UNIVERSITIES
200
UNIVERSITIES
sity ostablishod in 1909. This constituent college has
utiUzed the buildings of the Catholic University.
The Catholic University church, built by Dr. New-
man, has been made available by the bishops for the
Catholic members of the National University; but
the Catholic University itself stiU exists, as was
affirmed in an important judicial decision by the Mas-
ter of the Rolls in 1911.
Dr. Newman, who retired in 1858, was succeeded in the rectorial Chair by Dr. Woodlock, Dr. Neville, Dr. MoUoy, and Dr. "O'Donnell. It is said that £2.50,000, subscribed mainly in Ireland and America, was collected and expended upon the university. After providing buildings and equipment, that sum would allow little over £8000 a year during the quar- ter of a century that elapsed before the fellowships of the Royal University were made available. The ideals sustained and the reforms achieved in higher educa- tion amply justify the effort. Archbishop Walsh and John Dillon were its students; the "Atlantis" and O'Curry's Lectures were its products. Even in its last years it had among its professors such men as Aubrey De Vere, Dr. Casey, George Sigerson, Dr. MoUoy, James Stewart, and Robert Ornsby.
Catholic University of Ireland, Constitution and Statutes; The Catholic University Gazette (1854); Walsh, Irish University Question (Dublin, 1897); Royal Commission on University Educa- tion (1902): Royal Commission on Trinity College (1907).
Patrick O'Donnell.
B. University College, Dublin, a constituent coUege of the National University of Ireland. By its charter, granted 2 Dec, 1908, in accordance with the Irish Universities Act of that year, members of the college include every graduate of the Royal University of Ireland who was a matriculated student of "Uni- versity College, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, or of the Medical School, CeciUa Street, Dublin". Thus the history of the existing college is linked with the story of NcviTnan's foundation in Ireland. From 12 November, 1883, when the Irish Jesuits opened University CoUege, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, in the old Arts School of the Catholic University, to 1 November, 1909, when the new college began its work, the history of Irish Catholic and national uni- versity education centred mainly in the St. Stephen's Green institution. The college had two purposes to fulfil; first, to show by its success in the competitive field that Irish Catholics had the material and capac- ity, given equal opportunity, to establish a university of their own upon the highest academic level; second, to afford a university training to young Irish Cath- olics, whom conscience prevented from availing of Trinity College, with its Protestant Episcopalian atmosphere, or of the Queen's Colleges, with their secularist atmosphere. The first president of Uni- versity College was Rev. WiOiam Delany, S. J. With an interval filled by Rev. Robert Carbery, S. J., Father Delany continued in office until the new col- lege was founded. His colleagues of the Society at the beginning were Rev. Thomas Finlay, philosopher and economist. Rev. Denis Murphy, Irish historian. Rev. James J. O'CarroU, Gaelic scholar and linguist. Rev. Gerard Hopkins, Oxford Classicist and poet, and Rev. Robert Curtis, mathematician. Of New- man's old guard and their first successors there still remained Thomas Arnold, .son of the Master of Rugby, Robert Ornsby, the biographer of Hope Scott, James Stewart, a Cambridge rector who had followed New- man, John Ca.sey, the Irish mathematician, Dr. John Egan, afterwards Rishoi) of Waterford, and Abbe Polin. Among the .issislant. professors selected by Father Delany were Mr. William J. Starkie, a Cam- bridge scholar, now Resident Commissioner of National Education, and Mr. (now Sir) Joseph Magrath, the present registrar of the National University. Father Delany began practically without endowment. The only public assistance received was indirect, Bea-
consfield's University Act empowered the senate of
the Royal University to appoint Fellows, with a
salary of £400 a year out of the university revenues,
on condition of their examining for the university and
lecturing at certain assigned colleges. Fourteen
Fellows, out of twenty-eight, were assigned to Uni-
versity College, the remainder to the Queen's Colleges,
already endowed to the extent of £12, .500 a year each.
Two of the first Fellows were Jesuit Fathers; some
years later the number was increased to five, and with
their salaries the equipment and maintenance of the
college were undertaken.
At the end of the first academic year a hundred of the distinctions awarded by the Royal University were won by Queen's CoUege, Belfast; seventy-nine by University College, Dublin, twenty by Queen's College, Cork, and eight by students of Queen's CoUege, Galway. This success of the unendowed coUege could not be ignored. In the Parliamentary session following (1885) the Irish Party raised the university question under the new aspect it had assumed. The Chief Secretary (Sir Michael Hicks- Beach) at once admitted the necessity for govern- ment action. For the Government he promised that, if they held office in the next session, he would "make some proposal which might deal in a satis- factorj' way with this most important matter". The year 1886, however, brought its change of Govern- ment, Gladstone's first Home Rule BiU, the Liberal Irish Alliance, and its developments; and the uni- versity question as a question of practical politics was shelved for a generation.
The LTniversity College continued its work with ever-increasing success. Year by j-ear the tabulated results of the examinations of the Royal University showed that the unrecognized Catholic University Col- lege was not only doing better work than even the most successful of the well-endowed Queen's Colleges, but that it was ever increasing its lead until it far out-distanced the three together. The foUowing table shows the relative endowments of the colleges and the first-class distinctions won by each coUege in the year 1898 compared with those ten years later.
Endow-
ments
Colleges
Prizes and
Honours
1898
1908
£ 6,000
£11,400
£11,400
£11,400
University CoUege, Dublin
Queen's College, Belfast
Queen's College, Galway
Queen's CoUege, Cork
40
28 5
1
99
22
5
In scholarship, in literature, in the public ser\-ice,
past students began to win honour for their coUege.
Even in the department of scientific research, ham-
pered as was the staff by lack of equipment, the work
of Preston, M'Clelland," and Conway established the
name of the coUege in the annals of scientific advance.
Mur|>hv's work for Irish history, Hogan's in the Irish
language, and Finlay's in the field of practical Irish
economics were also far-reaching. An aim of Father
Delany had been to train a thoroughly competent
staff to meet the time when justice should be done and
a wider field opened. This, too, was fulfilled; and the
men selected for the first appointments to the char-
tered coUege by the commissioners entrusted with the
work, unfettered though the commissioners were in
their discretion, include, in all the chief departments,
a large majority of men who had been educated in
Universitv College.
In 190'4 Mr. Balfour and Mr. Wj-ndham made acknowledgment of the Catholic claims; two royal commissions had reported in their favour; but the ministers were deterred by Orange influence from its
