The following tables summarize the principal statistics of the national elementary schools for the years named: The elementary schools are classified with respect to religious denomination as unmixed, i. e., attended by Roman Catholic children exclusively or by Protestant children exclusively, and mixed schools, which are attended by Roman Catholic and Protestant children. The tendency to diminish the number of mixed schools is indicated by the percentages of such schools at different dates, as follows: Number and classification of teachers in 1887 and in 1903. The payment of pensions for national school teachers was provided for in 1879 by an act of Parliament. Expenditure on schools and teaching staffs.-According to the report of the commissioners for the year ending December 31, 1903, the aggregate annual expenditure on the schools from all sources, including Parliamentary grant, school fees, and local subscriptions, amounted to £1,287,963 9s. 11d., as shown in the following table. This would give an average of £2 13s. 114d. for each child in average daily attendance during the year. Total annual income of schools from all sources. 1, 287, 963 9.11 Rate per pupil from (a) state grants- Rate per pupil from all sources. 2 10 S 0 3 3 2 13 111 In addition to the expenditure for the maintenance of the schools, as above stated, the sum of £25,303 11s. 7d. was paid out of rate for board of public works for buildings, repairs, etc., of vested schools, and £29.347 2s. 9d. contributed from local sources toward the erection of new buildings, etc. Grants are made to evening schools in which instruction in the subjects of the day school programmes may be given to persons over 18 years of age and to children unable to attend day schools. There are now upward of 1,300 evening schools, with about 26,000 pupils, and the state expenditure upon these has come to over £20,000 in one year, according to latest returns. Secondary and technical education.-An intermediate education board was established in 1878 for the examination of intermediate or secondary pupils. In 1902 the number of candidates for examination was 8,379 (6,087 boys and 2,292 girls), as compared with 9,073 in 1898 and 6,952 in 1881. There was paid to the managers of the schools the sum of $287,565 (£57,513) on the results of the examination. The annual income of the intermediate education board is made up of the interest on a Government fund of £1,000,000, placed at the disposal of the board, which yielded in 1903 interest amounting to £27,500 ($137,500), and a sum from the Irish share of the customs and excise duties, which averages about £50,000 ($250,000) annually. Technical instruction in Ireland is controlled by the department of agriculture and technical instruction, which has an advisory board of technical instruction. The income of the department consists of an annual appropriation of £166,000 and the interest on an original endowment of £205,000. The department aims at the coordination of its work with that of other educational authorities, and in 1901-2 its programme of experimental science was adopted in 152 secondary schools, with 6,412 science pupils. Central institutions under the department are the Royal College of Science. Dublin, and the Metropolitan School of Art, the former of which is being, and the latter is about to be, reorganized. Throughout Ireland technical instruction is being organized under the councils of county boroughs, urban districts, and counties. In Dublin and Belfast in 1902 there were upward of 4,000 students attending the technical schools of the councils. The department is required to appropriate £55,000 annually for technical education. Of this amount £25,000 is allotted to county boroughs and £30,000 for similar purposes elsewhere, the equivalent grants being continued for three years to institutions which had formerly received them. Proposed reform of the national system of education.--The national system of education briefly outlined above is not satisfactory to the Irish people themselves nor to the Government. The mere fact that the system is not of indigenous origin deprives it of the hearty support of the people, and it is now clearly recognized by those in authority that radical changes are needed to adapt it to existing conditions and modern demands. Under this conviction the English Government has recently ordered special investigations of the various divisions of the work. In 1901 a corps of special inspectors was appointed to investigate and report upon the schools aided by the intermediate education board of Ireland. The report of this commission gives detailed information with respect to the schools specified and offers suggestions as to needed improvements. In 1904 a special investigation of the elementary schools of Ireland was ordered by the Government and the task committed to Mr. F. H. Dale, His Majesty's inspector of schools, under the board of education. Mr. Dale was instructed in particular to report how the “typical Irish elementary day schools compared with similarly circumstanced public elementary schools in England as regards premises, equipment, staffing, and instruction, and to what causes deficiencies in economy appear to be chiefly due." The investigation as thus outlined was carried out very thoroughly and systematically, and Mr. Dale's report gives full information upon all the points specified. The emphasis placed upon the comparison between Irish and English schools indicates very clearly the intention of the Government to raise the former to full equality with the latter. At present, as Mr. Dale's report makes clear, the Irish town schools are inferior to the English in respect to all the particulars named, excepting only the qualifications of the teachers themselves. Here Ireland has an advantage over England in the requirement that the head teacher of every school should be trained; furthermore, only adult teachers are recognized in Ireland as part of the school staff. The Irish monitors, unlike the English pupil teachers, have no responsibility with respect either to teaching or discipline. Until a very recent date the salaries of Irish teachers were inferior to those of their English confrères, but recent regulations have improved the financial condition of the former. The greatest drawback to the efficiency of the Irish system is declared by Mr. Dale to be the failure to devolve any financial responsibility on the locality, or to provide sufficient inducement to persons of position and education to take part in the work of school management. It is noticeable that a remedy for this evil suggested by Mr. Dale is in the line of the recent reform of school administration in England. In order to create wider local interest in the schools he advises that they be grouped "under some responsible authority to which the distribution of the state grant could be intrusted subject to supervision by the central office." The "model schools," which form so marked a feature of the national system in Ireland, are not, according to Mr. Dale, fulfilling the purpose indicated by their title. In his opinion these schools might, however, be developed on the same plan as the higher elementary schools of England, and thus meet the urgent demand for the means of prolonging the education of pupils who are able to continue their studies up to about 16 years of age. It is evident from the two investigations above referred to that many essentials of a comprehensive system of public education have already been provided in Ireland, but in their present form they lack coordination, efficient direction, and unified purpose. Mr. Dale lays special stress upon the need of the “closest cooperation between the boards of national, intermediate, and technical education, respectively." On account of the absence of any local educational authority in Ireland, "it appears to be specially necessary," he says, "that the proceedings of any one of the central boards should be conducted with constant reference to the possibility of satisfying, without damage to its own aims, the needs of the other branch of education.” The problem of educational administration in Ireland has thus, it appears, reached the same stage as the corresponding problem in England and in Scotland. So far no measure has been advised for the needed unification and reform of the Irish system, but events indicate speedy action in this respect. Higher education.-The oldest institution for superior instruction in the island is the University of Dublin (Trinity College), chartered by Queen Elizabeth. Besides the arts faculty, schools of law, divinity, medicine, and engineering are comprised in this foundation. Roman Catholics were not permitted to take degrees in the university until 1793, when the disability was removed by an act of Parliament. Eighty years passed before they were allowed recognition in the election for fellowships or for scholarships on the foundation of the college. Meanwhile, in 1854, a class of nonfoundation scholarships was established which were not restricted to any religious denomination. The final abolition of tests," excepting in the case of professors and lecturers in the faculty of theology, was accomplished by act of Parliament in 1873, through the direct efforts of Mr. Fawcett, at that time postmaster-general. It is needless to say that Dublin University enjoys a prestige which even those who have suffered from its intolerance in the past recognize with pride. 66 Until 1850 the University of Dublin was the only body in Ireland authorized by law to confer degrees. In 1849 three institutions, called Queen's Colleges, were established by the Government at Cork. Belfast, and Galway, respectively, for the avowed purpose of maintaining purely secular instruction. In pursuance of this purpose the colleges were organized with faculties of arts, engineering, law, and medicine, theology being excluded. Parliament voted the money for buildings and equipment, and an annual appropriation of £7,000 ($34,000) for each foundation. In the following year the work was completed by the creation of the Queen's University in Ireland, empowered to conduct degree examinations for the students of the Queen's Colleges. In 1879 this foundation was abolished and the Royal University created in its place. The examinations and degrees of this university are open to all candidates, women included. Alexandra College, founded in 1866 for the higher education of women, prepares women for the degree examinations. The fellows of the Royal University may be required to teach matriculated students of the university in educational institutions approved by the senate. The following are the approved institutions: Queen's College, Belfast; Queen's College, Cork; Queen's College, Galway; Catholic University College, Dublin (now known as the University College, Dublin); Magee Presbyterian College, Londonderry. There are two other important institutions concerned with higher education in Ireland, namely, the Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical College of St. Patrick, Maynooth, and the Royal College of Science, in Dublin, The Catholic majority have for many years complained that the existing university system does not make satisfactory provision for the higher education of Catholics, and a royal commission was recently appointed to inquire into the present condition of the higher, general, and technical education available in Ireland outside Trinity College, Dublin, and to report as to what reforms, if any, are desirable in order to render that education adequate to the needs of the Irish people. No further action has as yet been taken by the Government, but the report of the commission, which advocated full university advantages for women, gave a new impetus to the efforts for admitting women to Trinity College. These efforts were brought to successful issue the present year when the board of Trinity College passed a resolution, subsequently sanctioned by the King, which admits women to all degrees of Trinity College in arts and in medicine on the same terms as men. INVESTIGATIONS RELATING TO PHYSICAL TRAINING AND PHYSICAL DETERIORATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. Problems of school administration which for more than a decade have absorbed public attention in Great Britain to the neglect of other educational interests having been disposed of for the time at least, questions pertaining to the improvement of the young are now exciting chief interest. Among these questions that of the physical condition of the children of the masses has been uppermost during the current year. A royal commission on physical training in Scotland, appointed in 1902, produced startling evidence of the low physical condition of school children in the classes where food is scanty and the living conditions generally bad. The report of the commission is convincing on this point because of the extent and thoroughness of its investigations. Not less than 1,200 children (i. e., 600 in Edinburgh and 600 in Aberdeen) were examined by two well-known physicians— Dr. Matthew Hay, professor of forensic medicine, University of Aberdeen, medical officer of health, Aberdeen, and Dr. W. Leslie Mackenzie, medical inspector for the local government board of Scotland. In order to insure that the children examined should represent fairly the different social grades of the population, schools were selected "from the poorest and most crowded districts of each city, from the middle-class districts, and from the better-class districts." The examinations were undertaken with special reference to the fitness of the children for the physical exercises required in the school and the effects of those exercises upon the children, but incidentally the investigation showed also the relation between the physical condition of the children and their capacity for the ordinary school work. The superior capacity of the well-fed children over the underfed for effort of all kinds was conclusively proved. The conclusions reached by Doctor Mackenzie are thus summed up: "First. The large number of serious and minor diseases directly and indirectly affecting physical efficiency and mental efficiency constitutes an overwhelming case for a medical inspection of school children. “Second. The facts as to physical exercise at the various schools demonstrate that a primary condition of any good result from increased physical training is adequate food and adequate clothing. "Third. No systematic exercise ought to be practiced or enforced without a preliminary medical examination of the vital organs, to insure that irreparable damage shall not result. Fourth. That exercises should be organized, not as at present according to the code standard in which the child is studying, but strictly in accordance with health, physical development, and vigor." As a result of the report of the investigation of the commission on physical training a committee was appointed by the education department of Scotland to investigate the systems of physical training in use in schools and to draw up a "model course of physical exercises” suitable for children of school age. The outcome of the work of this committee is an extensive report a setting Report of the interdepartmental committee on the model course of physical exercises, 1904. |