OF THE EVIDENCE, BEFORE THE COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSES OF LORDS AND COMMONS, IN THE YEAR 1837, ON THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. LONDON: 1838. NOTICE. THE publication of this Digest has been delayed by a combination of circumstances, equally unavoidable and destitute of interest. The instructions given to the Compiler were to confine himself strictly to the evidence, to suppress his own feelings and opinions, to give such an impartial summary as an upright judge might be supposed to offer to an intelligent jury. So far as the incompleteness of the investigation allowed, the Compiler has endeavoured to adhere strictly to these directions; he even destroyed a considerable portion of his labours in which he had given abstracts of the evidence in his own language, lest such a plan should expose him to the charge of misrepresenting the statements of any witness, and he adopted what seems the less objectionable plan of giving the evidence on each point in the words of the witnesses themselves. He has added one or two observations to fill up gaps in the investigation, because, though the case against the Board was heard completely, the case for the Board was terminated rather abruptly. But these observations are also derived from tangible evidence, and care has been taken to quote the authorities. The references to the evidence before the committee of the House of Commons are numbered by queries, those to the evidence before the House of Lords are numbered by pages, the queries not being marked in their Lordships' report. The task of compressing nearly two thousand folio pages of evidence into the compass of this little volume, is one which could not be executed to the satisfaction of all parties. Much of the matter which the compiler of a digest must omit as irrelevant, will appear to the persons by whom it was brought forward, among the most essential parts of the enquiry. This |