Hedge Schools not Hedge Funds

[rebellin]

"How the Irish Saved Civilization" is not just the name of a book, but the description of a remedy. The monastery schools, the bog schools, and later, the hedge schools, saved generations of young people, who went on to built a better world.. Seamas MacManus, in his famous “The Story of the Irish Race” gives us a clear picture of the hedge schools and in his poem The Hedge School Masters, he reminds us;

"And through the dread, dread night and long, that steeped our island then/The lamp of hope and fires of faith were fed by these great men."


MacManus reminds us that Catholics and Protestants both saved the lives of those hunted schoolmasters, often at risk of their own. He recounts;

"Throughout those dark days the hunted schoolmaster, with price upon his head, was hidden from house to house. And in the summer time he gathered his little class, hungering and thirsting for knowledge, behind a hedge in remote mountain glen where, while in turn each tattered lad kept watch from the hilltop for the British soldiers, he fed to his eager pupils the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge.
"Latin and Greek were taught to ragged hunted ones under shelter of the hedges whence these teachers were knows as "hedge schoolmasters." Knowledge of Latin was a frequent enough accomplishment among poor Irish mountaineers in the seventeenth century and was spoken by many of them on special occasions. And it is authoritatively boasted that cows were bought and sold in Greek, in mountain market-places of Kerry."
“In their miserable lairs, in the bogs and barren mountains, whither they were trailed by wolf-hounds and blood hounds, were sheltered all that was noble, high and holy in Ireland “


Such is the catastrophe we are currently witnessing in the financial system and the economy generally, that we will soon reach the point of no return, where we will be unable to save civilization. The all-pervasive culture of liberalism, the looting of the real economy by the banks, the austerity imposed upon the people for the benefit of an evil oligarchy, all these policies which we are asked to accept as normal or the only way, have brought us to the edge of a dark age. Young people say they have no future, and they are right. We must ensure that future for them by taking specific action that will work when all else fails.

It will take this kind of dedication to great ideas and universal principles to pull us back from the abyss. Just as Ireland was the heir of the classical learning in the darkness of Europe, the resistance to the penal laws centuries later would sacrifice all to see that the young would have future. Now, once again, we must rediscover and preserve the great works of civilization in science and art, and use them for their true intention, to build a better world for the younger generation and generations yet to come. This thread is intended to share those ideas among eager pupils and their hedge schoolmasters.

With that mission in mind, our first hedge school study here will be Plato’s Meno dialogue.

[rebellin]

The first thing that struck me on reading the Meno Dialogue was the humour, particularly in Socrates' comments. It is a gentle humor with a hint of mild sarcasm, just like the best of today's teachers are gifted with. This made the dialogue, for me, as entertaining as it was educational. Some examples:


Soc. Then as he is not here, never mind him, and do you tell me: By the gods, Meno, be generous, and tell me what you say that virtue is

Soc. How fortunate I am, Meno! When I ask you for one virtue, you present me with a swarm of them

Soc. You are outrageous, Meno, in thus plaguing a poor old man to give you an answer

Soc. and now, in your turn, you are to fulfil your promise, and tell me what virtue is in the universal; and do not make a singular into a plural, as the facetious say of those who break a thing, but deliver virtue to me whole and sound, and not broken into a number of pieces: I have given you the pattern.


When I'd read it I wondered why this and similar texts are not taught in school today. It seems to be a perfect pedagogical tool to encourage and develop creative and rational thinking in children, not to mention adults. The following comments from Lyndon LaRouche's essay "The Tragedy of US Education," illustrate the point:

"As Plato illustrates the proof of this, in his Meno, all human individuals have the developable cognitive potential to generate validated discoveries of universal physical principle. From that vantage-point, all human beings are equal in respect to their inborn nature, and all groups of human beings, from every society, share, as a group, that developable potential in virtually equal degree. The essential function of education, and of the conditions of family and community life in which education occurs, is to develop precisely that cognitive potential to the highest possible degree, in every possible young individual."

[Cruimh]

"How the Irish Saved Civilization" is not just the name of a book, but the description of a remedy. The monastery schools, the bog schools, and later, the hedge schools, saved generations of young people, who went on to built a better world.. Seamas MacManus, in his famous “The Story of the Irish Race” gives us a clear picture of the hedge schools and in his poem The Hedge School Masters, he reminds us;

"And through the dread, dread night and long, that steeped our island then/The lamp of hope and fires of faith were fed by these great men."


MacManus reminds us that Catholics and Protestants both saved the lives of those hunted schoolmasters, often at risk of their own. He recounts;

"Throughout those dark days the hunted schoolmaster, with price upon his head, was hidden from house to house. And in the summer time he gathered his little class, hungering and thirsting for knowledge, behind a hedge in remote mountain glen where, while in turn each tattered lad kept watch from the hilltop for the British soldiers, he fed to his eager pupils the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge.
"Latin and Greek were taught to ragged hunted ones under shelter of the hedges whence these teachers were knows as "hedge schoolmasters." Knowledge of Latin was a frequent enough accomplishment among poor Irish mountaineers in the seventeenth century and was spoken by many of them on special occasions. And it is authoritatively boasted that cows were bought and sold in Greek, in mountain market-places of Kerry."
“In their miserable lairs, in the bogs and barren mountains, whither they were trailed by wolf-hounds and blood hounds, were sheltered all that was noble, high and holy in Ireland “


Such is the catastrophe we are currently witnessing in the financial system and the economy generally, that we will soon reach the point of no return, where we will be unable to save civilization. The all-pervasive culture of liberalism, the looting of the real economy by the banks, the austerity imposed upon the people for the benefit of an evil oligarchy, all these policies which we are asked to accept as normal or the only way, have brought us to the edge of a dark age. Young people say they have no future, and they are right. We must ensure that future for them by taking specific action that will work when all else fails.

It will take this kind of dedication to great ideas and universal principles to pull us back from the abyss. Just as Ireland was the heir of the classical learning in the darkness of Europe, the resistance to the penal laws centuries later would sacrifice all to see that the young would have future. Now, once again, we must rediscover and preserve the great works of civilization in science and art, and use them for their true intention, to build a better world for the younger generation and generations yet to come. This thread is intended to share those ideas among eager pupils and their hedge schoolmasters.

With that mission in mind, our first hedge school study here will be Plato’s Meno dialogue.

Oh dear me - not twaddle about hedge schools "saving " people .

How did they save them ? By teaching them English ?

[rebellin]

Oh dear me - not twaddle about hedge schools "saving " people .

How did they save them ? By teaching them English ?

Well Cruimh, since I know you speak some Irish, and are a man and not a bug, I will answer you with, as Abraham Lincoln said,"with charity towards all," I know you are a man and not a bug, as your user name translates, if I am not wrong, because I expressed my appreciation to you when on the music thread you posted several recordings of the great Irish tenor, John McCormack. Perhaps the words "twaddle" and "saving" have a meaning in Cruimh language which I don't iunderstand, but I'll tell you, if, somehow, you never heard about it before before what the Hedge School students
learned. It is documented that even in the most humble schools the youngest pupils learned reading, writing and arithmatic, while those a bit more advanced studied Latin, Greek, higher mathematics and other subjects such as navigation. Although they studied English for use in trade and markets, they cherished the use of their native Irish and kept its poetry and music alive.

[Cruimh]

Well Cruimh, since I know you speak some Irish, and are a man and not a bug, I will answer you with, as Abraham Lincoln said,"with charity towards all," I know you are a man and not a bug, as your user name translates, if I am not wrong, because I expressed my appreciation to you when on the music thread you posted several recordings of the great Irish tenor, John McCormack. Perhaps the words "twaddle" and "saving" have a meaning in Cruimh language which I don't iunderstand, but I'll tell you, if, somehow, you never heard about it before before what the Hedge School students
learned. It is documented that even in the most humble schools the youngest pupils learned reading, writing and arithmatic, while those a bit more advanced studied Latin, Greek, higher mathematics and other subjects such as navigation. Although they studied English for use in trade and markets, they cherished the use of their native Irish and kept its poetry and music alive.

Can I suggest you read this and get back to me .....

What percentage of people do you think attended these hedge schools ?

You do realise that most of the teaching was done in English - and one of the reasons parents sent their children was to learn English ?

And this business of the Irish "saving" civilisation is rather embarrassing .

[ON THE ONE ROAD]

the internet was designed to survive a nuclear war, guessing it will survive the financial trouble. with all the information on it civilization should be ok, could be better if google scholar do something to over ride all the university library passwords its search engine trows up. takes away from the spirit of it and could contribute to what your talking about.


if the hedge schools thaught english then i suppose for individuals it was a good thing that people could work abroad but as a collective think we suffered consequences of it. media dumping, talent stripping etc good and bad in it, no absolute.

[rebellin]

Can I suggest you read this and get back to me .....

What percentage of people do you think attended these hedge schools ?

You do realise that most of the teaching was done in English - and one of the reasons parents sent their children was to learn English ?

And this business of the Irish "saving" civilisation is rather embarrassing .

Well Cruihm, now this is a discussion I appreciate again. I've never read Dowling's whole book, and I'll try to get my hands on it soon, but I have read excerpt which have said the opposite. Here is an excerpt , for instance that makes my point. "[FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]The curriculum varied. In his book The Hedge Schools of Ireland, PJ Dowling writes: ”The very least that was taught...included reading, writing and arithmetic. Other subjects found their way into the curriculum according to local needs and the qualifications of the teacher: history, geography, book-keeping, surveying and navigation. Latin and Mathematics were commonly
taught; sometimes Greek; and in Irish-speaking districts instruction in all these subjects was given in the vernacular.”
[/SIZE][/FONT]

[Cruimh]

Well Cruihm, now this is a discussion I appreciate again. I've never read Dowling's whole book, and I'll try to get my hands on it soon, but I have read excerpt which have said the opposite. Here is an excerpt , for instance that makes my point. "[FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]The curriculum varied. In his book The Hedge Schools of Ireland, PJ Dowling writes: ”The very least that was taught...included reading, writing and arithmetic. Other subjects found their way into the curriculum according to local needs and the qualifications of the teacher: history, geography, book-keeping, surveying and navigation. Latin and Mathematics were commonly
taught; sometimes Greek; and in Irish-speaking districts instruction in all these subjects was given in the vernacular.”
[/SIZE][/FONT]

What percentage of children attended these schools ?

[rebellin]

What percentage of children attended these schools ?

Well Cruimh, I'm trying to answer your question here, but I don't think anyone could know what percentage of children attended these schools. Under the Penal Laws it was illegal for the hedgemasters to teach and illegal for parents to educate their children this way. Therefore, everything was done in a way that we might call in these days covert, It obviously wasn't as if anyone could do a classroom census. I did read some time ago that in 1811 the Board of Education did an estimate, but as they were pushing to get kids into the national schools set up by British rule, I don't think even they would have considered their figures accurate. Do you have another trustworthy way to figure out the answer to that question?

[Cruimh]

Well Cruimh, I'm trying to answer your question here, but I don't think anyone could know what percentage of children attended these schools. Under the Penal Laws it was illegal for the hedgemasters to teach and illegal for parents to educate their children this way. Therefore, everything was done in a way that we might call in these days covert, It obviously wasn't as if anyone could do a classroom census. I did read some time ago that in 1811 the Board of Education did an estimate, but as they were pushing to get kids into the national schools set up by British rule, I don't think even they would have considered their figures accurate. Do you have another trustworthy way to figure out the answer to that question?

I think people tend to hide behind the penal laws - they existed but their enforcement was very patchy.

Don't knock the National Schools. I was asked to help someone about them - only book I had in any way relevant was Before the Revolution - which I don't have now to hand to give you a quote - but they were very progressive and introduced here before anywhere else in the UK.