Madam, – In his very interesting article on the Stanley letter of 1831 and the development of elementary education (An Irishman’s Diary, April 4th) Patrick F O’Donovan outlines the considerable progress made in subsequent decades and correctly lauds the achievements of those involved.
He mentions that mixed education was to be the nature of the provision, with children of all denominations attending school together and links that to the current debate on school patronage.
However, he omits to mention that another objective of the scheme was that the management structures were to be mixed also, surely a more relevant point. The Stanley letter outlined that applications to set up and manage schools from some groupings would be particularly welcome and even set out an order of preference. “As one of the main objectives must be to unite in one system children of different creeds, and as much must depend upon the cooperation of the resident clergy, the board will probably look with peculiar favour upon applications proceeding either from: 1st, the Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy of the parish; or 2nd, one of the clergymen and a certain number of parishioners professing the opposite creed; or 3rd, parishioners of both denominations.” Unfortunately this proved to be to much to hope for in 19th-century Ireland, as very few such applications emerged. Gradually a denominational system developed. The system, while successful in educational terms, as Mr O’Donovan illustrates, never achieved its objective of being mixed in management structure or in the composition of student bodies.
Indeed, Stanley admitted privately, as early as 1841, that this vision would not be realised. Perhaps, now, Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn can move us to a more pluralist position, particularly given the positive attitude of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. However, he may have to proceed slowly. After all, it has taken us 180 years to get to this point.
While he’s at it, the Minister might look at second level also, where management structures can be explained in the light of our history, but make little sense in 21st-century Ireland. – Yours, etc,