FROM THE ARCHIVES:The battle raging at the end of the 19th century for religious control of primary schools was explained in this article.
FOR MANY years past it has been evident that the system of Irish National Education established in 1831 is being gradually undermined. The arrangement made in that year provided that secular education in the National Schools should be given to all children alike, and that religious education should be imparted at fixed times by the clergy or teachers of the various persuasions.
But, as years have gone by, the religious teachers have become discontented with their facilities for giving religious instruction, and a movement has been set on foot to give the National Schools a religious flavour according as the majority of the pupils is Church of Ireland, Roman Catholic, or Presbyterian.
The attitude of the Government has always been that children should be efficiently taught in State schools, and should receive religious education only from pastors or teachers of their own persuasion . . .
The more strenuous supporters of the different creeds are not content. They desire a complete separation between Protestant and Catholic children in the matter of education and wish to have entire control of the instruction of the children of their own faith. The conflict in Ireland is therefore, in the main, one between those who wish for denominational schools and those who do not . . .
The present controversy was opened by the demand of the Christian Brothers that they should be treated as National schools and this demand was put forward by Mr. Sexton [Nationalist MP] in June 1892, in the House of Commons.
Mr. Jackson consulted the National Board on the matter and . . . they proposed to repeal the conscience clause, as regard the Christian Brothers’ schools, and to exclude every non-Catholic child from the advantages of the non- religious education given in them.
The dangers in which such a system would involve a minority of Protestants are very obvious. They would be excluded in some cases from the only attainable schools in their neighbourhood, and if their place of residence were thinly populated it might not be possible to find a substitute.
This is, however, a practical consideration; it is not so important as the criticism of principle brought forward by the Moderate Party in Ireland. They show that the new rules would abolish at one stroke the system of undenominational primary education which existed in the Irish National schools, and open the way to a keen competition between Roman Catholics and Protestants for the children who are to be educated.
The Roman Catholics and the more ardent Protestants both hope that they would be able to make converts under such a system, and unfortunately many of the too zealous members of the Church of Ireland have attached to the possibility of isolated conversions an importance far greater than it really possesses.
If the Commissioners will only give these eager Protestants a free hand they are prepared to let the Christian Brothers’ Schools be treated as State Schools.