Policy on School Inspection and Visits to Schools

O’Doherty, Teresa; O’Donoghue, Tom

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-74282-9_5

Teresa O’Doherty³ &
Tom O’Donoghue⁴

76 Accesses

Abstract

When the Resident Commissioner castigated managers for their lack of interest in education, as evidenced by the physical condition of school buildings, the reports he examined could not have prepared him for the reality he subsequently witnessed in 1903. It was then that he decided for the first time to visit the schools under his care. Concurrently, the Chief Secretary, George Wyndham, was himself mindful that it was necessary to update school buildings and was aware of the fact that the National Board had requested an increase in its annual grant for the year 1903–1904. In an effort to assess the situation he planned for an inquiry on elementary schools to be conducted. In order to enhance its credibility, Frank Dale, an inspector of schools in England was commissioned to carry it out. This chapter deals with Starkie’s work touring the country with Dale during 1903, the outcomes of the tour and of Dale’s report. It also deliberate on the significance of other tours Starkie made to schools in later years, and gives an account of his policies on inspection, on his relationship with teachers, and on his evolving views on the social and humanitarian role of education.

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Notes

1.
W. J. M. Starkie, The History of Primary and Secondary Education During the Last Decade, p. 4.
2.
The report of the Committee on Building Grants had been submitted to him in October 1902.
3.
Á. Hyland, ‘An Analysis of the Administration and Financing of … Education in Ireland’, p. 240.
4.
SP 9210 c., 9 November 1903: “Letter from Shaw very guarded - Did not wish to imply that I was to blame for Dale’s mission as for the way it was carried out- thought it was part of Wyndham’s systematic disrespect of the B. since his appointment.”
5.
During the period 2 April to 9 June Dale visited over 87 ordinary schools, eight large convent school, and six model schools.
6.
The original form of Dale’s report differed from that subsequently published, with references made by Dale to the findings of the Building Grants Committee deleted in the latter.
7.
SP 9209 no. 265, letter from Hanson to Starkie: “The Board of Education have agreed to let us have the man we wanted, who is my brother-in-law, F. H. Dale. He would like to have as much of your time as you can give him for a few days.” In applying to the English Board of Education for a suitable inspector to carry out the inspection the Irish executive specifically noted: “Mr. F. H. Dale has the qualifications desired and he [the Lord Lieutenant] would be very glad if the Board could see their way to select him.” CSORP 1904/10032 file: 4356, 27 February 1903.
8.
Report of Mr. F. H. Dale, p. 2.
9.
Ibid., p. 3.
10.
Ibid., p. 4. Dale identified two schools in this respect, namely St. Enoch’s Presbyterian School at Belfast and St Vincent’s Convent School at Cork.
11.
Ibid.
12.
Ibid., p. 5.
13.
Ibid., p. 12.
14.
Ibid., p. 15.
15.
Ibid., p. 49.
16.
Ibid., p. 52.
17.
Ibid., p. 29.
18.
Ibid., pp. 60–62.
19.
Ibid., p. 63.
20.
Ibid., p. 66.
21.
Ibid., p. 68.
22.
Ibid., p. 73.
23.
Ibid., p. 74.
24.
Ibid., pp. 37–38. The population of Ireland at the 1871 census was 5,412,377, while 6,520 national schools existed. By 1901 the population had fallen to 4,458,775, yet there were 8692 schools in operation. Dale noted that even within the Protestant religion each sect established their own schools: “Thus in Donegal, at the small village of Ardara, I found a school under Methodist management having about fourteen children in annual average attendance within 100 yards of another School under the management of the Church of Ireland.”
25.
Ibid., p. 36. The five schools were as follows: male, male infants, female infants, female preparatory, and female. These distinct schools were accommodated in three adjoining rooms under the same roof.
26.
Ibid., p. 37.
27.
S. Chuinneagáin, ‘Women Teachers and INTO Policy 1905–1916’ (Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis, Trinity College Dublin, 1994).
28.
Report of Mr. F. H. Dale.
29.
Ibid., p. 34.
30.
Ibid., p. 47.
31.
Ibid., p. 12.
32.
Ibid., p. 43.
33.
Ibid., p. 44.
34.
Ibid., p. 46.
35.
CSORP 1904 10,032. Original and confidential version of the Dale Report, p. 7.
36.
W. J. M. Starkie. Confidential evidence to the Dill Committee, p. 15.
37.
Ibid., p. 16.
38.
Ibid.
39.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 318.
40.
Ibid.
41.
Ibid., p. 337.
42.
Ibid., 31 December 1903.
43.
SP 9202 nos. 94–95.
44.
Report of Messrs. F. H. Dale and T. A. Stephens, His Majesty’s Inspector of Schools on Intermediate Education in Ireland [Cd. 2546] 1905.
45.
Second Report of Dill Committee.
46.
D. W. Miller., op. cit., pp. 121–122.
47.
SP 9209 no. 325, 28 March 1907. Referring to the reinstatement of the building grants, Holmes wrote: “Wyndham must be held responsible for the delay and all its consequences. I cannot acquit the under Secretary of any share in this miserable affair. Had he taken the trouble to master our Report and to stand by your Board from the first, the Treasury could not have taken their stand upon Dale’s Report. This ex-Indian phenomena however, had his game to play, and it did not suit his purposes to intervene sooner than he did.”
48.
Ibid., p. 340.
49.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 293.
50.
Ibid., p. 297.
51.
Seventy-second Report of the CNEI for the year 1905–1906, p. 20.
52.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 340.
53.
Success at the intermediate examination was essential for both categories of apprentice teacher. Monitors were expected to have passed the examination, while those who obtained honours at the examination were appointed pupil–teachers.
54.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 299. Heretofore the figure required for the appointment of an assistant was 60.
55.
Ibid.
56.
Ibid., p. 294. Junior assistant mistresses (JAMs), while not fully trained teachers, were specifically trained in kindergarten methods and the teaching of young children.
57.
Ibid., p. 301. In 1904, 5360 schools had only one teacher. This number was reduced to 2500 in 1912.
58.
Rule 127 (b): “Boys under eight years of age are ineligible for enrolment in a boys’ school where there is not an assistant mistress, unless there is no suitable school under a mistress available in the locality.” Seventy-first Report of the CNEI for the Year 1904.
59.
Catholic Clerical School Managers” Association: Minute Book, Resolution passed at the annual meeting of the Association, 7 June 1905, pp. 30–31.
60.
The age limit was lowered from eight to seven years, and boys’ schools were exempt where the removal of the junior boys from the rolls would reduce the attendance to less than the number required to sustain a separate school.
61.
In 1904 there were 8710 schools in operation, while by 1907 that figure was reduced to 8538; this was an insignificant reduction particularly when contrasted with the scale of the campaign.
62.
W. Starkie, Scholars and Gypsies, p. 303.
63.
Ibid., pp. 20–21. This may have been the same tour as mentioned above, but Walter stated that it occurred not in 1903 but the following year, 1904.
64.
Ibid., p. 21.
65.
E. Starkie., op. cit., p. 208.
66.
Ibid.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Second Report of Dill Committee, p. 396.
69.
Ibid., p. 209.
70.
Ibid., p. 302.
71.
E. Starkie., op. cit., p. 209.
72.
W. Starkie., The Waveless Plain, p. 304.
73.
W. Starkie., Scholars and Gypsies, p. 58.
74.
W. Starkie., The Waveless Plain, p. 303.
75.
Ibid.
76.
SP 9210 e., 21 March 1918.
77.
SP 9211, 3 July 1918.
78.
SP 9210 e., 29 March 1918.
79.
S. Fenton, S. It All Happened (Dublin: M. H. Gill, 1948), p. 247.
80.
W. J. M. Starkie, ‘The value in education of self-expression as contrasted with self-suppression, and the importance of being practical.’ Address undated but given probably 1912–1913. SP 9210 a/4, p. 12.
81.
SP 9211, 26 April 1918.
82.
Ibid., 15 April 1918.
83.
Starkie, W. J. M. The History of Irish … Education in the Last Decade, p. 18.
84.
Ibid.
85.
E. Starkie., op. cit., p. 210.
86.
W. J. M. Starkie, Private Statement of Evidence to the Dill Committee, p. 25.
87.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 303.
88.
Ibid.
89.
Ibid., p. 345.
90.
W. J. M. Starkie, The History of … Education During the Last Decade, p. 9.
91.
Ibid., p. 8.
92.
W. J. M., Starkie, The History of … Education During the Last Decade, p. 8.
93.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 316.
94.
Ibid., p. 315.
95.
Report of F. H. Dale, p. 65.
96.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 295.
97.
Ibid., p. 315.
98.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 315, cited from a circular to inspectors in December 1904.
99.
Ibid., p. 316.
100.
Ibid., p. 295.
101.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 338.
102.
Ibid., p. 340.
103.
Ibid., p. 316.
104.
Ibid., p. 317.
105.
Ibid., p. 346.
106.
Ibid., p. 345.
107.
Ibid., p. 336.
108.
Appendix to the Third Report of the Dill Committee, pp. 99–121.
109.
SP 9211, 12 April 1918.
110.
SP 9210 d., 27 February 1918.
111.
Ibid., 12 April 1917.
112.
Ibid., 10–20 October 1917.
113.
SP 9210 e., 9 March and 27 March.
114.
SP 9211, 24 April 1918.
115.
SP 9210 d., 23 February 1918.
116.
Ibid., 7 February 1918.
117.
SP 9211, 20 June 1918.
118.
Ibid., 26 April 1918.
119.
Ibid., 25 April and 28 May 1918.
120.
Ibid., 24 April 1918.
121.
Ibid., 3 May 1918.
122.
Ibid., 4 April 1918.
123.
Ibid., 27 April 1918.
124.
Appendix to the Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 396.
125.
SP 9210 d., 31 January 1917.
126.
SP 9210 d., 3 November 1917.
127.
Ibid., 19 December 1917.
128.
W. J. M. Starkie, The Value in Education of Self-Expression, p. 9.
129.
The following observations are taken from Starkie’s later diaries, 1917–1918. As indicated previously, his journal on earlier school tours contains very little reference to schools etc.
130.
SP 9210 d., 1 February and 2 February 1917, respectively.
131.
Ibid., 16 November 1916 and 8 February 1917, and SP 9210 e., 6 March 1918.
132.
SP 9210 e., 20 February and 27 March 1918.
133.
SP 9210 d., 1 March 1917.
134.
Ibid., 8 February 1918.
135.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 394.
136.
SP 9210 e., 6 March 1918.
137.
Ibid., 22 February 1918.
138.
Augustine Birrell, Chief Secretary 1906–1916, who was very popular among teachers, was equally disparaging of the teaching profession. “Teachers are the same in all parts of the country. In one respect I love them; in others I simply loathe them. But there they are, and until the end of Time they will wear the scars of their profession-vanity and conceit, and an even stronger dash of unscrupulousness than is usually to be found outside the criminal classes.” SP 9209 no. 38, 8 November 1912.
139.
SP 9209 no. 70, 9 October 1917, Starkie to Sir W. Byrne, Under-Secretary.
140.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, pp. 330, 376, 397. He described one husband-and-wife team thus: “She is an efficient teacher. I fancied that the reason the school was at such a low ebb was that she had been in bad health for some time. This was obviously a case where the grey mare was the better horse. Indeed, Kelly [her husband] struck me as being a very dangerous character. He was very ugly and very dirty, he was very quarrelsome, and his career had been uniformly bad. Certainly the good tone of the school was remarkable for its absence.”
141.
SP 9210 d., 7 February 1918.
142.
SP 9210 e., 2 March 1918.
143.
SP 9211, 16 June 1918.
144.
Ibid., 3 June 1918.
145.
Ibid., 6 April 1918. Did the lower salaries paid to female teachers increase their attractiveness for the financially beleaguered Resident Commissioner? JAMs received a salary of £24 per annum in 1912, and their positions were not pensionable. Or was he sincerely convinced of the superiority of female teachers? The feminization of the teaching profession was actively encouraged by Starkie with the introduction of JAMs and the implementation of the rule that insisted on the instruction of infant classes by a female teacher. ISW, 20 January 1912 testifies to the increasing feminization of the teaching force:
1903: 5749 male teachers in national schools; by 1909 this figure had reduced slightly to 5735.
1903: 7359 female teachers in national schools; by 1909 this figure had increased significantly to 9409.
146.
SP 9211, 5 April 1918.
147.
Ibid., 2 April 1918.
148.
W. J. M. Starkie, The Value in Education of Self-Expression, p. 9.
149.
SP 9210 d., 25 November 1917.
150.
SP 9211, 3 April 1918.
151.
SP 9186, a rough draft of Walter Starkie’s unpublished autobiography, p. 47.
152.
SP 9210 d., 15 November 1917.
153.
156 of the most senior retired teachers in the country were surveyed during summer 1995.
154.
Letter received by the first-named author on July 1995 from Ms. Ann Coudren writing on behalf of Mrs. Sheila Foran, Gorey, Co. Wexford.
155.
Letter received by the first-named author on 27 July 1995 from Mairéad Bean Uí Chaománaigh, Dublin.
156.
Interview by the first-named author with Mrs. Joanna Walsh, Dungarvan, 21 July 1995.
157.
ISW, 7 August 1920.
158.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, pp. 373–374.
159.
Ibid., p. 345.
160.
Ibid., p. 395. As evidence of his desire to praise and encourage teachers Starkie commissioned the stained-glass artist Harry Clarke to design a higher certificate to be awarded by the Commissioners to teachers of a specially high standard of scholarship and efficiency. Larky Waldron was Harry Clarke’s first patron. G. N. Bowe, The Life and Work of Harry Clarke (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1994).
161.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 303.
162.
SP 9209 no. 44, 23 December 1912, Starkie to Chief Secretary Birrell.
163.
Second Report of the Dill Committee, p. 398.
164.
During 1904 13,000 people died of some form of tuberculosis.
165.
Seventy-second Report of the CNEI for the Year 1905–1906, pp. 18–19.
166.
B. D. Daglish, ‘Robert Morant’s Hidden Agenda? The Origins of the Medical Treatment of School Children’. History of Education Journal 19, no. 2 (1990): 139–148.
167.
W. J. M. Starkie, Dental Inspection in Irish National Schools. An address delivered at the Health Congress, TCD 21 August 1911, SP 9210/3.
168.
Ibid.
169.
Seventy-ninth Report of the CNEI for the Year 1912–1913, p. 9.
170.
Catholic Clerical School Managers’ Associations: Minute Book, 24 June 1912, p. 126.
171.
Eighty-first Report of the CNEI for the Year 1914–1915, p. 10.
172.
W. J. M. Starkie, The History of Irish … Education During the Last Decade, p. 27.
173.
Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction: Report of the Departmental Committee of Inquiry, under the chairmanship of Kenelm Digby [Cd. 3572] 1907, Minutes of Evidence, pp. 230–233.
174.
Starkie, W. J. M. The Value in Education of Self-Expression.
175.
SP 9209 no. 148, 19 October 1911.
176.
Ibid., no. 150, 31 October 1911.
177.
W. J. M. Starkie, The History of Irish … Education in the Last Decade, p. 10.
178.
SP 9209 no. 154, 31 January 1912.
179.
Seventy-ninth Report of the CNEI for the Year 1912–1913, p. 11.

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Marino Institute of Education, An Associated College of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Teresa O’Doherty
Graduate School of Education, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
Tom O’Donoghue

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O’Doherty, T., O’Donoghue, T. (2021). Policy on School Inspection and Visits to Schools. In: Radical Reform in Irish Schools, 1900-1922. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74282-9_5

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