Church and college -- Ireland; Education, Higher -- Ireland; Universities and colleges -- Ireland
The questions of the Land and Church in Ireland will, doubtless, be fully
discussed in the House of Commons by persons acquainted with those
questions, and competent to do them justice; but it may be fairly doubted
whether the question of Education in Ireland will be examined with as full
a knowledge as will be brought to bear on the other questions. The
following lines are written in the hope of adding a contribution of facts
towards the discussion of one branch of the Education question--that which
relates to University Education in Ireland.
My apology for writing on this question is, that I have been a Fellow of
Trinity College for nearly a quarter of a century, during which time I have
taken an active part in the educational reforms which have placed the
Graduates of Trinity College foremost in all the competitions for the
public services of India, of the Army, and of the Colonies. I am also
entitled to be heard as a Clerical Fellow of Trinity College, holding in
trust for his brother Protestants the precious gift of education based on
pure religion, handed down to us by our forefathers, in defence of which
all true Protestants are prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice their lives.
Two proposals were discussed, and a third was incidentally alluded to, in
the summer of 1867, in the House of Commons, respecting University
Education in Ireland; one of these proposals involves a betrayal of the
religious base on which the Protestant College of Elizabeth was founded;
and another involves a surrender for ever of the high literary and
scientific standard of Dublin University, and a permanent lowering of high
class education in Ireland. Against the one I feel bound to protest, as an
earnest Protestant, and against the other as an advocate for the
advancement of science and letters.
The proposals made in Parliament respecting University Education are all
founded on the generally admitted fact that Roman Catholics in Ireland have
not got the same facilities for University Education as the Protestants of
that country, and that it is expedient at once to redress this grievance.
In order to do so, it has been proposed to do one or other of three
things:--
I. To secularize Trinity College, by throwing open its Fellowships
and Scholarships to all Students, irrespective of religious
qualification.
II. To open the University of Dublin to other Colleges than Trinity
College, thus transforming the University of Dublin into a
National Irish University, on the model of the University of
France.
III. To grant a Charter and Endowment to a Roman Catholic University,
in which the education given shall be based on religion, as in
Trinity College at present.
I shall endeavour to state briefly the objections which seem to me to be so
fatal to either of the first two proposals, as to leave us no alternative
but to accept the third horn of the Educational dilemma:--
I. SECULARIZATION OF TRINITY COLLEGE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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