But we are anticipating the course of events, and we must take up from the commencement the history of this great man’s connection with Louvain. We must even go back a little; for, as Father de Buck remarks, it is only thus we can correct some erroneous ideas, which have been freely circulated, and form some notion of the enormous difficulties which surrounded the foundation of the Catholic University of Belgium. Some of these erroneous ideas were thus expressed by Sir Robert Kane, President of the Queen’s College, Cork, in his inaugural address at the opening of that establishment, on the 7th November, 1849:―― “After the revolution, which rendered Belgium an independent kingdom, the question of university education occupied the attention of its government as one of the greatest moment. The heads of the Belgian Church were fully consulted, and they surely deserved to be, from their right to coöperate in every measure of public welfare. The result has been the institution of three great colleges: one at Louvain, formed in the buildings of the old university, and hence popularly called by the name of the ‘University of Louvain’; the second college situated at Liege; and the third in Ghent. Students follow their studies in any of these colleges, but they do not there get their degrees. What course did the Belgian authorities take, when, after the Revolution, they had in their own hands the power of giving to all those colleges a code of securities for faith and morals which might have served us here as a model? They demanded to have Louvain absolutely and exclusively under their own control, and consented to leave the colleges of Liege and Ghent in the hands of government absolutely, without any provision for moral discipline or religious instruction. What is the practical result? The College of Louvain contains only the university faculties, conducted on medieval models, and educating after the forms of old established universities. The Colleges of Ghent and Liege contain the practical branches, to which the majority of the young men attach themselves. The schools of mines and engineering are at Liege. The schools of mechanics and of practical chemistry are at Ghent. There are great schools of medicine at both colleges. Hence the practical education is conducted at those colleges where there is no religion and no discipline. In Belgium there are three colleges, one with ultra-ecclesiastical discipline, attended generally by Catholic foreigners, whom the traditional fame of the medieval university brings to Louvain. The other two are colleges without religion, to which the majority of Belgian students are drawn for practical education” (_Inaugural Address_, pages 23, 24).