In pursuing their investigations, the committee say “their sole object has been to consider the principle upon which it will be expedient hereafter to grant public money in aid of Irish education;” and they prefer recording the conclusions at which they have arrived in the form of abstract propositions, instead of reasoning upon and discussing the merits of different modes of procedure in this respect. After the most anxious deliberation, they have, they say, adopted a series of resolutions on the subject, which are given at length, and in fact constitute the substance of their Report; and it is now proposed to select such portions of these resolutions as will enable the reader to see clearly what the views of the committee were. To give the whole is unnecessary, and would be inconvenient. The various Reports of committees and commissioners on Irish education are so voluminous, as to make it impossible to quote them at length, and the abstracts of the more important portions herein given will be sufficient for our purpose. A passage from the Report of the commissioners in 1812[54] is cited, to the effect—“that no plan of education, however wisely and unexceptionably contrived in other respects, can be carried into effectual operation in Ireland, unless it be explicitly avowed, and clearly understood as its leading principle, that no attempt shall be made to influence or disturb the peculiar religious tenets of any sect or denomination of Christians.” A passage from the Report of the commissioners in 1824 is likewise cited, to the effect—“that in a country where mutual divisions exist between different classes of the people, schools should be established for the purpose of giving to children of all religious persuasions, such useful instruction as they may severally be capable and desirous of receiving, without having any ground to apprehend any interference with their respective religious principles.” Another passage of the same Report is also cited—“in favour of the expediency of devising a system of mutual education, from which suspicion should if possible be banished, and the causes of distrust and jealousy be effectually removed; and under which the children may imbibe similar ideas, and form congenial habits, tending to diminish, not to increase, that distinctness of feeling now but too prevalent.” ----- [54] This Report was signed by three bishops, the provost, and several other distinguished clerical and lay members of the established church. -----