of the inspection department of the institution
amounts to no less a sum than L23,000.

"The cost of the official establishment in Marlborough
Street is L15,457.

"In addition to this, a very considerable sum, amounting,
probably, to nearly L10,000, appears to be annually
distributed, at the discretion of the Board and its
inspectors, in the shape of gratuities of one kind or other
to the persons engaged in the teaching of the national
schools.

"It appears from this report (excluding the item last
mentioned), that upon the official staff of this great
educational institute there is annually expended a sum of
L49,000; and upon model and agricultural schools, wholly
foreign from the original objects, a further sum of L33,000,
making an expenditure of L82,000, one shilling of which does
not reach one of the schools, to support which the grant for
Irish education was originally made.

"The whole of this immense sum, amounting to nearly
one-third of the grant, is really spent upon a machinery
for bringing the education of the people under the entire
and absolute control of the Board.

"I do not stop to argue whether L15,000 be not an
extravagant expenditure for official expenses. That which is
of importance to observe is, that the tendency and effect of
the costly, but most effective, system of inspection is, in
reality, to convert inspection into superintendence, and to
extend the direct influence of the Board over all the
schools in connection with them. The training or normal
establishment is instituted for the express purpose of
indoctrinating the masters in the views prescribed by the
Board. But the influence does not end here. By a system of
examinations, conducted in connection with the inspection,
the Board contrives to direct the studies and mould the
train of thought of the masters. Their salaries are
increased at the pleasure of the Board. A graduated system
of promotion and a scale of rewards are established,
dependent entirely on their recommending themselves to the
inspectors. Under such a system the power nominally left to
the local patrons of selecting the schoolmaster, in reality
does not give to these patrons any substantial control.
Every national schoolmaster adopts, or professes to adopt,