Edmund’s Educational Legacy
While not
attempting in any way to present here an adequate exposé of
the quality of the education Edmund Rice provided in the
schools he founded for the poor, a few comments on some of
the more salient features of his educational approach will
give us an indication of the convictions that motivated
him, and gave particular his shape to his
endeavours
Edmund Rice lived in a period of great political upheavals.
He witnessed bloody rebellions in his own land, and the
dire consequences that followed them. He did not align
himself in any way with the political movements of the day
of which they were many. Yet for all his political
reticence, what Edmund was attempting was a radical
transformation of the society to which he
belonged.
In the Ireland of 1802, the poor had no voice, no economic
clout, no political clout; they had no levers of power to
pull. They simple existed at the bottom of the social
hierarchy. Edmund, by championing their right to an
education, and by providing the means to make it happen,
was initiating a change that would lead to a radical
transformation of society.
He could read the signs of the times, and he knew that
because the poor lacked education, they were fated to
remain imprisoned by their poverty. He saw their lack of
education as condemning them inexorably to a life of social
deprivation. Without education, they had no role to play in
the society to which they belonged. They would continue to
be the men and women of no property in their own land.
Their helplessness moved him. He knew in his heart of
hearts that things could be different, and he felt
compelled to do something about it. It was this desire for
radical change in society in order to bring about justice
for the poor which inspired him and his followers to do the
things they did.
Merely unbinding the chains of economic and social poverty was not Edmund’s fundamental goal. For Edmund there were even greater deprivations than the deprivations resulting from economic and social poverty. Included in the long catalogue of deprivations which affected the people Edmund cared for, one deprivation grieved him most of all – their spiritual deprivation. For Edmund, there was no greater poverty than the poverty of the spirit that resulted from depriving people of the opportunity to appreciate and grow in their Faith, and in their facility to know, love and serve their God as members of a believing community. This spiritual deprivation Edmund saw as the greatest deprivation of all.
Edmund appreciated the inadequacy of offering only things of the spirit to people whose stomachs were empty and aching for food. But he also saw the absolute inadequacy of a programme of education which addressed only material needs, and ignored the life of the spirit. For Edmund education was about the development of the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. He would not have used the word holistic. It was not part of educational parlance at that time, but the concept of a holistic education underpinned everything he did.
Edmund also had a clear understanding of the role education played in giving people a sense of their cultural inheritance and identity. A healthy self-concept was not a term that people were familiar with in those far off days. The human sciences had yet to make their impact in 1802, but that is not to say that people did not understand the things that crushed the human spirit and robbed people of their self-respect. Edmund knew instinctively the need for his people to be rooted in a cultural tradition, and he knew how important it was for people to appreciate the cultural inheritance that their ancestors had bequeathed to them, and which gave them their identity as a people. That their religious cultural inheritance was an intrinsic part of that inheritance was, for Edmund, a non-negotiable.