Chapter II: National University of Ireland

The second plan that has been suggested for solving the University question in Ireland, in one form or other, amounts to a proposal to throw open the University of Dublin, or the Queen's University in Ireland, or both, so as to embrace in one University a number of Colleges, each retaining its own system of religious training and discipline, and its own endowments, and sending up its Students to pass the Examinations of the Central University, whose functions would be reduced to those of an Examining Board.

I readily admit that this proposal is free from one of the objections I have urged against the proposal to solve the University problem by secularizing Trinity College, and that it leaves both Protestants and Catholics free to train their sons in the religious faith and traditions of their forefathers.

This advantage, although great, would, however, in my opinion, be purchased at the cost of degrading for ever the standard of University Education in Ireland.

If this objection can be established, it ought to have peculiar weight in considering the question of Irish University Education. England differs essentially from Ireland, in affording to her young men countless openings in every walk of life, with or without the benefits of University Education, which in England may be regarded as a luxury enjoyed by the rich; whereas in Ireland an University Education is frequently a necessity imposed upon the sons of the less wealthy middle classes. The openings in life for young men of this class in Ireland are so very limited, that they must either emigrate, or rely on their talents and education, in pushing their way in the learned professions in England and the Colonies. Hence it follows, that any lowering of the standard of University Education in Ireland would be followed by peculiarly disastrous effects.

At the present moment, Trinity College may be regarded as a manufactory for turning out the highest class of competitors for success in the Church, at the English Bar, in the Civil Service of India, and in the Scientific and Medical Services of the Army and Navy; and any legislation which would produce the effect of lowering the present high standard of her degrees, would tend to destroy the prospects of the educated classes in Ireland, and become to those classes little short of a national calamity.

In order to establish my objection, it is necessary to call to our recollection the ancient and true notion of an University.

With the exception of Oxford and Cambridge, there is no example of an ancient University in Europe composed of a collection of free Colleges, united by the common bond of an University, of which all are members, and which conducts the Examinations for Degrees.

All other ancient Universities resemble the University of Trinity College in Dublin, in consisting of a single College possessing, either from the Pope or from the Crown, the University privilege of granting Degrees.

In modern times, no nation but France has seen fit to depart from this ancient form of University Education; and in that country centralization is so popular and so complete, that the University of France, with its affiliated Colleges, has met with a success very certain not to follow a similar experiment in Ireland. All the Colleges in France are moulded upon the same type, from which no deviation is permitted; and all are under State control, which in France restrains freedom of education by the same trammels as freedom of speech, or liberty of the press. The Minister of Public Instruction can boast that when the clock strikes his telegraphed order sets in motion the tongues of his Professors in Paris, in Strasburgh, in Lyons, and that the same lectures, in almost the same words, are delivered within the same hour to all the educated youth of France. This drilling of the intellect by the sergeants of the Emperor pleases for the present the fancy of the French; it would infallibly fail in Ireland.

The condition essential to success in uniting several Colleges into a common University is sameness of type in the education given, and sameness of discipline in the various Colleges. This condition is attained in France by the centralizing and irresistible power of the State; in Oxford and in Cambridge it has grown up spontaneously, and has partially succeeded; in Oxford, however, as in Cambridge, the multiplicity of Colleges and of rival, though similar interests, has produced feebleness in the government of the central authority, which is a fault little complained of in the University of France.

I shall presently inquire whether the Colleges of Ireland present that similarity of type which is essential to the success of the experiment of fusing them all into a common University; but in the meantime, admitting, for the sake of argument, that the experiment would succeed, it is worth while to ask whether it would be an advantage to the country.

In France we see the perfection of centralization and identity in the Lyceums and Colleges of the entire country; in Germany, on the contrary, we witness the full development of the ancient collegiate idea of the University; twenty-seven distinct and independent University centres of education exist among forty millions of Germans, each University differing from the other, and each possessing its peculiar type of excellence, to attract its Students. I believe that all who are acquainted with the present condition of science and letters in the two countries will be disposed to agree in thinking that the intellect of France is cramped by the imperial cradle in which it is reared, while the genius of Germany is fostered by the freedom of thought, stimulated by such excellent, though diverse centres of development, as Vienna, Munich, Heidelberg, Bonn, or Berlin.

University education in France pleases the doctrinaire, just as parterres of flowers of similar hue please the eyes of the gardener; while the Universities of Germany delight the thinker, as the graceful forms and varied colours of the flowers of some tropical forest please the traveller, whose instinctive taste prefers the charms and grace of nature to the symmetry and rules of art.

The experiment of the union of different Colleges in a common University has succeeded in France, in Oxford, and in Cambridge, in consequence of the similarity of the Colleges united together; but such an experiment attempted in Ireland would fail, as certainly as an attempt to unite Oxford and Cambridge into one University would fail.

We possess in Ireland three distinct types of Collegiate education, of which may be cited as examples--Trinity College, in Dublin; the Roman Catholic College of Carlow, and Queen's College, in Belfast. These Colleges represent, respectively, the religious Protestant type, the Roman Catholic type, and the secular or mixed type, of Collegiate discipline and training. Any person of education acquainted with Ireland knows the impossibility of fusing such distinct elements in a common crucible; and yet each system, in its way, is excellent, and will produce good fruits, if left to develope itself, and not forced upon those who conscientiously dissent from its fundamental principles.

Let us suppose, however, the experiment tried by persons only partially acquainted with education, and with the condition of Ireland--and by such only could it be attempted--then it is easy to see that success could be obtained only at the expense of lowering the standard of education.

It is plain that one or other of two things would happen: either the University Senate would be composed of persons altogether independent of the Colleges, and appointed by the State, or it would consist, as in Oxford and Cambridge, of heads of Colleges and persons representing their varied interests.

In the first case supposed we should witness the painful and degrading spectacle of Irish Colleges submitted to the rule of State-appointed, perhaps, State-paid Governors, who, under the name of an University Senate, would prescribe the curriculum for degrees, appoint Examiners, and confer the titles awarded by those Examiners.

It is not possible to suppose that a Senate appointed by an authority outside the Colleges, and consisting of persons removed from the details of University Education, would be competent to decide the weighty and important questions that must come before them; in fact, a Senate constituted as I have supposed, in discussing questions of education, would be about as likely to come to a wise decision as a collection of shoemakers speculating on the structure of a watch, and making proposals for its improvement, who will certainly destroy the delicate machinery they are unable to understand, unless they have the sagacity to call in the watchmakers to their aid.

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.