Kildare Place Society Library
The natural history of animals, 1821. Binding for the Kildare Place Society Library.
Collection Dates: [c1811-c1831]
Extent: 185 items
The Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in Ireland (also known as the Kildare Place Society, due to its location in Dublin) was a voluntary educational agency founded in 1811 before the establishment of the National Board of Education in 1831.
It was established with the aim of providing non-denominational education and its pioneering work included the building of schools, a library, teacher training, textbook publishing and the establishment of an inspectorate to monitor schools.
When the Irish National School was established in 1831, the Kildare Place Society became the Church Education Society and this group went on to manage the training of teachers for Protestant schools until the Church of Ireland Training College was established in 1884. This organisation eventually became the Church of Ireland College of Education.
The Kildare Place Society library collection contains 185 items arranged in two categories: textbooks and educational library books.
The textbooks include editions of the Dublin Reading Book and Dublin Spelling Book, which were based on the Lancastrian system of education that was used in its schools and represents the first Irish attempt at an organised reading scheme for children of the poor.
The educational library books concern travel narratives, natural history, poetry, and didactic fiction.
The Kildare Place Society supported a high standard of printing and illustration within its books and the texts include many examples of woodcut illustrations.
Title page from The Dublin Spelling Book, Dublin, 1850. Part of the Kildare Place Society Collection.
Spine of The Dublin Spelling Book from The Kildare Place Society Collection.
Sample page from The Dublin Spelling Book, lessons in words not exceeding five letters.
The bicentenary book: from The Kildare Place Society to the Church of Ireland College of Education 1811-2011 is available to borrow from the Cregan Library.
Coghlan, Valerie; Church of Ireland College of Education. 2011
The bicentenary book
The bicentenary book (back cover)
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