[To TIER EDITOR. or TR. EPRCTALTOR."1 SIR,—I have just read
the letter signed " Catholicus " in the Spectator of November 19th, and my emphatic comment upon
it is that which you yourself make in a few pregnant remarks.
"Our only fear," you say, is that it goes too far in meeting Protestant and anti-sectarian criticisms, and so might not in the end be as ungrudgingly accepted by the Irish Roman Catholics as any scheme, to be successful, must be." Ah, if lnglish statesmen in bygone times had paid regard to these principles, what a different country Ireland would be to-day.
The scheme outlined by " Catholicns," good as it is on the whole, would, in my opinion, be vastly improved by strengthening the ecclesiastical element on the governing body of the proposed Catholic University. Why the Catholic Bishops ever expressed themselves satisfied to accept a governing body composed so as to secure a preponderance of laymen I do not know, but as they have done so, and, I presume, for sufficient reason, it seems to me that their position should at all events be made as strong as possible. This not on religious grounds alone, but also on educational grounds. Any one who knows anything about Ireland must recognise the splendid energy with which the Catholic clergy sustain education in every grade, primary and secondary. Ask the Commissioners of National Education who are the men that have made their system the success it is, and they will tell you that in three provinces of Ireland it is the Catholic clerical managers. Ask the Commissioners of Intermediate Education, and you will get a similar answer. Also Englishmen should not forget the peculiar circum-
stances that characterise the position of the Catholic clergy in Ireland. The naked truth is that—sad result of the penal
times—Ireland is practically without a Catholic aristocracy. The Catholic Bishops and clergy now occupy that place. Of them it may be truly said,—
" They rose in dark and evil days To right their native land; They kindled here ablaze
That nothing shall with'stand."
In framing a Catholic University Bill for Ireland let the Government bear these facts in mind, not foolishly and vainly strive to whittle away Catholic claims, but anxiously, mag- nanimously bend all their energies towards strengthening the element that must be the real mainstay of the University. Give us for once what we tell you we want, and do not sempiternally force upon us what we distinctly tell you we do
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