REFORMATORY EDUCATION IN IRELAND.

As early as in the 7th century, English and Scotch students resorted to Ireland for education. From the 8th century to the 13th, says Bayle, Ireland was "the most civilized country in Europe, the nursery of the sciences." Besides the higher institutions of learning, there remain records of a system of conventual schools, with teachers employed expressly for instructing poor scholars gratis.

But instead of a system of parochial schools, assisted by the state and supervised by the local clergymen of the pupils' parents, which succeeded so well in Scotland and would have found a basis at least as good, in existing institutions in Ireland, the whole series of English legislation from the act of Henry VIII., in 1537, for establishing parochial schools, down to the latest of the modern educational associations, the Kildare-Place Society, dating from 1811, constituted a system of avowed attempts to make Englishmen and Protestants out of Irish Catholics. The act of 1537, which provided for parochial schools, bound the Catholic clergy, under oath and under penalty of a heavy fine, to keep "a school to learn English," if any pupils should offer. An act under Elizabeth, A. D., 1558, provided for diocesan schools, of a higher grade. During subsequent reigns various other statutes were enacted on the subject generally, showing some slight progress in liberality. But, although the Catholics were four-fifths at least of the whole population, yet this whole course of legislation prohibited them from endowing, managing or teaching schools, or even from educating their own children abroad; and the penalty for any Catholic acting as a schoolmaster, assistant schoolmaster, or private tutor, was transportation for the first offense, and the pains of high treason for the second.

Of the succession of Protestant associations which continued these efforts at a later day, the Society for promoting English Protestant schools in Ireland was the first. It was established in 1733, to take charge of the Charter schools, which Primate Boulter had set in operation two years before. The Association for Discountenancing Vice followed, in 1800, and lastly came the Kildare-Place Society, which was in active operation until about 1835. Altogether, these societies expended nearly seven millions of dollars of public money in their vain undertaking.

Wiser and more liberal efforts for an unsectarian education began to be made as early as 1806, when a commission was appointed to examine the condition of schools in Ireland. Another was appointed in 1824; and, after still further efforts during several years, the present Board of National Education in Ireland was appointed, and commenced its operations in 1831. This body, composed of influential persons, both Catholic and Protestant, has labored with much wisdom and success. At the end of 1854,

the schools under its charge numbered 5,178, having more than a half a million of children on the rolls. These schools include 155 agricultural, and 142 work-house schools, besides various training schools, industrial schools, &c. The annual appropriation for the Board has increased from about £4,328 to about £200,000; and the influence of its labors is accomplishing a visible change in the moral and physical condition of Ireland. The system has lately been completed by the establishment of the Queen's colleges at Cork, Belfast, and Galway, which are based on similar principles, and offer a completed education without sectarian influence or tendency.

These "National Schools," although in fact both preventive and reformatory, are not technically so. Education expressly such, is not yet making progress in Ireland as rapidly as in England, although interest in it is increasing, and the need of it is, if possible, greater. The statistics of juvenile crime in Ireland are startling. In 1853, the number of offenders, aged not more than sixteen, arraigned in Ireland, was 15,600; of whom, were committed for trial, 12,238. And in 1854, of a total of 10,786 so arraigned, 7,640 were convicted. In Dublin alone, of a whole number of 240,248 persons taken into custody by the police, during the four years from 1849 to 1852, inclusive, 63,332, being over one-fifth, were less than twenty years of age.

To meet the moral and physical needs of such a class, both Protestants and Catholics have of late years made commendable exertions. The oldest Ragged School in Dublin is the Lurgan Street School, established in 1830, and to which a department for lodging and feeding boys was added in 1851. The Mill Street Ragged Schools were founded, in 1850, by Mr. Daniel Molloy. The Townsend Street Schools were opened in 1852. Among the ladies interested in these schools are the wives of Archbishop Whately, and of Hon. Thomas Lefroy, and others of the most influential families in Dublin. The pupils of these schools are employed as shoe-blacks, messengers, &c. The Ragged School Broomer and Messenger Society, organized 1852, procures for its scholars a somewhat higher grade of employment, and obtains good situations for them at graduation.

These are Protestant schools; and number in all about 200 “ragged" pupils. There were, however, in 1853, six Catholic schools, under charge of a committee of leading Catholics, with an aggregate attendance, including week-days and Sundays, of 2,730. The corresponding figure for the above Protestant schools is about 1,000; the number aided with food, lodging and clothing in the Catholic schools not being given. Mr. Connellan states the whole number of Ragged Schools in Dublin, 1853, at nine, with 664 pupils. Other similar schools have been added; among others, St. Joseph's Industrial School, and the Andrean Free National School, excellently conducted by Mr. M'Gauran; both Catholic.

The example of Dublin is being followed in Cork and other Irish cities, but we are at present unable to give precise information of their progress or present condition.

CHARACTERISTICS OF EUROPEAN REFORMATORIES.

In the movement for juvenile reform in Europe, some important principles of operation are perceptible. We shall here briefly state them.

1. Perhaps the most prominent of the points alluded to is, the Family Principle in organization. Of the modern reformatories, established to do a better work than the great centralized European orphan-houses and alms-houses, many receive only from ten to twenty children; a number not too great to allow family discipline and family influence. Larger establishments, as at Horn and Mettray, are sub-divided into family groups, under the charge of an "elder brother," or assistant of some grade. Under the influence of the benevolent and assiduous oversight of such guardians, these minor groups are pervaded with a spirit nearly approaching that of the natural family, and seem to afford the best possible substitute for the parental care of which the pupils are deprived.

2. Relations of these institutions to their originators and the supervising authority. The best of the European institutions have been first established upon a small scale, by one person, with the aid of a little society or of a few friends, or perhaps himself being sole originator, manager, teacher and pay-master; sometimes in his own private house. As the results of such labors become visible, his friends grow interested in it, and assist him with money or services; perhaps a few, or many, furnish funds sufficient to procure lands and buildings, and to provide some scanty salary for the officers. Now it is, and not before, that the appeal is made to the State; by showing that definite and important good is already done, and that moderate assistance will secure the safe and permanent continuance of the means of such good. In return for such aid, the State is invested with a supervisory power; and the reports of the institution are made to it, and to the public.

3. The motives and preparatory training of the teachers employed. In Europe, the student of juvenile reform is continually surprised at the almost missionary spirit which must operate in the various corps of assistants as well as superintendents at reformatories, to keep them where duty is so severe and wages so scanty. It is only a spirit of the most immediate, practical, home benevolence, looking to the benefit of the nearest and neediest, and influencing a class with whom, with us, such motives have too little weight, which calls out this class of laborers in the field of reform.

The pioneers in the modern reformatory enterprise, were mainly unprepared for their work by study or experience. But they almost immediately annexed to their institutions normal departments, varying in

character and distinctness, for the professional training of their assistants and successors. The members of these departments render important assistance in the daily conduct of the institution, and at the same time pursue a comprehensive course of study, thus obtaining extended and combined knowledge of the theory and practice of their profession.

4. The character and purpose of the industrial training given. Although some of these institutions prepare their pupils for trades, it is the object in most of them to train them for earning a living, as farmers, gardeners or nurserymen, and to accustom them to such a life; the country, and rural occupations, being regarded as the situation most favorable for the future morals and usefulness of the class of pupils trained in them. This also counteracts the existing tendency in the population to concentrate in and about the already overgrown European cities.

5. The extent to which women coöperate in the maintenance and carrying on of the institutions. The funds which support them are frequently wholly or partly gathered by a society of women, organized for the purpose; a force of female teachers is employed wherever the institution receives female pupils; and the system of "patronage" for the graduates is frequently in charge of a female patronage society. The women constituting these societies are pious, of great respectability, deeply interested in their work, and judicious and energetic in prosecuting it; and, in many instances, of high social position.

6. Contribution to the support of criminal children by their parents. Instead of permitting such parents,-usually themselves useless if not also criminal members of society,-to cast upon their more diligent and upright fellows all the care and expense of the children whom they have ruined, a custom is gaining ground of applying to such parents for a periodical payment in aid of their support. In England, Bavaria and Belgium such an application is sanctioned by law; and, in case of refusal, means of coercing a proper contribution are provided.

7. Economy. Notwithstanding that the average number of teachers and officers in the European reformatories is much larger than is usual in the United States, the average expense per pupil is surprisingly small. This is due, not only to the inexpensiveness of the buildings occupied, and smallness of the salaries paid, but to numerous economies secured by the judicious improvement of the labors of the pupils in farming, gardening, trades, &c., so that the institutions are, to a considerable degree, self-supporting.

8. A system of patronage, for continuing assistance and influence to the pupil after leaving the institution, until he is securely established, both in respect to occupation and morals. This department is under charge either of the officers of the institution or of a society organized for the special purpose, or both, and sometimes with State aid. Such societies consist either of men or women; and the help thus afforded to their beneficiaries is an important and indeed an indispensable appendix to the education of the school itself.

9. The distinctly preventive character of the movement generally. Not only do separate institutions exist, as well for the morally endangered as for the vicious only, but the best of the reformatories proper are, to a large extent, preventive in character. Orphans, neglected children, those already beginning to go astray, are received and cared for on the sound principle that prevention is better than cure, whether as to morals or money.

It may be added that nearly all the excellences above enumerated are directly or indirectly traceable to the extensive existence of personal, practical, active and painstaking charity among the individuals of European communities.