Industrial Schools. are acquiring expertness in the art. The work executed APPENDIX E. here appears rather better than ordinary. The lot of work I. Reports has not as yet been completed, so that the amount of remu- of District neration cannot be ascertained precisely. I am certain, Inspectors on however, from experience, that it will be so small as to be scarcely worth mentioning; but since the work does not interfere with the proper objects of the school, instruction in it is useful, as affording the pupils a means of occasional employment in their own homes, at an after period, and which may then become profitable to them. Plain needle-work continues to be taught; and as this is of the first necessity, I would recommend care to be taken that no child deficient in it should be allowed to work muslin embroidery. LIMERICK INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY'S SCHOOL. A Committee, consisting of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Bishops, the Mayor, and other persons of influence, was formed in the early part of this year, for supporting and managing this school. It was opened in May, a supply of materials for muslin embroidery having been procured, and a Teacher recommended by the Board of Manufacture. Her salary is £26 a year, paid by the Committee. Three additional Teachers have been since employed as assistants, at 2s. 6d. to 3s. per week each. In the commencement of the work, the number of pupils went on increasing until 160 were in attendance, but it has since gradually declined to eighty. The remuneration for the work has been considered too small, varying from 2d. to 2s. per week, by far the greater portion earning only the lowest rate, and this even with some addition mode to the payments by the kindness of the Committee. About three out of 100 appear to have earned 2s. a week. The workers seem to have expected immediate remuneration for their time, while the patrons had chiefly in view, in the first instance, the teaching of the art. The sum of £120, (including £50 of a balance from the funds of a Soup-Committee, formerly in operation,) was at their disposal, and a considerable portion of it has been expended in paying the Teachers, and meeting other expenses. The payments received, although not sufficient to be a means of support, affords relief to parents whose poverty prevents them sending their children to a Literary School, Nevertheless, it seems a great defect that there is neither literary nor religious instruction given here, particularly as many of the pupils are but ten years of age. The payments have been so small, and the prospect of earning any thing much greater by the work at a future time so slight, that these young children suffer a loss, rather than enjoy any advantage from attending. Many left Literary Schools under VOL. I. 3 D City of Limerick, I. Reports APPENDIX E. the impression that great profit was to be gained by this work. A halfpenny-worth of bread being distributed daily here to each was also an inducement to attend. A rule was, however, made some time since, that no female under fourteen years should be admitted as a pupil, unless able to read and write-a very proper regulation; but it would require great care to see it carried into effect, and it does not appear to have been strictly acted upon. City of Limerick. It would seem to me, that arrangements should be made in Industrial Schools for giving literary and religious instruetion to the younger, if not to all the pupils; or that those under fifteen years of age should be absolutely excluded, that they may not leave the Ordinary Literary Schools. In case young children were admitted, besides learning reading, writing, and arithmetic, and receiving religious instruction, those unable to execute plain sewing, the mending, cutting out, and making up of clothes, should be taught these branches, which are of the first importance, before being permitted to commence any other sort of work. The Industrial Schools can spread only an initiatory knowledge of whatever art is practised in them. Some appear to be benevolent institutions for the distribution of alms, where the recipients are required to give a certain amount of labour, in order to cultivate habits of industry; but I do not think they can ever be permanently self-supporting. Those who attend them should, therefore, receive instructions in the elements of literature, the means of acquiring that general knowledge by which they may be able to turn their industrial training to the best account at a future period. In the north of Ireland, where most of the muslin embroidery is executed, it is worked by families at their homes, the materials being intrusted to them by agents of the manufacturers, who pay as the pieces are returned completed. Where it is so practised, the workers earn sums which, although small, are sufficient to remunerate them. But there must be a considerable number of females skilled in the work in any locality, before the manufacturer will appoint an agent in it; and one good the schools of muslin embroidery will effect, will be to spread an initiatory knowledge of the art, and thus prepare the way for the appointment of agents. No agent has been, as yet, appointed in Limerick, so that there is no work executed by the people, at their homes, but the schools have introduced a knowledge of the art, and are doubtless spreading it. I do not think that the work executed in the schools, will ever be remunerative; nor should this be the chief object of those public spirited and benevolent persons who have engaged in establishing them, which is rather to scatter, as it were, the germs of future manufacturing Industrial City of Limerick. industry. As regards the quality of the work, the best speci- APPENDIX E. mens of muslin embroidery, from the north, or any other part I. Reports of Ireland, are totally inferior to the French work, both in of District point of design and execution. I have, indeed, seen a few Inspectors on pieces from Scotland (from Glasgow and Donaghadee), which Schools. appear to reach the French, but, I understand, these are very rare, the bulk of the Scotch work being much of the same sort as the Irish. It would be evident, even on the most casual inspection, that the superiority of the French must arise, in point of design, from the influence of the Schools of Art in that country, and, in point of execution, from the workers having spent a considerable time, most likely many years, at learning it as a trade. To attempt to equal it here, until the means of Art-culture, by Schools of Design, are afforded to the people by government, is perfectly illusory. Some movement has been made in Limerick towards establishing such a school, and in no place would it more likely be fruitful of the best effect, the lace manufacture already comparatively flourishing, and on that of linen about to be cominenced by Mr. Russell, one of the merchants. The inferior work has, however, its own class of buyers, and the manufacture of it is very important. It is, in fact, required as a cheap article, and would be called for even if the best work could be produced in this country. As an example of this difference in price: an article of Irish or Scotch make, sold here at 1s. 6d. or 2s., would cost 10s., if superior French work. In this city the making of lace is an instance of the success that may attend the establishment of manufactures in Ireland. Commenced by Mr. Walker, an English gentleman, in 1829, with a few workers from Nottingham, it now employs 1,600 females; and I would estimate the annual distribution of wages at £8,300, taking their weekly wages at an average of 2s., which is not too high. These females, it may be remarked, are generally apprenticed at about ten years of age, for seven years. They do not commonly earn wages for the first six months, and, owing to constant employment, I have found that four-fifths can neither read nor write. I am assured, however, that those who have received some schooling are, in general, as might naturally be expected, much quicker at learning the art, and excel in it after a shorter time than the uneducated. Some of the manufacturers state, that on this view, they have lately made a rule not to take apprentices unable to read or write, but it is not strictly enforced. As regards the extension, to other schools, of the experiment of appointing Teachers of muslin embroidery, I am of opinion that there are many where the Commissioners would confer APPENDIX E. a great benefit by doing so, keeping always to the present practice of giving no aid in money but the Teacher's salary. I would suggest the following conditions to be kept in view, in such grauts, and by which, indeed, the Board is already guided: I. Reports City of Limerick. 1. The school to have a very numerous attendance, say 200 on an average. 2. The teaching of the work to be strictly subordinate to the literary instruction. 3. The pupils to be selected from those able to read, write, and count, and acquainted with plain work, and the mending and entting out of clothes. 4. The Teacher to instruct them in drafts, successively; no pupil to be occupied with the work for a longer time than one hour and a half, daily. It is in towns that the schools numerously attended will be found; and there is one in Limerick, the St. Mary and Munchin's National School, in the opposite quarter of the city to that of the Perry Square School, where a Teacher of the work would have an opportunity of rendering herself extremely useful. I have the honour to remain, Gentlemen, your obedient Servant, The Secretaries, Education Office, Dublin. HENRY P. CLARKE. West Dublin. No. 7.-REPORT of WILLIAM MACDERMOTT, Esq., District Inspector, on the Industrial Department of the WEST DUBLIN MODEL FEMALE SCHOOL. December, 1851. GENTLEMEN,-Regulations.-The business of the Industrial Department begins (except on Saturdays,) at half-past one, and continues until three o'clock; thus one hour and a half of the first five days of the week is daily appropriated to the Industrial School. On Saturdays, one hour and a quarter is devoted to the same purpose. The work executed here is plain sewing, knitting, and embroidering on muslin. This department is carried on in the literary school-room. The Teachers.-Bridget Tierney, aged twenty, gives instruction in embroidering; her salary is twelve shillings per week. Mary Pierce, aged twenty, teaches plain work; her salary is £15 per year. These Teachers are paid by the Board. two Mistresses of the Literary School give their assistance, while the industrial branches are being taught. The The Accounts.-A ledger is kept here, showing on the debit Industrial side the number of pieces of linen, calico, &c., bought, also the APPENDIX E. number of yards used of such linen, calico, &c.; while the I. Reports credit side gives a monthly view, for each day of the week, of District of the number of caps, shirts, &c., made from the linen, calico, Inspectors on &c., bought and set forth on the debit side of the account, the price for which each article was sold, and the total amount of cash received for each month. This account is signed West Dublin. monthly by the plain worker, Mary Pierce, and countersigned by the Head Mistress of the literary department. The Remuneration, of what may be called the Industrial Branch of this establishment, is so small, that it scarcely deserves the name; a result which I fear must continue, so long as the child is at the mercy of the wholesale dealer of those flowered muslins at which she works. He fixes what price he pleases on her labour, and which is so extremely low, that it must ultimately chill her hopes of remunerative reward, and turn her aside from acquiring this art at all. At first there were large and flattering promises made, that when the pupil should achieve a command in this branch of female employment, her gains would be considerable; but I see no hopes of any realization of those promises, nor any means to correct a system so disheartening to the industrious poor, unless an agent were employed to effect the sale of these wrought muslins, in those places whither they are so largely exported from this country, with great profits, as I understand, to the wholesale dealer, but with none I may say to the poor and squalid artist. I offer this suggestion, having heard of a case where it has been acted upon with considerable advantage to the worker. Still, I am not unconscious of some serious difficulties it might involve if adopted by a public body. I have the honour to remain, Gentlemen, your obedient Servant, W. MACDERMOTT. Schools. No. 8.--SPECIAL REPORT of JAMES M'LOCHLIN, Esq., District Charleville. Rathkeale, November, 1851. GENTLEMEN,-I beg to submit, for the information of the Commissioners of National Education, the following details with regard to the operations of the above school, more especially in reference to such as have arisen since my former visit and Report thereon, in the month of May last. This school, which, through the generous aid of the Commissioners, was, on 17th February, 1851, opened to the |