THE IRISH UNIVERSITIES BILL

New Zealand Tablet, 30 July 1908, Page 23

THE IRISH UNIVERSITIES BILL

PASSED IN THE COMMONS

THE IRISH BISHOPS' VIEWS

A cable message in labt Tuesday's daily papers announced that the liish Universities Bill had passed the House of Commons. In this connection we may usefully quote the text cf an important statement on the measure by the Irish Bishops a statement just now to hand, but which was set in a somewhat false light by a cable message some weeks ago. The following is the text of the document in question :—: —

' Having given our besf and most anxious consideration to the Universities Bill now before Parliament, we are of opinion that, in setting up a new University in Belfast and another in Dublin with constituent and affiliated colleges, it has been constructed on a plan which is suited to the education needs of the country, and likely to lead to finality on the Universities question. While we must regret, as one of the evils incidental to the present system of legislation for Ireland, that the provisions of this Bill with regard to the University of Dublin and its colleges are not framed in accordance with the religious convictions and sentiments of this Catholic nation, we freely recognise the limitations which existing Parliamentary conditions impose upon the Government, and desire to render their task in trying to solve this grave question as easy as possible. Within the fundamental conditions within which, as we are informed the Government has to act, we believe that a good deal more than is proposed in this Bill might and ought to be done to meet the legitimate requirements of the Catholics of Ireland, and as a consequence to promote the efficiency of the new University It will readily occur to most people, for instance, that the headmasters of secondary schools should, on account of their close connection with University work, be represented on the governing body of the provincial colleges and the University, these schools being scheduled by the Commissioners of Intermediate Education A most important, and, indeed, vital, question is that of the status and • condition of the college to be established in Dublin' We have seen with dismay that it is not to be residential, and if this determination is persevered in \ve feel that the consequences for the University and the college may be disastrous, from a moral and religious, as well as an educational', "point of view We should regard it as indefensible to throw hundreds of youn-* men on the streets of Dublin, and side by side with the splendid provision which is made, at the cost of the Irish nation, for the Episcopalian Protestants in Trinity College, for it would reduce our students to a position of intolerable inferiority 'We beg to state that we cannot undertake to send the students of the Arts Faculty in Maynooth to reside in Dublin and that, consequently, the result of the adoption of Mr. Butcher's amendment would be to deprive the hundreds of students resident in this college of the opportunities which they at present enjoy in' gammg University degrees. J y

' That we are satisfied and sustained in our 'conviction by the experience gamed in the examinations of the Royal XJni yc'rsit^standara" teachln «' in ***"*** ** 'ully up to ?he uSim JJ\t a \\ We <i are ?' m l n § iO a6ce rr PP T t .. a "y su ggestions thai may be made by the Senate of the new University for the regulation ' of the courses of studies or for the strengthening,* in so far as 'it maybe found necessary, of the social staff. ' ri iril ', Ajld '/ n^' We c ° ns , ider 5t woul d make much more for the dignity and efficiency of the new University to leave 'such questions to its determination than to impose upon it a disability which is without precedent in any University in these kingdoms <* MICHAEL, CARDINAL LOGUE, Chairman. 4< RICHARD, BISHOP. OF WATERFORD - BISHOP OF CLOYNE, Secretaries to the Meeting/