entrance into the new University. They point out that little or no hardship can be caused by this regulation, because of the six thousand or seven thousand Catholic students who went in for the intermediate examinations last year about eighty-five per cent, took up Irish. This shows that the Catholic secondary colleges have really and truly the machinery at hand for teaching Irish to every one, and that they do in fact teach it to all who go in for the intermediate examinations except some fifteen per cent. There can therefore be no difficulty for the Catholic schools and secondary colleges, which are the institutions which will naturally supply the new University with students, in making Irish one of the essential subjects for examination for entrance.
It is being freely said in print in Ireland by Catholic laymen, many of them men of position and approved loyalty to the Church, like Colonel Moore, C.B., of Moore Hall, commander of the Connacht Rangers in the late African War, and Mr. Edward Martyn of Tullira Castle, who has given thousands of pounds towards the establishment of a Palestrina choir in the Catholic Cathedral in Dublin, that the reason for opposing Irish as an essential for matriculation is probably the desire on the part of certain authorities and orders to create in Dublin (ultimately of course at the expense of the Irish taxpayer) a great Catholic University for all the English-speaking Catholics of the British Empire. Certain it is that the Standing Committee of the Catholic Bishops have gone out of their way to publicly disapprove of making Irish an essential, and the person who first led the campaign against it was the Jesuit Father who is the most celebrated educationalist in Ireland.
It is needless to say that if this be really the desire of the ecclesiastical authorities, upon which subject I express no view, it is not that of the people. The people care nothing about the wants of the Empire, but very much indeed about the wants of Ireland, and they think that nothing in the world could be better for those snobbish Catholics who have been hitherto educated in utter ignorance of their country—
