our duty in this country. I am quite certain that in that feeling I am not alone, though possibly some of the criticisms I intend to make would not be shared. However, the dissatisfaction is general.
I should like now to relate my remarks to the money voted for the Department of Education.
It is my belief that the reason why a small country like Switzerland, with very little in the way of native raw materials available to it, succeeds in maintaining a very high standard of living for its people—living, employment and so on—can be related directly to the Swiss educational system. I would draw the attention of the Seanad to the fact that in practically every Swiss product sold abroad, there is a very high skilled labour content. Why can we not emulate them? What prevents us from exporting things with a high skilled labour content? Why can we not We have the native wit; we have the native intelligence; we have the native skill untapped. But we do not harness them. We do not develop them. Therefore, the major field of development for us ought to be the educational field.
You cannot build skilled technicians without building well-educated masses of people in our ordinary schools. In that matter, in my opinion, we are falling down lamentably. Last year, the President of the I.N.T.O., Miss Margaret Skinnider, whom I should very much like to see in this House, and who unfortunately was an unsuccessful candidate in the recent Seanad election, said on one occasion recently that the education which we were able to provide seemed mainly to be designed to produce labourers and maids for the British labour market. It is a lamentable thing that we have not been able to do more for our people in the field of education.
Senator Baxter said—I think his exact words were—that the time has come to study the whole question. I would say, with respect, that the time is long past, and I would remind him, and the Seanad, that on 5th May, 1950, a Council of Education was set up to study just the things that he wants studied now. That council consisted of some 37 members, 16 clergymen and 21 lay men and women. It was a competent and intelligent body, and its members sat and investigated and took evidence from some 76 individuals and bodies. They studied precisely the whole question of our education in the primary schools. They finished their report on 14th May, 1954, and published it in August of that year. Therefore, I do not think it is a good thing to say here in the Seanad now that the time has come "to study the whole problem" as to what we should be doing.
The problem has been studied. A report has been issued on it, and it has been in the hands of the Government since August, 1954, and this is July, 1957. I should like to be able to assume that we have all read this report, possibly not both in Irish and English, but at any rate in one of the two languages in which it is printed; but at least we must assume that the officials of the Department of Education have read it and that both the previous Minister for Education and the present Minister for Education have read it. We must be surprised that no action whatever has been taken arising from it. I know we were told last year and the previous year that it was necessary to consult certain bodies to find out if the recommendations of these highly reputable people were, in fact, good or not. We set up a commission; we get their report; they make recommendations and then we refer their recommendations back to a large number of people and bodies, unnamed, to find out whether the recommendations are good or bad. In the meantime, of course, "the Minister can do nothing." And we get up here and say what a pity we do not study the question of education.
I should like to consider the question under three main headings and develop them. Firstly, I should like to consider—and in relation to our schools, I think it is the point at which one should begin—the question of personnel, the teachers. They are the pivot of our schools; later I am going to talk about premises and curricula, but the central point is the teacher. We all know from our experience of learning that what makes a good class is a good teacher; not so much method, as the personality of the teacher. I believe the teacher should be regarded as an élite in our community and treated as such. I realise that he is not and I am afraid there is often a very ignorant attitude adopted towards the teacher. Patrick Pearse said that "between the salary offered to teachers and the excellence of our country's educational system, there is a vital connection." That is the first point: unless you treat your teachers decently, you will not get decent educational standards.
In relation to the training of teachers, I notice on page 63 of the current report of the Department of Education—the current report being the report for 1954-55—figures relating to trained and untrained teachers. I might say in parenthesis that a national school child coming in a few minutes late to school runs the serious risk of being slapped, with "a light rod or cane"—not with a strap, of course; that is forbidden— but when the Minister brings in his report two or three years late, not just two or three minutes late, that is regarded as being more or less all right. It is regarded as part of the picture, part of the pattern and one shrugs one's shoulders. It is convenient, incidentally, when you are doing very little, to live as it were on a kind of intellectual overdraft by only referring at the present moment to what you did three or four years ago. Thus nobody will know until 1959-60 what the Minister is doing now in 1957.
On page 63 of this report, then, there is a table, No. 18, which gives the number of teachers, trained and untrained, in the service on 30th June, 1955. I am speaking now about the training of teachers. The record as regards the male teachers is reasonably good, but the proportion of uncrained women teachers is deplorably high. I notice, for instance, that the figures for principal teachers among the women is that there were 1,571 trained and 228 untrained. Two hundred and twenty-eight may not seem a very big number, but these are principal teachers and it represents some 13 per cent. of the total women principal teachers. A similar percentage is found in the women assistant teachers where you have 485 untrained and 2,746 trained. When it comes to junior assistant mistresses, however, you find that the percentage of the untrained teachers is very nearly 95 per cent. because there are, of that category, 1,323 untrained and only 70 trained.
I do not think that is a very good condition of things. Those figures refer to lay teachers. At the bottom of the table is a paragraph referring to: "Members of religious orders of monks and nuns who are members of the minimum recognised staff required by the regulations in monastery or convent national schools paid by capitation". Among the men, the proportion, while high, is not too high, but I notice even so that there are 207 such male teachers trained and 220 untrained— that is to say, more than 50 per cent. untrained. Among the women, there are 1,155 trained and 678 untrained, about 36 per cent. Down at the bottom of the page, there is a paragraph: "In addition, there are supernumerary teachers (chiefly nuns) most of whom are serving in schools paid by capitation". The numbers of such women teachers trained are 157, and untrained 486, about 75 per cent. of that category untrained.
You will notice the figures are far worse for the women than for the men. They are very startling figures; yet we continue to dismiss women teachers on marriage. How do we do it? How can we bring ourselves to insist that the married woman leaves her post upon marriage? Many such women, I agree, might want to leave, and should of course have the right to leave, but we insist that they leave whether they want to stay on or not, and they are dismissed on marriage. It is our duty either to see to it that our teachers, or at least a very big proportion of them, are properly trained, or else, until such time as that has been achieved, to retain in the employment of the Department of Education all qualified married women teachers who are prepared to continue teaching. Having said that, I do not want to say any more about personnel for the moment.
I want to turn to the question of premises. We all know that there are nearly 1,000 primary schools which require either to be completely replaced or reconstructed. I do not think the word "obsolete" is too strong to be applied to them. The last Minister for Education mentioned that 822 new schools were needed in the country. A further 161 needed to be reconstructed. I think the recent figure mentioned for building actually being done was about 50 schools a year, so that it will take us something like 20 years to make up this back-log—provided that no school deteriorates in those 20 years.
Are we satisfied with this? Is this what we want? Are we doing our best? Are we doing what is right and just by our children? My opinion is that we ought to have an emergency policy for school building. We ought not to aim immediately now at the great, colossal, palatial school. We ought to aim at the smaller, temporary and, if you like, provisional, utility, emergency premises, in which the teaching can be maintained at a high standard until such time as we can build adequately. I am afraid that our sense of urgency is not sufficient. I am also afraid that in some cases we are going in the wrong direction. We are attempting to build too big and too expensively.
I saw the other day that one of the biggest schools in Europe was opened in Ballyfermot. It is obviously a very big school. It is going to cope with 4,500 children. I do not know whether we are satisfied that that is the kind of way we want our children to be dealt with. I am reminded of the phrase of Patrick Pearse when he talks of such mass education as "the rapid and cheap manufacture of readymades." I do not believe you can turn out truly educated children from schools containing 4,500 pupils. I do not believe it is possible. It would be far better if they were limited to 200 or 300 children. If we must go beyond that figure, let us not go up to this colossal number which must, with the best will in the world and the best teaching in the world, fail by very reason of the number.
I notice that there are to be 78 classrooms in this school, which means that for this new school the intention is to have classes of something like 50 children on the average. That is not proper planning in my opinion. It is not planning in accordance with the recommendation of the Council of Education. It cannot produce good results. I also notice that the school is to cost something like £500,000 to build. That is to say, over £6,000 per classroom on the average. I am aware, of course, that there are all kinds of ancillary buildings going with it. Yet are we getting the best possible value for the money we spend under this Estimate for the building of schools, if we spend, on the average, over £6,000 each to build 78 classrooms?
On this question of overcrowding and the numbers in classes, the Council of Education has specific things to say. It recommends that the "optimum figure" in classes ought to be 30. Yet in "one of the most modern schools in Europe" we are aiming at an average of about 50. The Council of Education also say—I am referring to paragraphs 317, 318 and 319—that in present circumstances they recognise it will not be possible to get that optimum figure, and that, therefore, the maximum figure which should be put under the charge of a trained teacher is 40. We are not even aiming at that in these new schools. Again, the report says: "Taking into consideration the needs of the smaller schools, we recommend that the average number of pupils on roll in a one-teacher school should not exceed 25." Is our present planning in connection with expenditure related in any way to these recommendations? I notice that the I.N.T.O., as reported in the Irish Times of the 24th October, 1956, referred to the question of overcrowding of classrooms and said:—
"Overcrowding of classrooms in Dublin schools has been a source of worry to teachers for a long time. In some classrooms the number of pupils may be anything from 70 to 80 pupils, and classes of from 60 to 65 are quite a common feature of most schools.
A spokesman of the I.N.T.O. said yesterday that on several occasions representations had been made to the Department of Education for lower numbers in the classrooms ‘but,' he added, ‘we have not been able to get anywhere since 1948.'... Teachers think that classes should not be larger than 25 to 30 pupils."
That is what the teachers think. That is what the Council of Education thinks. What does the Minister think? What does the Department think? That is the kind of recommendation by the Council of Education into which I should have expected the Department to have made immediate investigations. Since the recommendations were first made, I should have expected that the Department would try to find out whether those figures are true—classes of 70 and 80.
I met a national teacher last year who had a class of 57 12-year-old boys, to whom he was supposed to teach every subject. I have got one 12-year-old boy and another ten-year-old. Anybody who has sons of that age will recognise that it is quite enough to try to answer the questions of any two of them without having to try to inculcate a knowledge of five or six subjects in them. How do you work with 57 12-year-old boys? The answer is that any of us, be we ever so patient, might well be driven to resort to physical violence. That is, of course, the basic reason why there is far too much physical violence in our schools, but the fault does not lie with the children.
If physical violence is the answer to the problem of overcrowded classes, against whom should it be used? Against those responsible. Far be it from me to suggest physical violence against a Minister with the name of Lynch, but it seems most unfair to me that the children should be the sufferers for conditions the blame for which, wherever it should lie, does not attach to them. The blame for these conditions lies, in fact, not just upon the Minister, but upon all of us, because it is our society, he is our Minister and it is our Department of Education.
I noted that last July Deputy McQuillan put down a question in the Dáil to the Minister about overcrowding in Dublin classes. As I say, I should have expected that at least by 1956 the Minister, who has had recommendations of this kind put before him in 1954, should have been concerned to find out what the facts were, yet the Minister told Deputy McQuillan in the Dáil last July that he did not know the answer to the question. He just gave him an average figure. He knew how many school-going children there were in Dublin, and how many classes there were, and dividing one into the other he found that the "average" was 43 pupils per class. That "average" includes classes of 15 and 20. It also apparently includes classes of 70 and 80.
But the Minister does not even know the facts. The Department of Education does not know how many there are in the various classes in our Dublin schools, and, when a Deputy puts down a question, the Minister has in effect to admit: "I could not gave the Deputy the answer without sending a special circular to the schools." The Department of Education has not even got the figures, and has no mechanism for getting the figures, except by getting out a special circular. So he said in July that, since the schools were about to disband, the Deputy would have to wait until the autumn to get an answer. Deputy McQuillan, being a persistent Deputy, put down the same question again in October and the Minister said in effect: "I am sorry, but we still have not collected all the figures on this. We have sent a special circular out, but we have not got all the answers." In fact, the question has never been publicly answered. The point I am making is that the Minister and his Department are not sufficiently concerned to find out the facts, in their own interest, and, even when the Minister is asked a specific question in the Dáil, he has to send out a special circular. I do not think that that indicates a serious attitude towards his stewardship of the education of Irish children.
On the content of our educational system, I believe we are harassed and held back by a preoccupation with what I would call "programme disease", a preoccupation with the prescribed course, with the Intermediate Certificate examination, with the prescribed course of reading for Leaving Certificate and so on. Even where there is not a prescribed course, there is a very narrow interpretation of the kind of things one is likely to be asked.
Patrick Pearse wrote an essay on education. I make no apology for quoting it. He called it—he was speaking, of course, of the system here under the British Government—The Murder Machine. I regret to say that I feel that that appellation is as valid to-day about our educational system in 1957 as it was in 1912. This is what Patrick Pearse said about “the programme”:—
"The idea of a compulsory programme imposed by an external authority upon every child in every school in a country is the direct contrary of the root idea involved in education. Yet, this is what we have in Ireland. At the present moment there are 15,000 boys and girls pounding at a programme drawn up by certain persons sitting around a table in Hume Street."
Probably they are not the same persons to-day, but almost certainly it is the same table!
"Precisely the same textbooks are being read to-night in every secondary school and college in Ireland ... and the programme bulks so large that there is no room for education."
I believe that is what is happening in Ireland to-day. Yet I believe that what is needed is the encouragement in our children, in primary schools, secondary schools and universities, of originality and not of conformity. The purpose of education should not be the mere factual indoctrination or "informing" of the child. It should be the encouragement in the child of the capacity to think. I am led to believe that, in practice, the major object of our present educational system is to prevent the children from learning how to think, and I believe that, in that respect, it has been very successful.
What does Patrick Pearse say on that point? He says:—
"Is not the precise aim of education to ‘foster'—not to inform, to indoctrinate, to conduct through a course of studies—but, first and last, to foster the elements of character native to a soul, to help to bring these to their full perfection rather than to implant exotic excellences?"
I believe that what we should encourage, therefore, is thought and the capacity to think, thinking processes rather than repetitions and parrot-learning. I believe we should encourage the critical faculty and not obsequiousness and an externally imposed slavish discipline.
Senator Baxter referred to the fact that he thinks there are, perhaps, too many slavish-minded people here. Patrick Pearse felt the same. Patrick Pearse said that in the ancient pagan republics...
"... To the children of the free were taught all noble and goodly things which would tend to make them strong and proud and valiant; from the children of the slaves all such dangerous knowledge was hidden. They were taught not to be strong and proud and valiant but to be sleek, to be obsequious, to be dexterous: the object was not to make them good men but good slaves. And so in Ireland. The educational system here was designed by our masters in order to make us willing or, at least, manageable slaves."
How much of that attitude have we to-day originating from those around the table in Hume Street or elsewhere? I believe we should aim, and therein I find myself entirely in agreement with Patrick Pearse, at diversity in our schools and in our children and in our teaching, rather than at uniformity. We should aim at organised recreation, at the encouragement of manual crafts. We should aim at smaller schools, schools with greater individual diversity. We should get away from these colossal schools aiming, as Patrick Pearse said, at "the rapid and cheap manufacture of readymades." We do not want readymade thinking. We want people to think for themselves, and one element that is essential for that is, of course, the element of freedom. "In particular," said Patrick Pearse, "I would urge that the Irish schools system of the future"—I like to think that Patrick Pearse in these words is speaking to us to-day in 1957 —"should give freedom, freedom to the individual school, freedom to the individual teacher, freedom, as far as may be, to the individual pupil. Without freedom there can be no right growth and education is properly the fostering of the right growth of a personality." I believe, therefore, that we should not have all this fetish of examinations and certificates, honours and passes, prescribed courses, and rules and regulations. I believe that Patrick Pearse was right when he spoke about the necessity for freedom for the teacher, not always hedged round and overlooked as it were by inspectors, however kindly, whose duty it is to see to it that certain regulations are kept to the letter. Freedom for the individual school: I should like to see the individual school having far more liberty to decide what its programme shall be. And freedom for the pupil: I believe that we have in our schools, in too many of them, partly due to overcrowding, far too much emphasis upon an externally imposed discipline and far too little upon discipline encouraged to grow from within.
I shall not go over all the ground again about the beating of children in schools. The fact is, however, that in our schools to-day there is far too much beating of children for minor offences—such as what the Minister in his own regulations calls "mere failure at lessons." I am convinced that children have corporal punishment regularly administered to them in a very large number of schools for mere failure at lessons. I do not suggest that they are wildly or savagely beaten, but I do suggest that they are needlessly beaten far too often in a trivial way for trivial offences.
It is true that the last Minister reintroduced the strap and then, within ten days, abolished it again; nearly knocked himself out with it, in fact. I do not think that the present Minister, either, has shown, in his answers in the Dáil, a very clear notion of what his policy is in relation to corporal punishment. He does not really seem to know whether the strap is "legal" or not. One thing we all do know is that the strap is widely used, and that it is not allowed in fact by the regulations.
Another thing that we know is that in the future Irish schools foreseen by Patrick Pearse it would not have been necessary to beat Irish children for mere failure at lessons, or for minor offences, or, in fact, I believe, at all.
Now I want to come to the question of parents. A great deal is spoken about the parents' rights, but very little active recognition is given to the parents' rights. I believe very profoundly that the Council of Education are right in paragraph 334 when they urge a very large measure of active co-operation with each local school by the parents. I believe that it could be of the greatest benefit to those running the school, the manager, the principal teacher, the teachers, if there were a regularly-meeting parent-teacher organisation for each school. That does not mean that the parents would be coming in telling the teachers how to do their job. In fact, it might well result very frequently in the teachers telling the parents how to do their job; and why not? Would not such discussions be fruitful?
What I do believe is that if teachers and parents were grouped together around the school, in the school, meeting regularly, discussing not merely complaints and grievances but how they could co-operate locally for the good of the school, it would be infinitely precious for our educational system, and I should like to see our Department of Education encouraging the setting up and maintenance of such groups for regular discussion between parents and teachers and the manager in relation to every primary school in the country.
Now I want to come to the question, which has been mentioned by several Senators, of the teaching of Irish. Senator Hayes said that he thought perhaps we ought to reassess the position. Senator Baxter said something similar, I think. We ought to inquire at this stage how far we have been successful, and, if we have not been as successful as we had hoped, should we not retrace our steps and find out whether the methods we have been using have been good, or even whether the goal that we have been aiming at is attainable?
I am aware that Patrick Pearse's goal was the re-establishment of Irish as a vernacular language in this country. I do not really believe that that was possible even in 1911 or 1912. I am absolutely convinced that it is no longer possible to-day. After all, we have had two generations since those days, and we have had quite a lot of enthusiasm, and quite a lot of money spent, and quite a lot of Irish taught in the schools, but can anyone in this House really say that we are within measurable distance of seeing Irish established in this country as a second vernacular language or as the first vernacular language? It just is not so, and I think we ought to face the fact and recognise that it is not coming.
I believe that damage is done to the language by diluting it and teaching it very widely, and in a cursory way, to a number of people who in fact have no particular taste for it and no intention of using it. I believe there has been a dilution of Irish, and damage to the language wrought by our system, based upon the hope of some that Irish could be re-established as a vernacular tongue in this country, and I think we ought to recognise now that whatever about 1912 or 1922, that goal is not now attainable.
Senator Mullins referred, I think in a jocular fashion, to Trinity College and its policy on Irish. He wanted to know, if he failed in Irish in the entrance examination, would he be admitted to the college. The answer is very simple. Any student presenting Irish as a subject, that is to say, choosing Irish as one of the two languages that he or she must take at the matriculation examination for Trinity College, Dublin, and failing in that subject, is not admitted. As a language, it is no more compulsory than Latin. Any student presenting himself for entrance must do two of the following languages—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Irish, French, German, Italian or Spanish. Consequently, if Senator Mullins were to present himself and were to fail in Irish, having chosen Irish as one of his languages, he would not be admitted, however much we might desire to have him. That is the answer to the question that he propounded. He seemed to think that one could do Irish in the matriculation examination and fail in it, and yet get in. The answer is, one cannot.
Now, I wonder does the Seanad realise how many students going into Trinity College do in fact choose Irish from this list of languages as one of the two that they must do? I took the trouble to look up the figures for the last entrance examination. Forty-three per cent. chose to do Irish. I think that that is a very significant figure, for this reason, that these candidates presented Irish by free choice, and not because it was rammed down their throats, and I think that is a principle upon which some of us might reflect in thinking about the teaching of Irish and the public attitude towards Irish. The people who will cherish and preserve the tongue are the people who love it, and choose it, and not the people who have it thrust upon them. To spread it too widely to such reluctant people is to dilute and thin it down.
The time has come, then, to recognise that Irish—it may seem sad to say— will never be our spoken tongue generally in this country again. That represents, in my opinion, a real loss. I think the loss of any element, particularly a language, in a cultural heritage, is a real loss, a melancholy thing to contemplate. I believe that it has already been lost. I do not believe that we can ever reach even the point that has been maintained by Wales, but I do recognise, and I think we should recognise, that with that melancholy loss there go major compensatory gains, and I do not think we should lose sight of those. The major compensatory gain is that we speak another language, English, which is a world language; and I think we can pride ourselves on both speaking and writing it reasonably well.
In 1933, I was in the little country of Latvia, which has subsequently been swallowed up successively by two totalitarian régimes. But in 1933 it was still a free small nation. The Latvians are less than 3,000,000 in number and they speak Latvian. In order to communicate with their northern neighbours of Estonia, they have to speak faulty Russian or halting Swedish; and to communicate with their southern neighbours, the Lithuanians, they have to speak broken German or Russian. Each one of these 3,000,000 people speaks his own language admirably, so I am told, but he speaks rather imperfect Russian, German or Swedish. In their own language they express themselves faultlessly because it is their own. They are proud of it. But nobody understands it but they, and it is a fact that it has been a factor isolating them from the main stream of western culture.
Now, our place in English literature and English thinking is a place of pride, and it is a recognised fact that, in relation to something that was thrust upon us, the English language, we can say that we had the revenge of conquering it in our turn. When we speak of Wolfe Tone, Pearse, Burke, Goldsmith, Lecky, O'Casey and Shaw, Yeats and Joyce, we speak of people who have given Ireland a proud place in English literature, in English thought, and consequently in world literature and world thought. If we shed a tear for the loss of our own tongue, as a living tongue to be spoken by all our people, nevertheless let us see the consoling fact that there are very large compensatory gains.
There is, of course, in the Irish people on the question of the Irish language, a large measure of apathy; I will not say dislike or distaste, but apathy. You might not think so, if you were to listen only to public speeches, but this is what the Council of Education says in talking about the Irish people:—
"Among many, the majority, perhaps, there is towards Irish what must be described as apathy."
I believe the present official attitude belittles and betrays the language. It tends to breed contempt, perhaps, and certainly apathy, if not dislike, and not infrequently hypocrisy, a pretence to revere a language, which in fact the person never speaks and hardly understands.
We have a system here which in our infant schools tries to introduce practically all the infants to speaking Irish and learning other subjects through it. The regulation says:—
"Where the teachers are sufficiently qualified the aim should be to reach a stage, as early as possible, in which Irish can be used as the sole language in the infant school."
"The sole language"—that looks very much like a large measure of compulsory Irish to me, and I think it is a mistaken system, and I speak as a linguist. I do not believe that is the way to teach Irish, to teach mathematics or reading. I believe, indeed, that you could teach far more Irish in the infant schools by teaching it through the medium of English. I am absolutely convinced of that. I believe we have been misled for generations by the ideas of the late Reverend Professor Corcoran who, I do not want to use too strong a term, was I believe misguided, about the "direct method". He believed that it you learned your first tongue by the direct method you could learn other languages the same way. Now, every young child is eager to communicate at least its wants to the outside world, and the direct method is successful for the first language. The average child may take as many as ten or 12 years, however, to learn adequately its own first tongue, and, if you add another ten or 12 years, it might, through the direct method, learn a second language. But I believe that this attempt to use Irish as "the sole language" in the infant schools, even with competent teachers, is a major mistake, and has taught in fact less Irish than would have been thought if that language had been taught in these classes through the medium of English.
On page 276 of the Report of the Council of Education certain recommendations are made. In paragraph 65 it states:—
"Some of our members urge that, if Irish be introduced in infant classes in schools in English-speaking districts, a teaching period of at most one hour daily would be sufficient, the remainder of the infant programme to be taught through the medium of the home language."
There is no question but that those members are right, but the Minister has done nothing. He has said nothing. He has not publicly examined this report. The next paragraph says:—
"The majority consider that the programme in the infant classes is essentially a language programme designed to give young children from English-speaking homes a basic and vernacular command of Irish and, having regard to the national aims in relation to Irish, they recommend that the present practice be maintained."
The majority of the council recommend it be maintained. Some of them, however, feel strongly that it is the wrong way to go about it. I should like to know what the Minister has to say about that.
There is a remarkable and valuable minority report on this whole question of the attitude towards Irish as a spoken tongue, and in it is quoted on page 301 the following statement:—
"In 1941 the I.N.T.O. published a ‘Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the use of Irish as a Teaching Medium to children whose home language is English'."
Here is what the I.N.T.O. said. This is not a foreign organisation, it is not an anti-Irish organisation. They are teachers and this is what they said:—
"The great bulk of evidence supports the view that a smooth and easy educative process imposing comparatively little strain on the child, and making his life in school a happy one, is extremely difficult in a language other than his home language, even with the brighter pupils, and next to impossible with those of average or slow mentality. The average child comes to school already equipped with a vocabulary sufficient to express in simple language the experience of his everyday life. He is suddenly transferred into a new and unnatural world. The simplest expressions of the teacher or of the more advanced pupils are quite unintelligible to him."
I do not know whether we can disregard that completely, as it has been disregarded officially since 1941, but that is the thoughtful and informed opinion of our teachers in relation to this question. I know I have already spoken at some length on this topic, but it is a most important subject, and I will leave this particular aspect by saying that I believe the time has come for a change in our whole policy towards Irish. We must face the fact and recognise, whether it was originally wise or unwise to strive for the revival of Irish as a vernacular, that we have failed. We ought to face that fact and direct our energies and limited finances to broader educational fields.
I should like to make the point now that there is too much general division of our education system, the primary school, the secondary school, the vocational school and the universities. I believe they are too separate. I believe that there is not sufficient interchange between them and I believe that there is even something like a class distinction between them. I notice that out of approximately every 60 primary school children, on the latest figures available, only about ten get a secondary education—among the children in secondary schools only about 5 per cent. are State or scholarship aided—that another 15 get day continuation education for a time, and, of the initial 60, only two or three get to the universities. As Jean Jacques Rousseau said in effect: "It is manifestly against justice that the child of a slave should be born into slavery and maintained in slavery." It is just as unjust that the child of the slum-dweller should be born into slums and maintained in slumdom. I believe that all our children should get at least some chance of getting a little bit more than primary education. I believe, indeed, that a large proportion of them would benefit by going right up to the university. Now, the university should be guarded and protected as a place for disinterested learning, where the utilitarian aim is kept severely in the background, and where the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake may be encouraged. I believe that a far bigger section of our people could benefit from that than in the present circumstances ever get there.
On that question, Pearse said: "Our very divisions in primary, secondary and university crystallise a snobbishness partly intellectual and partly social. At Clonard, Kieran, the son of a carpenter, sat in the same class as Columcille, the son of a king." I do not want to exaggerate on this point but I would like to feel that the primary school child of initial talent would get a reasonable chance of going forward to the university by getting a full and "roomy," as it were, free education in primary and secondary schools.
I should like to mention now two points of detail. I notice for instance that, on page 204 of the Estimates, reference is made to the two excellent training colleges for domestic science instructors, St. Angela's and St. Catherine's. These two are residential convent colleges. I understand that there used to be a third one which has ceased to exist. I notice also that there are scholarships involved and a certain sum of money is voted for them. I cannot help wondering is it considered absolutely impossible to have a male instructor in domestic economy? Because it seems to me that these two residential training schools, both of them convents, would find it difficult to make accommodation available for him.
I also feel prompted in this connection to ask a question as to what provision is made in such cases for the residence, in taking up a scholarship, of a non-Catholic who might desire to become a domestic economy instructor in one of these excellent convent residential training schools? I do not know whether the point has already been met or made, or whether in practice it is dealt with in an entirely simple way, but I should like to know what is the practice, in view of the fact that the third lay training college has ceased to exist.
I feel that something ought also to be said about the recent leakage of examination papers. Nobody has yet referred to that here. I do not know whether we are all satisfied that the public has been told the full facts. I know that in France when there is a railway accident you can be quite certain the blame will be placed upon the official who is known as the lampiste, who is the very smallest member of the staff of any French railway. He is the man who carries and trims the lamps; and it always turns out that the accident was due to him. I had a presentiment, when this investigation into the leakage of information in relation to examinations was taking place, that the entire responsibility would turn out to have been that of a very small employee. My guess was right. According to what the Minister said, it was just one person in one printing office who could in any way be said to be blameworthy.
I am not entirely happy about that. I assume that the Minister, when he made his statement in the Dáil, expected to be believed. He also said there was only one district outside Dublin concerned, that no school was involved, and that all the blame lay with this very junior printer and some of his friends. Yet, he said that the reason he would not give the name of the district outside Dublin where the papers were to be replaced, was that people would assume that the school in the area was involved. Why on earth should they assume that the school was involved, if they believed the Minister, who said the only person who was to blame was the junior printer?
I should have preferred the Minister to be more frank. I believe that there is a widespread feeling that a lot of these children have been unfairly treated. It is all very well to say that the papers will be marked in such a way that the children doing the first lot will not be given any advantage over children who did the second lot or vice versa. Was the second lot easier or harder, and how is the standard to be established? This is not just a pass examination. A number of scholarships depend upon it. I am not satisfied that fair play has been given, or indeed could be given, and I think it is actually monstrous that children in a tense state, working for examinations, should have had to go through the ordeal of wondering first whether they would have to do some papers again, and then many of them having finally to do papers again. Some of them may actually have benefited by getting a second chance, but the nervous strain was quite unjustifiable.
While we may say that it was not the Minister's fault this time, I should like to hear a categorical assurance that this will not happen again. I notice that when in the Dáil he was asked to say if it had ever happened before, he could give no such assurance. I find that highly alarming.
And now to conclude: I should like to see a new educational policy in this country. I should like to see, for the first time since we took over the direction of our own destinies, a Minister for Education inspired to implement a new policy for education, a policy which will be truly inspired and really free. I wish to see the path of every Irish child made easy towards a full and free education with no means test, no holding back of the children of the under-privileged. I should like to see established freedom to learn by book and by hand, freedom to think and freedom for children to grow, mentally and physically. I should like to see teachers given a chance, both financially and in relation to the numbers in their classes. I wish to see the children also given a chance, no longer regularly beaten because the teacher is driven half-crazy by the overcrowding of the class, or by the overstrain of the backward child being put into the same class as other children. And I want to see that backward child getting not just a chance, but a special chance, instead of being given, in all too many cases, no chance at all in our primary schools.
In addition, as I have said, there is need for a reassessment, however painful it may be, of our whole attitude towards the Irish language policy, in accordance with the realities to-day. I want our educational system to be so planned and inspired as to produce an educated generation of Irish men and women who will be unafraid to think for themselves, who will lead the way to an educated and intelligent planning of our economy for the effective service of all our people, in a community in which the freely educated mind will be the aim and the privilege of all and will be placed, as a matter of course, at the service of all.
The future of this country depends, in the final analysis, upon what we are prepared to do now for the real education of our people. In order to do this we must spend far more money. We must encourage all those who are interested, teachers and parents, to have a real sense of urgency in regard to the problem. I believe that the expressed profound dissatisfaction of the Council of Education as to the standard of education so far achieved, is more than justified, because I believe that that standard is at present entirely insufficient. The Council of Education have clearly stated that they believe that it is entirely insufficient. I am afraid the Minister and the Department of Education are taking that judgment far too lightly.
I should like to quote the relevant passage from the Report of the Council of Education. This will be the last quotation I shall make this evening. At paragraph 371 it says in regard to our present primary education: "It is, in effect, an insufficient minimum education under modern conditions." That was stated in August, 1954. Do the Minister and the Department of Education not feel ashamed and disturbed when they read that opinion? I believe we all should feel ashamed and dissatisfied that, in July, 1957, no action whatever has yet been taken on that report.
