Page 37 - The Gonzaga Record 1985
P. 37
the country. The main body of students finished their formal education at fourteen
or fifteen years of age. Large secondary schools tended to attract attention, but in
fact they were in a minority.
One practical result of this situation was that very few of these small 'secondary
tops' could afford to teach science subjects. Even if they had the qualified teachers
they could not afford the laboratories and the expensive equipment that would go
into them. One must recall that in those days there were no building grants for
secondary schools. The school authorities had to first buy the site, then build the
school, and the laboratories if necessary, then buy the equipment for science
teaching. It would, of course, all have been impossible without the continual
subsidising of the schools by the salaries of the Religious men and women who ran
them.
Ireland was hardly aware that it was getting secondary education on the cheap.
In 1955 the budget for Education was around the £60,000,000 mark. In 1984 it
was close to £800,000,000. And it is still rising. No doubt, much of that enormous
increase in cost is due simply to the fact of the great expansion in education,
especially at third level. But also, as Religious nuns, brothers, and priests disappear
from the classrooms of Ireland, the true cost of education is being brought home to
the Irish people.
So it is not altogether surprising that the universities did not insist on a student
having a Leaving Certificate in a science subject in order to enter the medical or
science faculties. In fact, such a demand in those days would have excluded
stude[.ltS who in later life ended up as professors or lecturers in these same faculties.
The late Professor Wheeler of the Chemistry Department in UCD used always use
this argument, and offer himself as an example, whenever the question arose of
insisting on science subjects in the Matriculation for entry to science faculties.
Indeed, it went a bit further. There used to be an apocryphal story going the
rounds: the Professor of Physics asks one of his students at the beginning of the
year; 'Did you do any physics at school?' The student hangs his head and says:
'No, Sir. ' Professor: 'Good, in that case you have nothing to unlearn.' The story
was never true, but the fact that it gained wide currency in the fifties and sixties
(and it did) is an interesting reflection of the times.
These facts may help to explain the omission of science teaching in the earl y
years of Gonzaga College. There was no urgency felt about the matter.
Nevertheless, it could hardly remain that way. For one thing, pressure began to
mount from the parents for some science to be taught. And there were complaints
from the boys themselves, which often took the form: 'How come my sister is
doing science at school, and we do no science here?' No doubt behind the
complaint was some sense that they were being deprived of what was envisaged as
pre-eminently a 'boys' subject. But there was also a more serious consideration.
Stated in its most general form it would run like this: to send out a boy into
today's technological world utterly ignorant of any science is to send out a half-
blind person. Whole areas of his contact with life must fore ver remain a mystery to
him , and a source of bafflement. Could he be called in any real sen se 'a well -
educated person?'
Whatever the reasons that were operating, in 1959 a decision was made to
introduce science. It was a very tentative beginning. There was to be nothing lavish
about it. It would be a sort of •gentleman's course in science'. The aim was to give
~9
or fifteen years of age. Large secondary schools tended to attract attention, but in
fact they were in a minority.
One practical result of this situation was that very few of these small 'secondary
tops' could afford to teach science subjects. Even if they had the qualified teachers
they could not afford the laboratories and the expensive equipment that would go
into them. One must recall that in those days there were no building grants for
secondary schools. The school authorities had to first buy the site, then build the
school, and the laboratories if necessary, then buy the equipment for science
teaching. It would, of course, all have been impossible without the continual
subsidising of the schools by the salaries of the Religious men and women who ran
them.
Ireland was hardly aware that it was getting secondary education on the cheap.
In 1955 the budget for Education was around the £60,000,000 mark. In 1984 it
was close to £800,000,000. And it is still rising. No doubt, much of that enormous
increase in cost is due simply to the fact of the great expansion in education,
especially at third level. But also, as Religious nuns, brothers, and priests disappear
from the classrooms of Ireland, the true cost of education is being brought home to
the Irish people.
So it is not altogether surprising that the universities did not insist on a student
having a Leaving Certificate in a science subject in order to enter the medical or
science faculties. In fact, such a demand in those days would have excluded
stude[.ltS who in later life ended up as professors or lecturers in these same faculties.
The late Professor Wheeler of the Chemistry Department in UCD used always use
this argument, and offer himself as an example, whenever the question arose of
insisting on science subjects in the Matriculation for entry to science faculties.
Indeed, it went a bit further. There used to be an apocryphal story going the
rounds: the Professor of Physics asks one of his students at the beginning of the
year; 'Did you do any physics at school?' The student hangs his head and says:
'No, Sir. ' Professor: 'Good, in that case you have nothing to unlearn.' The story
was never true, but the fact that it gained wide currency in the fifties and sixties
(and it did) is an interesting reflection of the times.
These facts may help to explain the omission of science teaching in the earl y
years of Gonzaga College. There was no urgency felt about the matter.
Nevertheless, it could hardly remain that way. For one thing, pressure began to
mount from the parents for some science to be taught. And there were complaints
from the boys themselves, which often took the form: 'How come my sister is
doing science at school, and we do no science here?' No doubt behind the
complaint was some sense that they were being deprived of what was envisaged as
pre-eminently a 'boys' subject. But there was also a more serious consideration.
Stated in its most general form it would run like this: to send out a boy into
today's technological world utterly ignorant of any science is to send out a half-
blind person. Whole areas of his contact with life must fore ver remain a mystery to
him , and a source of bafflement. Could he be called in any real sen se 'a well -
educated person?'
Whatever the reasons that were operating, in 1959 a decision was made to
introduce science. It was a very tentative beginning. There was to be nothing lavish
about it. It would be a sort of •gentleman's course in science'. The aim was to give
~9
