of seventeen years, we shall now see, that nuns are the great majority of those of whom honourable mention is made, both as teachers of children and trainers of schoolmistresses.

As a general result, the Roman Catholic schools of Lancashire and Cheshire are entitled to the credit of having reared 58 per cent. of the whole number of female pupil teachers, who since 1862 have passed into the only training school for Roman Catholic schoolmistresses, and 72 per cent. of those who gained the distinction of first class in the admission examination. In recognition of the service rendered by schools in producing successful pupil-teachers, and to stimulate the efforts of certain institutions which appear backward in this respect, it may be useful to distribute the credit among those who have earned it. In order to do this with an approach to fairness, it is necessary to show with the names of the schools, not only the number of pupilteachers sent by each into the training school, but also the attendance of children and the amount of grant awarded; because the largely attended and liberally aided schools ought to employ the greatest number of pupil-teachers, and from amongst them to rear students for training in proportion to size and resources. In compiling the following table, in which this is attempted, I have used the figures given in the Appendix to the Report of the Committee of Council on Education for 1869-70, and wherever the school comprises a boys' department under a master, as well as departments for girls and infants, I have reduced the attendance of children and the amount of grant by onethird, on the assumption that the boys' room, where female pupilteachers are not employed, has been attended by one-third of the whole number of children, and earned one-third of the grant. In the last column I show the character of teachers employed in each school, that the services of the most successful may be recognized.

Return of Roman Catholic Schools which have successfully prepared Female Pupil-Teachers for the Training College, 1863-70 inclusive:

In considering the details of the above table, two facts force themselves upon attention. First, it will be observed that schools in Liverpool have supplied nearly one-half of the female pupil-teachers qualified for admission to training, which serves to measure the influence of the Liverpool Training College upon the Roman Catholic population of the town. When the time comes for founding a second female training college, I hope its promoters will bear in mind the importance of selecting for it a site resembling Liverpool in extent of population and number of primary schools. Another remark is this, that of the successful pupil-teachers six times as many have been reared by nuns as have been brought up by secular schoolmistresses. Indeed this up-bringing of well-handled pupil-teachers is perhaps the most useful of the school duties undertaken by nuns, and the one in which the superiority of the results effected by their labours is the most conspicuous.1

During the past year, the requirements of the new Education Act have imposed on the Sisters who conduct the Liverpool 1 Report of the Committee of Council on Education, 1870-71,' pp. 287,

Training College trials which we are told they have surmounted by unwearied exertions and exemplary disregard of personal feeling. These trials have been twofold. First, the condition on which inspection of the College was accepted, and in accordance with which it has been carried out, from its institution until this year, was that it should be visited and examined orally by Catholic inspectors only, who were appointed in concurrence with the Poor School Committee.' Under the Education Act, this arrangement necessarily ceased, and the College was this year for the first time visited by the general inspector of female training schools. Secondly, in consequence of the great and sudden demand for certificated teachers, the College has, at inconvenience, increased its numbers of students by eighteen-the numbers in residence now being 88, viz., 33 of second year, and 55 of first year.1

Such sacrifices on the part of Religious are amply repaid by the great advantages, accruing from Government aid and inspection, in which Catholic schools are thus enabled to participate, along with the other public elementary and training schools of the country.

6

1 Report of the Catholic Poor School Committee for 1871,' p. 22. London, 1872.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

IRISH PRIMARY EDUCATION OF THE PAST.

THROUGH a mistaken policy, strongly condemned by all classes and creeds at the present day, apostacy was the price of education in Ireland for nearly three hundred years, at least as far as the great majority of the inhabitants were concerned.

In an early chapter we have seen what were the pains and penalties formerly enacted against all Catholic education.' The avowed object was to convert the ignorant Irish papists' to Protestantism. Considerable private endowments, royal grants of estates, large sums of public money annually voted by Parliament, for a long series of years, great zeal and untiring exertions, especially on the part of the clergy of the Establishment, and an appalling amount of legalized oppression and injustice, were all combined for the furtherance of this object. History tells, with what results.

In the year 1537, the Irish Parliament passed a Parish Schools Act, similar to that of England. By this Act, it was provided that every one taking orders should have an oath administered to him (by the archbishop, or bishop, or other authority conferring the order of priesthood, deacon, or subdeacon) that he would endeavour to learn the English language, and 'move, endoctrine and teach all other being under his order rule and governance to accomplish and performe the same,' and bid the beades in the English tongue, and preach the word of God in English, if he can preach,' and also would keep or cause to be kept within his parish, a schole for to

1 See p. 12.

2 28th Henry VIII., chap. 15. Irish Statutes, vol. i.

p. 125.