Ir is now some time since we called the attention of our readers to the state and progress of education in Ireland. We have not been inattentive to the consideration of that state, as the records of our religious intelligence will prove; and viewing it as one, and the principal of the elements that must be mixed for the religious reformation of our country, we have regarded it with intense interest. In the rising youth, to whom a merciful providence has awarded a better education than to former generations-we see the materiel of a regenerated and reformed people, and as they enjoy the power of reading, so will they, we trust, value the possession of the sacred Scriptures. The very excitement, which for political purposes, has been produced by the unprincipled demagogues that have endeavoured to pervert the peasantry, will encrease the difficulty of restraining them to mere passive acquiescence under former systems, and by the time they can take a part in the business of life, there will remain nothing, we trust, of the excitement but its independance and its energies. But it is not only the young that are interested and benefited by education: even adults are themselves the recipients of its advantages, which are not confined to the school or to the class, but distribute themselves through the land. Not only is the child "trained up in the way he should go," but that way becomes familiar to the adult; the lesson received at the school becomes the domestic conversation and the domestic lecture, and a land of schools and of Bibles must be a land of mental excitement and free thoughts, It is on such grounds that we more especially rejoice to find education in its best and truest sense prospering in our country; not that spurious species which, assuming the name of instruction, inculcates no principle but what exalts the priest, and degrades the people; nor that which, providing food for the understanding, refuses to pour in, what alone can render the mental aliment nu

VOL. VIII.

21

tritious, and would make man an agent or an instrument in life, without presenting him with the only means by which he can pass with safety through its dangers.

We have been led into this train of thought by the perusal of a letter* addressed to the Earl of Roden, by Mr. Glassford, one of the members of the late commission of Education Enquiry. He is not the first member of that Commission who has favoured the public with his sentiments on public matters, and we could wish that the other gentleman to whom we allude, had as usefully employed his experience and his information. To Mr. Glassford this pamphlet is not the first obligation for which the Irish public is indebted; to his presence on the commission, in connexion with Mr. Foster, we owe the best and most valuable part of the information that their reports contain, and Protestantism enjoys the fullest development of the Popish system in all its plain and practical bearing. This short pamphlet is worthy of the mind and feeling that took part in the important examinations of that Commission, and proves, what indeed is apparent from the last admirable letter addressed jointly by Mr. Glassford and Mr. Foster to the Secretary, that the Protestant public judged, perhaps too harshly, of some of the persons who signed the first report of the Commissioners, while their judgment upon the report itself was substantially correct. The pamphlet before us is an admirable one; written with the coolness and good sense that characterize his nation, with the independent feelings of a gentleman and a scholar, and the warm and energetic, but not obtrusive display of a deeply devotional spirit; it advocates the extension of Scriptural education, points out the fallacy of compromise and concession on this subject, and exposes the pseudo liberality that would permit the evasion of a solemn duty by the hackneyed excuses of expediency and situation. Mr. Glassford is no theorist; he has been enabled to judge from facts, frequently elicited by legal compulsion, and he has employed these facts well, as the substrata of his reasoning; while coming from a country where education has been tried, both on the members of Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches, and being removed from the unsteady atmosphere of national politics that encompasses and bewilders our judgment, his opinion is entitled to great respect as being that of an attentive, an informed, and a Christian observer. There are few of his conclusions with which we do not concur, and those from which we differ most, we can ascribe to the mild and candid character of his judgment.

On Mr. Glassford's politics we can venture no opinion; his readers will judge of them, as their preconceived feelings may dictate; but we think all must agree, that whether his views are correct or otherwise, they are proposed with a diffidence suitable to the im

Letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of Roden on the present state of Popular Education in Ireland, By James Glassford, Esq, London, Nisbet 1829.

He

portance and difficulty of the question, and urged in a spirit of mildness and candour, that is as rare as it is pleasing, to discover in political discussion. Mr. Glassford is an emancipationist, and one of a very liberal character; proving, that it is possible for those sentiments to be held in conjunction with deeply pious feelings, and a just and deep reverence for the constituted order of things. regards the removal of civil disabilities as tending to a separation of the aristocracy from the agitator and the priests, and as likely to remove or lessen the prejudices that now check the free course of education. The justice of that sentiment it is not our province to consider, and we have adverted to it, only to express our regret that the estimable author should have injured the extensive reception of his letter in this country, by mixing up with his other observations, opinions not essentially connected with them, and unpalatable, we apprehend, to many of those who would warmly concur in every other sentiment contained in his pages. The political state of Ireland, is indeed so commingled with its moral and religious, that it is scarcely possible to consider one, without adverting to the other; still we cannot but regret, that in so excellent and useful an essay, any thing should be found that might justify even the most determined politician in rejecting the important truths that it contains, because he has imbibed opinions contrary to the political creed of its author. With this exception, we hope every friend of Ireland will read and approve of Mr. Glassford's opinions.

Among the singular circumstances connected with Ireland, the rapid encrease of schools and scholars, is not the least remarkable. A country, the mass of whose population was Roman Catholic, and which had been comparatively neglected by the legislature, has yet, by the exertions of benevolent individuals and the buoyancy of the Irish character, in less than thirteen years more than treble its schools and scholars, and if the quality of the former be taken into account, the improvement is rendered still more remarkable.

"According to the Report of the Commissioners of Education in 1811, the total number of Schools was then about 5,600, containing 200,000 scholars. In 1821, if we may judge from the statements which accompany the population returns, the number of scholars had increased to 394,813. This latter enumeration could not of course be made with an official enquiry, confined to one specific purpose. From the returns which were made to the late Commissioners of Education Enquiry, in 1824, it appeared that the number of schools was then 11,123, and the number of scholar 560,549. In this latter enumeration, the most complete hitherto made, the Sunday Schools are not included; as a large proportion of the scholars attending these, but to what extent could not well be ascertained, are also in attendance on some of the common or weekly schools. After every allowance, however, for this duplicate attendance, as it may be called, a considerable addition must be made, even to the large number above-mentioned, on account of those children who receive instruction at the Sunday Schools, and do not attend elsewhere.⚫

The following are some of the other results appearing from these returns : Among the scholars, Protestant children are in the proportion of nearly one to three

Now let it be remarked, too, that this statement of attendance by Roman Catholics on Protestant Schools as they are called, though so large, falls very far short of the truth; Mr. Glassford asserts, that not only did the Roman Catholic priests use every exertion to exhibit a large attendance at their own schools, and to decrease that at Protestant; but

"On the other hand, considerable exertion had been made to open new schools under superintendence of the Roman Catholic clergy, or to re-inforce those which had previously existed. In the schools attached, and in others patronised by the Roman Catholic laity, it was evident that many very young children, in addition to those drawn from the Protestaut schools, had been collected for a time, who were not regularly entered in the rolls of the school, and were in some cases of an age which made it altogether impossible that they should derive any real benefit from that attendance. These must necessarily have been withdrawn when the immediate occasion was past,"

We

On such a subject Mr. Glassford's authority is decisive, and that admitted, what a view of the practical working of the system is presented which could thus sacrifice truth and honesty to serve a purpose, and seek to consecrate fraud by employing in its service the ministers of religion. were not a little surprised to find, that Ireland will bear a comparison with most other countries in the extent and diffusion of education.* If so, how defective must be the education given in many of the schools, and how neutralised subsequently the instruction of all; and how imperiously are we called on, not to diminish our exertions, but to improve our system by giving more assiduously the scriptural view and sanction of duty. Ireland, even before the Societies began to operate on its population, had a great deal of what may be termed, education. Reading, and even writing, acquired at hedge schools, were not uncommon, while the result so far from tending to diminish the low and degraded state of manners and demoralization, seemed to have only given additional energy to law

Roman Catholics. Presbyterians about one half the number of the Established Church. The Roman Catholic children every where predominate, even in the most Protestant schools, and even in Ulster, the most Protestant province. The number of schools is nearly equal in the three provinces of Ulster, Leinster, and Munster. Of the Protestant Societies, the schools of the Association contained about 9,000 scholars. Those of the Kildare Street Society, from 57,000 to 58,000; those of the London Hibernian Society, from 37,000 to 38,000; of the Baptist Society, from 2,000 to 4,000; other Societies, about 7,000 in all. Of the Roman Catholic establishments, the schools of the Christian Brotherhood contained from 5,000 to 6,000; the Nunnery Schools, from 7,000 to 8,000; the day schools of Roman Catholic patrons, from 33,000 to 34,000. The common pay schools of every description, contained about 400,000. The number of Protestant Sunday Schools, was about 1,600, containing about 150,000 scholars, and were chiefly seated in Ulster. Of Roman Catholic Sunday or Chapel Schools, the number did not distinctly appear. Schools supported entirely by local patrons contained above 13,000; those partly supported by patrons, and partly from other funds, contained above 138,000. The Scriptures were read in 6,000 schools, chiefly seated in Ulster, and of that number, the authorized version in 4,400,

In France the average attending schools is about a thirtieth—in Ireland it is a twelfth of the whole population

less violence.
from literature;-but we are anticipating.

What a lesson to those who would divorce religion

The education of Ireland is at present in the hands of benevolent societies that are employed in extending scriptural knowledge, and of the Roman Catholic clergy. The schools that are supported by local patrons, are usually attached to either of these parties; or if not, are too few in number to form a very important element in the calculation. Of the latter class of seminaries and their patrops, Mr. Glassford, than whom no one can form a sounder judgment, thus speaks :

"I may observe, in the first place, that the instruction given in the Roman Catholic schools, properly so called, is imperfect, not only for reasons common to other institutions, but because in them the instruction appears to be subjected intentionally to restriction and limitation.

"It is often and truly said, that the members of the Roman Catholic priesthood and church are not only willing, but desirous that their people should be educated. For it is a principle of Roman Catholic doctrine and discipline, that the spiritual su perior is the competent and sole judge, not only of the kind, but the quantity of instruction which will be useful to his flock. It is also a doctrine of his church, and it is a doctrine of every church, though it does not in the Protestant churches lead to the same result and consequences, that any instruction which would naturally lead to a subversion of her tenets of religious faith, ought, as pregnant with danger, to be discouraged, and that the people themselves are not competent to this question, or entitled to exercise their private judgment respecting it. When it is averred, therefore, that the priesthood are anxious to promote education, we must understand that they are anxious to give that education which shall train up and confirm their people in the Roman Catholic faith; but it is a fallacy to say, that they are consequently willing to give that measure of general instruction which is freely afforded in a Protestant country, which opens up the sources of knowledge, and by a wide survey of human events, and the opinions of mankind, enlarges the understanding, and matures the judgment.

"It is a rule of the Roman Catholic Church not to separate the civil from the religious education of her people, but to consider them as one object; and to commit to her clergy, as far as possible, the care and direction of both. The principle is good in itself; for no Christian society can consistently hold, that the civil education of the people should be separated from the foundation of Christian faith and doctrine.

"But while the conscientious Protestant must thus agree with the Roman Catho lic, in combining religious with literary tuition, the care which he will employ for this purpose is, I conceive, altogether of a different nature from that solicitude which the Roman Catholic Church evinces. One is careful not to give too much information, the other is afraid of not giving enough. In the latter case, the apprehension is devoid of that jealousy and fear, which would not only connect religion with letters, lest it should endanger the religious faith.

"With regard to numbers, although the members of the Church of Rome form so very large a part of the Irish population, the schools established and encouraged by the clergy of that church have comparatively few. Many of the schools, founded or assisted by the Romish clergy, have been comparatively of recent establishment, and less the result of their voluntary efforts, than of the necessity which was imposed upon them by the previous exertions of other classes, and for the purpose of supplanting the schools of Protestant patrons,