Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 22 May 1931

Vol. 38 No. 15

In Committee on Finance. - Estimates for Public Services. Vote No. 45—Office of the Minister for Education (Resumed).

The Dáil, according to Order, resumed the consideration of Estimates for Public Services in Committee on Finance.

Debate resumed on the following motion:

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £113,097 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1932, chun Costaisí Oifig an Aire Oideachais, maraon le Costas Riaracháin, Cigireachta, etc.

That a sum not exceeding £113,097 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1932, for the Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education, including the costs of Administration, Inspection, etc.—(The President).

Mr. Aiken

I must confess that I feel a little timid in butting in on a debate on education, but last night all the professors spoke in such a simple manner—they did not speak in Greek or Latin, but used simple language to express their ideas, and did not try to impress us with the breadth of their learning—that I was encouraged to move to report Progress. Now, my line of approach to this Vote is from the point of view of the farmer. In reading over the report issued by the Department of Education I find that there is no agricultural bias given to primary and secondary education in the country, although roughly 75 per cent. of the population get their livelihood out of agriculture. On page 109 of the report it is stated: "The census returns reveal the striking fact that the number of persons engaged in personal service is practically as great as the number employed in commerce." A good deal of space is devoted to reporting on what has been done to encourage education in regard to commerce. Turning to the different reports of the inspectors, we find that practically nothing is being done for rural science in any of the divisions. One or two are doing a little, but the inspectors report that the art of science is not being pushed as it should be. In the First Division the inspectors say:

"From one-fourth to one-half of the schools, varying from district to district, have this subject on the curriculum. As there may be numbers of young teachers in small schools qualified, but not obliged to teach it, it is difficult to estimate the total number or the proportion competent to teach the subject."

In Division 2 the inspector stated that the teachers as a body do not appear to have learned several things. Many of the pupils "feel ill at ease in an atmosphere of books and lessons, and are eager to turn to some form of practical and constructive work, in which they will not merely be learners but doers, and in a small way creators." I think the whole system of education should be to turn out pupils who will be not merely learners but doers and, in a small way, creators. I suggest that if there was proper concentration on the teaching of agricultural science, beginning in the primary schools, that the best possible form of education would be given to the youngsters. After all, if they are taught to observe things around them, if they are taught to make things grow, they are likely to have brighter lives, and to take a greater interest in themselves and what is going on around them. Very few of the pupils turned out in the primary schools will, under the present system, at any rate, be in a position to procure a large number of books. If they are taught to take an interest in plant life, and to make things grow, they will do something in life, and it will bring them joy.

In the Second Division the inspector states: "The character of the education imparted is for the greater part too bookish and divorced from the facts and problems of ordinary life." Youngsters are made to learn a lot of subjects by rote. The whole education system does not come down to mother earth at all. They are made to learn thoroughly the year in which the Battle of Benburb or the Battle of Clontarf was fought, but they are not really educated to think. I was reading the work of an old philosopher, and he stated that we were too prone in matters of education to treat it as something by which children should get up a large number of accumulated facts, rather than to teach them how to think. In the Third Division, covering most of the Gaeltacht, the same story is told in regard to rural science. The inspector says:

Níl an eóluíocht tuaithe ag dul ar aghaidh go mear. Níl talamh ag gabháil leis na scoileanna, agus táthar ag brath ar an leabhar in áit na súl agus na lámh agus na meabhrach a chur ag obair.

I think that teachers should be taught to make the youngsters use their eyes and their hands from an early age. In this matter I agree thoroughly with what Deputy de Valera said yesterday, that youngsters, in the country at least, would be much better running around at home until they were seven years of age, rather than be sent to school, where facts which they do not understand or appreciate are driven into their heads. They would be getting a real education at home in the use of their hands and eyes around the farms, with the parents, as they nearly always do, teaching them to observe.

As to the Fourth Division the report does not seem to be as detailed as the reports on the other Divisions. It says:

"Nature study and rural science appear to be well taught and although cookery and needlework are not now taught in many schools, the teaching of the former is, in general, satisfactory in the schools in which it is taught."

Deputies will notice that the Inspectors say "satisfactory in the schools in which it is taught." They do not set out the number of schools in which it is taught. As to the Fifth Division the inspectors say:

"Rural science is not a common subject, owing to the want of demonstration plots, but Nature Study is taught in many schools. Too often, however, the aim seems to be to convey information, to be accepted on the teacher's authority, rather than to stimulate curiosity and to put the children in the way of satisfying it by personal experiments."

Then as to the Sixth Division the inspectors say:

"Rural Science is not extending, and no effort is being made to provide school plots for practical gardening. Nature Study has been generally reintroduced in schools where there is a teacher qualified to teach the subject."

In the Seventh Division the inspectors say, as to Nature Study:—

"This is a subject which children find interesting. Where compulsory it is now generally taught, but some teachers, owing to want of careful preparation, fail to secure satisfactory progress in it. The inspectors of the Division are almost unanimous in stating that there is no general effort to link up school work with the life of the school district."

I do not want to blame the teachers. You have to begin at the top in matters like this. If the teachers have not been taught how to link-up education with the life of the districts to which they go one cannot blame them. As Deputy de Valera said yesterday, we are paying the teachers really better than we can afford. We are not treating them in any way niggardly, and I think from this on we can insist that teachers shall continue to study after they leave their colleges. If the teachers are given a course in nature study there is no reason why they should not get a sufficient grasp of it to teach it to the children. It is not like Irish or any other language which people have to take up very young, unless they have a special aptitude for languages. There are books written in the English language on rural science, and the teachers could, if they were put to work on it, get a grasp of the subject sufficient to teach it to the children. I think the Minister should establish such a course for teachers and insist on their attending it.

Last evening Deputy Tierney made the criticism of the teachers that when they came together they generally discussed the pensions scheme. That is a fact, but it is a fact for which the Department of Education is more to blame than the teachers. From the discussion last night it was quite apparent that there are a number of people in this country interested in education, and that even in the Dáil there are a number of Deputies who have something to contribute to the whole question of education. I think the Minister would be very wise in adopting Deputy de Valera's suggestion and establishing an educational council. If such an educational council were linked up with some system by which the teachers could meet and express themselves on the different phases and difficulties of education, then I think that it would stimulate a real interest in education amongst teachers, so that when they meet on these occasions instead of discussing the question of pensions or salaries they would get an interest in discussing educational matters generally, and that a lot of good work could be done in that respect.

I think it was on the question of striking a rate for vocational training that I raised the matter of agricultural education before. We were not then allowed to discuss it at length. As the vast majority of the people of the country will be forced for a good number of years to come to earn their living out of agriculture, there should be an agricultural bias in the educational system from the ground up. A lot of money is being spent on education. Four and a half million pounds alone are being spent on education under this Vote, and we have the county councils striking rates for the payment of itinerant instructors and the Department of Agriculture also contributing, so that in one way or another we must be spending up to five million pounds on education. From my own experience, I know that in the past a lot of that money has been wasted when the matter is viewed from the point of view of the farmers. The majority of the children will have to live on the farms, and right from the beginning they should be taught how to make the best out of the new systems of agriculture that come along. If they are to do that they would want to be trained from their early years to take an interest in agriculture, to be proud of the fact that they are farmers and making things grow. They would want to learn the language that is used in agricultural science books. If teaching in that regard is delayed until the child becomes an adult, it is much more difficult for him then to take an interest in such matters.

The majority of the itinerary instructors in agricultural science are energetic men and enthusiastic about their work. They spend a lot of time organising winter classes. Very few of them succeed in getting more than a couple of classes going in the year. They attend these classes under great difficulties, and they find from the very first week that the classes begin to diminish. The real fact of the matter is, there has been no preliminary work done in the national schools or in the secondary schools. Even the sons of practical farmers know nothing of the reasons why plants grow or anything about agricultural science whatever. They know nothing about the reasons why they put on different manures; they only know that somebody else does it, and they do it also.

I think the work of those itinerant instructors could be cut out altogether if agricultural science were started in the national schools and were carried on through the secondary schools. The money we spend on these instructors alone amounts to a large sum if we take the whole of the Twenty-Six Counties into account. For my part I think the time of the instructors would be much better spent if they were engaged in running schools of 50 or 60 students for one year. Even in the agricultural schools very little is being done to turn out farmers. The schools in Glasnevin and other parts of the country for giving training in agricultural science are mostly devoted to turning out teachers who have to work in very difficult and adverse circumstances when they start to teach and to impart their knowledge to the community generally. I believe it would be far better if we had a system of agricultural colleges to which farmers' sons could be sent at 17 or 18 years of age and kept there for a year, and if the training in that year was concentrated on stimulating their interest in agriculture. Rather than merely turning them out as teachers it would be far better to turn them out as farmers to go back home and work their farms. I hope the Minister will make some arrangement in the coming year to set up an educational council and to link the teachers up with it in some way. I think if the teachers are urged in a proper fashion they would devote a large portion of their surplus energies to thinking out improved methods of education. They have short hours in the schools and although they have to work hard they have a lot of energy left in the evenings, and if the Minister does not provide some good way to enable them to employ it they will employ it in ways that are not so very good.

Teachers of ten or twenty years' experience must know a lot of the snags in education and it would be a very good thing for the country as a whole if the Minister had some systematic way of tapping the knowledge and experience they have gained. If the Minister adopts our suggestions, and establishes an educational council, and links it up with the teachers, I think there will be less complaints in the country generally, that when the teachers meet they only meet to discuss pension schemes and such things.

Mr. G. Wolfe

Last night I listened with the most intense interest to the speech of the Minister for Education and to the speeches of the Deputies who followed. Every one of them were men qualified to speak with authority on the question of education. As a layman I was intensely interested, and I do not think I ever felt greater interest in debate than I did last night. A doubt has been left in my mind after hearing the speeches on this subject whether the system of education which is established here, and which is being carried on by the Minister and his Department in as efficient and sympathetic a way as it is in their power to do, under present circumstances, is giving the best results. We are spending a very large sum of money on education, and I am positive that no one in the country will grudge the spending of money on education if commensurate results follow. It is the best form of investment we can possibly have, that the young should be trained and brought up to date in matters of education that are likely to be for their interest, and for the interest of the country. The question is, is that the case at the present, in spite of all that has been done, and done sympathetically and efficiently, as far as the Minister for Education is concerned?

Certain facts were disclosed yesterday which seemed to me to give food for thought. It is said that only 25 per cent. of those attending the primary schools made use of the education given. That seems to be very small. What became of the remainder? Have they got any good out of their education at all? And if not, what is the reason? Deputy Byrne said that at the technical school examinations in Dublin 55 per cent. of those who presented themselves from the primary schools failed. That seems to me to be very high, and needs to be accounted for. He also said that only 6 per cent. of those attending primary schools arrive at sixth standard. The subjects they failed in especially were history and geography when taken together, and, especially, arithmetic. These are subjects that ought to be most easily and efficiently taught. If that is so, it is a very deplorable state of affairs, namely, that the most necessary and ordinary subjects of education are not understood or efficiently taught, or at any rate are not being taken in by the pupils.

Like every other Deputy, I get a great many letters from all classes of people, young and old, about different subjects and I am bound to say that some of these letters show the most deplorable want of education. Phonetic spelling is a trifle compared with the spelling in some of those letters. Even the writing of a boy of seventeen or eighteen is sometimes like that of an old man; it trembles and spreads all over the paper. That should not be the case in this year of grace 1931. What is the reason of it? There must be some cause. I agree with Deputy de Valera when he advised the scrapping of inefficient teachers, if there are inefficient teachers. Have done with them and, if they are entitled to pensions, give them to them and let them go, because to have inefficient teaching is worse than to have none at all. That, at least, is my impression. I think that the managers in some cases are too kind-hearted. Naturally they do not like to remove people who have been working in their district for a long time. I do not know exactly what their powers are, but I conclude that managers have powers to get rid of inefficient teachers. It is, of course, unpleasant for them to exercise those powers and some of them do not do it.

I happen to know a case of that kind. It is well known that the teacher in question is inefficient and his results are very indifferent, but still the manager says "What can I do? I cannot turn this teacher out. It would be cruel to do it." It is, however, a greater cruelty to pupils to have inefficient teaching because their prospects in after-life are being prejudiced. I agree with Deputy de Valera when he says: "Scrap inefficient teachers at any cost to the country." In regard to the primary schools, speaking of the country districts, I think that there ought to be periodical examinations, at least, once a year. I would be inclined to have two examinations, one at Christmas and the other at Midsummer, but we should have, at least, one, because then we would know how the children are getting on and, if they are not doing well, inquiries could then be made as to whose fault it is, whether it is the teaching, lack of attendance or neglect by parents. Prizes ought to be given because there ought to be an incentive to children to work.

I agree with Deputy de Valera also to a great extent in regard to the school-going age—seven in the case of country children. I know nothing about conditions in the towns, but I think if the age of seven is adopted for towns and cities you must have creches. In the case of a tenement house where a woman may have a great many children it is, of course, a great easement to her during certain hours of the day to have a good many of them at school. If they are not taken to school until they are seven there are so many more about the house. If the age of seven is adopted, there should be places where the children could be sent for certain hours of the day while their mother is engaged in necessary housework. That would not, of course, apply to country districts. There is also another difficulty in certain backward places in the country where the schools are beyond the distance which children could walk. They cannot be compelled to travel beyond a certain distance, but I think something ought to be done in that regard, especially in these days of motor buses and so forth. I am sure that there is a great evasion of the Act in that way in certain places, but it seems to be a matter that could be remedied.

Deputy Fahy alluded to the list of ailments of children in certain districts, as reported by the medical authorities, and mentioned Kildare as having a certain number of children with adenoids and suffering from malnutrition. I think it is all to the good that these things should be known, because they can then be remedied. That is one of the good effects of having the services of county medical officers of health. We in Kildare have an officer who is most efficient in that way, and a great deal of good is coming out of his work. In regard to malnutrition, I think that that is a matter to which the manager should see. I am not sure what powers the managers have in regard to that, but I think that they have it in their power to see that that evil should be lessened. They surely would be assisted sympathetically, not only by the Department, but by the people generally in that direction, because it is obvious that any child which is in a starving state cannot properly attend to its school work, and it is in the interest of the country generally that the children who attend school should be in a fit state to acquire knowledge and retain it.

As regards secondary schools, I may say that I went to a secondary school in Dublin for five years. It was rather a celebrated school in its day, but so far as I can recollect, it catered for the clever rather than for the ordinary class of individual. I do not think that that was a satisfactory state of affairs. A great many of the teachers were brilliant beyond words but nevertheless they were not good teachers. They were good teachers only as regards a certain number of them. Some of them who were not half as brilliant as those whom I mentioned and who became in after life great celebrities, were in reality, so far as the majority of the pupils were concerned, infinitely better as teachers. I wonder if that occurs in our secondary schools to-day?

Care should be taken to see that the people who are put to instruct have the power of imparting knowledge because it is not every clever person who has that facility. Far from it. After five years here at school I went to Bonn in Germany for a certain time and there I found a very different state of affairs existing. I was there for about a year and I found that things were done much more thoroughly. I think it is a good thing to learn from any nation which is more forward than ourselves in any matter. I certainly think that the Germans have been very much up to the mark in matters of education and have indeed been foremost throughout the world in that particular.

I believe the Minister stated that university education does not come under his Department but I think it was Deputy Fahy remarked that the first year of university training was practically a do-nothing year. If that is so, I quite agree with him that it is extremely bad that boys or girls who come up from school who have worked hard to get into the university should then have nothing to do. They get into habits of doing nothing, a fact which I think is extremely to be regretted. I am entirely at one with Deputy Fahy in stating that if that exists it certainly should be altered.

Coming back to the Primary Schools, I think it is very important that the children should be taught to take an interest in the national monuments in their own county and in the country generally also. The people of County Kildare have realised this very strongly and the Archaeological Society there has invited all the national teachers in the county to become members. I used to be secretary of the society, but I was obliged to resign the position on account of the state of my health. It is most efficiently run at present and the teachers have responded well to the invitation given them. To show the interest they take in it, I might mention that an offer was made to accept them as members at a lower rate of subscription than other members, but they declined that offer. They wished to pay the full amount and I think that speaks extremely well for them. I agree with Deputy Aiken that in the country the children should be taught matters of agriculture which appertain to the district, the nature of the soil, etc. That would be of great service and of interest to them later on.

I regret very much that such a very small sum is placed at the disposal of the Minister to help the National Museum and the National Gallery.

Occasionally works of art, of which there are in Ireland a large number, may, through causes of death or in other ways, come into the market. I think it is regrettable that the Minister has not under his control a larger sum to purchase such works of art which would be of national interest to the country when they are offered. I hope that by and by more money will be put at the Minister's disposal for that purpose. A few years ago I was asked to question the Minister in regard to what is called the Marine Museum. At that time there were certain objects of interest in an extremely bad state and the Minister promised that they should be attended to and cared for. I have not heard anything since in regard to them, but I hope something has been done to preserve these specimens. They were affected by temperature, over-heating or something of that kind and were in danger of being lost to the country. I want to say again that I think the country will not grudge the four and a half million pounds which is spent on education if the people are satisfied that the money is being efficiently spent on the improvement of the education of the children and in a way that will enable them when they grow up to do credit to the country and the State generally.

Mr. T.J. O'Connell

During the course of this interesting debate we have heard many opinions expressed and many suggestions made, some of them useful, some of them helpful, and some of them merely amusing to anybody who has any practical knowledge of the working of our schools and of our educational system. The keynote of the debate seems to have been struck by Deputy Fahy in his opening remarks, when he asked the perfectly legitimate question as to whether or not we were getting value for the money spent on education. Many speakers have devoted themselves to that aspect of the question, and some of them had no hesitation whatever in coming to a conclusion and answering the question with a direct negative, but nobody, so far as I know up to the present—although I have not had the advantage of hearing all the speeches, I have read the report of them—has furnished any standard by which we can judge whether or not we are getting value. Unless we have a standard how can anybody say whether we are getting value for the money spent on education? There has been a tendency in some cases to cite other countries as if we could, in that way, get anything like an absolute standard to judge whether or not our system of education, which is, and rightly so, different from the schemes in other countries, is comparable with or has as great a value as theirs. One Deputy, Deputy Byrne, who on occasion of debates of this kind, always seeks to air his particular knowledge on these matters, had no hesitation in telling us and the world generally, that we had, as a matter of fact, the lowest standard in Europe. I think these were his words.

Mr. Byrne

As low as any in Europe.

Mr. O'Connell

As low as any in Europe. Perhaps Deputy Byrne will tell us what he knows about it. What does the Deputy know about the system of education in Albania or Turkey, Czecho-Slovakia, Monaco or Andorra? The Deputy, apparently, has searched over them all and examined them, and he has discovered that our standard is at least as low as any other.

Mr. Byrne

Surely Deputy O'Connell will be perfectly fair in dealing with a remark such as I made? He should endeavour to construe it in a reasonable manner. I compared the educational system in this country with other countries, but there is no need to go to Albania or Turkey.

Mr. O'Connell

Let us fine it down, then. Perhaps the Deputy meant Germany.

Mr. Byrne

Germany, France, England.

Mr. O'Connell

At any rate, that was the Deputy's statement, and he quoted some learned people in order to bear him out. I will give the Dáil an instance of what happened a few months ago. A certain gentleman alleged that he was in this country last autumn. Apparently he was a very learned man. He proceeded to deliver a lecture to some learned society in America. He made various statements about our educational system. I never heard that this gentleman was here, and I did not meet anybody in educational circles who knew that he was here. He suggested, however, that he was in this country and he had investigated our educational system. He declared that he had not found a single round wheel in our educational system. He said that the only qualification the teachers required was to be able to speak Irish, and he mentioned a whole lot of other derogatory things about our educational system. If Deputy Byrne had come across a statement like that, I dare say it would have been trotted out for our edification last night.

Luckily, however, this gentleman did not stop there. He dealt with other things, and gave us some opportunity of judging whether his opinion was really worth anything. He said that our schools had only one definite objective, and that was to teach the kiddies to hate English. He said that an Englishman would not dare to walk the streets in Ireland; if he did so he would have to take the risk of being spat upon. He also said that the Irish would not sell their butter to England, although they could not get any other market. It was fortunate for us that he made those other statements. By those statements we can judge the absurdity of this gentleman posing as a critic of our educational system. If he had contented himself merely with comments on our educational system, I dare say we would have Deputy Byrne quoting his opinions.

Mr. Byrne

The people I quoted are better informed than that.

Mr. O'Connell

We do not know. If this gentleman wanted to proceed with his lectures in America, and if he obtained a copy of our debates here, no doubt he would quote a very learned Deputy, Deputy Byrne, who, as he told us himself, has a degree and is therefore qualified to speak on Irish educational matters.

Mr. Byrne

I did not inform the House that I had a degree.

Mr. O'Connell

I do not know whether or not the Deputy has a degree, but at any rate he told the House that he was going for his degree.

Mr. Byrne

When did I make that statement?

Mr. O'Connell

Last night. If the Deputy says he did not make the statement, I will accept that. There was a note taken by somebody on my behalf while Deputy Byrne was speaking, and it sets out that the Deputy mentioned that when he was going for his degree he was told spelling was essential in English composition.

Mr. Byrne

That is a different thing.

Mr. O'Connell

Anyway, the Deputy was going for his degree, but he did not tell us whether or not he got it. The Deputy is a man who reached a certain standard when he could go for a degree, and therefore he would be expected to know something about education. His statement last night was given prominence in this morning's journals, and it would be taken by gentlemen of the type I have mentioned as being worth something. We in this House know, of course, what Deputy Byrne's statements are worth, but strangers might not know what they are worth. I have often heard Deputy Byrne childing members on the Fianna Fáil Benches for belittling their own country or attempting to belittle it. He himself comes forward now and says these things about our education system without having any grounds whatever to go upon. He certainly has not submitted any proof for what he has stated. He has made statements here without having any real knowledge of the facts.

Mr. Byrne

It is a good job that we can speak twice in this debate.

An Ceann Comhairle

I wonder can we?

Mr. Byrne

I think so, on an Estimate.

Mr. O'Connell

I hope the Deputy will get a second chance to speak. It would be advantageous if he could get up and explain away his statement of yesterday, or perhaps withdraw it, now that he has slept over it. Deputy Byrne makes a fetish of examinations. He has put them on a pedestal and abased himself in adoration before the examination system. Deputy Wolfe helped him out in that respect. What does the Deputy hope to gain by an examination?

Mr. Byrne

It is a test of fitness.

Mr. O'Connell

What is to be the standard of the test?

Mr. Byrne

Brains.

Mr. Flinn

Whose?

Mr. O'Connell

An examination may have its uses, and it has in our educational system, but they are very limited uses. It may be a rough and ready test to find out as between two individuals who are going for some post like a Civil Service post and it may be a test if you are going for a degree; but anybody who has gone through examinations is well aware that an examination is not a sufficient test of the fitness of the individual. We know that people with the knack of passing examinations can go right ahead in these various tests and yet not be as good citizens or as good men or women in the real sense of the word as the people before whom they are able to get. That is common knowledge to anyone who has experience of these matters. For instance, what will an examination in the fourth standard tell you? It will all depend on the standard of examination paper that is set. A paper can be set which 5 per cent. of the children in the fourth standard will not get through and another paper can be set which 95 per cent. of the children will easily get through. What do we gain by that?

If there is one thing wrong it is to give the idea to the teacher that he has to work only for examinations and nothing else. That is what many of our grinding establishments exist for. Necessarily they exist while we have our system of Civil Service examinations. With them the examination is the be-all and end-all and the passing of the examination is the only thing that ever troubles either the teacher or the pupil. It is not education that is being considered because the whole object of these establishments is to get through the examination by hook or by crook. They endeavour to get through by knacks or tips of one kind or another. They endeavour to find out the examiner's fads and they study them carefully and try to hit upon the questions he is going to set and they study these questions. If the pupil answers the questions he gets through and that is the end of it. It would be a bad day for our schools and for education generally if that spirit were to animate our system of teaching or if the children had no ideals before them except to pass an examination or please the examiner by scoring a certain number of marks.

It is fundamentally wrong to inculcate any such idea in our educational system. As I say, there are examinations. Deputy Byrne makes an alarming statement, alarming to anybody who has any practical knowledge of the work of our schools. He says that there is no test of the teachers' work and of the children's proficiency. Has he examined these Estimates? Is he aware that we pay a very considerable amount of money to seventy, eighty or one hundred inspectors? What does he think these inspectors are doing?

Mr. Byrne

Has the Deputy examined their report?

Mr. T.J. O'Connell

I will deal with that in a moment. Deputy Byrne has made a definite statement that there has been no test of the teachers' work or of the children's proficiency, and then he gets up and quotes from the inspectors' report, although he told us there was no test of the teachers' work. A statement of that kind is absurd to anybody who knows the actual facts. I do not know whether Deputy Byrne knows it or not, but I assert that in no country in the world —and I have some experience of the educational systems of the world—is there such a severe test of the work of the schools, and the work that the teachers and pupils are doing in the schools, as there is in this country of ours. I ask the Minister to say whether that can be borne out by the facts or not. In no country in the world is there a more severe and a more detailed supervision over the teachers and pupils than there is here in Ireland in the national schools. If I have any complaint on that ground it is that we are over-inspected and over-supervised, and that the teachers are not allowed sufficient freedom in doing their own work in the way that it ought to be done by them.

I come now to this report. There have been a great many quotations from it in the course of the debate. This report has been issued over twelve months or so. It may be a surprise to some people, especially to people like Deputy Professor Tierney and Deputy Aiken who think that teachers are continually talking about pensions and complaining about the Department of Education, to find that there has not been a good deal more heard about this report from the teachers. It may be a surprise that the teachers have not protested very much more vehemently and very much more strongly against some of the things in this report. They have not protested because they know exactly the value to place on such extracts. As long as ever I remember I have never read a report of that type from the inspectors that was not of exactly the same kind. There has been no change. That is the tradition of the Department of Education or the Commissioners of National Education for over one hundred years, since the National Board was established.

When inspectors report they report on nothing but on the things they have to complain of. Their reports are a series of complaints, fault-finding if you like. That is the system we have grown used to, and the teachers take it as a matter of course when a report of that kind is issued. The Minister knows, and the education officials know, that there is good work and excellent work being done in the schools, but they do not expect to find any particular reference to that in the inspector's report. The inspector comes down to the schools, and his job is to find out the weak points, and he finds them out. It has been complained of often in a general way that we are carrying on the old system of inspection that went on under the Commissioners. We have not yet rid ourselves of that system, and we are carrying it on in our new Department of Education. In the old days it was simply a fault-finding system. To a large extent to-day it is the same thing; traditions of that kind die hard, but they are there.

In other Departments of the work of the State if you have an inspector or chief officer in charge of a division or part of a county, and if the work in that particular area is not satisfactory or up to the standard which it ought to be, it is not the individual worker who is blamed. It is the chief who is in charge of the district who is blamed. Take the Gárda Síochána. If there is a particular area where police duties are not up to the standard, and if discipline and matters of that kind are not what they should be, is it the individual Gárda who is blamed? No. Does the superintendent write a report telling about the individual Gárda or the individual barrack, and that the individual Gárda or the individual barrack is not as good as it ought to be? No; the whole blame falls on the shoulders of the chief superintendent of the area. It is his duty to see that things are right. It is one of the things that we have always been anxious to secure—that responsibility for education in the district ought to be on the chief inspector of that district. If the chief inspector had a full sense of his responsibilities he would realise that in any of these reports criticising the teachers he is in reality criticising himself.

We know the value to be attached in the main to most of these things. It is comparatively small. The broad fact remains that 91 per cent. of the teachers have even in the eyes of these very same inspectors reached a satisfactory standard. Thirty per cent. of them have reached a highly satisfactory standard. Then we come to what is called the "non-efficient" teachers. There are some Deputies in this House who regard these as inefficient. They are not inefficient. These 9 per cent. are not inefficient; they have merely failed to reach in a particular year or for a particular period a standard which is declared by the inspectors to be satisfactory from all points of view. Deputy Byrne, and even the big-hearted Deputy Wolfe, would get rid of these teachers at once. Let us see what kind of teacher Deputy Byrne would get rid of. I have a particular case in mind. I will not say that it occurred under the present Ministry, but it was the type of case where these Deputies say the teacher ought to be dismissed.

In the case I have in mind the school was examined in ten different subjects, including mathematics, reading, writing, history, geography and other things. In every one of these he was marked highly efficient, except in one subject. In that particular subject the inspector declared that there had been neglect by the teacher, and it was marked bad—there was no progress made in that subject. At that time this was regarded as a minor subject, but the rules and regulations of the school declared that because of that subject which, in the opinion of the inspector, had been neglected in spite of the fact that in the other nine subjects he was marked highly efficient——

Dr. Hennessy

What subject was that?

Mr. T.J. O'Connell

It does not matter—it was a minor matter at the time, and was not compulsory.

Dr. Hennessy

What was it?

Mr. O'Connell

It was rural science.

Professor Tierney

Deputy Hennessy is trying to suggest that it was the Firbolg language.

Mr. T.J. O'Connell

We will come to that, too. Because this subject of rural science was not taught in the way in which the inspectors thought it should, the teacher was marked "non-efficient." According to Deputies Byrne and Wolfe that teacher should have been scrapped. I do not know whether Deputy Wolfe was quoting Deputy de Valera correctly when he spoke about scrapping such teachers and that they should be cleared out of the service. What has happened to that particular teacher? To-day he is one of the most highly efficient teachers in the Board's service, holds a very important position, and fulfils his duty in every way to the utmost satisfaction of the Department. But according to Deputy Byrne he should have been fired out.

Mr. Byrne

A rara avis.

Mr. O'Connell

Even at the present time that is the system. There are cases where the teacher might teach other subjects in the school in a perfectly satisfactory manner, but if he is not able to make good headway in what Deputy Tierney ascribes to Deputy Hennessy as the Firbolg language, then he gets a non-efficient report. This will be perhaps some satisfaction to Deputy Hennessy.

He would be dismissed according to Deputy Byrne. These are some of the types of people who are marked "non-efficient," but even the Department themselves hesitate for a long time before declaring them inefficient. These are some of the things Deputy Byrne has to learn yet when he examines our education system more closely. Nobody stands, and least of all do I stand, here to say that we should retain an inefficient teacher. We do not retain in our system inefficient teachers. The Department gets rid of them. The number of teachers who are judged inefficient and who are dismissed is remarkably small in this country. Deputy Byrne again shows the real understanding he has of this problem when he comes to a remedy for what he talks about. His remedy is State control, appointment of the teachers by the State. I should just like to see Deputy Byrne Minister for Education for one month to give him a chance of trying that remedy.

Mr. Byrne

Would I be able to do it in a month?

Mr. O'Connell

No, but you might have, within the month, some inkling of the problem you would be up against. The Department of Education has power to dismiss teachers I should say. It withdraws salaries from them. I see the Minister smiling because he always makes that distinction. It is not a case of we "will dismiss you" but "we will withdraw your salary," but to withdraw a man's salary or to dismiss him is one and the same thing to him. The Department has power to withdraw sanction.

Mr. Byrne

It is a different thing.

Mr. O'Connell

I am not able to follow those subtle distinctions of Deputy Byrne, but how a State system would improve that from that point of view I fail to see. I wonder how many Deputies who have discussed this matter have a real intimate knowledge of the working of a school? There are very few, so far as I know, but I think that they ought to realise that the typical school in the Free State—I have not the exact percentages before me—is a two-teacher school. It is a mixed school taught by two teachers.

In those schools you have all grades of children from the little toddler of four years up to the boy or girl of fourteen or fifteen years and they are in six or seven different standards. The general organisation of that school is that the junior or assistant teacher, usually a woman, has to teach infants, the first standard and the second standard, and the senior teacher has to teach all the other standards, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh if there is a seventh. He has to try and organise the work of his school in such a way that he has to teach in that time English in all its branches. He has to teach oral English. Even spelling is taught in some of the schools! He has to teach composition and writing. The actual mechanical difficulty is appalling when one comes to think of it. Then there is arithmetic, geometry and algebra. All those things are taught, and over and above that they are doing what is not done in any ordinary school I know of. We are duplicating all that work in regard to a language which is foreign to a great many of the teachers and a great many of the children. That is the work that is being done in the schools at the present time. Not alone has the teacher to do what he had to do up to 1921, to teach all the subjects, reading, writing, composition, spelling, and grammar in English, but he has, in addition, to do all of them in a language which is, in the main, a foreign language to the majority of teachers and pupils.

I believe candidly that the teachers have not got nearly enough credit for the work that they have done in the last ten years in the matter of the Irish language. There has been a revolution in our schools. What was the task the teachers had to face in 1921? We have the figures showing the percentage of them that were trained. After all it was not all their fault that they had not a knowledge of Irish in 1921 or 1922. We had a very small percentage of people who had the language. We know that they took the matter up enthusiastically, that people who had reached the mature age of forty-five, fifty and over flocked to the training colleges in the Gaeltacht areas and spent their whole holidays there year after year acquiring a knowledge of the language. Nobody except themselves knows the inconvenience they suffered when they were there. They came back and have endeavoured, with a considerable amount of success, to carry out the ideal, which we all have, of restoring our language.

Nobody but themselves knows or will ever know the drudgery which they had to undergo in carrying out that task, and carrying it out very often, as we must all know here, without the enthusiastic support of the parents of their children, but nearly always faced with apathy and very often hostility from the parents from whom they should expect enthusiastic support. These are the difficulties under which Irish is being taught in the schools to-day, and if Irish has reached the standard it has, and we have made the progress we have made, the people we should be thankful to are the teachers. I was sorry that Deputy Goulding insinuated last night that teachers resented Irish and, therefore, the children resented Irish. Anybody who knows the difficulties under which teachers work knows that they are fighting an uphill fight against the apathy, and in some cases the hostility, of the parents, and if the spark has been kept alive it has been kept by the effort of the teachers in that connection. I think I am justified in quoting one very significent paragraph in the report of the Department of Education which, in my opinion, has not got the importance attaching to it which it should have. It will be found on page 255 of the report; it is headed, "The Schools and the Language Revival":

"While it may be taken for granted that the revival of Irish cannot be effected without the active cooperation of the schools, the question whether the schools' unaided efforts can accomplish this purpose is another matter, and is a question which it seems will shortly call for investigation. In many districts in which Irish is being well taught in the school, the language has little existence outside the school walls, and as far as the general use of Irish in the district is concerned, little progress seems to have been made in the last ten years. In spite of excellent instruction in school, it appears to be true that few of the pupils speak Irish outside of school hours, and a still smaller number can still be classified as Irish speakers a few years after leaving school. The Irish they have learned at school is lost in the amount of English with which they have to deal on leaving school. English is the language of their sports and pastimes, and of their means of earning their livelihood, while Irish remains a school subject closely related to lessons and examinations—things which every boy and girl wish to leave behind them on passing out of school. Under such circumstances it is inevitable that a very considerable part of the work done by the schools must fail to bear fruit, and failing help from outside—such help as might be given by some national body which would devote itself to the care of the young people who leave school—it may well be that the revival of the language may prove to be beyond their powers."

I want to say that if we do fail in reviving the language no blame for that failure can be laid at the door of the national teachers. They are doing their part well and nobly, and, as I say, some times without the sympathy and support that they have a right to expect while they are engaged in that onerous task. Then we have a Deputy like Deputy J.J. Byrne getting up and saying "the teacher's life is a paradise." I wish he had to spend one month in a national school. He would know then the type of paradise that the teachers are living in.

There were some points arising out of the debate that I should like to refer to. Deputy Tierney yesterday, and Deputy Aiken to some extent to-day, referred to the fact that teachers when they meet talk about pensions. They do. They are just human beings the same as the rest of us, but they talk about a great many other things as well as pensions. I have just been looking at the official report of the Teachers' Congress in Cork this year to see what they did speak mainly about. While the first resolution dealt with pensions and was disposed of in about ten minutes, I find that the main questions discussed during the week in Cork were the teaching of Irish, the school programme generally, the health of the children, led off with an important paper by the Medical Officer of Cork, and followed by a very valuable discussion, on athletics in the schools. These were the matters the teachers were concerned with at that Congress. I would say this: If it were not for the various gatherings of teachers, annual and otherwise, there would be a very small public opinion here with regard to education. We have meetings of various kinds throughout the country, political meetings by various parties. I will ask any Deputy how often has he heard from any platform any reference to or any discussion about our educational policy? When addressing a public meeting at the cross roads, the chapel gate or somewhere else, how often has somebody in the crowd shouted: "What are you proposing to do about education?" Any public opinion that has been created in education has been created by the teachers through their organisations. At all times, I am glad to say, they have had the support of public-spirited men; public representatives of various classes are always willing and ready to attend their meetings. As I say, they are not always discussing their own personal grievances, and they would be more than pleased if the necessity for discussing them at all was obviated.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

There was a time when we thought we had finished with that—that there would be no more discussions about salaries, pensions, or anything else. Unfortunately the teachers have not been left in that position, but since that time it is clear they were devoting all their activities towards the improvement of education. We have it on record in the national programme which is now in operation, and which was inaugurated mainly by the teachers themselves. Deputy Fahy knows that quite well; so does the Department of Education. It is a fact, too, that it was owing to the pressure year after year, in season and out of season, of teachers through their various organisations, that the Compulsory School Attendance Act was brought into force. Even to this day, when the operation of that Act seems to press unduly on some parents, they are not slow to blame the teachers for bringing that Act into operation, and sometimes these people are helped out by people who ought to know better. A few years ago there was a district justice down the country who told a parent when a case of this kind was up before him, "You may thank the teachers for it. The teachers are responsible for bringing this Act into operation," and, of course, from purely selfish motives. In all the talk we have had about the work being done in the schools, with one or two exceptions—I think Deputy Thrift did advert to it—there was very little reference to what, after all, is the main work that is done in the national schools, and the work that should be done—that is, the moral training that children get. I have no hesitation in saying again that there are no schools in the world where the moral and religious training of the children are so well attended to as in our schools. Perhaps we cannot go into the thing here because there is nothing in the Estimate covering it, but let us not forget that a great part of the time of the school day is taken up with that training, with the preparation of children for the reception of the sacraments, work that has earned from those in authority in the various churches the highest encomiums. That should not be forgotten.

I should like to say that the main object of education is not to pack the child's mind with facts, to get in a certain measured quantity of what is called learning, let it be arithmetic, geometry or anything else. That to my mind is not, and ought not to be, the main purpose. The main purpose is to make good, moral, religious and upright citizens, to turn out a boy from the national school with the power to think for himself, as Deputy Aiken said, and I quite agree with him, power to think for himself and to reason for himself. If a good foundation of that kind is laid the boy is set on the right road and it will be more important to him than if he knew all the propositions of the books of Euclid, because when he grows to man's estate and has to engage in his everyday work his knowledge of propositions, and how to manipulate and juggle with figures will be small compared with the character that he bears among his fellow-men. Character and moral training of that kind are something that you can never test by examination, let me tell Deputy Wolfe and Deputy Byrne, and they are the most important of all.

Mr. Good

What test does the Deputy suggest substituting?

Mr. O'Connell

Substituting for what?

Mr. Good

For the examination test that the Deputy condemns so strongly.

Mr. O'Connell

Deputy Good misunderstands me. I am not condemning examination tests. As a matter of fact, in the schools there are tests. Every efficient teacher is continually testing his pupils. There are periodic tests in the school. The inspector when he comes to the schools tests the children. There are always tests of that kind. What I am objecting to, and what I believe anybody who has had any experience or knowledge of educational affairs will object to, is putting before children the aim of passing examinations as the one thing to work for, of investing examinations with that importance that teachers and children will necessarily think that if they succeed in them they have done a good day's work, irrespective of the kind of training given to the children. We have this system of examinations. I suppose no better method has so far been found for filling competitive posts of various kinds, but I do not want to make a fetish of examinations. As I am speaking on the subject of examinations, perhaps I had better refer to some of these scholarship examinations.

We have a certain very limited number of scholarships for our secondary schools. I have no great objection to them in existing circumstances. They are the only provision we have made for giving a secondary education to many children. They are open only to a very small percentage of pupils. I suppose that until such time as we can afford to have secondary education for all our children we must put up with this scholarship system. What I object to is that the results of these scholarship examinations are taken by some people who do not know the circumstances as a test of the capacity and work in our national schools from which the children come.

What is happening? A very prominent teacher quite recently spoke to an inspector about the absolutely unreasonable standard that was being set for these scholarship examinations. If Deputies take up the syllabuses for them they will find that the standard nominally set is the sixth standard in the national school. Teachers know what work is expected from an ordinary sixth standard boy in a national school. But no ordinary sixth standard boy in a national school will get through one of these examinations because the actual standard is so much beyond that. When this teacher spoke to the inspector about that the reply he got was: "Well, of course, you know we are not looking for the ordinary boy, we are looking for the genius." That is what is being done, but the national schools cannot manufacture geniuses. I think it would be wrong for a teacher who did happen to have a specially bright boy in his class, a boy that he thought might be a genius and one whom he thought would get through one of these examinations, to devote all his time or the greater part of his time to him for the purpose of putting him through the examination, and neglect all the other children in the class. I object to that because I think it would be quite wrong. The result of that kind of thing is that special classes are now growing up in central areas in which nothing else is done except to grind for these scholarship examinations. The number of successes or failures at these examinations can be taken in no sense as a test of the work that is done in our national schools.

I know one particular national school in which there were five boys in the higher standard. The teacher was anxious about their welfare, to put them in for these scholarship examinations as he thought they would have a good chance of getting through. Three of them were excellent boys, one was fairly good, and the other not quite so good. Of the five, only one decided to go in for the examination, and he happened to be the weakest in the whole class. The others, for one reason or another—their parents perhaps were not in a position to pay even the balance required at the secondary schools, or it may have been that they did not want them to go for this examination—decided not to go in for the examination. At any rate, the only boy who was anxious to go in for the examination was the one who, in the opinion of the teacher, was the least qualified of the five. As a matter of fact I think he did go in for the examination and did not get through; but should his failure be taken as a test of that particular teacher's work? I say it should not; but that is what is being done in some areas. I say there is no ground whatever for regarding successes or failures at these scholarship examinations as a test of the work that is being done in the ordinary two-teacher national schools. If these teachers were to give the attention that it would be necessary to give in order to produce geniuses and get them to pass these examinations, they would have of necessity to neglect some of the other children, or do the work of special preparation outside of school hours — a thing that is being done, I must say, in quite a number of cases.

I hold that it is the teacher's duty to deal with the ordinary pupils and try to bring them all up to as high a standard as he can. But in many schools, I regret to say—I am not referring now to the ordinary national school—the object seems to be more to shine before the public by being able to record so many places won at scholarship examinations than to raise the general standard amongst all the pupils of the schools. That applies very much more to secondary schools than it does to national schools, although I must say there are some national schools to which it applies also. Deputy de Valera is reported this morning in the newspapers as having made certain references to the amount of home work given to the children. I did not gather from the report whether the Deputy was referring to national schools or to secondary schools.

Mr. de Valera

Secondary schools.

Mr. O'Connell

I am glad the Deputy says that, because while I am very much inclined to agree with him, so far as my limited knowledge of secondary schools goes, that there is too much home work expected from the children attending them, I do know, as a matter of fact, that that is not the case as regards the national schools. In fact, there are sometimes complaints from the parents of the children attending national schools that the teachers do not give them a little more home work. I know that, so far as the national schools are concerned, the complaint about too much home work does not apply. At all events, I have never heard of complaints in that direction.

Deputy Aiken referred to nature study, and other Deputies to other subjects. There you are faced with the problem of putting a quart into a pint measure. That is the difficulty in the national schools at the present time. A great many of the teachers would be glad to have nature study taught and encouraged in the schools. As a matter of fact, in a great many schools it is taught, especially by some of the younger teachers who have lately come out of training. The same applies to drawing, which is not now taught as an ordinary school subject in the national schools. It is a question of whether you can teach all the subjects on the programme. Deputies should remember, too, that we are doing here what is not being done in England, France or Germany, that is teaching two languages in the primary schools, and one of them a very difficult language. The teaching of Irish in many schools presents almost as great a difficulty as if you were to insist that Latin should be taught right through the whole school from the infant classes to the higher standards. It is a question of getting the time to do it, having regard to the staffing of our schools. The vast majority of our schools are not more than two-teacher. In the average typical two-teacher school where you have sixty, seventy or ninety on roll, with children ranging in age from four to fourteen, the problem there presented is a huge one. It might be all very well to do what is suggested if you could have one teacher to one class, but the teacher in the ordinary school is faced with the difficulty of teaching and keeping usefully occupied a big number of children in standards ranging from the third to the sixth. That is no small task. It requires a great deal of organising ability.

There are one or two things I would like to deal with, but owing to the turn the debate has taken I have to pass them over lightly. I want to call attention again to the conditions under which the work we have been talking about is done. It would be difficult work, even if it were done under ideal conditions. The National Programme Conference which set out the programme for national schools sat three years ago and recommended the subjects to be taught. That portion of the report was put into operation. But the Conference made several other recommendations. I will read a few extracts to show their bearing on the work of the schools. The National Programme Conference was composed of representatives of the Dáil and Seanad, the clerical managers, the Gaelic League, the county councils, teachers, inspectors of the Department, and was a thoroughly representative conference in every sense. They stated:

From the reports of the Inspectors placed before us, the statements of teachers and witnesses, and knowledge possessed by some of our members, it is plain that the material conditions of our schools are often such as gravely to impair the quality of the work done in them. There is an insufficiency of rooms, and the existing rooms are often too small; the structural state of the buildings and the sanitary arrangements are often very faulty; in many schools a better provision for heating and cleaning is desirable; in the case of numerous schools, too, there are no proper playgrounds—not to speak of school gardens or school plots. It is clear that such untoward conditions call for immediate remedy if any educational scheme is to secure the desired results.

They go further, and deal with what was referred to by some Deputies, the necessity for school meals, and say:

Though we are not unaware of the serious objections which may be urged against the general principle of providing free meals to school children, we believe that as regards certain districts—at least at certain periods—these objections must give way before more imperative considerations. To enforce starving or underfed children to attend at school for several hours in a day without providing them with some food is at once cruel and educationally futile.

They go on, in a similar strain, to deal with the necessity of providing school books. They say:

...At the same time, where children, whose parents are unable to supply books, are forced to attend school, in which if they have no books, they are mostly wasting their time, books should be supplied to them somehow.

There is no machinery for supplying books to these children unless the teachers, as they very often do, are generous enough to supply them. These are what Deputy Tierney, perhaps, would refer to as the luxury aspects of education, and I should like to deal with them at considerable length. I do not propose to do so now, because the state of affairs is generally known and admitted. The question is —what is the remedy, when is it to be applied and how soon? Can we get any guidance from the Minister?

In the matter of building schools I would like to ask the Minister what is there sacrosanct about the one-third that the local manager must find. Who fixed the proportion? I could never find that out. I have been trying to trace it and I have not been able to find when or how it was fixed that the State should provide two-thirds while the local body—usually the manager or parish priest, who has a great many other burdens on his shoulders—is expected to find one-third of the cost. What is there sacrosanct about that particular fraction? If there is a principle involved—and the Minister holds that there is—I totally disagree with him—but if there is a principle involved would it be interfered with if the fraction were one-sixth, one-seventh, one-eighth or one-ninth? Who fixed it at one-third? When speaking yesterday the Minister dealt with the number of schools in which grants were sanctioned. The Minister must know that there is very great difference between saying that a grant was sanctioned and a school built. I know a place where a grant was sanctioned in 1913 but no school has been built yet. I suppose if I asked the Minister he would say that a grant had been sanctioned for that school. Something needs to be cleared up about this question of the sanctioning and the giving of the grants.

As I mentioned on the Vote for the Board of Works there are a great many complaints about delay. I am sure the Minister must be aware of continual complaints from managers about the delay and the difficulty of getting sanctions, and more than anything else, the difficulty in providing the proportion of the grant they are expected to provide without any machinery to provide it, except to depend upon voluntary contributions from their flocks. I have so often stated that the voluntary system has broken down that I will now confine myself to saying that some other system must be found if we are to have proper schools built, properly maintained, properly equipped, properly looked after, as well as cleaned and heated in the winter time. One thing we cannot be proud of, and that is the condition of our school buildings—although we have some very fine buildings.

The general practice all over the country in the rural schools is for the children to remain behind in the evening to sweep out the schools. I think the House will agree with me generally when I say that that is a practice that ought to be condemned and stopped. At the present time it is the only method if the schools are to be swept at all. There is no other provision for sweeping them. It is a primitive method, and is injurious to the health of the children. I should say that for the last three or four years the Minister in his opening speech stated that he hoped to issue the new rules and regulations in a few months. He said nothing about them this time, and I think it is a good sign. It is quite possible that we may have the new rules and regulations in a few months. I will say nothing further about them.

Another matter requires to be straightened out. Almost every day the Department of Education is asked to deal with schools in Irish-speaking districts, but no one knows outside the four walls of the Department what is an Irish-speaking district.

Nobody knows what this much used and much-abused term "Gaeltacht" is taken to signify. We have four or five different Gaeltachts. We have the Gaeltacht Housing Act, and one Gaeltacht set out there in a schedule to the Act. Then we have the Gaeltacht School Meals Act in which we have another Gaeltacht defined, and the two by no means coincide. Then we have the Fíor-Ghaeltacht set out in the Report of the Gaeltacht Commission— a different one altogether. I think the Local Government Department are working on another Gaeltacht. I know that if you ask the Education Department whether a particular school is or is not in the Gaeltacht or in an Irish-speaking district they will tell you right off, and are very willing to tell you, but in spite of repeated requests they have failed to publish a list of the schools which they regard as being in Irish-speaking districts, or in scheduled areas. It is most important to the teachers and managers that they should know this, because different qualifications are required for teachers according as they are being appointed in an Irish-speaking or a non-Irish-speaking district. Here is what happens. A vacancy for a teacher is advertised and the manager does not know whether he is to insist on the teacher having a bilingual certificate or not. A teacher applies for the vacancy and is appointed. Perhaps he gives up his own school and is teaching in the new school for a week or a fortnight when he is told that he is not qualified to teach in that school. Very often he finds that the place he has left is filled. I do not know what objection there can be, if there is an objection, to the Department letting the public know what schools are in Irish-speaking districts or what are the Irish-speaking districts.

I have some knowledge of how the schools were scheduled ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago. I know a school that was scheduled as being Irish speaking or what was then called bilingual, although in the heart of the Galltacht. But there was an enthusiastic teacher or manager or inspector or an Irish teacher in the district who said: "Let us make this a bilingual school, and make a bilingual certificate a necessary qualification for any teacher to be appointed." That school is still scheduled as being an Irish-speaking one, as far as I know. I urge the Minister to publish as soon as possible a list of those Irish-speaking schools.

I am afraid that I have occupied the time of the House too long. There are many things that I would wish to speak about, especially in regard to school buildings and the state of our schools generally. But perhaps Deputy Tierney would not mind if I did just at the end ask the Minister to tell us exactly what is the present position with regard to the teachers' pension fund. It is now fourteen or fifteen months ago since the teachers had an interview with the Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance on this matter. They parted on the understanding that in a few weeks at most definite proposals would be put before the teachers in regard to the pensions fund. We are still waiting for the definite proposals. That is the position at present so far as we know. We would like if the Minister would now say whether any progress has been made and when he hopes to lay definite proposals before the teachers in regard to the matter of pensions.

Mr. Law

Heaven forbid that I should intervene in this battle of giants between Deputy O'Connell and Deputy J.J. Byrne. Agreeing in nothing else, they both agreed that it was a mark of education and qualified a man to speak in a debate like this that he should be able to solve a problem of mathematics. I have not been able to accomplish the things in mathematics that these Deputies and Deputy Anthony praised. When necessity compels me to face the adding up of a column of figures it is my habit, after repeated attempts, when I can get two results approximately the same, to regard that as nearly approaching perfection as can be expected in this imperfect world. Therefore I will not attempt to express any opinion upon the general character of the education given in this country. My purpose in rising is a very much more modest one. It is to ask the Minister if he will give us an indication of how far certain inquiries have gone and what progress in certain work has been achieved in regard to a very humble and humdrum matter—the comfort of the children themselves. I should particularly like to know what progress has been made with the feeding of necessitous school children both under the old Act and also under the more recent Act relating to the Gaeltacht. I should like to know if he has anything to say as to the question of medical inspection, to which I do not think he made any reference. Thirdly, I should like to know whether he has recently given any attention, and if so with what results, to the problem of school hours. There has recently been a good deal of correspondence in the Press on that subject. It was pointed out by many medical men and others that the present hours of school children in our national schools were not only very long, but were so arranged as to be very unsuitable and to be a considerable danger and peril to the health of the children. I know that the matter is of great difficulty and complexity, but I should like to know whether the Minister has considered it, and whether he can see his way to any solution. My own feeling, rightly or wrongly, is that the hours are grossly excessive, whether in town or country.

I do not believe that the children can profit very much by the last one or two hours of what is called instruction. They must be much hardier than I was if they can stand so many hours of continuous work without complete loss of attention and without suffering intellectual fatigue. I do not know whether there will be strong opposition to it, but I cannot help thinking that in the long run there would be considerable net gain in actual results, not paper results, if the school hours were actually shortened. I am afraid, as Deputy Wolfe hinted, that while we profess great concern about the children what we are really doing is to convenience the parents. As parents we naturally want to get the children out from under our feet for as long as possible. Even in prisons we do have some care for the health and welfare of those in these institutions. Merely by calling an establishment a school we do not get rid of our responsibility. I think we ought really very carefully consider whether we are not, on the whole, in education doing as much harm as good, and that largely through the excessive hours which children have to work both in primary and secondary schools. I am quite sure you cannot go on any further putting in new subjects, desirable as some of them may be. I do not think it matters very much—perhaps I may be cynical in the matter —what you put in and what you take out, and that for two reasons. In the first place what really matters is not what is taught but how it is taught. I am told there are persons who can make vulgar fractions and decimals fascinating. I know many who could make even the Flight of the Earls deadly boring and weary. That is one reason. The other is this: that we are all endowed with the blessed gift of forgetfulness.

You may be sure that so far as instruction goes whatever is put into the mind of the child, most of it will in a little while be forgotten. We all have the blessed gift of forgetfulness, and since in this world the number of disagreeable things is greater than the number of agreeable things it is well that it should be so. We shall forget, and yet something will remain. Therefore I want to record in all seriousness my earnest agreement with Deputy O'Connell. What really matters is not the instruction given, but the impression you make on the child's mind, not, as Deputy Aiken well said, what you teach them to know, but the power that you give them to think.

Mr. Flinn

The prayerful sorrow of Deputy Law will, no doubt, remain as one of the most touching memories of this House. Why he should think that education is a subject upon which he should be cynical I do not know. I almost hesitate to express in words what I think about it. If I use moderate language it is simply and solely because I have no language adequate, and I am not speaking now in any sense of an attack on our own system. Deputy O'Connell, at the end, it was almost the residuum, after talking about the details and machinery, wakened up to the fact that the purpose of education was to teach boys and girls to think. In actual practice, 99 per cent. of the time that those unfortunate children of ours and of all other people spend in school is spent in teaching them not to think, to put in time usefully and agreeably, to get the children out of the way of their mothers, to pack information into them if possible, and to destroy in the process, all native wit and native intelligence and all natural curiosity and sense of initiative which God gave them. Any one of you, looking back consciously, if you could do so, over that period of time in your own lives up to six or seven years of age, must know how keenly you were interested in things, how you did try to think out problems for yourself, how you did not recognise your limitations, or futilities, how you had your hopes and ambitions and things of that kind, and how you spent all the intervening years in school and college life, and possibly especially in college life, getting all that stamped out of you. Look back, any of you, especially those who are conventionally called educated men, and what do you remember of the things you were taught at school? And what value are they?

Deputy Law says he cannot do addition. Neither can I. Subtraction is done for me by the Revenue Commissioners on a system I do not understand. I know no Latin and I know no Greek, and I am afraid to quote from the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for fear somebody may quarrel with my pronunciation. My spelling is abominable. I know practically no geography, and yet I have probably spent more years at and have had more sacrifice made by other people for my education than most. My mind goes back to a little convent infant school in Kinsale and another in Dromore East, in Waterford, and to two or three elementary schools here in the country, to one of which we carried sods of turf, if we had not newspapers to disguise the fact that we were carrying them, to a Christian Brothers' school somewhere, to a Jesuit day school, to two Jesuit colleges here in Ireland, and to that abomination of desolation, the old Royal University of Ireland, which as an educational institution probably has not had any competitor for absolute futility except the old Intermediate system which was imposed on this country. And at the end of all that I went to a night school to learn something.

Mr. P. Hogan (Clare):

And to the Dáil?

Mr. Flinn

My indictment is that what I learned I learned from my school-fellows. I learned more walking the roofs of Clongowes during school hours with the Minister for Justice than I did during the hours I spent in school. We should try and find some method by which we will not waste the time and the native intelligence of our children. I have two little boys, and, honestly, to me it is a horrible responsibility to face the question whether their lives, from an educational point of view, are going to be wasted as mine was. I believe that in the earlier years a child, in getting hold of his own language to think and use in absorbing all the impressions which he is absorbing in his own home, in getting all the experiences which are piling on him at a rate at which they can never come in afterwards, is being educated at such a rate that it is an outrage to put upon him the necessity of obtaining information for information's sake during the period.

Jerome K. Jerome spoke of the slowly-acquired habit of not thinking. The slowly-acquired habit of not thinking, of not feeling and of not living is the thing which in schools and in the conventional surroundings of life we impose upon youth. I do want to see if possible young people allowed to remain in what I may call a natural state and allowed to use their own intelligence. I would teach children reading and writing and doing sums, but purely and simply with the conscious knowledge driven into them that they were being taught these things not for their own sake but purely and simply as tools. When they had that simple elementary knowledge that these tools were given to them by which they could widen the area of contact of their individual intellects with their surroundings I would leave them as far as I possibly could to use that native intellect through these tools in real education. Education is not the acquirement of all sorts of things. Education is the drawing-out of the child, building up from the individual seed of its intelligence and individuality the tree which God intended should grow from it. My contest and difficulty with all educational systems, with the system of this country and with those of other countries, are that they seem—possibly it is due to necessity, possibly to the limitation of funds, possibly to the necessity of mass production in that way, and very largely to the desirability of getting children out of the way of their parents—to prevent that natural growth and natural individuality. They teach children to recognise how futile, how big, knowledge is compared with their opportunity for grasping it. I can remember thinking infinitely more clearly as a child—I say this as one who can go back very far indeed in his own mental process, who knows what he thought when he was a little child, and who also knows the big gap of years in the interval in which he probably did not think at all—and in my opinion little children are thinking infinitely more clearly, originally and more fruitfully in the years in which they are not subjected to the effects of what is conventionally called education than in the years in which they are subjected to it. I would certainly in that spirit second the plea to put off a little longer, in relation to the mass, the period of time in which children come under it. Give the children a chance. Give the individual seed an opportunity of growing on its own. I believe that in that way we will build a much better generation and a more fruitful future for the country than we will by following our conventional methods.

Mr. Good

I can recall a number of debates in this House on this particular Estimate, but I cannot recall any debate in which a wider interest was taken in the subject, in which the speeches were more interesting, and in which the debate generally reached the same high standard as it has done on this occasion. The speeches to which one listened last night from those who can speak with considerable authority on this subject were most interesting. I think that possibly one of the reasons why the debate has been so interesting is that we have got away from what we may call the small departmental problems, and have got into larger issues. Possibly the Minister is to some extent responsible for that particular line, and I think that we also owe something to Deputy Fahy for having opened up that aspect of the question. The particular problem with which we have been trying to deal is that raised by Deputy Fahy, as to whether, in view of the large amount of money which our State spends on education, we are getting value for such money. When we come to consider that particular problem we are right up against the question to which Deputy O'Connell has drawn our attention, namely, as to what standard we are to use, or how we are to apply that standard.

Deputy O'Connell objects to our applying the standard of examination. I agree that a great many objections could be made to the examination system, but I think that, on the whole, it is the best system by which we can judge standards. While Deputy O'Connell was very strong in his objections, with many of which I personally agree, he did not provide us with any alternative. We must judge by some standard. Over and over again we have heard it stated in this House that the standard of education possessed by those who leave our primary schools, and I also heard it said about our secondary schools, is very low. I have constantly heard it said by commercial men that the standard of those who apply to them for industrial and commercial appointments is, on the whole, low, and, in their opinion, very much lower than it was years ago. That is the common view that is held.

Whether it is justified by circumstances or not it is difficult to say, but within the last few months I have had to deal with some applications for a junior commercial appointment, and I must say that amongst the letters from applicants there was certainly a low standard of spelling and of composition. It was, in fact, such that I could not help remarking it. There are the facts as we find them. I may have been unfortunate in the particular applicants with whom I came into touch, but nevertheless that was the standard as I experienced it. That the standard is low generally is, in my opinion, true. I said it before in this House.

The standard of those leaving our schools and applying for appointments in industry is low, much lower than we would like to see it. Those of us who have knowledge of our technical schools know that the progress in these schools is retarded by reason of the low standard of primary education possessed by those young people who enter technical schools. Special classes have, in fact, to be devised in these schools to try and raise the standard of applicants up to a level at which they can take advantage of the education there. That is common knowledge. The question we are trying to arrive at is: what is the reason for this low standard? As one speaking with knowledge of the City of Dublin, I think that the reason for that low standard is the overcrowding that exists in our primary schools. In a great many areas in Dublin the schools are grossly overcrowded and it is impossible to expect that the pupils there will get any individual attention at all while such conditions exist. The classes are overcrowded and there are too many pupils to each teacher. So long as these conditions exist I am quite satisfied that the standard of education will be much lower than we would like to see it.

I happen to know particularly of the overcrowded state of these schools because I have drawn the attention of the Minister on more than one occasion to the fact that members of the same family are unable to get to the one school. They have to be divided up in some cases amongst two or three schools owing to the overcrowded state of the schools, with the result that there is no common system for the holidays and the members of such families have to take their holidays at different periods. That was a point with which I was anxious the Minister should deal. At all events, whatever the cause—and I am satisfied that is one of the material causes in the City of Dublin—the standard of education is lower than we would like to see it.

The next question of interest was also raised by Deputy Fahy when he suggested that it would be advisable to set up an advisory council. Whilst agreeing with the principle of advisory councils, and with the suggestion that advantage would likely accrue from them, I am afraid my experience, and it goes back for a considerable number of years, of these committees is not that they are educational in character or that their outlook on the whole is educational. I am afraid, as Deputy Tierney pointed out yesterday, that on many occasions at these committees too much time is taken up with details of salaries, details of terms of employment and matters of that kind, and too little time is given to the educational work that should be undertaken by the committees. That has been my experience and while, as I say, I am in favour of the theory, the practice has not worked out at all in accordance with one's ideas of the advantages of these committees. I was appointed a member of a local vocational education committee during the past eight months. I have not unfortunately been able to attend all the meetings of the committee because it meets on Thursday evenings when I have to attend this House, but when the House has not been sitting I have attended meetings of the Committee.

The records of the Committee are available, and they will show that practically the whole time of the Committee has been taken up with questions of salaries, questions of increases, questions of the consolidation of the bonus, and no time at all has been given to the subject of education. We know the responsibility which the Vocational Education Act imposed on those committees. We know the problems that exist in connection with that work in our own city, and though that Committee has been in existence for eight months, as far as I know nothing has been done in regard to inquiring into this problem or seeing how it could be dealt with. That experience, as I say, bears out exactly what has been my previous experience, that unless we get some other method of selecting these committees we will not get a committee with an educational outlook. The people on these committees are accustomed to deal with other problems, problems of wages, terms of employment, etc. They think along these lines and they carry these ideas into the different committees of which they are members. For that reason I am not at all an enthusiastic supporter of advisory councils.

Another problem raised in the debate was the question of school hours. I agree that the long, continuous school hours which we have in this country are not the best means of getting the best results. I have personally advocated that it would be much better if we adopted the Continental system whereby a break of a couple of hours would be made in the middle of the day, and whereby many of the pupils could go home, particularly in the cities. In that way we would get much better educational results. I am quite satisfied, from the point of view of the home, that system would be much better, because under the present arrangement in the working-class home, when the head of the home is back for his meal in the middle of the day the children are not there. They come for their meals at a much later period. That is unfortunate, whereas if we had a break for a couple of hours in the middle of the day in school, the children would be at home at the same time as the head of the family. Such an arrangement would be advantageous to the working of the home, and it would be an advantage to the children themselves if the break in the day were much longer than it is at present.

There are a few other matters to which I would like to call attention. I had not the privilege of hearing most of the Minister's statement but I am not satisfied at all with the position of our technical schools. We find that in these technical schools a minority of the pupils attend the technological classes and the majority attend the commercial classes. A report which I was reading a little while ago gave figures which were somewhat alarming. It showed that 23 per cent. of the pupils in the technical schools in the Saorstát attend technological classes and 70 odd per cent. attend the commercial classes.

[Deputy Thrift took the Chair.]

Mr. Good

We would like to see these proportions reversed. We would like to see a much larger percentage of these young people attending the technological classes and a smaller percentage attending the commercial classes. Might I refer very briefly to the results of this unfortunate system as we have it to-day? If one inserts an advertisement in any of our leading papers, speaking of the city again, for a junior commercial assistant even at a very small salary, one will scarcely be able to carry away all the replies that one will get to that advertisement. If on the other hand, one inserts an advertisement for an assistant with technical qualifications one would be lucky to get half a dozen replies. That is the unfortunate feature of our system at the moment. For some reason or other we seem to be diverting the minds of these young people very largely into channels where there is very little outlet, a very limited amount of employment, and in cases where employment can be given much more easily we do not seem to be training them to meet that demand.

This is a question on which we had consultations at different periods, and I would like to know from the Minister how far these figures have improved. I would like also, if something could be done towards opening up avenues for employment in industrial occupations. As has been pointed out here we train young people, and now it is hoped to provide for them vocational schools whereby they will be trained for industry, but one would like to see more done in the direction of opening up various avenues into industries after these preparations have been made on behalf of these young people. The Minister may say that this is a question which is not exactly in his Department. Whether it is in his Department, or in the Department of Industry and Commerce, it is very hard to settle. It is a problem that is largely in vogue, and I would like to see a larger interchange of ideas between the two Departments with the object of combating the real problem that exists here. Let me take the case of the parent who has two or three sons in what we may call the lower middle class life. These boys are at a secondary school. If they want to go into any of the various professions, if they want to become school-masters, they can get advice as to how they are to follow up and enter on those various occupations that they have in mind. But if a boy wants to get into an industrial occupation, if he wants to follow an industrial career, would anybody in this House tell me where or how that boy is to get into that career?

Let us have equal opportunity for all. I claim for the poor boy that he should get from the State just the same assistance and the same opportunity as the boy with a better-off class of parent. For that reason I would like to see that particular problem receiving more attention in the future. It is one of the real problems that we are face to face with as we go through our City, or through any town in the country in the day time. We see all round the various corners the children of poor people unemployed. I want to say something on the point of taking advantage, on behalf of the State, of the brains that many of these young people possess. We have spent a considerable sum in educating them and bringing to what is called a state of efficiency. But we leave them there. We do not leave the boy of the better class parents there; we do not leave the boy in the secondary school there; we help that boy up. Let us have equal opportunity for all. Let us do for the boy of the poorer class parent what we have done for years for the children of the better class parents.

Doctor Hennessy

In my opinion the school hours are altogether too long. I say that more from the medical point of view than from the point of view of an educationist. I do not pose as an educationist. I am also of opinion that the children, especially in the rural areas, are compelled to go to school at too early an age. In these schools no provision is made for the children when they get their clothes badly wet on the way to school. There is no provision made for a change, and no provision made for drying those clothes. The consequence to the health of the child is that he has to remain all day soaking the wet of his clothes. That is a very serious thing, and it is one of those things that predispose to tuberculosis. It is not a desirable thing even when there are fires in the school in the winter time, that that child should stand before the fire to dry his clothes. In that case the child not only loses the wet that is in his clothes, but he also loses a great deal of the heat of the body that is essential for his well-being.

I am also of opinion that there are too many and too much home lessons, especially in the primary school. The children are simply neurotics before they get any proper chance of decent physical development. They are sent home to learn a piece of poetry which is twelve inches long by six inches in breadth. That is bad enough, but they have to learn other things equally troublesome. There may be a justification why this poetry should be committed to memory, as a training for the memory, but I do not see that it does very much in that respect. Some of the best children I knew in my time did commit poetry to memory in a very parrot-like way, but they did not distinguish themselves in after life in any respect. I only mention the poetry as one of the things that the children are compelled to commit to memory. I believe that there are also far too few teachers, especially if the teachers are to pay any individual attention to the individual child. We know very well there is many a brilliant child with first class brains who is lost for all time because he is never properly started. If there was a teacher there who would understand his peculiarities and who would start him property, such a child would, in many cases, be a national asset to the country that bears the expenses of his education.

I think a very unfair attack has been made by a few Deputies on the efficiency of the national school teachers. National teachers are a body of people who deserve well of this country. They very often have to teach under disadvantageous conditions. As Deputy O'Connell pointed out, they have to teach in two languages. We all realise the trouble of teaching in two languages. I hold no brief against teaching in Gaelic. I learned Gaelic to some extent myself forty years ago, and I have had my children taught Gaelic, but they were taught it voluntarily. Even I do not object to making Gaelic compulsory in the national schools. I have been voting for it here. What I do object to, and what 99 per cent. of the fathers and mothers of this country object to is making Gaelic the medium through which other subjects are taught.

We hear a lot about democracy, about giving effect to the will of the people, but the will of the people has not got any effect in this matter. Anything I would say, or anything that the people say, will not matter. I have listened to this discussion year after year, and this Vote is the one Vote that is generally discussed apart from politics or any partisanship. Nevertheless the parents of the children are not quite so ignorant as some people think, and they should have some rights in regard to what is best for the child. There is no attention paid at all to their wishes. I am dwelling on this matter of teaching other subjects through the medium of Irish. If Irish was taught as any other language is taught in the school, French, German or Latin, I see no objection to it, because the teaching of a second language is undoubtedly educational, but if we realise what is the policy behind the forcing of this question of Gaelic or Irish I think we would come to some conclusion that would be more practical. I do not regard Gaelic as the original Irish language. Professor John MacNeill, who is an authority on these matters, will tell you that the first Celts who landed in Ireland 500 years or 600 years before Christ spoke a language akin to Latin. I would like to hear from some Gaelic scholar when it was that Gaelic was first spoken in Ireland. We know that Columbcille, the greatest Irishman of all times, wrote in Latin. We know there are translations of Columbcille's works, and they are palmed off on us as if they were originally written in Gaelic.

Mr. Flinn

The Deputy is a whole-hogger, any way.

Dr. Hennessy

There were many languages in Ireland before Gaelic became the language of the country, and the people who added to its vocabulary and to its pronunciation were very undesirable invaders from the Baltic Sea and elsewhere. They were chiefly of Teutonic origin, and this country would be very much better off if they never landed here. They were the rabble of the earth. They dominated the then language in the country and they handed a language down to us as Gaelic, and to-day it is actually recognised as the official language of the country. It is a fetish with some people. It was spoken through a period in Ireland of which we all ought to be proud. We might call it the Golden Age. It was the language then spoken and for that reason I would be quite agreeable to see it get its proper place in the curriculum of schools, and even of colleges.

Deputy Law asked what was the policy of the Department in regard to medical inspection. Here again the whole matter is vitiated by the question of Gaelic. Only a week or two ago I saw an advertisement in the paper for an ophthalmic surgeon for the medical inspection and treatment of school children. One of the preferences mentioned in the advertisement was that a very substantial mark would be given to the candidate who would have a competent knowledge of Gaelic. I say that makes for inefficiency. It also eviscerates the Act under which the appointment is to be made—the Local Authorities (Officers and Employees) Act, 1926. I do not say that the Appointments Commissioners are responsible for that policy, but, nevertheless, anything apart from professional capacity that a preference is given for simply eviscerates that Act. The best man should be appointed.

I do not care what other way you try to encourage the acquisition of the Gaelic language, but I do object to putting a man, simply because he has a knowledge of Gaelic, above a man professionally fitted for the work. Such a course is wrong, and it is as much jobbery as if you appointed him on religious or political grounds. I ask the people who make those conditions in professional appointments, especially in this matter of an ophthalmic surgeon, to consider this position: If one of them had a nail sticking in his eye would that person pass over an ophthalmic surgeon simply because he had no knowledge of Gaelic, and would he go to a midwifery doctor because he had a knowledge of Gaelic? I do not believe he would do so. For that very reason I would like them to use the same common sense in making the appointment of an ophthalmic surgeon for schools.

Mr. S.T. O'Kelly

I had not intended to intervene in the debate until I heard Deputy Hennessy. I do not intend to say very much in reply to his remarks about compulsory Irish. I think Deputy Hennessy's views on the subject of voluntary versus compulsory Irish, have been so often successfully exploded here and outside, and proved not to be in accordance with the views of the majority of the people, that it is not necessary for me to say very much in opposition to his statements. I suppose he heard his views exploded successfully so frequently in previous debates here that he does not think it necessary to wait to hear them exploded once more. He is leaving the House now, and therefore, I will say very little. He states that what is called compulsory Irish has not the backing of the majority of the Irish people. I say that at any time when there has been an opportunity of testing that question by a vote in this House, it has been shown that, so far as the views of the Irish people may be expressed here by elected representatives, what is called compulsory Irish has a backing of 80 per cent. in this House. If the elected representatives here did not believe that they would have the backing of parents, they would hesitate before taking the steps they have taken, being subject to re-election, to enforce Irish, as Irish has been to a certain extent enforced in the schools.

In previous debates, but not so much this time, reference was made to the teaching of different subjects through Irish. I was very glad the Minister gave us figures showing the percentage of teaching subjects through Irish in schools outside the Gaeltacht. Unfortunately, it shows that the amount of teaching of different subjects through Irish is not anything like what we would like to see. Others, criticising what they called compulsory Irish complained of too much teaching of different subjects through Irish. My complaint is that there is not a greater amount of teaching through Irish.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

I would like to see the number of schools through which all subjects are taught in Irish considerably increased, and I would like to see the number of children so taught considerably increased. I know that there is great difficulty in bringing about rapid progress in that direction because of the trouble in training a sufficient number of teachers and in getting the appropriate text books. I think I can speak for all my colleagues on this side. We want to see an advance in that direction and to see the number of schools, in which all subjects are taught through Irish, considerably increased and rapid progress made in that direction. We want to see pupils in town and country being taught all subjects through the medium of Irish as soon as possible and naturally as efficiently as possible. I would say that as against those who would criticise the teaching through Irish that I am informed that in certain schools in Dublin City children who have been taught through the medium of Irish all subjects have, when the examination time has come round, been proved to be more efficient. They had better results in examinations than the average number of children in other schools who have been taught through English. I do not know if it would be unfair to quote the case of the Preparatory College in Glasnevin which teaches all its children and all its subjects through the medium of Irish. Some may say that the children attending that school are specially selected. I am informed that they are not, that the children who are going in there are the ordinary children of the neighbourhood whose parents wish them to be taught all subjects through Irish. I am told that at the end of their courses, when they were put through examinations this year and last year, almost one hundred per cent. of those children passed well in all their subjects. They were taught even Latin as well as mathematics, history, geography and all the other subjects through Irish, and at the end of their period they got much higher marks on the average than is gained by children in the City of Dublin in the same area taught through the medium of English.

That shows where you have competent teachers and children who are sufficiently qualified in Irish to assimilate the teaching that certainly there is no disadvantage educationally in teaching them through Irish. I have heard complaints within the last year from parents, but not many. One or two have spoken to me about the difficulty of getting schools in which their children can be taught through the medium of Irish after they left the primary schools. Parents who had their children taught through the medium of Irish, and wish to continue that same principle in secondary education, found a difficulty in getting accommodation for their children. They asked me to mention the matter, and by giving voice to the need to try and encourage the Department of Education to provide more accommodation of that kind.

I do not think it would be profitable —I think it would be a waste of time— to follow Deputy Doctor Hennessy into his discussion as to whether Irish is the proper native language of the Irish people. In discussions here at different times on different matters, the Ceann Comhairle was very particular that we should not go back beyond a certain period, particularly the period around 1921 and 1922. I see that Deputy Doctor Hennessy went back to 500 B.C. looking for evidence as to whether Gaelic was the language of the country or not. I do not think that question need be argued. It is a waste of time at this stage to start an argument in this House as to whether Gaelic is the language of this country or not. That has been accepted by this House, and we need not go into the reasons. I hope that having been accepted, and the position of what is called compulsory Irish having been exploded, the House— having listened to all the arguments for and against, and having definitely decided and made up its mind, representing, as far as this House does, the vast majority of the people in the Free State are representing their views on education as well as on other matters—has made up its mind in the matter and has certainly very clearly decided that Gaelic or Irish, call it whatever you please, is to be taught and that the children are to learn that language. It is to be recognised as the language of the country. I hope that everything that can be done will be done and is being done by the Department of Education to continue to press forward in the teaching of the language, and to teach, in as many schools as possible, and to as many children as possible, all the subjects through Irish when proper facilities, teachers and books and all the necessary equipment are available.

Mr. Buckley

Reference was made a while ago by Deputy O'Connell to a statement made by Deputy Goulding last night regarding the method of teaching Irish in the schools. I had a conversation with Deputy Goulding after he had spoken, and I know what he had in mind was that the teaching of Irish in the schools at the present day had not the proper incentive behind it; it had not the proper national spirit behind it. The children were not given to understand why it is that we, the people of Ireland, do not speak our own language. It has not been explained to them that England is responsible for the fact that we do not speak our own language and that the object of England in removing the Irish language from the schools was to denationalise the country, to make the children of Ireland happy English children, and to rear up a nation of mongrels, neither Irish nor English, as we are to-day. To my mind, that is why Irish is not being taken up properly by the children and why it is more or less a labour on them to learn it. There is not the proper incentive behind the teaching. They are not, as Deputy Flynn said, taught to think for themselves why they should learn Irish.

Reference has also been made to the fact that after 8 or 9 years of the teaching of Irish in the schools we do not hear Irish spoken in the streets by the children. I think it would be nothing short of a miracle if we did. England, through the national schools, had been trying to teach us English for a century or more and she did not succeed. The Irish idiom runs through English as it is spoken to-day by 75 or 80 per cent of the people. I doubt if even Deputy Byrne would not be surprised if he realised how much of the Irish idiom is in the English he uses himself in his every-day life. I would like to emphasise the fact that the children in the schools should be taught Irish history above all in conjunction with the Irish language. They should be taught to know and to love their country.

[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]

Mr. Little

The course of this debate has been very interesting because it showed a considerable amount of heart searching and criticism of the Department. I suppose Deputies in all parts of the House have been unusually frank because there was not going to be a Party vote on the matter. Anyone with a sense of humour listening to the speeches made by several Deputies on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches was tickled by the fact that the speeches usually started with congratulations to the Minister and ended with congratulations to the Minister and the meat of the sandwich was a very serious indictment of the educational policy of the Government. If many of the statements made by some of the distinguished members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, instead of being made in dulcet tones had been made in the tone of invective—if, instead of beginning and ending with congratulations to the Minister they had a peroration and exordium it would have almost brought this Government into a crisis. It would be very interesting later on to take up the official report of this debate, to re-arrange the arguments and criticisms, and to give them a different setting from that which has been given to them in the course of the debate. What I think is lacking in the policy of the Government is that kind of national passion which sprang out of the thought of certain German educationists and which gave the German education such a high place in the world. It was that feeling expressed in certain ideas of certain leaders of German thought which made the German individual feel that it was worth his while getting all the education he could, not purely for an individual purpose, not because he was the slave of any system, and also not because he merely wanted to educate himself for his own pleasure, but because he was a citizen in a great nation.

In that way the German people, who I do not think are as naturally gifted as the Latin peoples, have managed to establish for themselves a reputation, a character of thoroughness, of mental power, of a grasp of facts which is very remarkable, considering the rapid growth of the German nation and the period over which that movement has taken place. That is just the kind of ideal feeling which is lacking as the motive of Irish education. In one particular matter it shows itself. One has only to take up the reports of the various inspectors. I would like to say that, although Deputy O'Connell complains of these reports, at the same time he must not expect that a report is going to be a sort of document issued by a mutual admiration society. Of course, Deputy O'Connell represents a trade union of teachers, and one cannot object to his defending his own profession. At the same time I hope that the reports in the future will be as unbiased and as fair, rather pointing out matters on which progress should be made than giving the teachers an opportunity for self-satisfaction. So in the course of these reports we find several references made to the lack of proper teaching of history and of local history. There seems to be a lack of direction from the head, a lack of proper text-books. You want to give the children an interesting story of Irish history, but you also want to give them a story which is related in some way to the national and cultural struggle of Ireland. If history were taught in a really attractive way in the schools there would be far less difficulty in teaching the Gaelic language. It is true that the children are obliged to learn the Irish language, but unless they are first given the feeling that it is the vehicle of a great treasure, that it is the vehicle of our past culture, that it represents the most precious thing in the past history of Ireland and of our traditions—if history is taught in such a way as to give the children a real enthusiasm for the traditions of their country they will learn the language like drinking milk. It will come to them as something they will really have an affection for.

I think it worth while to quote some of the passages from these reports that have already been referred to in a brief way. They are worth recording. In the report of Division 1 there is a paragraph headed, "Local Colour." I cannot say that I like that particular heading. I think if it had been called "Local History" it would have been better. The paragraph reads:—

Regarding the question: "To what extent the work of the school is related to the life of the district, its history, folk-lore, etc?" the answer unfortunately is that it is related only to a very small extent. It is practically the same in most other subjects, that is, taking the schools as a whole.

Then it points out that there is a better spirit animating the teaching than there was, that old prejudices and slave-traits are breaking down, but that the new spirit is only awakening quite timidly. "Even where this spirit exists," the Report goes on, "teachers generally are at a loss to know how to translate it into action, especially as regards local history, folk-lore, antiquities, and the general life of the district. Here again, teachers are slaves to the books they use, and the way of improvement at first would appear to be to take advantage of this weakness, and supply them with cheap little texts on local history, folklore, archaeology, etc." The comment on Division 2 has also an interesting bearing on this particular subject.

The Report of one inspector states on pages 42 and 43:

As a rule school work is not sufficiently related to the life of the district either in the department of history or geography.

Further down the Report says:

Direct contact is seldom established by visits to places of historic interest, factories, etc.

That is work which is generally done by teachers in Germany. They teach geography from the national and local point of view by taking the children on excursions. I do not know if that is ever done by teachers in Ireland. From the reports it would appear that it is not done. On the same page it is stated:

With regard to the question of how far the teachers have succeeded in interesting their pupils in Irish folk-lore and heroic tales, it is unfortunately the fact that little solid progress can be recorded, more especially in the former. This field is a comparatively new one to the teachers themselves, and even where they have displayed interest and enthusiasm their efforts have been hampered in many localities by the absence of suitable printed material from which they could themselves derive the necessary knowledge and information. It is to be feared also that there has been a certain amount of apathy and want of effort.

Another inspector writes:—

Irish folklore is a subject about which Irish teachers have only a hazy notion. Very little has been done in the subject in the schools of this district. The teachers have not been interested in the matter, and he adds that more success can be recorded in the matter of heroic tales and that the pupils are gradually, from their reading material, becoming acquainted with the exploits of Cuchulainn and Finn.

This would appear to be the general experience, for another inspector writes under the heading of Irish music and folklore:—

In this department the majority of the schools in this district are in the background. Rarely are Irish songs in their purity heard. Too often barbarous productions in translation, devoid of art, are heard. Irish music is never thought of as an aid to language work. Native folk-lore enters little into the work of the school thus far.

It would seem indeed that many teachers are themselves ignorant of the real significance of the expression folklore, and that they deem that any old tales, however barren or worthless from a cultural and educational standpoint, may be classed under this heading. They fail to distinguish the wheat from the chaff.

Another inspector, dealing with this aspect of the subject, writes:—

Some of the local legends, etc., that I have heard dealt with in the schools are grossly fantastic and are quite worthless, I should think, in fostering either an historical sense or a feeling of national sentiment.

On page 45 the Report states:—

The truth seems to be that our teachers have not a sufficiently wide and deep knowledge of the subject. The older teachers based their instruction on thin and out-of-date text books that regard Irish history as a province of English history. The training college course covered by the younger people, while sounder, is much too short. The study of archaeology, of the economic forces at work in the country for the last 300 years, and of civics, if introduced as a second year's course, would enable them to make their instruction much more stimulating and effective, and would enable them, too, to regard local history not as a collection of snippets as from a guide book but as something having a living connection with a larger whole.

Brief comment is also made in Division 4 with reference to history:—

This subject is usually presented in an uninteresting manner. Teachers do not seem to realise that the treatment of isolated episodes is of small value or interest to the pupils, and in many cases little attempt is made at tracing the connection between cause and effect....

Local history is still in the experimental stage, and teachers are greatly hampered by the lack of suitable books.

Dealing with Division 5 the Report states:—

The history of Ireland cannot have its full educational value till more account is taken of contemporary history; happily text books with a wider outlook are now being produced. At present children may get the impression, e.g., that Ireland alone passed through the phase of petty kingdoms and internecine strife, that it alone suffered from foreign invasion, that the Norse invasions were prompted by sheer wickedness and resulted in nothing but suffering and loss and so on. Local ruins, raths, etc., are generally utilised with good effect in arousing interest in the past. There is not, however, much evidence of attention to heroic tales of folk-lore.

The Report continues on page 60:—

The formal teaching of history is now confined to the senior standards whereas there was formerly a definite course provided for several lower standards.... Teachers also who give quite good lessons are not sufficiently discriminative in their selection of the portions of history treated and sometimes the legendary stories of the early invasions receive undue attention, while the history of the last 130 years is insufficiently dealt with. But after allowing for these defects in matter and method it must be allowed that there is much sound teaching of the facts of history, and that most teachers prepare less or more satisfactory schemes of a general course in Irish history.

I do not want to overlook mentioning that, because it is only fair to the teachers.

One great difficulty in teaching history satisfactorily is the little time that can be given to it in most schools, one hour per week in fifth and higher standards, whereas in Continental schools the curriculum of elementary schools provides for a course of two hours per week for four or five years.

Little has been done in the matter of introducing folk-lore as a cultural element into our schools. The teachers whose own education was divorced from all traditional culture do not understand what they should do in the matter.

I move to report progress.

The Dáil went out of Committee.

Progress reported.

The Dáil adjourned at 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 27th May.