1811. They seem comparatively to have done nothing. The fourteenth report of the commissioners of education gives some details which will go to show a very considerable increase both of schools and scholars since that period. In 1811 the commissioners state, that the gross number of schools throughout Ireland, amounted to about 4600, attended by about 200,000 children, and that an increase had taken place, from that year to the year 1824, the date of the report, of 7223 schools, and 360,000 scholars. The details of this comparison will place the fact in a still stronger point of view:

This may appear a very flattering portrait of the rapid improvement in the diffusion of education, principally among the poorer classes, during so short a period as thirteen years; but in 1826, the Commissioners of education, after a very attentive examination, recommended the withdrawing of the grants from these very societies, that is, from the Society for discountenancing Vice, and from the Lord Lieutenant's fund, &c. The London Hibernian Society, by the confession of many of its own members, Messrs. Pringle,

Gordon, &c. was convicted of employing education merely as an instrument of proselytism; and the Kildare Place Society, which had set out with such large professions of liberalism, was demonstrated to have acted in a manner very inconsistent with the avowed objects of its institution, and to have been totally inadequate to the purposes for which it originally had been set up. The zeal with which the Catholics (and the priesthood not less than the laity) had offered their cooperation at the outset, was totally misconstrued, and finally abused. The Bible was introduced, without note or comment, contrary to the preliminary understanding between both parties, and the consequences were such as might have been apprehended, a total disruption of the amicable relations which previously subsisted, and a want of confidence and cordiality, without which, in a country so divided as Ireland, it is quite evident every plan of national education must utterly fail. * These views very strongly impressed themselves upon the Com

* The late Primate of all Ireland (Dr. Stuart), the Archbishop of Dublin (Dr. Magee), Dr. Jebb, Dr. Mant, and many others of the most learned prelates in either persuasion, have stated it as their opinion, that note and comment are absolutely essential to the right understanding of the sacred volume. The following table, though by no means offered as a proof that an indiscriminate reading of the Bible encourages crime, is sufficient evidence that it has not done very much to prevent it.

In the seven years preceding the exertions made for
the diffusion of the Bible, the committals of Eng-

missioners, and as the result of much patient and impartial research into the deficiencies and vices of preceding and existing systems, they ventured to suggest with a view to their correction, and with due reference to the existing state of the country, such a system of national education for the lower classes, in lieu of all those actually in use, as might embrace both moral and religious instruction, and at the same time sufficiently respect the several prejudices of all classes in the community. They proposed a united system of education, where the children of all religious persuasions might be educated together, from which if possible all suspicion should be banished, and every ground of political or religious distrust should be as much as possible removed. Under such a system, it was to be hoped that the children would gradually imbibe similar ideas and form congenial habits, and would gradually lose that distinctness of feeling and separation of interests, which had been found by experience to have been one of the fertile principles of the miseries of Ireland, and the chief cause of the divisions and animosities of her children. The Catholic prelacy evinced on the occasion a becoming anxiety to meet the proposition half way; and in their synod held at Dublin January 21, 1826, they came unanimously to the following important resolutions.

These resolutions were subsequently transmitted, January 23d, by Dr. Murray to Lord Killeen, for the purpose of being laid before the Catholic Association, and met on their being presented their unanimous approbation.

RESOLUTIONS OF THE ARCHBISHOPS AND

BISHOPS OF IRELAND.

At a meeting of the Archbishops and Bishops of the Roman Catholic church in Ireland, held in Dublin on the 21st January 1826, the following resolutions on the subject of National Education were unanimously adopted :

1. That the admission of Protestants and Roman Catholics into the same schools, for the purpose of literary instruction, may, under existing circumstances, be allowed, provided sufficient care be taken to protect the religion of the Roman Catholic children, and to furnish them with adequate means of religious instruction.

2. That in order to secure sufficient protection to the religion of the Roman Catholic children, under such a system of education, we deem it necessary, that the master of each school in which the majority of the pupils profess the Roman Catholic faith, be a Roman Catholic; and that, in schools in which the Roman Catholic children form only a minority, a permanent Roman Catholic assistant be employed; and that such master and assistant be appointed upon the recommendation or with the express approval of the Roman Catholic bishops of the diocese in which they are to be employed ; and further, that they or either of them be removed, upon the representation of such bishops: the same rule to be observed for the appointment or dismissal of mistresses and assistants in female schools,

3. That we consider it improper that masters and mistresses intended for the religious instruction of Roman Catholic youth, should be trained or educated by or under the control of persons professing a different faith; and that we conceive it most desirable, that a male and female model school shall be established in each province in Ireland, to be supported at the public expense, for the purpose of qualifying such masters and mistresses for the important duties which they shall be appointed to discharge.

4. That in conformity with the principle of protecting the religion of Roman Catholic children, the books intended for their particular instruction in religion shall be selected or approved by the Roman Catholic prelates; and that no book or tract of common instruction in literature shall be introduced into any school in which Roman Catholic children are educated, which book or tract may be objected to, on religious grounds, by the Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese in which such school is established.

5. That a transfer of the property in several schools which now exist or may hereafter exist in Ireland, may be utterly impracticable from the nature of the tenure by which they are or may hereafter be held, and from the number of persons having a legal interest in them, as well as from a variety of other causes; and that, in our opinion, any regulation which should require such transfer to be made, as a necessary condition for receiving parliamentary support, would operate to the exclusion of many useful schools from all participation in the public bounty.