the year, and they also require the surplus days to be taken into account for calculating the average. Were only half the number, in monthly attendance, present in school, how inclement soever the weather may be, it would be only fair to allow all the lowest school days above 200 to be kept out of reckoning.

Take, for example, the last quarter of the past year. There were 65 school days in it. One teacher, A. B., kept his school open for 50 days only, and had an average attendance of 30 pupils. C. D., another teacher, continued his school for the entire 65 days. If he had closed his school at the same time with A. B. he, too, would have had an average attendance of 30. But, being anxious to advance a set of grown-up boys, who must soon leave the school entirely, he continued to keep it open for the additional fifteen days, with an average daily attendance of 15. The former teacher instructs 30 boys for 50 days, and gets his full salary and credit for attendance at his school. The latter does as much as the former, and besides gives instruction to 15 boys for 15 days. What is the return? He must calculate all the attendances which amount to 1725 by dividing it by the number 65, which expresses the days in the quarter, and the quotient is 26. He is deprived, thereby, of his full salary, and the public are given to understand that the average attendance is much below the number on the rolls. In this way, I may say, the average attendance throughout Ireland, which was 674,290 in the past year should be, in reality, returned at 10 per cent. higher, or in round numbers, at 740,000. The method of calculation hitherto adopted is misleading and paradoxical, as the greater the attendance of pupils at National schools is, the less it is made to appear; and the more a teacher labors, the less he is remunerated.

If 1,500 attendances during the quarter be accepted as the rule enabling teachers to earn their salaries, I do not see why they may not be made up, between wet days and dry days, and half-days on Saturdays. If the constant divisor be 50 and quotient not under 30, the hard-working teacher should not be made to suffer, when his school meets the required calculation, whilst at the same time the real state of education in this country would be plainly disclosed.

In the computation I have placed before the reader, I have merely given the attendance in the National schools. There are besides 16,819 on the rolls of the district Model

schools, with an average of 8,953; 15,420 in workhouse schools; 1,149 in reformatories; in Industrial schools no less than 5,900. There are nearly 29,000 boys at the Christian schools throughout the country, from the returns given by the directors, last year. Again, we have 500 schools under the Church Educational Society, which, with an average of 30, would give 15,000, besides Ragged schools and others; so that in all Ireland we have education imparted in elementary schools to 825,000 children. How insane, then, is the cry for compulsory attendance in the face of these facts and figures. Leave foreigners to cast the stone at us, but let not the children who were nurtured on Ireland's bosom defame the mothers who took such tender care of their infancy. Rather let them say of their British legislators

"Times Danaos et dona ferentes."

I have mentioned above the District Model Schools. They are 29 in number throughout Ireland. The number on the rolls is 16,819, and the average attendance is 8,953, or barely above the half. All things considered, the greatest anomaly in the educational history of the country is this pampered institution. If such be the daily attendance in towns in these Model schools, why should not a large allowance be made for irregularity in rural districts, where the pupils are obliged to travel a long distance in all sorts of weather? But can a better attendance be enforced even in these favoured institutes of Government? I answer, no, because those who once patronised those highlylauded seats of learning have contrived to build schoolhouses of their own, and they who formerly frequented them now find it too far to travel. What, then, is to be done with them? Why, as they are dying of inanition, let them die, and the unsavory haunts undergo a thorough purgation. So early as the year 1851 the inspectors reported of these Model schools. "The greater portion of our time has been occupied in the examination of teachers and in superintending the district Model schools." Cui bono, I ask, was their superintendance. Read this narrative of an honest Englishman in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for August; and who in Ireland can say the picture is overdrawn? "After leaving the village (in Cork County), the condition of which, to English ideas, was more degrading and degraded than words can describe, I met, coming from the school situate on the high road about a mile off, a troop of

little girls and boys dancing over the stones, or jumping from rock to rock, by the only rough track that led to their homes for no two-wheeled horse vehicle had ever entered

the village. Of course, again, the children were barelegged and bare-footed, and scantily clothed. But they were bright, healthy, joyous, cheery-looking little beingsa picture of neat-patching and tattered cleanliness. How such comely and tidily-dressed children (and the country school-houses are full of them) could possibly be sent forth of a morning from the very hovels of smoke, dirt, poverty, and wretchedness which we have just visited, was a puzzle that could not be unravelled." And yet, I say, it would be a greater puzzle to imagine how any Irishman could foster the new-born craze of compulsory education for those little children "who" (continues the English writer) "are the descendants of those who were far advanced in religious civilization, science and arts, when our British ancestors were akin to painted savages."

GEORGE PYE, V.F., P.P.

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE NATIONALITY OF ST. BONIFACE.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,-With much reluctance I enter the lists to maintain the English nationality of St. Boniface against so learned an archæologist as the Bishop of Ossory, especially as I feel sure Dr. Healy can defend his own propositions much more forcibly than I can. However, as a priest of the diocese of which he is the patron, I ought not to refuse to do my best to prove our right to his patronage.

I observe with satisfaction that Dr. Moran does not really call in question the Saxon-or even the Devonian-birthplace of St. Boniface; but only maintains that he was of Irish parentage, "Patre atque etiam matre Scottum," as Marianus expresses it. I am also happy to see that his lordship bears out the opinion I ventured to put forth, that St. Boniface showed no prejudice against Irishmen as such.

I must confess it is somewhat startling to me to find Dr. Moran speaking of "England's claim" to St. Boniface, as though it were a new idea started "by English writers of the present day." I always thought it was admitted that England was in possession, and that only a few Irish writers put forth Ireland's claim to be mother of the apostle of Germany. At the time of the definition of the

Immaculate Conception, when bishops of all nations assembled in Rome, the German and English bishops petitioned the Holy See, that the Mass and Office of St. Boniface might be conceded " at least to the whole of Germany and to the whole of England, that the latter may venerate St. Boniface as her son, the former as her apostle,-Quod in S. Bonifacio suum haec filium, suum illa veneretur apostolum." The decree granting the petition thus recited is dated March 29th, 1855. Has any similar claim on the part of Ireland to be the mother of St. Boniface ever been made and acknowledged?

But this is no new claim on the part of England. In 755, Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Lullus, Archbishop of Mentz, congratulating the Church on the glorious martyrdom of St. Boniface and his companions-" Gens Anglorum advena ex Brittania meruit palam omnibus ad spiritales agones emittere," and informs him that in a full Council the English Church decreed : -"Ejus diem natalicii illiusque cohortis cum eo martyrizantis annua frequentatione soleniter celebrare, utpote quem specialiter nobis cum beato Gregorio et Augustino et patronum quaerimus et habere indubitanter credimus coram Christo Domino." (Stubbs, Councils, iii., 394). His feast is marked in all versions of the Sarum Calendar given in Maskell's Monumenta Ritualia. Thus, by a tradition of eleven hundred years the Catholics of England have considered Boniface as of the English race. You will correct me if I am wrong in saying that his name does not appear in the Irish Calendar. I cannot even find it in the Martyrology of Tallaght.

The passage from St. Boniface's own letter which Dr. Healy quoted, acknowledging that he was born and died " in Transmarina Saxonia," does not stand alone. The same idea of his English extraction runs through all his correspondence with his Saxon friends. Thus he tells Herefrith that his terrible letter of warning, addressed to Ethelbald King of Mercia, was,solely dictated by the pure friendship of charity," et quod de eadem gente Anglorum nati et nutriti hic per praeceptum Apostolicae Sedis peregrinamur, bonis et laudibus gentis nostrae laetamur et gaudemus: peccatis autem ejus, et vituperationibus tribulamur et contristamur, opprobrium namque generis nostri patimur sive a Christianis, sive paganis dicentibus, quod gens Anglorum spreto more caeterarum gentium, et despecto praecepto apostolico, etc." (Epist. 71, Wurdtwein.) I do not know how he could express more strongly the feelings of a true Christian patriot. Again, in his Epistle to all bishops, priests, deacons, canons, clerics, abbots, abbesses, monks, nuns, immo generaliter omnibus Catholicis Deum timentibus de stirpe et prosapia Anglorum procreatis," he styles himself "Ejusdem generis vernaculus, Bonifacius, qui et Winfrethus." And he implores them to beseech God for the conversion of the pagan Saxons, "Miseremini illorum, qui et ipsi solent dicere de uno sanguine, et de uno osse sumus." (Epist. 86, Wurdtwein.) All through his

life, though he never returned to what Dr. Moran admits to have been his native land, yet he identified himself completely with English affairs, and gave the English prelates, monks and nuns, his tenderest sympathy and best advice.

The Bishop of Ossory contends that many of his most intimate disciples were Irish. I have no wish to call this in question. But in some of the instances he cites, I believe his lordship to be mistaken. He gives the beautiful narrative of St. Boniface's loving welcome to St. Burchard, whom he considers to have been an Irishman. But when I turn to the life of St. Burchard given by Canisius (Tom. ii. 5), I read: " Venerabilis Burchardus, Anglorum genere nobilis tandem relicta Britannia, peregrinationis obtentu, in quandam Galliae partem, transacto salo, pervenit, etc." Canisius quotes Trithemius-to whose authority Dr. Moran assigns "considerable weight," as holding "in his hand the traditions of Mentz and Fulda" -to this effect: "Burchardus monachus cujusdam coenobii in Anglia, socius et comes peregrinationis S. Bonafacii martyris, etc." (Trithem. L. iv. c. 184.) Basnage remarks that some traditions say that Burchard and Swithun were not only fellow-countrymen, but also fellow-kinsmen of St. Boniface. The devotion of both St. Boniface and St. Burchard to the Irish martyr St. Kilian is very precious to me, as showing that St. Boniface had no paltry prejudice against Irish missionaries. I do not know Dr. Moran's grounds for supposing Bishop Eoban to have been an Irishman, but St. Witta had the same name with the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, according to Florence of Worcester.

It seems to be scarcely necessary to discuss writers of a later date, when we have such abundant, proof of Boniface's nationality from his own correspondence, but Dr. Moran insists strongly upon the traditions of Fulda. I may remark, in passing, that all the various versions that we have of Willibald's life of the saint agree in his education at "Adescancastre," though they spell the word somewhat differently. The Bollandists have just published in their Analecta Bollandiana a version which they consider the earliest of all, and this styles the place Oratorium" instead of "Monasterium." I cannot, however, pass over in silence the Life of St. Boniface by Othlo, a monk who wrote in the time of Pope Leo IX.; and while Egbert, who died in 1078, was Abbot of Fulda. If not a monk of Fulda, he wrote in the interests of that monastery, as his prologue shows. Othlo begins his biography thus :-"Cum gens Anglorum sacrae fidei jugo per S. Gregorii Papae Apostolatum subdita, ejus suffragantibus meritis, in sanctorum virorum procreatione prae multis nationibus splendere coepisset, multaque lumina sanctae ecclesiae, quibus varia cordium obcaecationes illustrarentur, protulisset, inter hujus mundi lumina sanctum quoque Bonifacium velut Luciferum quendam, caeteris sideribus clariorum, huic mundo edere meruit."

The Annals of Fulda by Enhard, extending from 630 to 838