Abstract
Prior to 1900, primary school education in Ireland was very regimented methods. Children and teachers laboured under a system of payment-by-results that intellectually enslaved the children, the teachers, and the schools’ inspectors. Further, it inflicted an artificial standard on all Irish national (primary) schools, irrespective of their location. Just as American educationists at the time were recognizing the injurious nature of their similar system, Ireland’s most senior educationists were calling for radical changes to the education provided in national schools. In order to deal with them, however, they had to deal with the performance of key personnel within the National Education System and consider the work and recommendations of the Belmore Commission of 1898.
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Notes
- 1.
D. B. Tyack, Turning Points in American Educational History (MA: Xerox College Publishing, 1967).
- 2.
SP 9210 a. / 5 TCD A pamphlet containing the various speeches delivered by Starkie. Address by W. J. M. Starkie, Esq. MA., Litt.D., Resident Commissioner of National Education, delivered on the occasion of the distribution of prizes at the Albert Model Farm, Glasnevin, on 19th February 1900, p. 3.
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
Patrick Keenan (1826–1894) began his career in Irish education as a monitor who graduated to become in turn assistant teacher, headmaster of the Central Model School, a district inspector, an assistant professor in the State Training College, Marlborough Street, a chief of inspection and Resident Commissioner, aged 45.
- 6.
F. S. Ó. Dubhthaigh, ‘A Review of the Contribution of Sir Patrick Keenan (1826–1894) to the Development of Irish and British Colonial Education’ (Trinity College Dublin. Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis, 1974).
- 7.
Ibid., p. 261.
- 8.
Freeman’s Journal, 6 February 1899.
- 9.
Ibid. The Rt. Hon. C. T. Redington was appointed to the Board of National Education in 1886 and was selected as Resident Commissioner in 1894.
- 10.
W. J. M. Starkie, Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 282.
- 11.
P. F. O’Donovan, ‘The National School Inspectorate and Its Administrative Context in Ireland, 1870–1962’ (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. University College Dublin).
- 12.
The Commissioners of National Education serving in 1899, with the date of their appointment: Rt. Hon. Lord Morris and Killanin, 1868; Edmund Dease, 1880; Sir Malcolm J. Inglis, 1887; G. F. Fitzgerald, 1888; Sir Percy R. Grace, 1888; James Morrell, 1888; Sir H. Bellingham, 1890; Rev. H. Evans, 1890; Lord Chief Baron C. Palles, 1890; Sir R. Blennerhassett, 1891; Rt. Hon. Judge Johnson Shaw, 1891; Rev. H. B. Wilson, 1892; Stanley Harrington, J. P., 1895; W. R. J. Molloy, 1895; Archbishop Walsh, 1895; Edward Dowden, 1896; Rev M. Archdall, Bishop of Killaloe, 1897; Rev. J. H. Bernard, 1897; Mr. Justice Gibson, 1899.
- 13.
P. J. Walsh, William J. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1928), p. 221. This statement was made in 1885, ten years before he was appointed to the National Board.
- 14.
Although unable to attend the inaugural meeting of the Irish Technical Education Association in Dublin in 1893, Archbishop Walsh sent a message of support to the association. Irish Textile Journal, 15 February 1893.
- 15.
During March 1896 Archbishop Walsh proposed that steps be taken to revise the national school curriculum. In July the Board sent a memorandum to the Lord Lieutenant asking him to set up a commission of inquiry into the system of national education. The following month a deputation from the Board met the Lord Lieutenant and discussed the necessity of revising the national school programme. On the retirement of Richard Somerset, Earl of Belmore, towards the end of the work of the Commission Dr. Walsh took the chair and consequently was the first signatory of the Report.
- 16.
Á. Hyland, ‘An Analysis of the Administration and Financing of National and Secondary Education in Ireland, 1850 to 1922’ (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Trinity College Dublin, 1982).
- 17.
T. West, op. cit. Professor G. F. Fitzgerald was also a member of the Board of Technical Education. He died unexpectedly in 1901. Fitzgerald was a brother-in-law of Culverwell, the first professor of education at Trinity College in 1905.
- 18.
V. T. H. Delaney, Christopher Palles: His Life and Times (Dublin: Allen Figgis, 1960).
- 19.
The commissioners held 93 meetings, 57 of which were public sittings. One hundred and eighty-six people gave oral evidence. One hundred and nineteen schools in various countries were visited, in most of which the visiting commissioners or their appointees had an opportunity of seeing manual and practical instruction actually being given.
- 20.
A. Hyland and K. Milne, Irish Educational Documents, Vol. 1., pp. 142–146.
- 21.
Á. Hyland, ‘Educational Innovation—A Case History: An Analysis of the Events Leading Up to and Following the Introduction of the Revised Programme of 1900 for National Schools in Ireland’ (Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis. Trinity College Dublin, 1975).
- 22.
The Belmore Commission had fourteen members, ten of whom were Commissioners of National Education. The other four were Lord Belmore; Monsignor Molloy, a member of the Intermediate Board; Capt. T. B. Shaw, an inspector of the Science and Art Department in England, and J. Struthers who was an inspector under the Scottish Education Department.
- 23.
CSORP 16,149/1906, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, 6 February 1899.
- 24.
Ibid., p. 284.
- 25.
Ibid., p. 261.
- 26.
Ibid., pp. 281, 282.
- 27.
P. F. O’Donovan, ‘The National School Inspectorate and Its Administrative Context in Ireland, 1870–1962’.
- 28.
The apathy of Commissioners was well documented. See Appendixes B and C for a list of Commissioners’ attendances for the year ending March 1884 and the period 1896–1904.
- 29.
Third Report of the Dill Committee, Evidence of Catherine Mahon, p. 322.
- 30.
CSORP 1899, 3115, 3180, 3298, National Archives.
- 31.
Ibid., 3180, 15 February 1899.
- 32.
The son of the Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick, Arnold gained his first teaching experience when he and his brother Alfred taught voluntarily at a night school in Kerry when they were “lads.” Second Report of the Commission on Manual and Practical Instruction, 1897. Evidence of Alfred Perceval Graves, p. 114.
- 33.
Á. Hyland, ‘Educational Innovation: A Case History’.
- 34.
Freeman’s Journal, 6 February 1899, obituary of Christopher Redington.
- 35.
In an effort to maintain the denominational balance of the Board, alternate Resident Commissioners were to be of the Roman Catholic and Protestant faiths.
- 36.
Registers of St Fachtna’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Rosscarbery, Co. Cork. Robert William, born 25 September 1851, Walter, born 15 June 1853, and William Fitzwilliam, born 22 August 1854, were all baptized in Rosscarbery Protestant Cathedral.
- 37.
Perhaps there had been a pre-nuptial agreement to the effect that a certain number of children, notably male, be admitted to the Protestant Church to facilitate inheritance. Perhaps Frances Starkie was superstitious and felt that the death of her fourth son was in retribution for her denial of the Catholic doctrine that requires all children of a mixed marriage to be brought up in the Catholic faith. Alternatively it has been suggested that the Starkies were participating in the “Oxford Movement,” where Protestant parents baptized some of their children into the Roman Catholic Church, thereby hoping to bring Catholicism closer to the Protestant faith.
- 38.
Located near Sallins, Co. Kildare, with its elms, large grounds, and storied mediaeval castle, Clongowes Wood Jesuit College was considered the Eton of Catholic Ireland. The fee was £45 a year. The school operated a “line” system. William Starkie was in the Higher Line which included boys from fifteen to eighteen. James Joyce attended Clongowes from 1888 to 1891 and immortalized the college and his education there in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. See R. Ellmann, James Joyce (Oxford University Press, 1982).
- 39.
Enid Starkie often referred to her father’s interest in the intellectual aspects of life to the detriment of emotional and physical relationships.
- 40.
D. Pierce, James Joyce’s Ireland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
- 41.
He was the first Roman Catholic to win a foundation scholarship since the Reformation. Source: The Irish Book Lover: A Monthly Review of Irish Literature and Bibliography, Vol. XII, Oct.–Nov. 1920, p. 44. Starkie was among a small number of Catholics attending Cambridge at this time. The average number of Catholics in attendance at Cambridge during the 1880s was 15. See V. McClelland, English Roman Catholics and Higher Education 1830–1903 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).
- 42.
SP 9210 d., 3 March 1918. Coincidentally this was the day of the Phoenix Park murders.
- 43.
The Presidents, Vice-Presidents and Professors of Queen’s College, Galway: A List of their Contributions to Science and Literature, 1845–1902, Published by Authority of the Council, Dublin 1902.
- 44.
Walter asserts that Henry S. Macran and his father, were rivals for life fellowship in classics and philosophy in the same year. Starkie secured the coveted distinction, while Macran had to wait a further year before attaining the award. The two men remained strong friends and Macran was a frequent visitor at the Starkie home in the 1890s. Source: W. Starkie., op. cit.
- 45.
E. Starkie, op. cit., p. 31.
- 46.
E. Starkie, op. cit., p. 10.
- 47.
Obituary of W. J. M. Starkie, Hermathena, Vol. 63, 1922, p. v.
- 48.
G. P. Beggan, ‘The Settlement of the Irish University Question with Special Reference to the Role of the Dublin Commissioners’ (UCG, M.A. Thesis, 1984).
- 49.
Bonaparte Wyse Papers, [BWP] N.L.I. P.C. 647–49 Box no. 2 File 10.
- 50.
Starkie, W. J. M. Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 281.
- 51.
SP 9210 c., 10 March 1903. Starkie never sent this letter, written in haste and anger, to Wyndham.
- 52.
SP 9209 no. 19, 12 February 1899.
- 53.
Ibid., no. 349, 13 February 1899. “Dear Mr. Starkie, I have had the pleasure in writing to Lord Cadogan abt your candidature. I shall be very glad if it proves successful. Lecky”.
- 54.
W. B. Stanford and R. B. McDowell, A Biography of an Anglo-Irishman (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1971).
- 55.
W. J. M. Starkie, Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 281.
- 56.
Ibid., p. 342.
- 57.
The Irish Times, 18 February 1899.
- 58.
Similarly in England the majority of examiners appointed to the Education Board were Oxbridge graduates, with a notable preponderance of classicists. Examiners with literary talents lacked any knowledge of education or experience of elementary schools and were to be most emphatically gentlemen. See N. Daglish, Education Policy-Making in England and Wales: The Crucible Years, 1895–1911 (London: Woburn Press, 1996).
- 59.
R. B. McDowell, The Irish Administration, 1801–1914 (CT: Greenwood Press, 1964).
- 60.
Ibid. McDowell includes Arnold Graves, the unsuccessful candidate for the position of Resident Commissioner, as a member of that elite and irregular civil service group.
- 61.
These included T. P. Gill, former journalist and nationalist MP who was appointed secretary of the DATI, and Thompson, a distinguished physician who was appointed Registrar in 1909.
- 62.
The personal interests of this group were wide and varied. Ross owned one of the finest gardens in Ireland, Wrench took a keen interest in horse breeding, while the home of Bailey was a vigorous intellectual centre in Dublin. He also travelled extensively and at the outset of the Great War published an informative guide to the more inaccessible parts of Europe. Numerous members of this group were authors: Ross wrote on Indian and military history, Fletcher edited an Irish geography, Mills and Le Fanu published papers on medieval history and the Huguenots, Norway wrote on a history of the post office and Headlam published his autobiography as well as a book on fishing. Arnold Graves printed his poems, while Micks wrote a critique of his own department, the Congested Districts Board. Dawson published medical papers and Dilworth a mathematical textbook, while Robinson produced two volumes of his memoirs.
- 63.
W. J. M. Starkie, Second Report to the Dill Committee, p. 281.
- 64.
Ibid.
- 65.
Ibid., p. 288.
- 66.
W. J. M. Starkie, Vice-Regal Committee of Inquiry, 1913, (Dill) Confidential Statement of Evidence, TCD, pp. 1, 2. This is the written statement of evidence that Starkie submitted to the Committee prior to giving oral evidence.
- 67.
“To call attention to the fact that business of a very important character, including the imposition of fines on teachers and the withdrawal of the Commissioners’ recognition of teachers in particular schools, is transacted in the form of orders of the office-committee, which after being laid on the Board-room table, are issued in the names of the Commissioners in the form of Board’s Order; and to move that in the future the name of the Commissioners to be used in official correspondence only in reference to matters, which have been considered and decided at a meeting of the Board.” Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 309.
- 68.
Starkie, in evidence to the Dill Committee, stated: “In order to obviate a charge which has been made, I wish to say that, as I was then new to my post, I had nothing to do with the suggestion of these penalties. I once saw in some teachers journal that the first act of my official career was to impose these penalties. There is no truth in this statement.” Ibid., pp. 309–310. He subsequently dissociated himself from the decision, stating emphatically: “I never approved of that code of penalties, and I disclaim all responsibility for it. I did not think it was right at the time, as in my opinion, it showed a want of imagination.” Ibid., p. 326.
- 69.
Ibid., p. 310.
- 70.
Coffey at the Dill Inquiry asserted that in 1899 Mr. Dalton, a senior inspector, held pronounced opinions on the importance of individual examination, while the following year he wrote: “The teachers have shaken themselves free from the mechanical lifelessness of the past.” Similarly Wyse was sweeping in his praise of the payment-by-results’ system in 1899; by the following year he had reappraised his position and roundly condemned it. Second Report of the Dill Committee, pp. 384–385.
- 71.
Ibid., pp. 272–273.
- 72.
Ibid., p. 310.
- 73.
Ibid., p. 310.
- 74.
Ibid., p. 312.
- 75.
Ibid., p. 314.
- 76.
Ibid.
- 77.
SP 9209 no. 561, Archbishop Walsh to Starkie, 2 July 1901, following his resignation from the Board. See Appendixes B and C which contain the attendance rates of Commissioners for the year 1884 and the period 1896–1904.
- 78.
The office committee sat whenever the Resident Commissioner consulted the members of the office staff; other Commissioners had the right to attend but never did. Consequently the office committee sat daily, as part of the routine work of Tyrone House.
- 79.
Ibid., p. 357.
- 80.
O’Donovan in his thesis asserts that the abolition of the office committee was accompanied by considerable change. There was an end to regular conclaves where particular cases were examined, where general issues could be discussed and where information could be exchanged. For the chief inspectors it meant they were no longer in charge of the inspectors’ reports and this removed them further from the locus of power within the office; op. cit., p. 274.
- 81.
Ibid., p. 273.
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O’Doherty, T., O’Donoghue, T. (2021). The Antiquated Administration of Irish Education. In: Radical Reform in Irish Schools, 1900-1922. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74282-9_2
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