THE IRISH TONGUE

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 131, 30 November 1934, Page 9

THE IRISH TONGUE

CHILDREN NOT TAUGHT

PARENTS PROSECUTED

A case has just been brought before the district justice at Enniscorthy ■which seems to deserve the attention of those- who are concerned about the encroachments of State control upon the wills and lives of private citizens, writes the Izish correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." The local superintendent of police, acting apparently at the instigation of the Department of Education, prosecuted five parents for failing to • comply with the provisions of the Free State School Attendance Act. He admitted that the prosecution was the first of its kind, since it was based not on the failure of the parents to send their children to school, but on the allegation that the school of their choice did not satisfy the requirements of the Act, What the Act requires is that children of a certain age shall attend a national school or other suitable school. The Minister may certify any school to be a suitable school, or may refuse the certificate. But if a parent is prosecuted for not sending his child to any national or suitable school it is a valid defence to show that his child is getting otherwise a "suitable" primary education. • A Departmental inspector testified that the> school to which the children were being sent was not a certified school, no application for a certificate having been made on its behalf. Miss Elderkin, who keeps the school in question, gave evidence to show that she had for twenty years taught in Enniscorthy all the usual primary subjects, while hor sister gave Latin lessons when1 required. Her past pupils had recently obtained honours and a scholarship. She had not applied for' a certificate because she was unable to teach Irish, and she was informed that the Department would on that account refuse a certificate. The District Justice postponed his decision, remarking that the case raised an issue of tremendous importance. ' ' THE REAL ISSUE. That is s hardly an exaggeration since, stated baldly, the real issue is whether the Act does or does not empower the Minister to compel all parents to have their children taught Irish or even through the medium of Irish. For the Department has made no secret of its intention of refusing a certificate of suitability to any school that does not teach Irish. , Nor is this all. It has this year made a long step forward in the national schools towards the proclaimed goal of having all subjects taught through the medium of Irish. For this pui'pose it has agreed to lower the nono-too-lofty standard of English and mathematical teaching in those schools. Clearly it would be disagreeable for the Department to have to tolerate the competition _of private1 schools free from the, handicap of having to teach through the medium of a strange and imperfectly modernised language. Hence, since it has resolved to subordinate all other ends to the revival'of Irish as a spoken'language, it must feel bound by hook or by crook >to bring the private schools into line. In this it can reckon on the support of all three political parties, for none of them dare face the accusation of lukewarmness in regard to the national language. The fact, however, remains that Irish is not a living language, except in a few backward, impoverished tracts, and that there are an appreciable number of Irish parents who regard the revival of the Irish language as neither possible nor desirable, and feel that it is a betrayal of trust to sacrifice the education of their children to political fanaticism or political hypocrisy. They resent strongly the assumption that either the Department of Education or a majority of the electorate has a right to dictate to them the kind of education they should give to their children, when they themselves are willing to pay the whole cost of it. Tho voting power of such parents is, however, negligible. NOT ASKED. This year when the Department decided to have all children in tho first standard taught through the medium of Irish no one dreamed of consulting the parents. But the still, small voice of the Catholic Church seems to have been heard. One of the subjects taught in tho infants' and first standards is religion, and some of tho Catholic clergy are said to have insisted that it should be taught in a language the children understood. So reeourso had, after all, to be had to English. Apart from that, the Department steam-roller is proceeding according to plans, and now the private schools are to be flattened out, beginning apparently with the weakest, in country towns like Enniscorthy. But perhaps his sense of justice may impel the Minister to proceed simultaneously against the' richer and more powerful recalcitrants in Dublin. For surely justice demands that if poor parents may not send their children to an "tin-Irish" school in Ireland, neither should the rich be allowed to send tbeir children to "unIrish" schools'in England. For from the national standpoint of tlio Department an education at Eton or Downside must bo every bit as "unsuitable" as that provided by the Miss Elderkins in Enniscorthy.