What's The Matter With Ireland? Part 2

William Brady has a twelve-hour day in Dublin. He's out in the morning at 5:30 to deliver papers. He's at school until three. He runs errands for the sweet shop till seven.

"You get too tired for school work. How does your teacher like that?"

"Ash! She can't do anything."

Intuitively he knows that he can protect himself behind the fortress of words in the school attendance act: "A person shall not be deemed to have taken a child into his employment in contravention of this act if it is proved that the employment by reason of being during the hours when school is not in session does not interfere with the efficient elementary instruction of the child."[20]

Nine-year-old Patrick Gallagher may go to the Letterkenny Hiring Fair and sell his baby services to a farmer. Some one may say to Paddy:

"Why aren't you at school?"

"Surely, I live over two miles away from school."

The law thinks two miles are too far for him to walk. So he may be hired to work instead. Reads the education act: "A person shall not be deemed to have taken a child into his employment in contravention of this act if it is proved to the satisfaction of the court that during the employment there is not within two miles ... from the residence of the child any ... school which the child can attend."[21]

Incidentally England does not encourage Irish education. England does not provide enough money to erect the best schools nor to attract the best teachers. But England agreed to an Irish education grant.[22] She established a central board of education in Ireland, and promised that through this board she would pay two-thirds of the school building bill and teachers' salaries to any one who was zealous enough to erect a school.

Does England come through with the funds? Not, says the vice-regal committee, unless she feels like it. In 1900 she agreed with Ireland that Ireland's teachers should be paid higher salaries, but stipulated that the increase in salaries would not mean an immediate increase in grants.

New building grants were suspended altogether for a time. In 1902, an annual grant of 185,000 was diverted from Irish primary education and used for quite extraneous purposes. And when England does give money for Irish education, she pays no heed to the requirements stated by the Irish commissioners of education.[23] Instead she says: "This amount I happen to be giving to English education; I will grant a proportionate amount to Irish education."

"If English primary education happens to require financial aid from the Treasury, Irish primary education is to get some and in proportion thereto," writes the committee. "If England happens not to require any, then, of course, neither does Ireland. A starving man is to be fed only if some one else is hungry.... It seems to us extraordinary that Irish primary education should be financed on lines that have little relation to the needs of the case."[24]

So there are not enough schools to go to. Belfast teachers testified before the committee that in their city alone there were 15,000 children without school accommodations. Some of the number are on the streets. Others are packed into educational holes of Calcutta. New schools, said the teachers, are needed not only for these pupils but also for those incarcerated in unsuitable schools--unheated schools or schools in whose dark rooms gas must burn daily. On the point of unsuitability, the testimony of a special investigator named F.H. Dale was quoted. He said:

"I have no hesitation in reporting that both in point of convenience for teachers and in the requirements necessary for the health of teachers and scholars, the average school buildings in Dublin and Belfast are markedly inferior to the average school buildings now in use in English cities of corresponding size."

So if unsuitable schools were removed, Belfast would have to provide for some thousands of school children beyond the estimate of 15,000, and other localities according to their similar great need.[25]

Live, interesting primary teachers are few in Ireland. The low pay does not begin to compensate Irish school teachers for the great sacrifices they must make. Women teachers in Ireland begin at $405 a year; men at $500. If it were not for the fact that there are very few openings for educated young men and women in a grazing country there would probably be even greater scarcity.[26] Since three-fourths of the schools are rural those who determine to teach must resign themselves to social and professional hermitage. What is the result of these factors on the teaching morale? The 1918 report at the education office shows 13,258 teachers, and only 3,820 of these are marked highly efficient.[27]

Thus the committee of the lord lieutenant.

[Footnote 1: "Ireland's Crusade Against Tuberculosis." Edited by Countess of Aberdeen. Maunsel and Company. Dublin. 1908. P. 32.]

[Footnote 2: "Marriages, Births, and Deaths in Ireland, 1917." His Majesty's Stationery Office. Dublin. 1918. P. IX.]

[Footnote 3: "Ireland's Crusade Against Tuberculosis." P. 34-35.]

[Footnote 4: "Report of Chief Tuberculosis Officer of Belfast for the Three Years Ended 31 March, 1917." Hugh Adair. Belfast. 1917. P. 25.]

[Footnote 5: "Appendix Report Housing Conditions of Dublin." Alex Thorn.

Dublin. 1914. P. 154.]

[Footnote 6: "First Annual Report P.F. Collier Memorial Dispensary."

Dollard. Dublin. 1913. P. 24.]

[Footnote 7: "Starvation in Dublin." By Lionel Gordon-Smith and Cruise O'Brien. Wood Printing Works. Dublin. 1917. P. 14.]

[Footnote 8: "The Poor in Dublin." Pamphlet. St. Vincent de Paul Society.]

[Footnote 9: "How Local Milk Depots in Ireland Are Worked." Dollard.

Dublin. 1915. P. 3-15.]

[Footnote 10: "Second Annual Report of the Woman's National Health a.s.sociation." Waller and Company. Dublin. 1909. P. 143.]

[Footnote 11: "Supplement Fifty-fourth Report Inspectors of Lunacy." Alex Thorn. Dublin. 1906. P. VII.]

[Footnote 12: _Ibid_. P. XXVII.]

[Footnote 13: "Sixty-second Annual Report of the Registrar General for Scotland, 1916." His Majesty's Stationery Office. Edinburgh. 1918. P.

LXVII.]

[Footnote 14: "Marriages, Births, and Deaths in Ireland, 1917." P. XII.]

[Footnote 15: "Supplement Fifty-fourth Report Inspectors of Lunacy." P.

x.x.xII.]

[Footnote 16: "The Woman's National Health a.s.sociation and Infant Welfare."

The Child. June, 1911. P. 10.]

[Footnote 17: Figures supplied by H.C. Ferguson, Superintendent of Charity Organization Society, Belfast, 1919.]

[Footnote 18: "Irish Education Act, 1892." (55 & 56 Vict.) Chap. 42. P. 1.]

[Footnote 19: _Ibid_. P. 1.]

[Footnote 20: _Ibid_. P. 4.]

[Footnote 21: _Ibid_. P. 3.]

[Footnote 22: _Ibid_. P. 8 et al.]

[Footnote 23. "Vice-regal Committee of Enquiry into Primary Education, Ireland, 1918." His Majesty's Stationery Office. Dublin. 1919. P. 22.]

[Footnote 24: _Ibid_. P. 22.]

[Footnote 25: _Ibid_. Martin Reservation. P. 27-30.]

[Footnote 26: _Ibid_. P. 8.]

[Footnote 27: _Ibid_. P. 39.]

II

SINN FEIN AND REVOLUTION