THE NEW IRISH UNIVERSITY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:"]
Sra,—In the year 1873 I was a guest at the hospitable table of the Fathers at Maynooth. The venerable Dr. Rupell pre- sided, and his urbanity made the gathering pleasant to all. I sat between Father Crawley and Father Corcoran,—worthy specimens of the old and new schools respectively. The one saw to my creature-comfort; the other asked me if it was not the fact that Protestants admitted that Newman had the better of Kingsley in a then recent controversy. The tone was that of a good small College at Oxford. The fare was delightfully plain. Much gratified with my reception, I engaged the good Fathers in a conversation as to the recreations of their students. Finding that I was assuming a condition of things which did not exist, one of my neigh- bours undertook to enlighten me. There could not be any playing of games on the scale I, as an English graduate, seemed to consider desirable ; first, because the students were there for higher purposes than mere play, and next, because there was no association between the older and younger students. While admitting the cogency of the first, I was surprised to hear the second of these reasons, and invited further explana- tions, which were frankly given me. It was necessary that the Fathers should at all times be acquainted with what was passing in the minds of their pupils, for purposes of direction ; hence the association of students in clubs, for purposes of recreation, was discouraged. No undergraduate tradition could be permitted to grow up; the third-year man never met the second-year man, and the second-year man never met the freshman. We agreed that the system was different from that of an English University. I have often wondered since whether the worthy Fathers were indulging in an amusement not uncommon between 1868 and 1888 in Ireland,—that of feeding the English tourist with fat stories. I wonder now whether the state of things described to me still exists. It does not seem incredible. It is perhaps necessary for the purposes of such an institution. But if so, ought we not to
know, now we are to endow out of English funds (among others) an Irish University, what sort of University we are founding ? Irishmen may be well assured they cannot combine in one institution a University after the English or West of Europe pattern and a seminary after the pattern described to me by my much-respected entertainers of 1873.
[We think we may trust to the Irish undergraduate not destined for the priesthood to see to it that the atmosphere of the new seat of learning will not be exactly that of Maynooth, even though it is distinctly Roman in character.—En. Spectator.]
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