Education In Ireland

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Dec 11, 1879

Education In Ireland.

THE true cause of the misery and turbulence that are chronic in Ireland is the want of education among the people. The Irish have fewer burdens than the English or the Scotch, though their condition is incomparably worse. If rents were reduced to a nominal sum, it would not be many years before the complaints of the people would be just as loud. The British Statesmen who are so seriously annoyed by Irish agitators can never find any remedy until they adopt the policy of universal education. A writer in the International Review says: "Ireland has suffered grevious wrongs in past times from England, though for several generations every attempt has been made to repair these wrongs. The imperial purse has been open for the education of the people, while the superintendence of the schools has been intrusted to home rule. Unfortunately, elementary education alone has been permitted by the priests. Cardinal Cullen, in his evidence before the House of Commons, argued against giving more education to a ploughman than would enable him to follow the plough, or a blacksmith than would fit him to hammer iron, lest they should get discontented with their lot. And so Irish schools proceed no further than to enable men to read the seditious papers which abound in Ireland."

—Oakland Daily Times.