ABSTRACT
Education will lead the Irish people out of their woes; and it will lead them up to the threshold of a better destiny. A considerable portion of Martineau's non-fiction and social reform writing addresses the concerns of the rising middle classes, which she terms society's 'golden mean'. The series begins by introducing the issue of middle-class education in Ireland, the condition of which many regarded as a liability obstructing the country's progress as a modern nation. Endowed schools were privately funded through bequests by philanthropists or by imperial decree; each school was governed according to the conditions of the endowment, which were sometimes eccentric or idiosyncratic. Martineau's narrative next surveys the state of Ireland's endowed schools in 1858. There has been popular interest enough about middle-class education in Ireland to compel an effectual inquiry into the Endowed Schools there, and to settle the point that there is to be some remedial legislation on them next session.
