We need not be surprised, then, that the number of Catholics entering Trinity College has steadily diminished during the last thirty years, and that they now form only six per cent. of the total number of entrances. In the official return contained in the last report of the Census Commissioners, we find that on the 17th May, 1861, of one hundred and forty-seven students resident in Trinity College, only five were Catholics.
In order to remedy, in some measure, this evil, the late Sir Robert Peel founded the Queen's Colleges. But the remedy was ineffectual. These colleges incurred the reprobation of the authorities of the Catholic Church, and, consequently, by far the greater part of Catholics object to these institutions on conscientious grounds, and many of them on political and social grounds also.
According to the last census, there were in Ireland in 1861, ninety-eight classical schools under the management of societies or boards, and two hundred and three private classical schools. The total number of pupils in these schools was 10,346, of whom 5,118, or about one-half, were Catholics. There were also 1,242 Catholics returned as receiving collegiate education on the 17th of May of that year. We have thus a total of 6,360 Catholic youths receiving a superior education in Ireland. Few, if any, of the Catholic institutions to which these pupils belong look with favour on the existing universities. On the other hand, none of these youths ought to be excluded from University education on account of conscientious objections: and yet by far the greater number are practically excluded at present, at least they are excluded from participation in the highest University dignities, and from the management of those seats of learning and centres of intellectual progress, one of which is essentially Protestant, the other is condemned by their Church. Is this justice? is it equality? is it intellectual freedom?
The unfairness of the present system will appear more clearly, if we consider the question of professional education. In the profession of the Law, out of 758 barristers in Ireland in 1861, 216 were returned as Catholics; 674 out of 1,882 attorneys; of 2,358 physicians and surgeons, 761 were Catholics; and 210 out of 419 apothecaries, many of whom hold a medical license. Of 1,065 members of other liberal professions, not ecclesiastics, the Census Commissioners state that 358 belonged to the Catholic religion; and of 267 professors in colleges, and tutors, 141 held the same faith. To these we must add 83 law students, 40 of whom are Catholics; and 329 Catholic medical students out of a total of 954. We have thus 2,729 Catholics out of a total of 7,758 persons engaged in the liberal professions, or aspiring to them.
Let us now see the disabilities under which this large number, more than one-third of the whole, labour, when on conscientious grounds they object, as is generally the case, to existing University arrangements.
With respect to the profession of the Law and to Attorneys, the following arrangement is at present in force by Act of Parliament, or by the resolution of the Benchers.
All graduates of Trinity College or of the Queen's University can be called to the Bar at the end of three years from the date of their registration as law students; while non-graduates are inadmissible to such call until the expiration of five years from such date.
Graduates are obliged to attend only two courses of lectures, either at the King's Inns or at Trinity College, or (in the case of students of the Queen's University) at any one of the Provincial Colleges; while non-graduates are required to attend four courses, viz.:—two courses at the King's Inns, and two additional courses at Trinity College. Moreover, graduates are required to attend twelve terms' commons, viz.: six in the King's Inns and six in any Inn in London; while non-graduates are required to attend seventeen, terms' commons, viz.: nine in the King's Inns and eight in England. Finally, the fees payable by graduates are less than those imposed upon non-graduates.
With regard to the apprentices of solicitors and attorneys, all matriculated students of Trinity College and of the Queen's Colleges are exempt from the preliminary examination imposed upon all other apprentices who have not been so matriculated. They may further be admitted to the practice of their profession two years earlier than non-matriculated apprentices, and are exempt from one of the courses of lectures appointed by the Benchers for such apprentices.
From this it appears that Catholics, and indeed all who object to the Protestant University and to the Queen's Colleges, are delayed in their course to a profession one or two years longer than the graduates of the favoured institutions, and are obliged to attend additional lectures and to pay extra fees, irrespectively of their proficiency in literature and science, or in law. Nearly one thousand Catholics (930) must submit to these inconveniencies, or must, on the one hand, choose between a University founded to maintain the ascendancy of the Established Church in Ireland, and, on the other hand, institutions condemned by their Church.