166 EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENTS (IRELAND) COMMISSION it to the privy Council, in order to obtain a decision of that authority, with an opportunity of recourse to the several Houses of Parliament, for the final settlement of the mattersiin dispute.
There are many matters of detail which may be conveniently and effectively dealt with when we come co consider the Scheme.
As to these, I do not now propose to make any remarks, and I confine myself to the most material points upon which my present opinion differs from that of the majority of my colleagues.
1.—The
Denominational Question.
Immediately after our Commission entered upon its duties, a claim of exemption was put forward by the Governors, upon the ground that the Act did not apply to Erasmus Smith's Endowments, because they were, within sec.
7 (6), applicable and provided exclusively for the benefit of persons of a particular religious denomination, and were under the exclusive control of persons of that denomination.
This claim was afterwards withdrawn.
We then took evidence as to the Governing Body, the Schools, and the Endowments, and on May 19, 1886, we heard Counsel for the Governors, the Catholic Head Masters Association, the Presbyterian Inter¬ mediate Education Committee, and the Wesleyan Methodists.
In subsequent years we held public inquiries at the Grammar Schools, and in the neighbourhood of the estates.
On these occasions we heard local repre¬ sentatives ofthe Roman Cathobc and other denomina¬ tions.
Having concluded these preliminary inquiries, and obtained detailed information from the Governors, we discussed the principles of a Draft Scheme.
The result is to be found in the Resolution, dated November 9, 1889, set out in our Report, 1889-90, p.
xxxii, " The Secretary was directed to prepare a Draft
Scheme upon the following basis:— " 1.
That it is an Endowment of private foun¬ dation, and therefore the Scheme must have regard to the founder's intentions.
" 2.
That in the opinion of the majority of the Commissioners" (including both the Judicial Com¬ missioners), "having regard to those intentions, the Governing Body should be exclusively Pro¬ testant, subject to a question to be further discus¬ sed as to the admission of various denominations of Protestants to the Governing Body."
These resolutions were embodied in our Report to the Lord Lieutenant, 1889-90, p.
v.,
and I have not changed my opinion, formed with the concurrence of Lord Justice Naish on consideration ofthe legal au¬ thorities, that the Draft Scheme ought to have been framed on the basis then denned.
In consequence of the iUness and resignation of Lord Justice Naish, the preparation of the Draft Scheme was postponed, and when the matter was next brought up for discussion, the majority of the Com¬ mission as at present constituted departed from the resolution of November 9, 1889, negatived my mo¬ tion—
"That due regard to the spirit of tbe Founder's intentions requires the constitution of the Gover¬ ning Body to be exclusively Protestant,"— and adopted "
a neutral or mixed Governing Body " as the basis of the Scheme.
The evidence of the intentions of the Founder, both as to the religious character of the education to be given in his schools, and also as to the relative im¬ portance which he attached to the education of the children of his tenants, and to confining his Schools to pupils who accepted Protestant teaching, is excep¬ tionally distinct.
The Rules which he prescribed, the power which was reserved to him by the Charter,
of Charles II.
of altering these rules during his bfe and the prohibition against subsequent alteration by the Governors, are supplemented by proof of the active personal part taken by Erasmus Smith himself in the management of the Schools, and particularly by the letter dated June 6th, 1682, in which he states :— " My end in founding the three Schools was to propagate the Protestant, faith according to the Scriptures, avoiding • all superstition, as the Charter, and the By-laws and Rides established, do direct."
The series of Acts of Parliament, Reports of Com¬ missions, and other documents dealing with the Endowments—especially the Reports of the Com¬ mission of 1854-8, and of the " Powis Commission" —appear without exception to recognise the exclusive Trotestant character of the Endowments.
The Commission of 1854-8 classifies the Schools as " Exclusive Schools, into which pupils of only one " religious persuasion have a right of admission," and that Commission recommended that the Governors should carry out the directions of the Founder as to Religious Instruction.
The Powis' Commission says—" About the exclusive religious character of these Schools in the mind of the "Founder there is no room for doubt."
The question whether Erasmus Smith had any intention of excluding Non-conformist Protestants, any further than the laws of the day compelled him, is one of difficulty.
Further evidence bearing upon this question is to be desired.
Proof of the denomi¬ nations to which the Governors appointed by the Founder belonged, of the grounds for preferring Primate Ussher's Catechism, which be prescribed, to the official Catechism of the Established Church, with fuUer information as to the laws regulating schools, and the appointment of schoolmasters, at the time, as expiainbig the restrictions imposed by the various Charters, might assist in determining this question.
I was prepared to concur in the preparation of a draft scheme admitting all denominations of Protes¬ tants to share in the benefits and government of the Endowments, reserving this important question for further discussion.
But my proposal was negatived by the majority of the Commissioners who adopted the "neutral or mixed" basis for the Governing Body.
2.
Mode of dealing with the Roman Catholic
Claims.
If I were satisfied that Roman Catholics, having regard to the Founder's intentions, were entitled to share the benefits of the Endowments, I should still not he satisfied with the Draft Scheme.
I believe, so far as it admits them at all, it does so in a form and under conditions proved by every authority who has appeared before the Commission to be repugnant to Roman Catholic principles.
Wherever I have been satisfied that a valid claim existed, I have felt it my duty to endeavour to satisfy that claim in a manner satisfactory to those who had established it.
The present Draft Scheme seems to me to be one with which no religious person of any denomination ought to be content.
The Grammar Schools, the chief objects of the foundation, are to be maintained as Boarding Schools; they are to be placed under a " neutral or mixed '"* Governing Body, so formed that the proportions in which Roman Catholics and Protestants are to be represented cannot be foreseen.
No provision is made as to the religious denominations either of the teachers or of the pupils.
The Governors may from time to time make such provision for the religious instruction of the pupils as they shall think fit, they must give it with due regard to tho denominations to which the pupils respectively belong, no pupd is to be permitted to receive any religious instruction to which his parents object, and no pupil declining to
