TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW COLLEGES FOR IRELAND.
Tan "fair and reasonable terms" on which the Irish Roman Catholic Prelates are disposed to coOperate with her Majesty's Government and the Legislature for the further extension of aca- demical education in Ireland are-1. That the appointment of Professors and office-bearers shall be vested in a Board of Trustees, of which the Roman Catholic Prelates of the diocese in which the College is erected shall be c.x officio members; 2. That Roman Catholic Professors shall be appointed to the chairs of "History, Logic Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy, Geology, and Anatomy ' ; 3. That any Professor or office-bearer "convicted before the Board of Trustees of attempting to undermine the faith or injure the morals of any student shall be immediately removed from his office by the Board " ; 4. That there shall be in every College a Roman Catholic Chaplain, salaried by Government, appointed and removeable at pleasure by the Roman Catholic Bishop of the diocese in which the College is situated, "to superintend the moral and religious instruction of the Roman Catholic students."
To concede these demands, would be to render the Colleges utterly incapable of discharging the duties for which they are founded. Compliance with the third would insure the substitu- tion of sectarian dialectics for a free and healthy logic ; and would render calm and dispassionate examination of the structure of the human body—the groundwork of medical science—liable to be arrested by every fanciful apprehension of the most timid or ignorant of priests. To vest the appointment of Professors in a mixed Board of Protestants and Roman Catholics—both parties conscious that they were placed there to watch over and promote the interests of their respective sects—would be to make the Col- leges the arena of interminable struggles for Protestant or Ca- tholic ascendancy. To render the Professors liable to immediate dismissal whenever a majority of the Board might be got to vote anything an "attempt to undermine" the faith of students, would be to subject them to a harassing and paltry system of espionage by ignorant fanatics. If the object had been to repress and dis- uourage scientific inquiry, and to deter all men of independent and accomplished minds from seeking appointments in the new 'Colleges, no better method than that embodied in these three pro- posals could have been devised : and gravely to ask for the ap- pointment in each College of an endowed Roman Catholic Chap- bin in the heat of the Anti-Maynooth agitation, is like seeking to defeat a measure by attaching to it an impossible condition.
Irrespectively of all considerations of political strategy or Par- liamentary tactics, demands like these must of course be refused. On the high ground of principle and true expediency they must be refused., as incompatible with that free spirit of scientific in- .quiry and that self-respect of scientific men which are indis- pensable to the prosperity and utility of academical institutions. And they may with perfect justice be refused as being quite un- called-for from any consideration for the safety of the Church in whose name they are advanced. The Roman Catholics are too powerful a body in Ireland for any Government lightly to run the risk of irritating them by objectionable appointments to col- legiate offices. The office-bearers and Professors are left depend- ent upon public support for no inconsiderable portion of their emoluments : regard for their own interests and the reputation of their College (upon which they are mainly dependent) will pre- vent them from doing anything to shock the religious feelings of the great majority of the community. The field of science can be cultivated without any encroachment on the field of faith ; and the interests of Professors and Ministers of State are a suffi- cient guarantee that so sensitive and irritable a public opinion (or sentiment) as that of Ireland will not be provoked by intruding on debateable ground. Though vexing, it is not surprising to find the Irish Roman Catholic Prelates attempting to get the new Colleges subject to their own control. In this they only act like the clergy of other sects. The Flower they ask is less than is exercised at Oxford and Cambridge by the Anglican clergy, and less than the clergy of the Scotch Establishment are authorized by the law to exercise in the Scotch Universities ; while the annals of the Belfast Institution, and the position assumed by the clergy of the Free Kirk in re- ference to the discontinuance of religious tests in the Scotch Uni- versities, show that Protestant Dissenters are quite as jealous of free scientific inquiry as either Papist or Prelatist. There is no- thing, therefore, in the position which the Irish Roman Catholics have thought fit to assume, to warrant personal reproach, or the introduction of any asperity into the discdssion of the projected extension of academical education for Ireland. But their de- mands being such as cannot be granted, their opposition to the measure may now be looked for; and their hostility will render more formidable the opposition it was sure to encounter on the part of the ignorant and all who have an interest in the conti- nuance of political agitation. It is a fearful responsibility they have incurred ; but it is not for any earthly tribunal to scan their motives or pronounce judgment upon them. This important accession to the numbers and respectability of the enemies of the measure for extending academical education in Ireland, is, however, a strong motive for increased exertions on the part of its friends. Upon that measure' more than perhaps any other, the future peace andprosperityof Ireland depend. The experience of more than three hundred years teaches how little reason there is to hope that the sects into which Christianity is unfortunately divided will be reunited. The experience of more than three hundred years has taught us, that there are only these three means by which the discordant sects can be brought to tolerate each other,—the exercise of despotic power by a sceptical govern- ment; growing indifference to religion among the different sects ; or the cultivation of the reasoning faculties of all by scientific pursuits. Fortunately, the first is impossible in our country; and the only resource left us from incessant mutual persecution on the one hand and a demoralizing indifference on the other, is in deve- loping the national taste for scientific pursuits. Free academical education has a necessary tendency to create within the bosom of each sect a party of expanded and refined minds who can cling to their own religious views and yet tolerate the devotion of those who conceive in a somewhat different manner, and express in different forms of words ideas too remote, too great, to be other- wise than vaguely comprehended by finite intellects. The co- operation of the minds of this high class, disseminated through the various sectarian bodies, is the only sure guarantee for that mutual toleration which all Christians praise and so few practise. Academical institutions free from the domination of the clergy of any sect are the best promoters of this catholic spirit. But such institutions can only be founded where this spirit already exercises extensive influence. The success or failure of the measure for extending academical education in Ireland will afford a test of the actual power and prevalence of this spirit in Great Britain. Its supporters are not to be looked for among Minis- terialists or members of Opposition, Roman Catholics or Pro-. testants, Established or Dissenting, Repealers or friends of the Union ; but among all of these classes, wherever a man is to be found in whose mind the cultivation of the reasoning faculties and the intellectual tastes has developed the spirit of true tolerance. In an especial degree the measure is entitled to the zealous support of "the Press,"—meaning thereby, not alone professional litterateurs, (much less the newspaper press,) but all men of talent and education who regularly or occasionally use the press to express their opinions. Frequent and recent com- plaints have been heard, that literature as a profession is not sufficiently respected in this country. The extension of acade- mical institutions will go far to remedy this national in- justice—assuming it to exist Colleges free from sectarian do- mination present the man of letters to the public in the light of a recognized and valued servant of the state, equally important and equally cherished with the judge, the churchman, or the soldier of rank ; and the deference thus obtained for the Principal or Professor extends to his whole class. Men of letters attain to a recognized status. More is gained by such a recognition than gratification to the vanity of a class. The literary class receives recruits from every avocation that tasks the intellectual faculties. The army and navy, the church, the bar, nay the mining and engineering classes, all contribute their quota to the literary body. A nation's men of science and letters are generally those in whom the reflecting and teaching propensity, predominating over the practical, has caused them to drift down into the haven of the press. The connexion thus established between this heterogeneous body and the various learned and useful professions communicates a higher moral and intellectual tone to the practitioners ; as, on the other hand, habitual association with practical men imparts a more healthy and practical spirit to science and literature. "The Press "—in the wide acceptation we have given to the phrase--is the body from which academical institutions are best supplied; and these institutions enable the state to extract from that body the full amount of benefit it is capable of yielding to society. To attain an end so important, men may be asked to make sa- crifices—to overcome partisan antipathies—to incur misconceptions and obloquy from those with whom they have been in the habit of acting. They may be asked to make a more difficult sacrifice still—to suppress their critical objections to the wisdom and policy of the measure by which the end is po be promoted. It is true, that the opening of Trinity College would have been more easy than the establishment of new unsectarian Colleges. It is true that, even now, the measure actually proposed might be more fa- vourably received if combined with the opening of Trinity Col- lege. But nothing is to be gained now by reflecting on a false start; and the establishment of the Colleges is worth a struggle even though Trinity be left in its exclusiveness. Not for the sake of the men—not for the sake of the abstract merits of the measure— but as an important step towards the creation of a judicious, ro- bust, and healthy public opinion, the Ministerial measure ought to be supported. Even though Ministers prove too timid to make it anything but the half-measure it is, the friends of science and mutual tolerance ought to rally: round it for the time, in the same spirit in which the friends of civil liberty rallied round the equally imperfect measure of another set of Ministers—the Reform Bill of 1831.
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