The “Kildare Street Society” which received an endowment from Government, and directed National education from 1812 to 1831, was not proselytising, and it was for some time largely patronized by Roman Catholics.  It is certainly by no means deserving of the contempt which some writers have bestowed on it, and if measured by the spirit of the time in which it was founded it will appear both liberal and useful....  The object of the schools was stated to be united education, “taking common Christian ground for the foundation, and excluding all sectarian distinctions from every part of the arrangement;” “drawing the attention of both denominations to the many leading truths of Christianity in which they agree.”  To carry out this principle it was a fundamental rule that the Bible must be read without note or comment in all the schools.  It might be read either in the Authorized or in the Douay version....  In 1825 there were 1,490 schools connected with the Society, containing about 100,000 pupils.  The improvements introduced into education by Bell, Lancaster, and Pestalozzi were largely adopted.  Great attention was paid to needlework....  A great number of useful publications were printed by the Society, and we have the high authority of Dr. Doyle for stating that he never found anything objectionable [to Catholics] in them.[23]

Take, again, as an evidence of the progressive spirit of the Irish thinkers on education, the remarkable scheme of national education which, after the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act, was formulated by Mr. Thomas Wyse, of Waterford.  In addition to elementary schools, Mr. Wyse proposed to establish in every county, ’an academy for the education of the middle class of society in those departments of knowledge most necessary to those classes, and over those a College in each of the four provinces, managed by a Committee representative of the interests of the several counties of the provinces.’  ’It is a matter of importance,’ wrote Mr. Wyse, ’for the simple and efficient working of the whole system of national education, that each part should as much as possible be brought into co-operation and accord with the others.’  He foresaw, too, that one of the needs of the Irish temperament was a training in science which would cultivate the habits of ’education, observation, and reasoning,’ and he pointed out that the peculiar manufactures, trades, and occupations of the several localities would determine the course of studies.  Mr. Wyse’s memorandum on education led, as is well known, to the creation of the Board of National Education, but, to quote Dr. Starkie,[24] the present Resident Commissioner of the Board, ’the more important part of the scheme, dealing with a university and secondary education, was shelved, in spite of Mr. Wyse’s warnings that it was imprudent, dangerous, and pernicious to the social condition of the country, and to its future tranquillity, that so much encouragement should be given to the education of the lower classes, without at the same time due provision being made for the education of the middle and upper classes.’