“ Centralization is secured by an array of schoolmasters, trained under the Commissioners. No man can attain the rank of a first-class national schoolmaster who has not gone through a training in an establishment conducted after the most approved fashion of the Board—a training by which he becomes thoroughly indoctrinated in all the maxims of that fashion. He is not sent to a model school merely to see the best mode of arranging classes or maintaining the discipline of the school. ”

“ If it be wrong in Ireland to endow and aid a purely Roman Catholic school, it is equally so in England. The difference established between the two countries can neither be justified nor accounted for upon any rational principle. It fosters the belief in the mind of every Irishman that his country is treated as an inferior. In many Irishmen it promotes the belief that religious instruction, which is free in English schools, is placed under restriction in Ireland, because the faith of the majority of the Irish people is proscribed"— (p. xi.) ”

“ Unless, therefore, we set aside the evidence of the Pentateuch itself; unless we can believe that Jacob, in the decline of his life, suddenly snapped asunder the strongest ties of natural affection and of religious duty, we must admit that he brought down into Egypt a very large number of servants. We have seen that, according to the Divine command, their descendants would all receive the rite of circumcision, and be reckoned among the chosen people of God. They would, therefore, be numbered with those who, at the time of the Exodus, went out with Moses into the desert. ”

“ There is no nation on earth who cherish religious feelings with a more deep and enthusiastic devotion than do the Irish. They are the very last people among whom the experiment of an education, which excludes the fulness of religious teaching, should be tried. ”

“ Whilst the national system is beset by so many dangers, we cannot but be anxious that its character and tendencies should be accurately examined, and the objections to which it is liable fairly stated to the public. We are now happy to be able to say that all this has been done by a Protestant barrister, Mr. Isaac Butt, late M.P. for Youghal. This learned and eloquent gentleman has just published a treatise entitled The Liberty of Teaching Vindicated, in which he gives the history of the system of National Education, and discusses its merit. ”

“ These funds are administered on a plan opposed to the feelings of all creeds and all classes of the Irish nation. Ninety-nine out of every hundred Irishmen condemn it. There is not an Irish constituency from Bandon to Derry in which any man could be returned as an advocate of the national system, if the question were purely one of its approval or disapproval. There is not a parish in Ireland in which the inhabitants, if they had their choice, would adopt it as the system of their parish school. Right or wrong, the present system is one forced, by official coercion, on the Irish people. ”

“ It cannot be true, unless the members of each family married at the same age as the members of every other family, and unless this uniformity was continued from generation to generation for upwards of two centuries. This, however, would be contrary to what we know of the family of Abraham before the sojourn in Egypt; it would be contrary to what we know of the people of Israel after the sojourn in Egypt; it would be contrary to the testimony of all genealogical record; it would be contrary to what we see every day with our own eyes. One man has children born to him at the age of twenty ”

“ The first generation, according to Dr. Colenso, was composed of the fifty-one grandsons of Jacob. They were already grown up, and some of them even had children when they came into Egypt. Therefore the whole of the first generation was already in existence, and the second had begun to be born some years, let us say three, before the descent. If we add the 215 years of sojourn in Egypt, we shall have 218 years from the beginning of the second generation to the Exodus. Now, according to Dr. Colenso, all those who were twenty years of age at the Exodus, belonged to the fourth generation. ”

“ Most Holy Father, I protest, at the very beginning of my discourse, that I do not intend to assert or rashly to affirm anything which may clash with Christian faith or Catholic doctrine, and that it is not my intention to solicit, or even to advise, the abolition or retrenchment of the mendicant orders approved by the Church or confirmed by the Sovereign Pontiffs. ”

“ Hence all prayers, the catechism, all teaching of the special doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church, must be banished from the school during the hours of teaching, and the books placed in the hands of children which are calculated to exercise great influence on their after life, must be compiled in a style of indifference to every religion. ”

“ It was, probably, during this visit to the Holy See that Archbishop Fitz-Ralph became acquainted with the two Armenian prelates, Nerses or Narses of Manasgarda and John, Bishop elect of Clata, in Greater Armenia. These oriental bishops had long and earnest conferences with their Irish brother on the sad state of their once flourishing church, and at their earnest and oft-repeated requests, the Primate resolved to contribute his aid to the great work of bringing back the Armenians to unity. ”

“ If we examine the different genealogies of remarkable men, which are given in various places of the Pentateuch, we shall find that, as a rule, the contemporaries of Moses and Aaron are descendants in the third, and those of Joshua and Eleazar in the fourth generation, from some one of the sons, or adult grandsons of Jacob, who went down with him into Egypt. ”

“ The empire in which we are associated gains no more by the destruction of the individual nationality of its component parts, than society would gain by the destruction of all distinctive character in those who compose it. ”

“ But even if the commissioners were most anxious to do justice to Catholics, the nature of the system which they have bound themselves to carry out would frustrate their good intentions. The mixed system proposes to collect into the same school teachers and pupils of every religious denomination, Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Jews, and to do nothing and to teach nothing in the school, and to publish nothing in the schoolbooks, offensive to any of them. ”

“ That which is of importance to observe is, that the tendency and effect of the costly, but most effective, system of inspection is, in reality, to convert inspection into superintendence, and to extend the direct influence of the Board over all the schools in connection with them. ”

“ In England, I may observe, the state assumes no such power. The training institutions for schoolmasters are left entirely under the control of the authorities of the respective denominations. In Ireland, the rule is that the masters should be trained by government, and accept at once their theology, their morals, and their science of teaching at the hands of the officials of the state. ”

“ Full and unrestricted religious instruction is made an essential part of national education in England. [Pg 537] In Ireland, a school which adopts that instruction as its rule, is consequently placed under a ban, and denied all assistance from the national funds. It matters not whether the instruction be Protestant or Catholic, it equally condemns the school in the eyes of our rulers"—p. x.
Treating of the difference between the systems prevailing in England and Ireland, Mr. Butt adds:—
"In point of principle, no reason can be assigned for the difference between England and Ireland. ”

“ Colenso next assumes that the 600,000 men of the exodus were all descendants of Jacob. We contend, as a far more probable opinion, that amongst them were counted, not only the descendants of Jacob himself, but also the descendants of his servants. If we take up the book of Genesis, and glance through the brief history of the Patriarchs, we shall find abundant reason to believe that, when Jacob was invited by Joseph to come down into Egypt, he must have had a goodly retinue of servants. ”

“ The model schools are established partly to complete the training of the masters, and partly to force upon the country the entire system of the Board. Of these schools the commissioners themselves are the patrons, and in these they have full power of enforcing their own views. What they 'earnestly recommend' to others, they are able to adopt in their own schools. Money is lavished upon these model schools, so as to make them establishments of a superior order. The model school in Marlborough Street is maintained at an expense of £3,500. ”

“ Affiliated Students are such as, having passed the Entrance Examination, pursue their studies in an approved college or school, with the view of completing the higher studies in the University (Calendar, page 48) . For the purposes of the Examination for the above Exhibitions, all Students who will have been examined for Entrance by the University Examiner in one of the seminaries, colleges, or schools, connected with the University (vide Calendar, page 81) , between the 1st June, 1863, and the 10th October, 1865, will be eligible. ”

“ Under such a system the power nominally left to the local patrons of selecting the schoolmaster, in reality does not give to these patrons any substantial control. Every national schoolmaster adopts, or professes to adopt, the opinions of his real masters, and learns to reflect the opinions which he knows to be in favour with the Board. ”

“ That it is quite impossible that there should have been such a number of the people of Israel in Egypt at the time of the Exodus as to have furnished 600,000 warriors in the prime of life, representing at least two millions of persons of all ages and sexes ”

“ The training or normal establishment is instituted for the express purpose of indoctrinating the masters in the views prescribed by the Board. But the influence does not end here. By a system of examinations, conducted in connection with the inspection, the Board contrives to direct the studies and mould the train of thought of the masters. Their salaries are increased at the pleasure of the Board. A graduated system of promotion and a scale of rewards are established, dependent entirely on their recommending themselves to the inspectors. ”

“ Liber decimus-nonus comparat Legem nostram quoad sacramenta et ceremonias cum lege Judaeorum. Pertractat etiam de miraculis Apostolorum, et ostendit Legem nostram robur amplius habere quam ratio naturalis, aut aliqua secta gentilium et hoc totum opus consummat. ”

“ It is, therefore, most likely that there were two or perhaps three links omitted in this genealogy between Pallu and Eliab. If so, we should add two or three generations in the examples which Dr. Colenso has adduced from the family of Pallu. He cannot argue that Pallu was the immediate father of Eliab, because it is said that Eliab was the son of Pallu: for do we not also read: "The Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham"? ”

“ The system also tends to weaken pastoral authority, to deprive the successors of the apostles, who were sent by Christ to teach all nations, of their lawful influence, and to separate priest and people. ”

“ It may be useful to the clergy for the information of youths, in whose higher education they take an interest, and especially now, when we may hope that to have studied under a Catholic system will no longer be an obstacle to advancement. ”

“ Such consequences necessarily follow from the operation of model and training schools, and from the vast powers given in all educational matters to a body of commissioners appointed by the government, and dependent on it—commissioners, many of whom are openly hostile to the religion of the people of Ireland, whilst others have given proof that they are either unable or unwilling [Pg 535] to defend it or support its rights and interests. ”

“ One circumstance connected with the occasion, though it narrowed his field of argument for the time, has given, nevertheless, to his writings a character which makes them valuable in modern controversy. In his Questiones Armenorum he was forced to defend the Catholic doctrine almost exclusively from the Holy Scriptures, seeing that his adversaries did not admit the authority of the Roman Church. Hence his [Pg 528] position as a controversial writer does not differ from that which the Reformation has imposed upon modern theologians since the time of Bellarmine. ”

“ Every Exhibition is tenable for one year, unless where otherwise specified; but successful candidates are required to attend Lectures in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, or of Science, according to their standing, and can hold the Exhibitions so long only as they observe the regulations of the University. ”

“ Most of this money is expended in the salaries and maintenance of pupil teachers, so that these model schools are, in effect, colleges, with their exhibitions to attract students. Over these model schools the commissioners have absolute control, and through them, and by means of them, they exercise an almost absolute influence over the whole system of education in connection with the Board. ”