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.