(1) Although the mischievous principle of fees by results has disappeared for ever from the National Schools, it still clings to Intermediate Education, numbing and constricting, like some remorseless ivy limb, the growth and free exercise of the central stem and its branches, and preventing the natural sap from rising and vitalising the whole.  It is not as though the rest of the world had set the seal of its approval upon this kind of examination.  The contrary is the fact.  Almost every country in the world has rejected this system as wholly pernicious, injurious for the pupil, demoralising for the teacher, and wasteful for the State.  To regard the youth of the Secondary Schools merely as the geese that lay the golden eggs when the examinations occur, is to destroy the true aims of education and pervert the principle of rational development.  In fact, payments to Intermediate Schools ought to depend largely on the results of inspection, and much less on written examinations, a change which would involve the appointment of a larger number of inspectors than at present exist.  It is all-important that this alteration should be undertaken without delay.  The mechanical agglomeration of lifeless snippets of information which characterises the present method is an absurd and antiquated remnant of the bad old times, and the sooner this part of the system is hewn down the better it will be for the conscientious discharge of the teacher’s duties and the self-respect of all concerned.

(2) As for any proper official relationship between the Primary and Secondary systems, it may be said as yet to be practically non-existent.  That co-ordination of the two is essential—­nay, vital—­if Irish education is to be placed on a sound footing, may be appreciated from the fact that a large proportion, or 57 per cent, of the membership of Intermediate Schools is recruited from the schools of the National Board.  There seem to be only two ways in which this co-ordination can be satisfactorily effected.  Either the pupils must transfer from the National to the Secondary Schools at an age when they will be young enough to profit by Secondary instruction, or some sort of higher instruction must be given in the National Schools so as to fit the children, when they leave the latter at rather a later age, for the curriculum awaiting them in the Secondary system.  It is the Treasury at the present moment, and the Treasury alone, that blocks the way to this reform.  Since 1902 it has been asked to sanction the establishment of higher grade schools in large centres; the National Board also has repeatedly pleaded for the institution of a “higher top,” or advanced departments, in connection with selected Primary Schools in rural districts.  But all these requests, founded though they have been on intimate knowledge of the requirements of Irish Education and a ripe experience ranging over many years, have been brushed aside by the officials at the Exchequer, although the cost would be only about