It is about twenty years since Sir Charles
Style inherited his estates. His property contained
about 16,000 acres of which there is about 2,000
arable. The richest crops are now growing on
these new mountain farms. The tenant is receiving
practical lessons. Male and Female boarding
schools have been established for the training
of practical schools in the subjects most important
to the neighbouring counties. Boys are boarded,
lodged and educated at a cost of £4 per
year, and the practical knowledge is made to
keep pace with the theory.
Boys of fifteen or sixteen in every way qualified
for taking charge of a school with credit or
for conducting the most scientific operation
that could be required by a proprietor in the
improvement of his estate.
Training of the female pupils is on a like
scale. The cost for the lowest class under 12
is £5. Permanent pupils above twelve pay
£8 and teachers coming from other schools
for a short period of training pay at a rate
of £10 per year for all charges of board
lodgings and education. Several of the pupils
of both sexes have gone forth to confidential
employment with much satisfaction to their employers.
Both the male and the female schools are in
connection with the National Board, the grants
from which are very small but the female school
established for the training and education of
schoolmistresses to send throughout Ireland
is supported chiefly by a private fund. Several
of the boarding pupils are educated at the cost
of their parents and others at the expense of
their patrons and patronesses. Already schools
in various parts of Ireland have been supplied
with teachers from this valuable and excellent
establishment.
The girls are dressed entirely in articles
of their own manufacture and their dress so
produced is picturesque and becoming. It consists
of linsey, woolsey, petticoat, a blue jacket
edged with scarlet and a grey cloak bound with
scarlet. The hood is not so large as the hoods
of the Irish cloaks generally. The thread of
which the dress is composed is spun by their
own hands, woven in some cottage loom, dyed
in their cabins, cut out and made in the school.
The stockings are knitted by them and those
who have bonnets or hats plait them and sew
them with their own hands.
We have never seen education more practically
conducted than in the Cloghan schools. The education
of the females is not confined to the mere "learning"
or the regular needlework taught by routine.
Every effort is made to make them good household
servants. They are taught scouring, cleaning,
washing, ironing, milking and making butter
and above all neatness and good order. It is
in fact, an admirable training school either
for good domestic servants or teachers in national
schools.
Afterwards we saw many in Glenfin who despite
their bare feet would have been considered respectfully
dressed even in England.
