ccordination of the work already carried on by the university colleges, polytechnies, and other science and technological institutions, and the proper connection of the whole with the university.

(5) That a sufficient number of scholarships, including fee places, be placed at the disposal of the council.

(6) That it be considered whether other counties and boroughs should not be invited to contribute toward the maintenance, receiving in return the right to send their picked scholars for instruction under the proposed scheme.

The following table summarizes the statistics of university colleges and universities in Great Britain and Ireland for the years specified:

Attendance at universities of Great Britain and Ireland, 1897–1902.

The reorganized London University includes University and King's colleges, 2 colleges for women (Bedford and Royal Holloway), 6 theological colleges or schools, Westfield College, the Royal Agricultural College, 12 medical schools, the City and Guilds Central Technical College, and the London School of Economics. The number of students is incomplete as regards medical schools and evening classes.

The greater part of the colleges formerly comprised under the head of university colleges
have been gradually included under the following university organizations: London, Victoria,
Durham, and Birmingham.
Included in London University since 1900.

e Affiliated with St. Andrews in 1897, and since 1900 statistics included with those of St. Andrews.

EDUCATION IN IRELAND.

SYSTEM OF NATIONAL EDUCATION (ELEMENTARY).

The system of national education in Ireland dates from 1831, when a board of commissioners for education was created by the Government. In 1845 the board was incorporated by royal charter, and in 1861 a supplemental charter was granted, under which 10 members must be Roman Catholics and 10 Protestants. The

board is composed always of representative men, who adhere to the policy of strict impartiality in religious matters. The schools under the supervision and fostering care of the board are supported by State and local funds. They may be denominational schools (i. e., Roman Catholic or Protestant) or mixed in respect to religion, but the rights of parents in the matter are strictly guarded by a conscience clause in the school regulations, which provides that no child be allowed to attend a religious exercise of a denomination other than his own except upon the written request of the parent.

Grants in aid for the building of schoolhouses are allowed by the commissioners, but must be proportioned to the amount raised locally. The State pays also the larger proportion of the salaries for teachers, requiring a minimum annual angmentation from local funds of £12 ($60). Altogether the State bears about 94 per cent of the annual expenditure for the schools.

To avoid religious complications the State provides the text-books for secular branches, which are issued at a small cost to the pupils.

For purposes of Government supervision the country is divided into 60 districts, which are grouped in 6 divisions, each in charge of a head inspector. Under these are 29 district inspectors, 7 unassigned inspectors, and 10 inspectors' assistants. Inspectors and their assistants are appointed upon examination testing their scholastic and professional qualifications.

Local civil authorities have no control over the schools. The local managers of schools, who are generally clergymen, come into direct relations with the board of commissioners. They appoint and dismiss teachers and arrange the details of the school work. Of a total of 2,936 managers in 1902, 2,363 were clerical.

The commissioners have direct control of a special class of schools called “* model schools," for which they provide the buildings.

They are intended, as their name indicates, to afford models of the best methods of instruction and organization, and to serve as practice schools for students in training colleges or normal schools." These schools numbered 30 in 1902, with an enrollment of 8,969 day pupils, included in the enrollment given in Table I.

A compulsory school law was passed in 1892, but it has been imperfectly enforced, and Ireland still stands below the other divisions of the United Kingdom in respect to school attendance, as is shown by the most recent statistics. These give the following rates of attendance to enrollment:

England..

Wales

Scotland.

Ireland

Per cent.

82.3

77.9

83.7

70.8

Convent and monastery schools afford a large part of the provision for elementary education, and receive, under certain conditions, aid from the Government. The number of such schools fulfilling the conditions for aid reported in 1902 was 373, with an enrollment of 110,769.

The schools of the Christian Brothers form a large part of the provision for elementary education, especially in the cities, where they are most flourishing. In a debate in the House of Commons in 1892 Mr. O'Brien, member for Ireland, was reported as saying: "The Christian Brothers have practically the education of the whole Irish urban population in their hands, for their schools are situated in all the chief centers of population. The most influential men in every city and large town in Ireland have been their pupils. Their system is regarded in Ireland as the really national system. It is adapted to the genius of the people. It is deeply grounded in their respect and affection.”

For the training of teachers for the national schools there are one national and six denominational normal schools which receive grants in aid from the Govern

ment. They report 1,085 students in training in 1902. Of the 11,977 teachers employed in the national schools in 1902, 52.2 per cent had received professional training.

Provision for agricultural instruction is an important feature of the national system. Instruction in the theory of agriculture is compulsory in all rural schools for boys in the fourth, fifth, and sixth classes, and optional for girls.

The commissioners maintain also two model agricultural schools, and in 1897 they reported 38 school farms in connection with elementary schools and 116 schools having school gardens attached.

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 at the beginning and end of the half decade,

1887-1902.

EXPENDITURE ON SCHOOLS AND TEACHING STAFFS, a

According to the report of the commissioners for the year ending December 31, 1902, the aggregate annual expenditure on the schools from all sources, including Parliamentary grant, school fees, and local subscriptions, amounted to £1,240,710 18s. 10d., as shown in the following table. This would give an average of £2 11s. 6d. for each child in average daily attendance during the year.

Secondary and technical education.-An intermediate education board was established in 1878 for the examination of intermediate or secondary pupils. In 1901 the number of candidates for examination was 8,117 (5,829 boys and 2,288 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 $283,800 on the results of the examination. The expenses of the board are met by a Government grant of about £34,000 annually and local revenues amounting to £65,000, or a total of £99,000.

The Government recently appointed a body of temporary inspectors to investigate the schools, aided by the intermediate education board, with a view to the reorganization and improvement of the system. This division of the educational work in Ireland was also the subject of debate at the education section of the British association, at which papers were read by such well-known authorities as Dr. Starkie, who is a member of the intermediate board, also resident commissioner of national education: Mr. R. M. Jones, a prominent Belfast head master, and the Very Rev. Andrew Murphy, the chairman of the Roman Catholic Head Masters' Association. The drift of the discussion and of the report of the temporary inspectors is thus summed up by an official thoroughly conversant with the field:

Though the intermediate board has done much for secondary education in the past, there appears to be a distinct need of closer coordination between primary and intermediate education in Ireland. There is a lack of trained teachers which threatens to become permanent, owing to the absence of sufficient inducements to lay teachers to enter the profession. The latest modifications of the examination have been a failure, and the best remedy for the present unsatisfactory state of affairs is the establishment of a permanent inspectorate, supplemented by a twofold leaving certificate. The teaching of English shows some important lacunæ, Classics, while satisfactory in the big schools, seem often in a bad way elsewhere. Modern languages, while not badly taught on the old lines, need largely modernizing. Mathematics-the strong subject-requires to be rendered in its first stages more concrete and still further connected with elementary science, which has made a promising start. In a word, while the big schools and those destined largely to supply recruits to the priesthood and religious orders will probably do well to follow out in the main the old classical curriculum, the small country

a Also £44,222 17s. 9d. paid out of vote for board of public works for buildings, repairs, etc., of vested schools, and £27,075 18s. 1d. contributed from local sources toward the erection of new buildings, etc.

schools would be well advised to throw over the classics, which they appear to be unable to teach in a satisfactory fashion, and boldly opt for one or more of the three alternative modern courses lately established by the board. As Doctor Starkie pointed out, the board deserves the utmost credit for this exceedingly useful decentralization of the programme. The rural Irish school of to-day will be able henceforth, if it chooses, to give its pupils an education that will really fit them for their future life instead of converting them into that most useless and dangerous class, a literary proletariat.

Technical instruction in Ireland is controlled by the department of agriculture and technical instruction, which has an advisory board of technical instruction. 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. Of the annual grant of £55,000, £25,000 is allotted for technical instruction in county boroughs and £30,000 for similar purposes elsewhere, the equivalent grants being continued for three years to institutions which had formerly received them.

THE UNIVERSITY PROBLEM.

The condition of university education in Ireland has been a prolific cause of agitation and of discontent for more than two centuries. The matter is so involved with the relations of Ireland to the British Government that it forms an important factor in the general Irish problem, and its settlement is scarcely less urgent than that of land holdings or of local administration.

The appointment in 1901 of a Royal commission to deal with this interest showed the disposition of the Government to approach the same in a judicial and even conciliatory spirit. The report of the commission has been submitted, and their recommendations are now under consideration. The report emphasizes the evils of the existing conditions, but it also makes very clear the difficulties that are in the way of any satisfactory adjustment of the matter. The members of the commission seem to have little confidence in the practicability of their suggestions. Although, with but a single exception, all the commissioners signed the report, nearly all appended a note of protest against some important point in it. Indeed, from the outset it was foreseen that no final settlement could be expected from the commission because Trinity College (University of Dublin) was excluded from their consideration, and moreover because it was certain that the demands of the Roman Catholic bishops for a separate Roman Catholic university would not be approved. Under the conditions no better course was left to the commissioners than that which they have taken in recommending that the Royal University (which is now purely an examining body) be raised to the position of a teaching university, with federated colleges. These constituent colleges would include the three Queen's colleges already in existence and a new college for Roman Catholics to be established in Dublin, with ample endowments and equipments and a large measure of autonomy.

As regards women students the commission would offer to them every advan tage of the university.

In view of the point to which the report of the commissioners has brought the history of university education in Ireland, it is proper to recall here the salient facts in that history divorced from all political or religious entanglements.

The oldest institution for superior instruction in the island is the University of Dublin (Trinity College), chartered by Queen Elizabeth.