University Education in Ireland

by Samuel Haughton

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.