EDUCATION, IRELAND.
FIRST REPORT of the Commissioners appointed by the Lord Lieutenant to administer the Funds granted by Parliament for the Education ofthe Poor of Jre/ßwd.
TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE LORD LIEUTENANT-GENERAL AND GENERAL
GOVERNOR OF IRELAND.
WE, the undersigned Commissioners appointed to administer the Funds
granted by Parliament for the Education of the Poor of Ireland, beg leave to report to Your Excellency as follows :
We commeneed receiving applications for aid towards Schools in January 1832, and the total number made to us to the present time amounts to 1,548.
We have granted assistance to 789 Schools which are now in füll Operation.
We made grants to 52 other Schools, which have since ceased to be in connection with us; in general we deemed it right to discontinue aid to them in consequence of the reports of our inspectors.
We have promised aid towards the building of 199 Schools which have not as yet been completed.
We have rejected 216 applications, and have 292 now before us for conside-ration.
• The Schools whieh we already have in Operation are attended by 107,042 children ; and, according to the estimates transmitted to us, those which are to be opened in the houses not yet finished will be attended by a further number of 36,804; so that the whole ofthe Schools existing and in preparation will affbrd the benefits of education to 143,846 children.
We have the satisfaction to State, that throughout our correspondence with the patrons of schools, we have found them disposed to act with perfect integrity and candour: some instances of deviation from our rules have been reported to us, but on inquiry into the circumstances, we have in general received-such explanations as have been satisfactory to us.
An important part of the duty entrusted to us is the preparation of books for the use of the Schools and School Libraries.
We have hitherto directed our attention chiefly to the compilation of books for Schools only ; we have prepared and pub-lished four numbers of a series of reading books, to which we propose to add a fifth ; the lessons of which these books consist have been so written or selected as that, while they are used as reading exercises, they convey elements of knowledge to the children in regulär order.
We have also published treatises" on arithmetic and book-keeping and a translation of Clairant's Geometry.
Some books having been hastily prepared to meet the urgent necessities of the Schools, will require a further revision, but we are enabled to add, that the whole have already met with very general approbation, and we propose so to arrange the prices and mode of sale as to bring them as much as possible into general use.
Besides these works on the ordinary subjects of education, we have compiled and printed two numbers of a series of lessons from the Holy Scriptures, one from the Old, the other from the New Testament, and we propose to go on adding to them until we complete a copious abstract of the narrative parts of the Sacred Volume, interspersed with suitable passages from the poetical and didactic parts of it.
We proceed on the undertaking with perfect unanimity," and anticipate, from the general circulation of the work, the best results.
70.
