IN concluding this Report, we beg leave to state to your Grace, that we have had frequently occasion to observe, in the course of our enquiries into the various Charitable Funds in Ireland, that the money belonging to them is too often vested in private securities, to the evident hazard of its entire loss; and we have found also, that where such money has been vested in Government Securities, that the names of individuals have been used, instead of those of the several Trusts or Corporations to which the properties belong, and an imprudent choice made of the five per cent. funds, instead of those of three and a half; which last we conceive, for permanent Establishments, should always be preferred. And we submit to your Grace, that those evils might be removed by empowering the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests to compel in all cases the Trustees of Charitable Foundations to call in such sums as are now laid out on private Securities, and to invest them and all other monies belonging to such Charities, in Government Stock, at three and a half per cent. in the names of the several Trusts respectively.

And it would also we conceive be advisable, that powers should at the same time be given to the same Board, to call upon the Trustees for surveys of the several Estates belonging to their respective Foundations.

We cannot close this Report to your Grace, without noticing a most useful class of Schools for the education of the lower classes, founded by "The Association for promoting the practice of the Christian Religion," and have therefore subjoined in an APPENDIX, the Plan and Conditions upon which the Association have given their assistance in endowing these Schools, together with a list of the number which they have established, the Salaries paid by them to the respective Masters, together with the number of Children returned as attending the same.

English Schools of Foundation.

Private

Diocese of

Waterford.

-Kilmore School (County Cavan) and Palace Kenry School (County Limerick) have been stablished so lately, that no Returns of the number of Children have been yet received.

THE

THE Association are also engaged to grant Aid towards the building of some other School-houses, Appendix. and Salaries and Gratuities to the Masters, which are not included in the foregoing Account, because the houses are not yet built.

Paid for building
Seminary.

100

Annual Aid paid
to Seminary.
100

Aid granted by the Association towards building and supporting
a Seminary for educating young men for Parish Clerks and
Schoolmasters at Kildimo, County Limerick
Note-For some years the Association paid 50 l. per annum in aid of maintaining and educating nine
young men in the Seminary. Last year they increased the aid to 100 l, per annum, and expect
that about fifteen young men will in future be annually maintained and educated; but have not yet
received a Report since the augmentation.

FOURTEENTH

FOURTEENTH REPORT: ;

VIEW OF THE CHIEF FOUNDATIONS, WITH SOME GENERAL REMARKS,

To His Grace CHARLES Duke of RICHMOND,
&c. &c. &c.

Lord Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland.

The FOURTEENTH REPORT of the Commissioners for enquiring into the State of all Schools, on PUBLIC or CHARITABLE Foundations, in Ireland.

MAY. IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE,

Winds and Revenues granted by public or private Donations, for the pur-Generat

E the undersigned Commissioners, appointed for inquiring into the several

poses of Education, and into the State and Condition of all Schools upon Public or Charitable Foundations in Ireland, beg leave to submit to Your Grace, the Result of our anxious Deliberations on the subject of extending and improving the Educa tion of the lower orders of the People in this part of the United Kingdom. We have not been deterred from entering upon this subject by the difficulties peculiar to this Country, with which we are aware it is attended; and we have been anxious, as early as possible, to meet the expectations of Your Grace and the Government of Ireland, whose solicitude on the subject of a Plan for the general Education of the lower orders of the People of Ireland, to be suggested by this Board, was evinced in the Letter addressed to our Secretary on the 17th day of January 1811, by your Grace's late principal Secretary, the Right Honourable William Wellesley Pole.

We have applied our efforts to the framing of a System, which, whilst it shall afford the opportunities of Education to every description of the lower classes of the People, may at the same time, by keeping clear of all interference with the particular Religious Tenets of any, induce the whole to receive its benefits as one undivided Body, under one and the same System, and in the same Establish

ments.

That the present Establishments for the Instruction of the lower orders, though extremely numerous, are inadequate as a system of general Education, we were fully convinced in the course of our Inquiries into their extent and condition: and their insufficiency, we have reason to believe, is very imperfectly supplied 4 S

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