most meritorious pupils in the best schools within their respective districts. Two-thirds of these Monitors were to be males, and one-third females, and small salaries were allotted to them, varying in amount from £4 to £7 per annum. Our anticipations, as to the result of this arrangement, having been realized, we have increased the number of paid Monitors to four males and two females in each district, making, in the whole, the total number of 204 in the thirty-four school districts into which Ireland is now divided.

43. Since the first formation of our Model Schools, we have employed paid Monitors, chosen exclusively upon the ground of merit from the best pupils. Small weekly payments, increasing with their several ages and acquirements, have been sufficient to induce them to remain in the schools after the usual period of learning has ceased, and before they are sufficiently old to be appointed as regular teachers in other schools. In this manner we have provided excellent assistant teachers at a very small expense. We have secured for humble talent the means of intellectual advancement, and have supplied all the children in our schools with the strongest stimulus to exertion. Many of these Monitors have become Masters, of whom one is the present Head Teacher of our Model School. Others we have placed, during the last few years, as apprentice clerks in our office, where they may be gradually raised to the higher clerkships, and in time may possibly become Inspectors.

44. Having thus proved the efficiency of this system of paid Monitors in our Model Schools, we have, according to our usual course, resolved to extend it throughout our other schools, in proportion as we find it to be beneficial, as well as acceptable to the country, and in proportion as funds are granted to us for the purpose. The paid Monitors will be selected from the best pupils in every district, upon public examination in the District Model Schools, when those schools are established. We intend that the examination shall be public; and in order to prevent the possibility or suspicion of favouritism, that it shall be conducted by a Board of three Inspectors; one, the Inspector of the particular district, the others of adjoining districts.

XI.-45. In our last Report we stated that we had directed our Superintendents to inquire regarding the most eligible sites for District Model Schools. Their answers having been laid before us, together with several applications offer

ing sites, the majority of such applications have been deemed, on various grounds, ineligible. Six sites, however, have at length been selected; and we expect that the erection of District Model Schools will be commenced during the present year at the following places, viz., Coleraine, Ballymena, Newry, Bailieborough, Clonmel, and Dunmanway. It is our intention to establish one of these Schools in each district; but we find that the expense will be so considerable, that, unless Parliament provide us with sufficient funds for the purpose, we must proceed in our undertaking by slow degrees.

46. In the month of June, in 1846, we explained to our Superintendents, for their own information and that of the Patrons of the several schools within their districts, the general plan upon which we proposed that the District Model Schools, when founded, should be conducted.

47. In our circular we stated :

That of the thirty-two District Model Schools a certain number should be established in the chief towns of Ireland; the remainder in smaller towns and villages throughout the country.

That each Model School, established in large towns, should consist of an infant, a male, and a female school; and that each of these schools should be capable of containing one hundred children. That a small play-ground should be annexed to each school; the whole school premises should be enclosed with a wall, and contain half an acre, at the least.

That in the Model Schools, established in the smaller country towns, the same course should be followed, with this difference, that in the place of the infant school an agricultural school should be established.

That in each District Model School a residence for the master, and a dormitory to accommodate three Candidate Teachers should be attached to the male school. That a residence should be supplied to the mistress of the female school, in the neighbourhood of the school, and that one female Candidate Teacher should be placed under her care.

That the Candidate Teachers should be boarded and lodged at the expense of the Commissioners. The course of training in the District Model School to last for six months; so that in each district six male and two female teachers should be annually trained— in all 256.

That the Candidate Teachers should be selected, after public examination by the Superintendents, from among the paid Monitors and other meritorious pupils of National Schools within the district; and that such of the Candidate Teachers as should pass with credit through the half-year course of training in the District Model School, should be recommended by the Superintendent to those patrons of schools who apply for teachers.

That after the Candidate Teacher should have passed through the District Model School, have received the Superintendent's certificate, and served in a National School for two years, he should be summoned to complete his education at the National Model School, in Dublin: but that previous to his admission he should be examined by the Professors in a course of study which should be prescribed for all Candidate Teachers as soon as they had received their certificates at the District Model Schools; and that he should be rejected, unless found thoroughly prepared in this prescribed course. That from all the National Schools in the neighbourhood of each District Model School, a certain number of the most deserving pupils should be annually selected, after public examination, by the Superintendent, and be admitted as free Scholars into the District Model School, to act as Monitors therein, and to receive for their services small weekly payments, as is the case with respect to the Monitors in the Dublin Model Schools.

XII. 48. We have had under consideration during the year, the arrangement referred to in our Eleventh Report for increasing the number of Superintendents to thirty-two. We stated in that Report, that the additional inspection thus obtained, though a great improvement in comparison with what had hitherto been done, fell far short of the amount we considered desirable. The number of National Schools has since that time so rapidly increased, that thirty-two Superintendents could not, in general, inspect the schools under their charge more than twice in each year. We have, therefore, found it necessary to appoint two additional Superintendents, and to raise the number of districts to thirty-four.

49. By this arrangement we have provided the benefits of periodical inspection for nearly 4,000 schools; and the number of districts being thirty-four, each Superintendent will have under his care rather more than 117 schools. No per

son,

however diligent, can adequately inspect so great a number of schools; and this number is progressively increasing. We have therefore resolved, after much consideration, upon appointing experimentally, and by degrees, a few SubInspectors, selected from the fittest of our National Teachers. We propose that their salaries, though higher than those of our best teachers, should be much below those of our Inspectors; that they shall, in the first instance, be placed in our official establishment, for the purpose of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the routine of our official business, and fully conversant with all the improvements which may, from time to time, have been introduced into our system of teaching,

since the period of their own education as masters within our walls.

50. When thus thoroughly qualified to enter on their duties as Sub-Inspectors, it is intended that they shall be partly employed as auxiliaries to the Inspectors in the inspection of schools, but principally as teachers in organizing new schools, and improving such others as are imperfectly conducted. We shall by this arrangement, should it be found to work well, insure at a moderate expense the performance of important duties, for which we have hitherto been unable to provide; and shall, at the same time, open a safe and natural channel for the advancement of our teachers to the higher offices in our service.

51. Lastly, and with the view of giving full efficiency to our system of inspection, we have appointed four Head Inspectors, with increased salaries, who will, under our direction, exercise a general superintendence over this important department. They have been selected, upon the ground of merit alone, from the whole body of our Inspectors. One of them is a member of the Established Church-another, Presbyterian-and two are Roman Catholics.

52. Our Superintendents having been thus divided into three classes, will be henceforth designated as Head Inspectors, District Inspectors, and Sub-Inspectors.

53. When our District Model Schools shall have come into operation, and a course of sub-inspection, such as we have here alluded to, been established, the general machinery of our system will approach to its completion. We have formed this machinery by slow degrees. We have been governed more by our own experience than by any preconceived theories. We have adopted nothing suddenly, nor until we had proved it by repeated trials on a small scale, and as much as possible under our own observation.

54. In the series of promotion which we have established, we have had in view the double object of securing the fittest person for each particular duty, and of stimulating to the utmost the exertions of every pupil and officer under us. We have provided that talent should have the means to rise, but that its elevation should be gradual; that each step in its progress should lead naturally to the next; and that, at each stage, the abilities of the person, his disposition and manners, should be prepared for the further advancement that awaits him. The unpaid may become a paid monitor; the paid monitor, a candidate teacher in one of our District

Model Schools; then, a teacher in an ordinary school; next, a student in the ordinary training class in Dublin. He may afterwards, perhaps, be advanced into the special training class; may possibly become a teacher in one of our District Model Schools; thence rise to be a Sub-Inspector; then an Inspector; or, eventually, a Head Inspector. There will thus be formed a connected chain of promotion, of which the first link will be fixed in the village school, and the last in our Central establishment.

55. It is gratifying to us to find that the course of progressive training and advancement, which we have thus for years been forming, as our experience and means enabled us so to do, is substantially the same as that which, in the month of December, 1846, received the sanction of the "Committee of Council on Education" in England.

56. In making the above arrangements, however, we beg to inform your Excellency, that we shall at all times feel bound, as heretofore, to select for each particular service the most competent person for its discharge, whether previously connected with us or not.

XIII.-57. With reference to the fundamental principles of the National System of Education in Ireland, we have so often adverted to them in our previous Reports, that we do not now deem it necessary to enter fully upon the subject.

66

58. It may be necessary, however, to repeat what we have stated in our Eleventh Report, that, "by a strict adherence "to those fundamental principles, the National Schools are, "in a great number of instances, attended by children of "various denominations. But in some districts, where the poorer portion of the population is almost exclusively of "one denomination; or again, where well-conducted schools, "confined to those of one denomination, have been previously established, such intermixture does, of course, not take place. And this has been held out as a proof of the "failure, in those instances at least, of the system of united 66 education. But the system never was designed to be one "of united education in that sense; else, in numerous districts in Ireland, in which schools are much needed, it "would be wholly inapplicable. The system of united edu"cation which it was really designed to establish, and which has, in fact, been established, is a system which does not "exclude children of any denomination—which will admit,

66

66

66