(c) Ciarán MacGonigal
Reproduced with permission of Ciarán MacGonigal @IrishArtHistory, originals here and here. Both schools, set up by Maria Edgeworth, are in Edgeworthstown. The one on the left which bears her family arms was opened in the Porters Lodge. The one on the right was the eighth and last she opened.
Maria Edgeworth (1 January 1768 – 22 May 1849) not only expressed philosophical ideas through her novels and short stories but also wrote a treatise Practical Education (1798), a progressive work that joins the ideas of Locke and Rousseau with scientific inquiry.