Education: University Education

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University Education

Commonly known as "the university question," the attempt to establish a university system that offered accessible and good quality education without offending the religious sensibilities of Irish Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians was one of the most difficult tasks faced by all late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century British governments. Before 1845 only Trinity College provided laymen with third-level education in Ireland. A lay college at Maynooth functioned only from 1795 until 1817, when the institution turned exclusively to training priests. Trinity College was perceived to be the university of the Protestant Ascendancy, and Catholics were encouraged by their bishops to shun the college. Both the expansion of a Catholic professional and mercantile middle class and a perception that Catholics were discriminated against in the realm of university education encouraged demands for the establishment of a university that was suitable for Catholics.

In 1845 Sir Robert Peel's government created the Queen's Colleges. Established at Belfast, Cork, and Galway and linked to form the Queen's University in 1850, the colleges offered low fees, good scholarships, and a vocational ethos. They were secular institutions, but provision was made for the pastoral care and religious instruction of students of various denominations. The colleges were an expensive attempt both to undermine the demand for repeal and to provide institutions in which Irish students of different religious backgrounds could be educated together. This attempt to institute "mixed education" met with fierce resistance from many quarters, but was welcomed by such political progressives as Young Ireland.

The Catholic hierarchy condemned the colleges, which were denounced as "godless." By 1850 ecclesiastics were forbidden to have any dealings with the new colleges, priests were barred from accepting college offices, and the laity were instructed to shun them at all costs. Some Catholics did attend them, but the Cork and Galway colleges attracted fewer students than the Belfast college, which drew a steady flow of Presbyterian students. In response to this initiative, in 1854 the Catholic bishops founded the Catholic University under the rectorship of the famed English convert John Henry Newman. This institution labored under almost constant financial difficulty. Its medical school in Cecilia Street earned a good reputation, but as the institution received neither a charter nor an endowment, it failed to live up to the expectations of its clerical founders. W. E. Gladstone's proposal in 1873 for a single Irish university consisting of the Belfast and Cork colleges, Trinity, the Presbyterian Magee College, and the Catholic University led to the fall of his government and was met with almost universal rejection in Ireland.

One of the most important nineteenth-century initiatives in the realm of higher education was the introduction in 1879 of the University Education (Ireland) Act, which made way for the dissolution of the Queen's University and the establishment of the Royal University of Ireland. The Royal University was an examining body only. It had the power to grant degrees to anybody who passed its examinations; where or by whom students were educated made no difference, except in the case of medical students, who were required to attend approved medical schools. In 1882 the Catholic University was restructured to consist of a number of affiliated Catholic educational institutions whose students could register at the Royal University. The old Catholic University became one of these and was renamed University College, Dublin; the Jesuit fathers undertook the running of the college in 1883. The teaching of medicine continued at Cecilia Street under the title of the Catholic University Medical School. The Board of the Royal University distributed thirty-two university fellowships to approved colleges throughout Ireland; the main recipients were the old Queen's Colleges, which continued to exist but had no special role or privileges in the new university, and University College, Dublin, which was regularly awarded half of the Royal University's fellowships. In this way indirect funding was given for denominational education.

In some respects the Royal University was remarkably progressive. University prizes and scholarships were open to male and female students of all denominations, and the numbers of students presenting themselves for examinations grew rapidly. But the Royal University was largely viewed as merely temporary. The system encouraged intense rivalry and competition as results were published and widely dissected, while students in unendowed private colleges were under heavy pressure to win cash prizes. But the main objection was the lack of a collegiate life that could compare with Trinity's. In the absence of an acceptable Catholic teaching university or university college, various secondary schools and newly established colleges became de facto university colleges that were deemed unsatisfactory by lay and clerical Catholics. By 1901 the majority of students sitting Royal University examinations were educated privately or at miscellaneous schools. Calls for the abolition or major reorganization of the Royal University continued.

In the early twentieth century numerous schemes were suggested, including the establishment of a second college, Catholic in atmosphere and administration, alongside Trinity in the University of Dublin. This proposal met with fierce rejection from the Trinity authorities, as did another plan to incorporate Trinity, the old Queen's Colleges, and a new Dublin college into a federal structure. Royal Commissions on University Education in 1902 to 1903 and on Trinity College in 1906 to 1907 failed to reach agreement on the issue, which continued to provoke debate in Ireland and in Britain. Despite a number of near settlements, commissions, and debates, it was only when the Catholic hierarchy finally conceded that a Catholic University would not be endowed by governments hostile to denominational education, and that Trinity would not be interfered with, that a settlement seemed likely. Augustine Birrell's National University scheme of 1908 finally placated most interested parties, but it was hardly greeted with enthusiasm. The Irish Universities Bill of 1908 allowed for the establishment of two new universities: the National University of Ireland, a federal institution that encompassed the old Queen's Colleges in Galway and Cork, and a transformed and endowed University College, Dublin, and Queen's College, Belfast, which became the Queen's University. Trinity College was left untouched.

The colleges were formally nondenominational, but the university senates and governing bodies of each of the institutions were to reflect the religious affiliation of most college members; the Belfast institution would cater mainly to Presbyterians, while University College, Dublin—which retained many of its professors—catered primarily to Catholics. The Catholic Medical School was merged with the new National University, and Maynooth became a recognized college in 1913. The Gaelic League demanded that Irish be included as a compulsory matriculation subject in the new university. This provoked fierce debate, but the requirement was formalized for all native-born Irish candidates in 1913.

SEE ALSO Education: Women's Education; Maynooth; Presbyterianism; Roman Catholic Church: 1829 to 1891; Roman Catholic Church: Since 1891; Trinity College