SECTION X.

STATE OF EDUCATION, SCHOOLS, AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS.

UNTIL within a few years, the state of education was at a very low ebb, although 60 years ago there were many celebrated Latin schools, where the sons of respectable families were educated; but now many of the gentlemen of the county seem to be sensible of its importance, and several schools have been established by individuals highly to their credit: I trust before long we shall see one on every estate in the province. The school established by the will of Erasmus Smyth in the town of Galway stands preeminent; it is admirably conducted by the Rev. Mr. Whitley. The trustees have erected a handsome and very commodious school house and extensive range of offices with a spacious play ground. There is attached to the house about 15 acres of excellent ground, and a large garden. The house is built in an extremely healthful situation, near Fort Hill, commanding a fine view of the bay of Galway, Black Head, the Isles of Arran, &c. "Erasmus Smyth was an Alderman of London, who came over to Ireland with the army as commissary in the year 1641 to suppress the rebellion. After it was put down, he purchased at very low rates many of the forfeited estates in various parts of Ireland, particularly in the county of the town of Galway, and neighbourhood of Sligo. Well knowing that his titles and tenures were very precarious, and liable at a future period to be litigated, he very cunningly made a grant of part of the lands for the founding and endowment of Protestant schools, and other charitable

purposes, for which he obtained a charter, dated the 26th of March 1669, appointing the bench of bishops, the lord chancellor, the judges, the great law officers, all for the time being, governors and trustees, well knowing that if any flaw should ever appear in the patents, titles, or tenures, under which he got the estates, the law officers would always protect and make the title good to his heirs, and which has been really the case, as his heirs have possessed their immense property unmolested to this day." "The estate of Erasmus Smyth in the county of the town of Galway may amount to about 1400 acres, and may at a very moderate calculation, including mills, houses, plots, &c. in Newtown Smith and Bohermore be valued at five guineas per acre, or £7900 per annum; the tenants interest may be well worth three times that sum; of which the following statement, (contributed by an intelligent friend who is intimately acquainted with the affair) is strongly corroborative. Mr. Brabazon has about £400. per annum profit rent; Mr. Cummin £350. per annum profit rent: most of the old tenants have been turned out, and few of the occupying tenants have been left. Roscom, 232 acres, lately set, pays to the charity two guineas an acre, and was immediately let at four guineas to some of the former tenants, under the exploded and unfounded idea, and which is the bane of Ireland, that a middleman tenant is more secure than the former small tenants; had this been the case, it would not have been let to those very under tenants by the middlemen. The sea weed alone attached to Roscom is worth about £300. per annum, which brings down the rent to about a guinea an acre. The eastern and western parts of Roscom, 264 acres, pay to the charity about twenty five shillings per acre, and have been relet to poor people at about four or five pounds per

acre. The sea weed of these two divisions is worth about 200 guineas per annum, and reduces the rent to about fifteen shillings per acre. Ballybanemore (west) divided into five parts of twenty acres each, was let at the same time from £3. 5s. to £3. 15s. per acre, being of the same quality as the former, and without the advantage of the kelp shore. Ballybanemore (north) formerly occupied by resident villagers, who paid their rent immediately to the governor's agent, were turned out, to give compensation to the tenants who occupied the western part, who pay the charity twenty-five shillings per acre, and relet to three of the former resident tenants at about two guineas per acre. Mr. Burke of Murrough, for 140 acres, pays about twenty-four shillings per acre, with a kelp shore, worth about £100. per annum: about 50 acres of this farm are relet for three to four guineas per acre; the remainder is but indifferent land. Mr. Blake of Merlin Park offered to give three pounds per acre for 100 acres of east Roscom, and to go security for the resident small tenants, who offered £4. per acre for western Roscom, but was refused: the charity now receives but two guineas per acre; yet those small tenants who were refused are the very tenants thought eligible by the middleman tenant. Mr. Blake also offered to lay out £1000. in improvements, and in building comfortable houses for the former resident tenants. The five divisions of 20 acres each, would produce each £100. per annum profit rent if let to tenants. The tenants to three of the divisions were entitled to some preference, because they have laid out large sums in improving lands belonging to the charity in the town of Galway. If the lands had been let, according to advertisement, in small divisions, they would have been all taken by the inhabitants of Galway, who are anxious

to get plots so near the town for building on, which would not only have improved the property, but would have added greatly to the beauty of the environs of that town, for the situation of the ground is very fine, commanding fine and extensive views of land and sea. A committee of two or three, assisted by a professional man perfectly acquainted with the nature of land, should have been sent to view the ground and its capabilities before the letting, and become acquaintedwith the tenantry and their circumstances, and take them from that scourge, a middleman, who takes advantage of that natural preference for their native soil, which tempts them to bid considerably above the real value of the land, and is one great cause of their general poverty and distress."-There are two charity schools established in Galway; the first was set on foot by the late Rev. Augustine Kirwan, Catholic warden, for the education of poor indigent boys, who are carefully instructed in the principles of their religion, and in reading, writing, and arithmetic: the school is chiefly supported by the occasional contributions of the charitable, which has created a fund that, with receipts of charity sermons, enable the trustees to take in and instruct 150 boys; one hundred of whom they are enabled to clothe yearly, and are also able annually to bind out 12 apprentices to useful trades, by which they are rescued from vice, and become useful members of society. Their funds and concerns are managed by a president, vice-president, treasurer, and secretary, annually chosen, and who are under the patronage of the Catholic warden, vicars, and parochial clergy of the town. In the year 1791 the late Mr. Kirwan, a merchant of London, bequeathed £400. to be vested in trustees, who were to divide the interest amongst old decayed Galway families, (being tribes only) every

Christmas for ever; always giving a preference to his own poor relations. The principal has been laid out in the purchase of an estate in the county of the town of Galway, from colonel John Blake of Furbough, which at the expiration of a lease in a few years, will let for about £100. per annum; this will relieve many poor decent families, room-keepers, who are ashamed to beg.-The late Rev. Bartholomew Burke, who died in 1813, one of the Catholic vicars of Galway, by his last will and testament bequeathed £6000. (a great part of which was given to him for charitable purposes) for founding a nunnery of the Presentation order. The nuns will be enjoined and obliged to instruct, lodge, and teach a certain number of poor female orphans for ever: they have lately taken the house in Galway formerly occupied as a charter school, and laterly as an artillery barrack, for this purpose, and have commenced their meritorious works with great ardour. There are several private schools in Galway, and very few villages are without a small school, but generally of very inferior description. The diocesan school of Tuam has been long celebrated, and what will be considered extraordinary by many, several of the sons of Roman Catholics have been educated there. There is also in Tuam the college of St. Iarloth for the education of Roman Catholics, under the superintendance of the R. C. archbishop of Tuam. Many young men are educated here for the priesthood, and are sent to the college of Maynooth previous to their taking orders. I am well informed it is admirably conducted, and every person who has been often in Tuam must bear testimony to the respectable appearance and remarkable propriety of behaviour of the students at such periods as are devoted to study.

In Cunnamara there are about a dozen schools, at