[23] Instead she says: "This amount I happen to
be giving to English education; I will grant a proportionate amount to
Irish education."
"If English primary education happens to require financial aid from the
Treasury, Irish primary education is to get some and in proportion
thereto," writes the committee. "If England happens not to require any,
then, of course, neither does Ireland. A starving man is to be fed only if
some one else is hungry.... It seems to us extraordinary that Irish primary
education should be financed on lines that have little relation to the
needs of the case."[24]
So there are not enough schools to go to. Belfast teachers testified before
the committee that in their city alone there were 15,000 children without
school accommodations. Some of the number are on the streets. Others are
packed into educational holes of Calcutta. New schools, said the teachers,
are needed not only for these pupils but also for those incarcerated in
unsuitable schools--unheated schools or schools in whose dark rooms gas
must burn daily. On the point of unsuitability, the testimony of a special
investigator named F.H. Dale was quoted. He said:
"I have no hesitation in reporting that both in point of convenience for
teachers and in the requirements necessary for the health of teachers and
scholars, the average school buildings in Dublin and Belfast are markedly
inferior to the average school buildings now in use in English cities of
corresponding size.
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