Archbishop Walsh makes, in the Freeman's Journal of Saturday last,
a clear, straightforward, and, on principle, reasonable statement of his views in regard to Irish Uni- versity Education. His main contention is that there must be equality of treatment for Protestants and Roman Catholics, both as regards endowment and status. To this, we believe, all fair-minded men will assent. Next he argues that equality can only be reached by levelling up or levelling down. By levelling up he means the erection of a Roman Catholic place of education, which shall be both a degree-giving and ex- amining University and a teaching college. To give less than that would be to create a body inferior in status to Trinity College. By levelling down he means depriving Trinity College of its University status, and making both it and a new Catholic College both colleges in a newly constituted National University. Archbishop Walsh declares that he himself favours this plan, but he evidently thinks that it would be resented as an injury by Trinity College, Dublin, and he therefore expresses himself as quite ready to accept the alternative of levelling up. We have only to regret in Archbishop Walsh's letter one or two turns of phrase which may seem irritating to Protestants. We wish ecclesiastical politicians, whether Protestant or Roman Catholics, would remember Burke's advice,—" So to be patriots as not to forget they are gentlemen." Loyalty to your creed, and yet kind words and a courteous bearing, are not really incompatible.
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