The Stanley letter is a letter written in 1831 by Edward Stanley (who later became The 14th Earl of Derby), then

Chief Secretary for Ireland The Chief Secretary for Ireland was a key political office in the British administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant, and officially the "Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant", from the early 19th century un ...

. The letter outlined his proposal which helped the U.K. Government to establish legal basis for national schools in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

.Irish Educational Documents, vol. 1
Áine Hyland, Kenneth Milne, Church of Ireland College of Education, pp.98-103 It was written two years after the government led by

The Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish soldier and Tories (British political party), Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of Uni ...

, in alliance with

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...

, secured the passage and Royal Proclamation of the

Catholic Emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

bill. It was penned by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Edward Stanley (later

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern pr ...

as The 14th Earl of Derby) and was addressed to the 3rd Duke of Leinster.

Proposal

The proposal in the Stanley letter was considered a policy experiment. As one commentator put it, "Ireland, as a colony could be used as an experimental milieu for social legislation which might not be tolerated in England where

laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups. ...

politico-economic policies were more rigid and doctrinaire." This was also true of other Irish initiatives involving the police force and health services. Stanley's framework involved the establishment of "a board for the superintendence of a system of national education" integrating key measures and educational conventions in place in Ireland such as the state-supported, mass system foundered on the denominational issue.

Results

In line with the letter's suggestions, a Board of Commission of National Education was established which disbursed funds for school building and the hiring of teachers and inspectors and which provided grants for schools. The Board tried to mix Catholic and Protestant students by favouring applications for 'mixed' schools. However, in the years after the 1830s, different religious denominations begin to apply separately for control of schools. Even in 2010 approximately 1 percent of Irish schools (34 out of 3,279) are not under the control of a religious organization, with the remaining 99 percent under religious control. The new policy was credited for spreading literacy, especially to the poor communities. By 1831, the national schools based on Stanley's model has enrolled more than 100,000 children, a figure that increased to almost 1 million within 40 years. Teacher training was also enhanced. For example, the paid monitors, the lowest grade teachers, were evaluated annually using the instructional materials used in schools.

Current status

The Stanley letter remains today the legal basis for all national schools in the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...

, the predominant form of

primary education Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary school. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first ...

in the country.

References

* The Letter was recently published in the book "We Declare - Landmark Documents in Ireland's History", Richard Aldous and Niamh Puirseil, 2008, Quercus, * The text of the letter is online a

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stanley Letter History of education in Ireland