QUEEN'S COLLEGE, GALWAY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR?'] SIR,—By adopting the statistics of Mr. Synan, Member for Limerick, you have been led into a grave error, which I feel sure you will let me rectify, with respect to the numbers and persuasions of the students attending the Queen's Colleges in Ireland. You state in your journal of Saturday last "that there are about 37 Catholics to 762 Protestants in the Queen's Colleges of Belfast, Cork, and Galway (the two last being most Catholic of Catholic provinces), though the population is Catholic in the proportion of 18 to 1 in Cork and Galway and half Catholic in the northern province."
The actual numbers now attending in the Colleges of Belfast, Cork, and Galway are 744; of these, 511 are Protestants, 200 Catholics ; of these Catholics, 79 are attending in this College alone.
The importance of these numbers may be judged of by regard- ing the field to which the Colleges must look for studeuts ; that field is limited by the Classical Preparatory Schools. By the number of pupils in these schools the numbers in the Colleges must be determined, for surely no one would compare the number of students in Colleges and Universities with the gross population. Such a course, however fair in the case of national schools, would be absurd in the case of Colleges. Now, the numbers in the Classical Preparatory Schools appear, from the Census Report of 1861, part iv., p. 51 (the last Report pub- lished), to have been :— In Schools under Societies and Boards 4,298
In Private Schools 6,048
Total 10,346 Of this total, 5,228 were Protestants and 5,118 Roman Catholics. These preparatory schools (the Report informs us) are those which feed the Dublin University, the Queen's Colleges, and the several Roman Catholic seminaries, like Maynooth, in which candidates for the Roman Catholic ministry are educated.
The large proportion which the Protestant bear to the Catholic students in the Dublin University and the Queen's Colleges arises from a simple fact which is carefully suppressed by the opponents of united education. It is this :—These Protestant students include all candidates preparing for the ministry of the
Episcopalian and Presbyterian Churches, while the Catholic students do not include any candidates for the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church. It should be remembered that the training for the Catholic priesthood must, under any system of education, be carried on in separate institutions. It is, therefore, grossly fallacious to speak of such students as excluded by present circumstances from university degrees. Now, the same census report (p. 48) informs us that the numbers frequenting Maynooth and the seven other "Colleges for professional education, without resort to Universities, amounted in 1861. to 1,161; that of these, four, containing 889 students, are established for the special education of the Roman Catholic clergy, while the others, con- taining 272, although primarily for the same purpose, have the secular or non-professional part of their courses open to lay students." We may, then, safely conclude that at least 1,000 are preparing in these seminaries for the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church, and should be added to the Catholic students in the Dublin University and Queen's Colleges, to determine how far the Catholic need for higher education is supplied.
How, then, does the matter stand ? Mr. Plunket, perfectly in- formed, no doubt, on the subject, tells us that there are 1,100 stu- dents in the Dublin University, of whom one-half attend lectures and receive University education. Mr. Synan—and for the moment we will accept his statement as correct—says that only 68 of these are Catholics. We may, therefore, estimate that 516 Protestants and 34 Catholics are attending lectures in the Dublin University. In the Queen's Colleges there are 544 Protestants and 200 Catho- lics attending lectures. Thus there are 1,060 Protestants in the Dublin University and the Queen's Colleges, this number including the candidates for the ministry of the Episcopalian and Presby- terian Churches, and 234 Catholics. Adding to this latter number 1,000 preparing for the ministry in the Roman Catholic ecclesias- tical seminaries, you have 1,060 Protestants attending the Uni- versity lectures, as compared with 5,228 Protestants in the prepara- tory classical schools, and 1,234 Catholics as compared with 5,118 Catholics in the same schools.
Are, then, the wants of the Catholics as regards higher education unsatisfied or unprovided for as compared with those of the Pro-
testants ?—I am, Sir, &c., EDWARD BERWICK, President. [Where can the Catholic clerics now obtain an Irish degree ?— ED. Spectator.]
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