336 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. 



REMARKS 



ON THE NEW SYSTEM OF NATIONAL EDUCATION, EX- 

 TRACTED FROM A WORK BY MR. DEVEREUX*. 



THE REV. MR. SADLIER, a member of the Committee on 

 National Education, in a letter addressed to the Rev. H. 

 Seymour, dated January 10th, 1832, agrees with me, that 

 the real object which is proposed, in establishing these 

 liberal schools, has been to make Protestants, or to increase 

 the number of the members of the Established Church ; 

 that the means employed in the first instance to act 

 upon the Catholics entirely failed. " I am perfectly con- 

 vinced," says he, " by the experience of many years, that 

 the Roman Catholic peasantry will not receive religious 

 instruction except from their clergy " that it is conse- 

 quently necessary to attempt other systems of prosely tism ; 

 and he adds, " We must believe firmly, as on truth, that 

 a people who are instructed will gradually, and perhaps 

 entirely, rise superior to their errors ;" which, in Protes- 

 tant language, is as much as to say that they will abandon 

 gradually the Catholic religion. 



The reverend member of the Committee on liberal edu- 

 cation here appears to be penetrated with an ardent desire 

 to see us united to the Established Church. But we must 

 do him justice he rejects all coercive means, and adds, 

 " No one would rejoice more than I should at the conver- 

 sion of our Catholic countrymen to the doctrines of the 

 Established Church, and no one desires more ardently to 

 make the utmost efforts and to devote his life to the ac- 



[* Retranslated.] 



