Chapter 2

It might be imagined that the standard of education could be maintained by such a system, on the hypothesis that a State-nominated Senate would always appoint competent Examiners; but in such a case those Examiners would themselves become the University, and would regulate the value of the degrees conferred by it, and the country could have no guarantee that the standard of education would continue to be maintained; for this would be to suppose, on the part of successive Governments, a purity in their appointment of Senators which no rational man expects will ever be found outside the boundaries of the kingdom of Laputa.

If the Senate of the National University were composed of State officials, they would feel themselves bound to maintain the interests of all the Colleges committed to their care, and it would be impossible to maintain the standard of Degrees at a point higher than the attainments of the weakest College in the partnership, whose defective standard would regulate that of the University Degree, just as the sailing of the slowest tub in the squadron regulates the manoeuvres of the entire fleet.

If, on the other hand, the Senate of the National Irish University should be composed, after the model of Oxford and Cambridge, of the heads and representatives of the various Irish Colleges, although liberty of education might be preserved, the standard of the degrees would become degraded by the simple operation of a natural law easy to explain.

The heads of the Irish Colleges, united into a "happy family" University by the hands of a paternal Government, would either struggle with each other for supremacy, or enter into a compromise for peace sake, on some such plan as the following:--

After a few preliminary skirmishes, to try each other's skill, in arranging a common curriculum in Morals or History, it would be found that profound and irreconcileable differences existed among the Colleges on the most elementary principles, and that it would be impossible for the heads of Trinity College, of St. Patrick's College of Maynooth, of Queen's College of Belfast, and of other institutions, to agree upon a common curriculum of education, or even of examination for Degrees, that would satisfy the reasonable and conscientious scruples of all parties.

Under these circumstances, a sort of bargain would be made between the heads of the various Colleges, who would agree to take each other's certificates without challenge, and confer the Degrees recommended by each independently of the others.

The University and its Senate would thus become simply a machinery for authorizing the Students of the various Colleges to add certain letters, such as M. A., or LL. B., after their names; and it would become the interest of all the Colleges in which a really good education was given, that such letters should have a formal significance only; the education itself, testified by the addition of the name of the College, having alone a real market value readily appreciated by the public. Each College of reputation would be careful to have its own name inserted after the letters signifying the University Degree, and thus would be practically created as many Universities as there are Colleges in Ireland, and a disastrous competition downwards would be the inevitable result.

The Degrees of the so-called National University would be like the bills of a weak firm--dishonoured by the public unless endorsed by the name of a solvent trader--and the letters M. A., or LL. B., would become like the praises on a bad man's gravestone, purchaseable at so much a letter.

I believe, therefore, that I am entitled to protest against the scheme of forming a National University by fusing together the different Colleges in Ireland, on the following grounds:--

1. Because such a scheme for a National University would prove to be a failure, on account of the want of similarity in the Colleges composing the University.

2. Because such a scheme would, in the long run, infallibly lower the standard and degrade the character of Irish University Degrees; a result that would prove peculiarly disastrous to the educated classes in Ireland.

III. ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.

Having disposed of the first two schemes for satisfying the demand of the Irish Catholics for University Education, and shown one to be impolitic, and the other to be injurious, it might naturally be expected that I should now proceed to advocate the advantages of the remaining plan, which consists in a Charter and Endowment for a Roman Catholic University in Ireland, in which the Irish Catholics and their Clergy should be allowed to arrange their own programme of University Education without the interference of Irish Protestants, or of English doctrinaires; but this course I feel to be unnecessary, as it mainly concerns Roman Catholics themselves to state their wishes and explain their views respecting it.

Protestant interference in such a question is as irritating and as useless as would be the interference of a mutual friend in a quarrel between a man and his wife.

English politicians, in the matter of University Education for the Irish Catholics, have hitherto imitated the doctrine laid down by Mr. Bumble--that "the great principle of out-of-door relief is, to give the paupers exactly what they don't want; and then they get tired of coming."

Twenty-seven out of twenty-nine of the Irish Catholic Bishops ask for a Catholic University Charter and Endowment, and are supported in this claim by an overwhelming majority of their flocks.

The Irish Catholics asked the English Parliament for bread, and they gave them a stone: instead of a Chartered University, with a fair endowment and perfect freedom of Education, they received Queen's Colleges, which were condemned as godless, and which they were prohibited by their Church from using.

Let the Parliament of England for once try an experiment which will meet with the approval of Irishmen of all classes, and give to Ireland a third University, in which the highest and best type of Catholic education shall be developed freely. Protestantism cannot suffer by the contrast, and education must certainly benefit.

If Germans can proudly boast of their twenty-seven Universities--if Italians can point to twenty-one Universities, awaking from their slumbers at the call of liberty--if little Belgium can support her four Universities, all active, and required by the wants of her people--surely it cannot be too much for the Irish people, divided as they unhappily are by distinctions of religion and bitter recollections of ancient feuds, to ask that the Protestant University of Elizabeth, and the Secular University of Victoria, shall be supplemented by a Catholic University, possessing the confidence of Irish Catholics, and sharing with her friendly rivals, no longer jealous sisters, the glorious task of leading the youth of Ireland into the pleasant paths of Literature and Science.

The milk-white Lily is not less beautiful than the crimson Rose; let them flourish side by side in the garden of Ireland.

FOOTNOTES:

1: Roman Catholics were first admitted into Trinity College by an Act passed by the Irish Parliament in 1793.

End of Project Gutenberg's University Education in Ireland, by Samuel Haughton