Trinity College, Dublin

“ The act provides that "no test whatever of religious belief shall be imposed on any person as a condition of his becoming or continuing to be a professor, lecturer, fellow, scholar or student" of the college; nevertheless it is well understood that its spirit and atmosphere are Catholic, and such Protestant youth as desire higher education usually enter Trinity College, Dublin, or Queen's College, Belfast. There are three colleges in the National University of Ireland—University College, Dublin, which is the parent institution, Queen's College, Cork, and Queen's College, Galway. ”

“ The University of Dublin consists of a single college—Trinity. This edifice forms a prominent feature in the Irish metropolis. It stands in College Green, almost opposite to the Bank of Ireland, the former legislative chambers. Since the Union, Trinity College has been but little resorted to by men of the upper ranks of Irish society, although it has certainly contributed some very eminent men to the public service—notably, the late unfortunate governor-general, Lord Mayo, and Lord Cairns, ex-lord-chancellor of England. Trinity is one of the largest owners of real estate in the country. ”

“ The national school system has many features in common with our own, and is improving year by year. In the higher branches of education, Ireland is well supplied. Trinity College, Dublin, the Alma Mater of many celebrated men, has existed since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but, until the end of the eighteenth century, was not open to Catholics. Maynooth College, in Kildare, is the great Catholic ecclesiastical seminary of Ireland, and there is also a Catholic university in Dublin. ”

“ It is not to be wondered at that wealthy English and Scotch people should prefer to live in their own countries, but wealthy Irish people seem not to desire to live in Dublin unless it is their native place. Ireland, unfortunately, does not possess very many rich people, but she has at least some outside of Dublin; but very few of these, even if they have young, growing-up families, go to reside in the capital in order to educate them. Some seem to think that outside of Trinity College, Dublin has no advantages in an educational point of view worth speaking of. ”

“ St Augustine’s church (Roman Catholic) is modern (1859) . The town is the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese. There are grammar, model and industrial schools, the first with exhibitions to Trinity College, Dublin; but the principal educational establishment is University College, a quadrangular building in Tudor Gothic style, of grey limestone. It was founded as Queen’s College, with other colleges of the same name at Belfast and Cork, under an act of 1845, and its name was changed when it was granted a new charter pursuant to the Irish Universities Act 1908. ”

“ In 1796 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, but did not graduate, and on 19 Nov. 1803 matriculated at Oxford as a gentleman commoner of Exeter College, chiefly in order to study at the Bodleian and other libraries. ”

“ Except for six weeks at a private school in Hume Street, Dublin, he received his education at home, being taught by his elder brothers. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, when sixteen, carrying off the entrance prizes in classical composition. In 1861 he obtained a classical scholarship in his first year—until that date an unheard-of feat for a first-year man who was only seventeen. He graduated with a double first class in classics and logics in 1864, and obtained a fellowship in 1868 on very brilliant answering in classics. ”

“ He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and after being presented to the parish of St Werburgh, Dublin, in 1679, became dean of St Patrick’s in 1689, bishop of Derry in 1691, and archbishop of Dublin in 1702. In 1718 he founded the divinity lectureship in Trinity College, Dublin, which bears his name. ”

“ With them he was one of the earliest Roman catholic students to gain admission to Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the Irish bar in Trinity term 1814. He was a good advocate and an effective speaker. ”

“ His home education was continued at Queen’s College, Cork, and Trinity College, Dublin; at the latter university he had a distinguished career, becoming president of the Philosophical Society, and winning the vice-chancellor’s prize for English verse and prose, and the first senior moderatorship in ethics and logic. In 1867 he was elected professor of oratory and English literature in Dublin University. ”

“ Another church building was the Hall of the Seventies, the upper story of which was used for the priesthood and the Council of Fifty. Galland's suggestion about a college received practical shape in the incorporation of a university, in whose board of regents the leading men of the church, including Galland himself, found places. The faculty consisted of James Keeley, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, as president; Orson Pratt as professor of mathematics and English literature ”

“ Dublin has never taken kindly to the idea of becoming a commercial city, such as Liverpool. The intellectual head of the island, it prides itself on the genius of its professional people. Irish eloquence shines as brightly as ever in its pulpits, in the law courts, and, indeed, wherever public speech is heard. The Four Courts enshrine the fame of many a gifted patriot orator and wit. Trinity College, founded by Queen Elizabeth, has made its mark not simply in the island and kingdom but all over the world. ”

“ In October 1804 he was removed to Stonyhurst college, Lancashire, and in November 1807 entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he specially distinguished himself in the debates of the Historical Society. ”

“ A stimulus of the most healthy and powerful kind, worth more than millions of pecuniary endowment, has been given to all the great schools of the country, including the universities of England, Scotland, and Ireland. As soon as it was known that candidates, graduates of Trinity College, Dublin, had succeeded over competitors from Oxford and Edinburg in obtaining valuable appointments in the East India service, the professors in the latter universities began to look to their laurels. ”

“ He was delicate from the beginning, and after some education in private schools in Dublin and Bray, left school when about fourteen and studied with a tutor. In 1892 he took his B.A. degree from Trinity College, Dublin, whose rolls contain a number of names famous in English literature. While at college, he studied music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he won a scholarship. His first impulse was to make music his career, and he spent portions of the next four years in Germany, France, and Italy studying music and traveling. ”

“ In other countries, so far as my investigations have extended, the universities do guide economic thought and have a distinct though wholly unofficial function as a court of appeal upon questions relating to the material progress of the communities amongst which they are situated. Of such institutions there are in Ireland only two which could be expected to direct in any large way the thought of the country upon economic and other important national questions—Maynooth, and Trinity College, Dublin. ”

“ UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN IRELAND.
There are two Universities recognized by law in this country. One of these, the University of Dublin, or Trinity College, although it has shown of late years a more liberal spirit towards Catholics than formerly, must always remain essentially Protestant in character, until the way is open for Catholics to be appointed on its governing body—a change, of which there does not appear to be the slightest probability. ”

“ There are three libraries in Dublin, of which two are free to any one known as a respectable person—these are the National Library and the Royal Irish Academy. To become a reader in Trinity College Library costs, to a person known to be respectable, only a couple of shillings a year. Seeing the facilities that are in Dublin for cultured people, or for those who wish to become cultured, it is strange that it does not stand higher as an educational centre. ”

“ The control of the entire community was to be vested in a board, partly nominated by the crown and partly by the colleges and the general body of students. The scheme, however, was strongly opposed by the Dublin University Defence Committee on the ground that the ideals which had hitherto dominated the aims and teaching of Trinity College were incompatible with a system in which regard for the principle of authority and the repudiation of scientific theorization (as it finds expression in the Index) are leading features. ”

“ In a speech in parliament on Catholic education in 1782 the provost declared that Catholic students were in fact to be found at Trinity College, but that he desired their presence there to be legalized on the largest scale. “My opinion,” he said, “is strongly against sending Roman Catholics abroad for education, nor would I establish Popish colleges at home. The advantage of being admitted into the university of Dublin will be very great to Catholics; they need not be obliged to attend the divinity professor, they may have one of their own ”

“ As long as Trinity maintained tests, so long did the Catholics demand as of right a purely Catholic University on the grounds of civic equity, but in these days of open doors they have again and again expressed their demand for a college or university open to men of all creeds—Catholic in the sense that Oxford and Cambridge are Protestant, and are in consequence thronged with young Englishmen; Catholic in the way that the Scottish Universities are Presbyterian and that Trinity, Dublin, is Episcopalian. ”

“ The Royal University replaced the Queen’s University under the University Act (Ireland) in 1879. No teaching was carried on, but examinations were held and degrees conferred, both on men and on women. On the west side of St Stephen’s Green is the Catholic University (1854) , which is under the Jesuit Fathers and affiliated to the Royal University. Between Trinity College and St Stephen’s Green, a large group of buildings includes the Royal Dublin Society, founded in 1683 to develop agriculture and the useful arts, with a library and gallery of statuary ”

“ This is the more to be regretted because had the unique manuscript treasures now shut up in cases in the underground room of Trinity College Library, been deposited in any other seat of learning in Europe, in Paris, Rome, Vienna, or Berlin, there would long ago have been trained up scholars to read them, a catalogue of them would have been published, and funds would have been found to edit them. At present the Celticists of Europe are placed under the great disadvantage of having to come over to Dublin University to do the work that it is not doing for itself. ”

“ It is generally believed that the examination for fellowship in Trinity College in Dublin is so severe that no one who is successful in it is ever good for anything afterwards. Having once passed that examination men are said to settle down into a condition of exhausted mediocrity. Gideon McNeice proved to be an exception to the rule. Having won his fellowship and thereby demonstrated to the world that he knew all that there is to know about the science of mathematics, he at once turned to theology. Theology, since he lived in Ireland, led him straight to politics. ”

“ It is, therefore, to Trinity College, or the University of Dublin, that one would naturally turn as to a great centre of thought in Ireland for help in the theoretic aspects, at least, of the practical problems upon whose successful solution our national well-being depends. ”

“ But it is in the appointment of medical officers ("dispensary doctors" as they are technically called in Ireland) that the policy of the Nationalists has been most marked. Many years ago, the late Cardinal Cullen ruled that it was a mortal sin to vote for a heretic for such an office; now, however, the bishops have gone further. There are three medical schools in Dublin-Trinity College, the College of Surgeons, and the Catholic University School; and three in the provinces-at Belfast, Cork and Galway. The Medical School of Trinity College has a world-wide reputation. ”

“ Everyone is agreed that a university to be worth the name should, if possible, be residential. The absence of disciplinary control in Trinity on those residing out of College, the omission on the part of the authorities to enact rules which would allow terms to be kept only in licensed lodging-houses, subject to inspection and to a rigid "lock-up rule" at twelve o'clock, are absent in Dublin not only at Trinity, but at the University College, where one can only suppose its absence to be due to the unorganised condition of a small and temporary makeshift. ”

“ In the East girls get their higher education for the most part in colleges of their own. Smith College for instance has no connection with any of the men's universities. Nor has Vassar nor Bryn Mawr. These institutions have their own staffs, their own courses and examinations, their own rules, and confer their own degrees. Barnard College, on the other hand, is closely connected with Columbia University, occupying much the same position as Girton and St. Margaret's Hall do with regard to Cambridge and Oxford, scarcely as intimately joined to Columbia as Trinity Hall is to Dublin University. ”

“ The usual arts and scientific courses are provided, and there are four professional schools—divinity, law, physic and engineering. The undergraduate has certain examinations in each year, and four “commencements” are held every year for the purpose of conferring degrees. Freedom is offered to students who wish to be transferred from Oxford, Cambridge, or certain colonial universities to Trinity College, by the recognition of terms kept in the former institutions as part of the necessary course at Trinity College. ”