Let us now look to what government has done in regard to Catholic education. In the first place, our rulers in past times prohibited all Catholic schools under the severest penalties, determined, it would appear, to sink the people into the degrading depths of ignorance, or to compel them when acquiring knowledge to imbibe at the same time Protestant doctrines. Secondly, a Protestant university and Protestant schools were founded and richly endowed with the confiscated property of Catholic schools or monasteries, and all possible privileges and honours were lavishly conferred on them by the state, in order to give them weight and influence, and to render them more powerful in their assaults on the ancient creed of Ireland. Thirdly, these institutions are still preserved, and possess immense property, nearly all derived from public grants. Besides other vast sources of income, Trinity College holds about two hundred thousand acres of land, and the several endowed schools are worth seventy or eighty thousand a year and own a great deal of landed property. Fourthly, it is to be observed that the management of these schools is altogether in Protestant hands, the teaching Protestant, and their atmosphere thoroughly impregnated with Protestantism. If any Catholic be admitted into those institutions, his faith is exposed to great danger, and unhappily it is too true that many who ventured to run the risk, perished therein, so that we find it recorded that several Catholics, when passing through the ordeal of Protestant education, lost their faith and became ministers and preachers of error. At present there are Protestant bishops and archdeacons, and other dignitaries, now enemies of the ancient faith, who commenced their career in Trinity College as very humble members of the Catholic Church. I say nothing of the many Catholics who, in consequence of the training received in Trinity College, never frequent any sacrament of their Church, and neglect all religious duties. The parents who expose their children to such dangers cannot be excused from a grievous breach of the trust committed to them by God. Can they be admitted to sacraments?
Keeping in mind the facts just stated, may we not ask, were not Protestants provided with everything they could desire for educational purposes? was it necessary to adopt other measures in their favour?
Now such being the case, had not we a right to expect that when new educational arrangements were to be made, the past sufferings of Catholics, the spoliation of their property, and their actual wants, should be taken into account? Was it to be supposed that their claims should be overlooked in order to give further advantage to Protestantism? Reason and sound policy would have prohibited such suppositions. But "aliter superis visum". Instead of repairing past injustice and making some compensation for the confiscations of times gone by, the government, in all new measures for promoting education, seemed to forget the Catholics, and to think only of Protestant interests, just as if they were not abundantly provided for already. Thus, when the Queen's Colleges were projected, it was determined to establish them, and to endow them at the expense of the Catholics of the country, and on principles so hostile to Catholicity, that the Sovereign Pontiff and Irish bishops were obliged to condemn them as dangerous to faith and morals, whilst a Protestant statesman admitted that they were a gigantic scheme of godless education. Hence, no Catholic parent, though taxed for their support, unless he be ready to immolate his children to Baal, can send them to institutions thus anathematised. Have not Catholics great ground to complain upon this head?
The national system was also founded on bad principles, and to protect the consciences of Protestant children, even in schools where they never attend, Catholic instruction was prohibited in them during the common hours of class.
To illustrate the effects of this prohibition, the Archbishop refers to part of his own diocese—the county Dublin—in which there are 145 so-called National Schools, frequented by 36,826 Catholic children, without the intermixture of one single Protestant, and asks is it not most unjust and insulting to banish Catholic books, Catholic practices, the history of the Catholic Church, from such schools, and to treat them as if they were mixed or filled with Protestants? If the case were reversed—if there were so large a number of Protestant children in schools without any mixture of Catholics, would Protestants tolerate any regulation by which every mention of their religion would be banished from such schools? Why apply one rule to Catholics and another to Protestants? The Archbishop then adds:
"Let me repeat it: Catholic children in purely Catholic schools must pass the greater part of the day without any act or word of religion, lest they should offend Protestants who are present only in imagination. No crucifix, no image of the Blessed Mother of God, no sacred pictures, no religious emblems, though experience teaches that such objects make excellent impressions on the youthful mind, are tolerated in National schools, even when no Protestant frequents them. No Catholic book can be used, and even the works of such men as Bossuet, Massillon, Fenelon, the most eloquent writers of modern times, must be excluded because they were Catholics and inculcate Catholic doctrines. The only books used by Catholics in these schools have been compiled by the late rationalistic Archbishop of Dublin, by Dr. Carlisle, a Presbyterian, and other Protestants, and are tinged with an anti-Catholic spirit. It is to be added, that the history of our Irish saints and missionaries and of the ancient Church of Ireland and its doctrines, as well as the sad narrative of our sufferings and persecutions, is completely ignored. Were it necessary to throw still greater light on the spirit of the mixed system, we could show that the late Dr. Whately, one of its great patrons, declared in his last pastoral charge to the clergy of Kildare, that his object in introducing certain Scripture lessons into the schools was to shake the religious convictions of the people, and to dispel what he is pleased to call their scriptural darkness. When things are thus conducted, have we not here again great reason to complain?"
The Archbishop also urges against the national system, its tendency to throw the education of this Catholic country into the hands of a Protestant government, whose past history proves that it has been always hostile to Catholic interests. Model and training and agricultural schools, which are completely withdrawn from Catholic control, have this tendency. Are not inspectors and other managers of the system altogether government nominees? When books were to be selected, was not the same object promoted by deputing to compile them Protestant archbishops, Presbyterian ministers, and other Protestants, who banished from them everything Catholic and national, and made them breathe a spirit of English supremacy and anti-Catholic prejudice? May not the experience of past ages be appealed to to prove that education under such government control becomes hostile to true religion, tends to introduce a spirit of despotism, and to rob the subject of his liberty? This was the tendency of all government enactments on education in Ireland for centuries. The Archbishop observes:
"Robespierre and other French despots fully understood all this, when they proclaimed that all children were the property of the state, to be educated under its care, at the public expense. When the instruction of the rising generations and the direction of schools falls under the absolute control of the ruling powers of the Earth, that sort of wisdom which Saint Paul calls earthly, sensual, diabolical, soon begins to prevail; the wisdom from above falls away, and neither religion nor true Christian liberty can be safe".
Having examined in this way the present defects and shortcomings of education in Ireland, as far as it receives aid from the state, the Archbishop insisted that Catholics have a decided claim to a Catholic university, with every privilege and right conferred upon Protestant universities, to Catholic training and model schools, and to a system of education under which the faith and morals of Catholic children would be safe from all danger. In England[24] the schools for the people supported by government are denominational, and the Catholics, though only a fraction of the population, have all the advantages of a Catholic system of education. Why should Ireland be deprived of rights which are freely granted to every class of people not only in England and Scotland, but in all the British colonies? Are the Catholics of this country to be degraded and insulted on account of their religion? Would such a mode of acting be in conformity with the liberality of the present age?