THE NATIONAL AND CHRISTIAN BROTHERS' SCHOOL BOOKS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 26, 26 October 1883, Page 9

THE NATIONAL AND CHRISTIAN BROTHERS' SCHOOL BOOKS.

On Friday, August 17, in Committee of Supply the House of Commons was a«ked to vote the sum of £726,239 for public education in Ireland. From the report of the debate which appears in the Times we, (Nation,") take the following :— Mr. T. P. O'Connor said he wished to make a few remarks upon the character of the books used in the National Schools of Ireland, One thing, at least, Irishmen had a right to demand, and that was that their children in the Irish schools should not be asked to read things insulting to their nationality (hear. bear). In the ' Fourth book of lessons," for instance, he found this passage " The people of Ireland are a clever, lively people, formerly very much given to drink and very ignorant (a laugh) ; now it is believed that they are one of the soberest nations in Europe, and it will be their owu fault if they are not one of the best educated.' The hon. member then read another passage with regard to Dublin, which was to the effect that the city had some beautiful manufactures of poplin, velvet and glass, that there were once many more manufactuies there, but that the workmen refused to work for the wages their employers were willing to give them, and the masters, being unable to afford more, took their machinery elsewhere. Having read other extracts which in the hon. gentleman's opinion reflected unfavourably upon Ireland as compared with Wales and Belgium, he observed that not a single word of poetry was to be found in the National school books— not a word from Moore, nor from Clarence Manean (hear), nor the Young Ireland poets. On the other hand, this was a specimen of the poetry put into the hands of Irish children :—

" The beasts that roam over the plain My form with indifference see, They are so unacquainted with man That their tameness is shocking to me. ' (A laugh.) How could the Government of England in Ireland be regarded as anything but hostile and anti-Irish when they compelled Irish children to read books which teemed with insults to their nationality, and sometimes to their religion. The Chief Secretary had contributed many literary pages which he believed would live, and he would ask the right bon. gentleman were the books to which he had referred such as should be imposed on the rising generation in Ireland (hear).

Mr. Tievelyan said that he should be sorry to express an opinion on the books from which the hon. member had quoted until he had studied them. When the hon. gentleman spoke of Moore and Man - gan he could not suppress a cheer. With Moore he had long been acquainted, but it was only within the last year that he had g an extraordinary strong feeling for Mangan. Mangan was a poet for mature man, and he did not know that a child of 12 could appreciate the singular flavour and charm of Mangan's poetry. And Moore was not exactly the sort of poet to put into the hands of early youth. The sort of reading" to which the hon. grntleman had treated the committee did very well up to the age nl" 10 ycirs. He had read with very great interest some of the booJss >■( ibo Christian Brothers, and if the hon. member brought before him s>onr\e of th ose books and asked why they were not used in the higher classes, he should find it very hard to answer, because it seemed to him that they possessed very great literary merit, and he was unable to 83e that thep could do any possible harm. It the hon. member for Monaghan would mention any book which he thought it desirable to introduce into the National schools he would be happy to consider the matlui .