SCHOOLS
576
SCHOOLS
education both primary and secondary, and the
Council is recognized by the Government as repre-
senting the Cathohcs of Enghmd in matters of Catho-
lic education. In fine, the conclusion presented by
the history of Catholic education in Great Britain is
that, in a "country where the conception of true free-
dom and the sense of equity prevails throughout the
mass of the nation, even a small minority with a
clearly just claim, however unpopular at the start,
will triumph in the long run, if it insists with resolu-
tion and perseverance in its just demands.
Levch, EnglUh Schools at the Reformation (London, 1896); BcRTOK, Life and Times of Bishop Challoner (London, 1909); Ward, Daxcn of Catholic Revival (London, 1909); Amherst, His- tory of Catholic Emancipation and Progress, 1771-1820 (London, 18S6); Lilly axd Wallis, Manual of the Law Specially Affect- ing Catholics (London, 1893); WAXaON, The English Grammar Schooh to 1660 (Cambridge, 1908); De Montmorency, State In- tervention in English Education (Cambridge, 1902).
Gr\hvm Balfour, Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 1903); Walton, A Retrospect in The Month (March, 1906) ; London Board of Education Reports; Lists of Pub- lie Elementary Schools (1910); Regulations for Training Elemen- tary Teachers (1909); List of Recognized Secondary Schools (1910); Report of Board of Education (1909-1910).
Reports of the Annual Conferences of Catholic Colleges (Birmmg- ham. 1907-10); Reports of Conferences of Catholic Young Men's Society (Liverpool, in recent years); articles in The Month and The Dublin Review (1905-1910).
Michael Maher.
In Ireland. — The history of Catholic education in Ireland in the period from the Reformation to Catholic Emancipation is to be considered rather the story of an heroic struggle than a record of a school system in any true sense, and it must be gleaned from all sorts of out-of-the-way sources, for the historian of the Catholic schools of that period has not yet arisen. From the Reformation to the Treaty of Limerick (1534-1691) records are very scanty, and though, in spite of the troubled state of the times, many Catholic schools managed to survive and to do good work, there was no such thing as an organized system of schools, nor would anything of the kind have been possible. Throughout the eighteenth century Catho- lic schools were repressed by the penal laws, one ob- ject of which was, according to Lecky, "to reduce the Catholics to a condition of the most extreme and brutal ignorance". The same author says: "The legi-slation on the subject of Cathohc education may be briefly described, for it amounted simply to uni- versal, unquaUfied and unlimited proscription". Keeping a school, or teaching in any capacity, even as usher or private tutor, was a penal offence, and a reward of £10 was offered for the discovery of a Popish schoolmaster. Notwithstanding the severity of these laws, the managers of the Charter Schools, when seeking aid from Parliament in 1709, found it necessary to c<jmplain of the great number of schools "under the tuition of Pcjpish masters" that were to be found in many parts of the country.
Fro.seiytizing Scheities. — The Government and the ascendancy party, while prohibiting CathoUc educa- tion, made several very ambitious though futile at- tempts to give a Protestant education to the children of the poor Irish Catholics through the agency of proselytizing schools. These schemes may be men- tioned here since they were meant for Catholics, though fortunately little used by them. An Act of Parliament of the reign of Henry VIII (1537) pre- scribed the erection of schools in every parish, but the Act remained almost a deaxl letter. In the reign of Elizabeth an Act was passed (1570) for the estab- lishment of diocesan free schools. Some schools were founded, and in the course of time the number was increa.sed, but they never realized the function indicated by their name of free schools; they became in the main ordinary grammar schools for the chil- dren of well-to-do Protestants. A scheme of Royal free schools was initiated by James I (1608) in con- nexion with the plantation of Ulster. Their story differs little from that of the other proselytizing
schools, but their endowments have not altogether
disappeared, and they were divided between Cath-
olics and Protestants under a scheme made by
the Educational Endowments Commission of 1887.
Passing over other more or less partial schemes, the
Charter schools, founded in response to an appeal
made by Boulter, the Protestant primate (1730), de-
mand a brief notice. Under the charter granted in
1733, a system of schools was begun which, by means
of agreements secured by a combination of fraud and
terror, took Catholic children from their parents and
homes and deported them to most distant parts of the
country. These schools became hotbeds of shameful
cruelty without a parallel in the history of public, or
probably even in that of private, education in any
land. Yet they were powerfully supported and re-
ceived large grants from the Irish Parliament, but
their downfall was brought about by the indignant
exposure of their callous inhumanity by John How-
ard, the philanthropist, who took occasion to investi-
gate their condition while he was engaged in an in-
quiry into the state of the prisons.
Ail these classes of schools were avowedly prosely- tizing, and as they were the only schools which could be openly established in the country in the eighteenth century, at any rate till towards its close, the educa- tion of Irish Catholics was confined to what could be done by the efforts of priests in their own districts, and by those of the "hedge" school-master, who with great devotion sought to keep alive the lamp of knowl- edge, though he knew that a price was on his head as on that of the priest. That these efforts were numer- ous and active is clear from the complaint of the trustees of the Charter schools in 1769, to which refer- ence has already been made. Moreover, in spite of the severe penalties prescribed by law, the practice of sending Irish youths to Continental countries to be educated was very common, and it appears from a re- turn made to Parliament that, at the time of the out- break of the French Revolution, there were no fewer than 478 Irish ecclesiastical students making their studies on the Continent. Towards the close of the eighteenth century the rigour with which the penal laws had hitherto been enforced was considerably relaxed, and the immediate result was an extraordi- nary growth of Catholic schools all over the country, but without any organic unity or definite system. By far the most important educational work of that period was the foundation of Maynooth College.
Christian Brothers. — In 1802 Edmund Ignatius Rice, of Waterford, began a work for Catholic educa- tion which has been the source of incalculable good. In that year the Irish Christian Brothers were founded, and in 1820 the Holy See extended to them the Brief of Benedict XIII by which the French Brothers were (established in 1725. The Christian Schools soon found their way into the chief centres of population in the southern half of the country, and at the present day they number 100 and have 29,840 pupils. All th(! Royal Commissions which have in- quired into the condition of education in Ireland have reported in terms of enthusiastic })raise on the sjjlen- did educational work done in the schools of the Chris- tian Brothers, and it is unnecessary to say that they hav(! been a tower of strength to the cause of religion.
National Schools. — The National schools, as they are callerl, were introduced in 1831, by a mo- tion of Mr. Stanley, chief secretary for Ireland, to place at the disposal of the Irish Government a grant for the purpose of providing combined literary and moral and sopar.Htc religious instruction for Irish chil- dren of all (Iciioiiiiiiations. The new system was at once attacked by the Presbyterians and very soon by the lOijiscopalian Protestants, but at first it was in the main sui)i)orte(l by t he (Catholics, though Dr. McIIale, Archbi.shop of Tuam, was a notable exception. The concessions made by the Commissioners of National
