Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 11 Jul 1924

Vol. 8 No. 10

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - VOTE 44.—SCIENCE AND ART.

Motion made and question proposed:—

"That a sum not exceeding £141,075 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1925, to pay the salaries and expenses of the Institutions of Science and Art in Dublin, and of the Geological Survey of Ireland, and annual grants to Schools and Classes of Science and Art and Technical Instruction, including sundry grants-in-aid administered by the Ministry of Agriculture (Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899)."

MINISTER for EDUCATION (Professor MacNeill)

In moving this Vote, just as in the case of the Votes for Public Education and Intermediate Education, a preliminary statement of policy. I hope, will help to make the position more clear to Deputies. They will expect to hear from me what my intentions are in regard to the chief item, the provision for science under this Vote for the College of Science. Until the enactment of the Ministries' Act, the College of Science remained within the Department of the Minister for Lands and Agriculture, but apparently there was a general recognition that the College formed part of the general national provision for education. Even, long before I became directly responsible for it, I was approached from various quarters with inquiries and representations about the future of the College. I was not then, at that time in a position to make positive statements with regard to matters which were not under my charge; but I did make it as clear as I could that there was no intention on my part, and no intention on the part of the Government, to diminish or to impair the educational benefits afforded by the College to the people of this country. Now the direct and principal responsibility has come to me, and it is incumbent upon me to make a positive statement of policy. In making that statement I have one more negative to put in the front in order to clear the way.

While I do not propose, as I have said, that the educational work provided through the College of Science shall be diminished or impaired in the future, I also do not propose to have that work carried on in the future under the same conditions as in the past. In other words, I propose to make a change, and a very considerable change. The work of the College of Science, as everyone knows, has been of a University character. It is comprised in teaching and in research on the highest grade under the direction of Professors of University standing. The training of the students, both in instruction and in research, is also on a University level. That will be best appreciated if we look at the provision for teaching and research that has been made in the College. There have been the following Professorships:—A professor of agriculture, a professor of botany, a professor of forestry working in the College, although a member of another institution; a professor of geology, zoology, chemistry, mechanical engineering, physics, electrical engineering, mathematics, as well as lecturers in various branches of these subjects; lecturers in agricultural botany, in agricultural bacteriology, agricultural chemistry, agricultural economics, horticulture, veterinary hygiene, organic chemistry, physics and metallurgical chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and technology, mathematics, education and modern languages

That all represents work of a University character and standing and work of a University kind in everything except the limitations of its scope, and except, I suppose, the outward form and organisation of a University. Now, there are two University centres in Dublin. I do not propose, and cannot propose, to continue and to develop in this city a third University even of a limited kind, rather I would say especially one of a limited kind. My objection to that is not to the number of Universities. I do not know how many Universities may be good for a country. It is because if things are carried on in that way, we have a truncated and an incomplete form of University education on one side, and an undeveloped and still more incomplete form of University education on the other, and the existence of higher education in those two forms side by side actually prevents the right development on either one side or the other. In order that a right view should be taken of this matter that view must include an entire provision for University education as it is and as it ought to be. I gathered from the course of the previous discussions that we had here about education that we are all agreed that University education, like other grades of education, ought to have as intimate and as complete a relation to the national life and the national needs as it is possible for it to achieve.

We once had a university centred in Dublin whose function was to confer degrees. That institution has now happily become, one of the curiosities of history. I have met men—we have all met them—who think that the chief function of a university is to confer social standing. I think there are a great many who regard a university as a place of learning, with a certain social character superadded. Well, I am quite certain that none of these are the views that are taken of the functions and the duties of a university by the members of this Assembly. Even if you are willing to tolerate the existence of universities answering to these conceptions. I am quite certain you would not be willing to pay for them out of the taxes. It has been remarked that a Deputy has to clear himself of the suspicion of being nothing better than a university professor.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

Some of them do that, too.

Professor MacNEILL

Although that is so, you do expect something better from university students. You expect them to be able to do valuable work for the nation, and you expect university education to train and fit them to do such work. I do not attempt to define for Deputies what they understand by valuable work. I believe they are Irish enough in tradition to hold no narrow views or no low views on that subject; but they do hold, as I hold, that the universities must justify their right to public aid and public recognition by giving their recognition and their aid to the development of national life in every aspect, and especially we know that certain aspects of national life that have obtained a traditional standing in the older universities; but primarily we regard it as a necessary function of a university in these days to take a leading, a principal part in the development of the economic life of the nation.

We know that in other countries universities have been among the principal agencies in economic development and economic progress. Now, that is the reason why I do not propose to continue a plan—it is not a plan, a random arrangement—of half-organised and incomplete universities or to continue a state of things which might almost seem to be devised to prevent university education from developing into what it ought to be in the life of the nation. Last year I urged on the President, who was then Minister for Finance, and on my other colleagues—I say I urged it only, because it was my particular function, I do not wish to represent they were less willing to do what was right in the matter in any degree than I was— the propriety, the duty, I venture to call it, of making a provision which it was possible to make, to relieve the needs or some of the needs of the University of Dublin. I know that there were some who suggested that my action, or rather the Government's action, in that matter was evidence of various kinds of obliquity. Well, I came into the fair with a thick enough skull, and I hope to survive to come again.

I am not ashamed to own up to the wish and to the aim that no Irish student may expect to get a better education elsewhere than he should get in Ireland. I desire, we all desire it, that education in Ireland shall be so high in its reach and so wide in its scope that there would be no temptation for Irish students, the children of Irish people, no matter who they may be, to go out of Ireland for their education. The needs of the National University were still greater, and the demands on it very much greater, and I was not able to recommend or to devise any proposal which would make the National University even approximately the organ of national progress that it ought to be. The National University was left in a state of neediness from the moment of its establishment. I have a particularly clear recollection of its needs. I cannot remember the words, but I do not fear any lapse from accuracy with regard to the meaning of them, that were used by the benevolent satrap of that time with regard to the endowment of the National University, and what he said came to this: "I admit that the provision I am making is beggarly, but you will have to pull your weight until you break down, and then you will have a case for more." Well, whether because this was a promise or whatever other reason there was, the National University did not follow the advice.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

That satrap has his successors.

Professor MacNEILL

He has. The National University kept its development within the bounds of this beggarly provision. At the time Deputy Magennis and I were members of the body which had to do with the preliminary constructive arrangements. We held that the University should, at least, plan itself out according to its proper scope and function in the national life, but we were either too weak, or too diffident, or both, to make our views prevail. Then after that came the war and with the war the beggarly provision became more beggarly still. I escaped a good deal of the worry of that time by spending half-a-year in Dartmoor, another half year in Lewes, and a third half year in Mountjoy. But the peace of those delightful seclusions was a pure delusion, and the time came when I was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to be a Minister for Education, and the troubles that had been escaped all along came to me accumulated.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

You should sign a petition for a reprieve.

Professor MacNEILL

At any time I am prepared for it. But since then I have had to encounter deputations, representations, and financial statements continuously from the University College, Dublin; University College, Cork; and University College, Galway. The provision made for these Colleges in 1908, I have said, was beggarly Now, apply any index figure that you consider valid to the present provision as compared with the beggarly provision of 1908, and I leave it to yourselves to find the adjective that will describe it. The position for me is whether I am to be responsible for keeping one University in a condition which forbids any development, not to speak of development commensurate with its proper function in the nation, side by side with another institution of university grade and character, that is as far as it goes, though not of university form or scope. If the National University had been established with an adequate endowment there is not one atom of the work of the College of Science that it ought not to have undertaken, and that it ought not to be doing at present.

The National University is more properly the university of the agricultural community, which is the main part of this nation, and the development of the agricultural community and the development of that rural civilisation, which I have spoken of before, ought to be one of its principal functions. You cannot expect me to deprive it in perpetuity of the chance of fulfilling that part by segregating and keeping separate that very function, and attempting to have it performed here by that fraction of a university. I have heard things that suggest to me that there is a notion in existence that rural, or agricultural, or industrial areas gain a college by this existing arrangement. They do not. They lose a university by it. I suppose I will hardly be expected to deal with the pretence that applied science is not within the proper scope of university work. For centuries back universities have been working in applied science where they have the opportunities. All the university work in the faculty of medicine, for example, is the most closely applied form of applied science.

We have heard about co-ordination and we have heard about amalgamation. I suppose the time for the boquets is passed and we may now be looking out for the bricks. I propose to carry out the principles of co-ordination and amalgamation with respect to university education. In what form, you will ask me. I propose that the National University should be brought into a position which will be more or less in line with its right position in view of national economy, in view of the requirements of the country, by making preparation for the establishment of a fully equipped faculty of agriculture in Dublin and in Cork. It will not be possible immediately to eliminate the duplication of teaching which is at present carried on in the College of Science and in the universities, such subjects, for example, as botany, chemistry, zoology, physics, mathematics, modern languages, and so on. But, in so far as the scientific work of the college of Science supplements, and does not duplicate the work of the National University, I propose that the work of the College of Science shall be carried on in a strict association with the work of University College, Dublin. I regret that I can make no similar proposal for University College, Galway. University College, Galway, is for me a very difficult problem. It it not my view and not my intention that Galway—to put it in familiar terms—should be let down in the matter of educational work.

I think that it should have an Institution of higher education to which the people—I was going to say of the West of Ireland—could look up; I will amend that, and say to which the people of the whole of Ireland could look up. I would like to see the idea of provincial institutions for higher education done away with altogether. Instead of that, while it is well to have centres of higher education not all concentrated in the capital city, but placed at different points throughout the country, I think that each of those institutions should be of such a special kind and developed on such special lines that it would have a claim upon the entire country. I leave Galway outside my proposals either one way or the other. I do not propose to destroy. I do not propose to construct. I hold myself, and I put it to a representative body from the Galway College that I met not very long ago, that it was to my mind very questionable whether the efforts to carry on a university college in its present form and scope in Galway was the best way in which an institution of higher education could be carried on for Galway and for all that look up to Galway. We have had here a great deal of discussion with regard to the development of agriculture. There is another great industry, a great potential industry, belonging to this country, an industry of almost unbounded potentiality—one which, I think, which I believe and am confident, could benefit from proper scientific handling, just as much as agriculture or building operations or brewing operations can benefit, and that is the fishing industry. I am only throwing that out at present, because I am going to pass away from the question of Galway. Galway, I think, is an ideal situation from every point of view, from the point of view of sea fisheries, and from the point of view of inland fisheries, of being a centre for the purpose of education in and for that industry.

As to how the proposals that I make are to be carried out in detail, I could not announce at present, and for a very good reason. When you are establishing a university you do not deal with it as a mechanism. In fact, it will be for the National University and for the University Colleges themselves to shape in detail the lines upon which changes of the kind I have outlined should be carried out. I do not mean to say that they will have altogether in their hands the power of advising how they are to be carried out. It will be a matter of proposing what they consider proper, and the responsibility will still be Ministerial for applying the proposals. It will take time, and a considerable time, to carry such a scheme as I have indicated into effect. I am glad that it will take some time. I do not wish to appear to be rushing a change of this kind and of this importance. I do know, as a necessary feature of the case, that I gave a particular direction to it; one might say I prejudiced the case by making up my own mind and announcing to you what I think ought to be done, and what, so far as my responsibility is concerned, I intend shall be done.

From my experience during the past year, I anticipate that the proposals that I have made here to-day, that I have laid before you, will lead to some controversy. So much the better. I should like sufficient controversy to get the public really interested in matters of this kind. I think most of us have now reached the stage in which we can carry on controversies in the public interest. Opposite views, opposite claims will help to focus the public mind on all this matter and on the merits or demerits of the proposals that I am making. As I have said, the matter will not be rushed; it cannot be rushed. It will take considerable time to carry out any arrangements and changes that are to be made. I am assuming that I shall have the support of this assembly in the proposals that I have made. The next stage in the matter would be, as I conceive, a constructive move on the university side. That again I suppose will be a matter of some time. I think you will all agree with me that having placed before you proposals of such importance I will not be expected on this occasion to discuss minor matters with regard to the Vote which is before you, which might appear out of proportion and might divert some deagree from the discussion of what I think is for the members of the Dáil, as it is for me the main matter of interest and of importance in connection with this Vote.

Mr. JOHNSON

On a point of order, would it be convenient if the Vote for science and art and the Vote for universities could be discussed together, with a view to this particular question being related, and then we may get on to the details separately? It would be difficult, I think, to keep the universities out of the discussion.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

May I make an addendum to that suggestion, and that is that in combining these two Votes only that section of science and arts that relates to the College of Science should be discussed, and it should not be combined with the other Vote for other things like the National Library and the Museum, where there are matters Deputies might like to raise which will not be covered by such a union.

Mr. GOOD

Would it be the intention to include the Vote for technical schools in the same category as universities, for if that is the proposal I would like to understand it?

Professor MacNEILL

I would hardly venture to make the proposal made by Deputy Johnson on my own account, but it seems to be quite sound. The questions of the College of Science and provision for university education are strictly bound together. I hope under the Chairman's direction to be able to devise some plan for discussing them together, and not bringing in extraneous matters.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The Minister's proposal, in effect, is this, that in Vote 44, as a matter of policy, the question of the College of Science may be discussed. We could then go through sub-heads of Vote 44, to enable Deputies to raise and discuss matters in detail. While the Minister was speaking, that very question of the way in which colleges and universities were bound up struck me, too. I think it would be advisable that we should take the question of universities and colleges in general in connection with this matter of the College of Science. We need not move a resolution in connection with this Estimate 50 at all. The effect would be that when we come to Estimate 50 only matters of detail would be left to be discussed under that particular motion. That disposes of the question of details under this particular Vote, like the National Library. With regard to Deputy Good's point as to whether technical education comes in here, part of it came into Vote 43, which has been disposed of, but it was not discussed under Vote 43 and an opportunity must be given to the Dáil for discussion, because the Minister for Agriculture is no longer the responsible Minister under the Ministries and Secretaries Act, so that it seems to me that this would be the place in which technical education could be discussed.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

As a detail.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

As a detail. I think you will agree that the question of the College of Science and the question of universities and colleges would be more properly discussed first, and we will take technical education as a detail under the sub-heads.

Major COOPER

Under sub-head (b), Grants to Schools for Technical Instruction?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Yes, under sub-head (b), but a certain part of it comes under Vote 43. I have no intention of preventing Deputies from speaking on it, although it has been already passed, because of certain difficulties that arose in connection with the passing of the Ministries and Secretaries Act after the Estimates were prepared. The proposal, therefore, would be first to discuss the question of the College of Science, and to allow then a discussion on the universities and colleges, meaning, of course, university colleges. Does that suit the general desire?

Professor THRIFT

The Minister's speech has contained matters of such importance, and opened up such avenues for discussion, that I feel I shall deal quite inadequately with the matters to which he referred, but on the general policy which he has outlined, a policy which may be summarised perhaps by stating that university development should take place so as to meet the economic needs of the country, I may say I am in entire agreement. In fact, on the general statements made by the Minister, I am not sure that I am not in entire agreement, but I feel that without further amplification his whole statement may be taken in a way which, perhaps, he does not intend, and which, I believe, he really does not intend, but which would make it appear, when viewed from a certain angle, that it deals with this problem in an entirely one-sided way. The Minister gave us an appreciation of the work done by the University of Dublin, but, apart from that bouquet, he did not, in any way else, I think, refer to the University of Dublin as being in need of development, I will not say as much as, but certainly to a great extent just in the same way in which the National University is in need of development. That the National University should receive every encouragement towards such development I thoroughly agree, but my contention is, and I rather think that the Minister will admit this, that Trinity College, Dublin, also requires development, and that in the past three years he will be bound to, and will willingly, admit it has shown its desire for progress and for the lines which he has stated it is believed university development should take. Now, it is quite true, I regret to say, it is at least largely true, that the interests of Trinity College, Dublin, are bound up with minority interests. That is a fact, which, so far as it is true, I regret. It is not the policy of Trinity College. For one hundred and twenty years Trinity College has done its best to make such advantages, as it can offer, open to the whole nation, and I think it has been a pioneer in that respect, even in connection with these two departments, which were particularly referred to to-day, agriculture and technical development, such as mechanical and electrical engineering. In 1906 Trinity College established for itself a Faculty of Agriculture. It did that in a practical way. It appointed a qualified man as professor, giving him a practical farm on which practical farming could be learned. Its students were sent to take practical courses in agriculture on that practical farm.

The University resources were, however, limited, and its appeals to the Government for assistance to enable it to carry out that work on a scale befitting this country met with no response whatever, which, perhaps, is not to be wondered at. Furthermore, it was really ahead of its time, because in the country itself, and from agricultural interests, it met with no practical support. The number of students ready to take advantage of that instruction was small. The farmers generally then did not appreciate, as I think they do now, the importance of agricultural education. That system was continued for some years with discouraging success, but success in a very limited way, until the death of that professor. Then the University initiated a move which was the forerunner, I might say, of the move to which the Minister has referred to-day, namely, that this kind of work could be done better and more economically in co-operation with the College of Science than if it was run as a separate faculty by the University, and, instead of appointing a new professor, arrangements were made by which the general educative work could be done inside the University, but the more specialised and applied work could be done, under the professor of the College, in the College of Science. That was in 1912, and since then that work has been running on those lines. Similarly, a long time before the present regime, arrangements were made by Trinity College with the College of Science for the development of mechanical and electrical engineering in the University in co-operation, rather than in competition, with the College of Science. Those schemes which were initiated by Trinity College are, I think, exact forerunners of the scheme outlined by the Minister to-day, but, in the form in which the Minister has put forward his proposals, his proposals would appear to have the effect of shutting down the efforts of Trinity College on those two lines, and cutting off the connection it has made, and the work it is doing in connection with the College of Science and of handing over to the National University those advantages of which Trinity College was ready to make use before the present regime came into being.

I am entirely in favour, as I have said, of supporting the development of the National University. It is admittedly incomplete and in need of such development, but my contention is that the other University, too, is also in need of completion, and it has a fair claim to be considered equally in this matter, and that its desires for completion and progress should be met by the Minister, and not merely responded to by the offer of a bouquet. That the University which I represent is anxious to progress I think the Minister is ready to admit, and that it is unfortunately the case that its interests at present are, largely, the interests of the minority section, is, I think, true, but I urge that that minority section has a very important interest in agriculture, and that its agricultural interests and the good which it can do the country are worth developing, and that the support which Trinity College, Dublin, and the minority have given to this Government in its difficult efforts to stabilise this country is deserving of recognition.

I have always taken the attitude that the Government intended fair play to all sections of the community. I take that attitude still, and I believe they do so intend, but, so far as the Minister's statement to-day has gone, I do not think that that is made clear. This statement would apparently tend towards the development of one without touching on the development of the other. Now my contention to-day is that both interests ought to receive the appreciative consideration of the Ministry, just as two years ago, or a little more, when the college of Science was closed, the Ministry through the Minister for Agriculture undertook that this question should not be finally closed and decided upon until all interests concerned had been consulted, and due enquiry made, as to how the different interests affected would be met by their proposals. I do not suppose that that undertaking was challenged. I can, if necessary, state the facts on which it was based and show how it was met. I have referred in this House to that promise on the part of the Government, and I think I understand from the Minister's statement that he has not put anything before us to-day in the nature of detail, that he is still prepared to carry out that proposal, and that he will not formulate concrete proposals until the universities have consulted with him as to how the general policy which he has outlined can be carried into effect to the good of the whole country, each section of it and not one section of it only. I hope I am right in understanding the Minister's remarks in that sense. Of course at this particular time these big questions cannot be properly gone into. The universities have already started their vacations. It would be impossible for me to consult with the authorities at this particular time but I think, and I think the Minister took the same view, that this whole problem is one that can only be faced along with the general university question of development in the general university problem and that both universities ought to be consulted before any definite scheme is decided upon. My own feeling would be that it should be possible that the feelings, which, I believe, at present exist between the National University and Trinity College, Dublin, that some scheme of co-operation could be devised in which all sections could derive advantage from this faculty of Agriculture and the splendid equipment of the College of Science.

I do not think that is an impossible proposition at all, and I think it requires the fullest exploration before any concrete proposal is made. I press, if necessary, on the Government that such efforts should be made to consult the universities and that they should at once make it clear that they do not mean in any way to turn down the interests of any section, but that they are ready to advance the interests of all and consult all interests involved before they make up their mind as to the exact nature of the proposals on which they decide. I think that applies both to agriculture and to the special departments for which such extensive equipment as that which is already provided in the College of Science is necessary. Any remarks about applied science and its being a necessary part of university work were not needed to convert me. I am convinced of that myself, and I entirely agree that applied science, and research in connection with applied science, can only be carried out in a university and under university control. I hope that the Minister will make it clear in quite explicit terms that those proposals should not be looked upon from an angle, and I think in this case it would be an angle rather than a broad view, which it has seemed to me those proposals would be viewed by a considerable number in the country. Awaiting such assurance as that from him, I do not think I will detain the House any longer.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

The statement made by the Minister for Education is quite clearly recognised as being one of great importance, as indicating a considerable change in the future policy with regard to technical education in this country. I am afraid the statement that he made suffered to a certain extent by the incompleteness of the form in which he represented it, and it is with a view to eliciting that fuller information that I think he intended to have given, and did not give, that I am rising now to ask him certain questions. He started off by saying that it was the intention of the Government to continue the College of Science in the future, but not to continue it in the form in which it had been organised in the past. He proceeded thus to separate the functions of the College of Science under two heads—first, research work, and secondly, that kind of work which could be better done and should be more completely done by a university.

Professor MacNEILL

No, that is inaccurate, completely, radically and fundamentally.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

Radically and fundamentally, but the correction that the Minister makes now is a verbal correction. The distinction he made is a verbal distinction between research work and university work.

Professor MacNEILL

No.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That is a terrible accusation against the Minister for Education.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

I regret that I should have so misconceived him. I want to know definitely in regard to the College of Science, that is, in regard to the building itself and its equipment, what is the intention? I have listened to the Minister, and I have failed to discover from him what is exactly his proposition as to what shall be done with the building and its magnificent science equipment. Is it to be used as a branch of the National University or, following out the suggestion by Deputy Thrift, in connection with both universities, or what is exactly the work to be done in the building itself? What is the use to be made of the building? What are the purposes of the special equipment that that building has, which, one is informed, is not equalled in either of the two universities simply because this College of Science was built at a later time and was more specially equipped. That is a matter, I think, an answer is required to. There is also one further question I wish to put to the Minister. The Executive Council has established a Department of State Research. There is a certain kind of work regarding which specialised information is required, and that specialised information has hitherto been the work of the College of Science. The College of Science has been specially equipped, as I have pointed out, in order to do that work and to make available certain information which may not be made available for students in the University but is made available, and is intended to be made available for general purposes in the country. Is that work to be done in the College of Science? What exactly is the purpose, in other words, of that building? Is it going to be freed for the work for which it was primarily intended? Is the machinery going to be freed? It appears that I imported a certain construction into the Minister's opening statement, of which he himself was not guilty—I use the word "guilty" advisedly. But there is an important distinction in the work done hitherto by the College of Science.

There is research work, not in the ordinary way, for the students there. There is research work that is available to agriculture as a whole. It has been urged in the past that there has been State research work required in this country that would be for the advantage of the whole of the fisheries. That kind of work is work that the College of Science has, to a certain extent, and, in some departments, to a very marked extent, done completely in the past. In addressing himself to this question the Minister has laid his stress on the completion of universities and the carrying-out of complete co-ordination in regard to university equipment. The kind of work of the College of Science towards which I wish to attract special attention, with a view to eliciting further information from the Minister, is all those other studies that are, as I may describe them, research work more specifically, not with a view to students who may attend the College or University, but research work that will be available for the benefit of the whole community in a clear published form. That work has hitherto been done by the College of Science and part of its equipment was specially designed for that purpose. I think a real demand has been expressed that that equipment shall be freed at the earliest possible opportunity for that work for which it was specially designed. What is the prospect of getting that freedom at an early moment? What is to be done actually with the equipment of the College of Science? What is to be done with the building itself?

Mr. GOOD

Amongst the many shortcomings that I suffer from there is one rather serious one, and the older I get the more serious it becomes. That is, that I had not the advantage of a university education. While I have not got that advantage, I have the greatest admiration for the work done by our universities. I have also had an opportunity of seeing something of the importance of the work of the National University on behalf of commerce. I have on more than one occasion been privileged to attend that excellent faculty of Commerce which is such a successful feature of the work of the National University. But the point I want to make is, that in considering the matter of universities and university education we ought to keep before us the point which the Minister very properly laid stress on a few days ago when discussing the large question of primary or national education. That was the point of giving equal opportunity to all. We have, in commerce, graduates, not alone of the National University, but of Dublin University. We have felt that these graduates of the Dublin University have been seriously handicapped in their work there because there is not in that University a live faculty of commerce.

The Chamber of Commerce in Dublin, which Deputies know does not recognise any religious or political differences, has on more than one occasion brought before the Board of Dublin University the urgent need for the establishment of a Faculty of Commerce in that University. We went so far in the year 1921, I think, as to give evidence before a Commission that was then inquiring into University education, and to point out the need for this Faculty which we had been stressing before the Board. The Board, I must say, had been most sympathetically disposed, but they answered, as we are very often answered in Ireland: "We are unable to carry out that work for you, because we have not got funds." The result of the effort which we made before the Commission was that the Commission made a recommendation that money should be provided by the Government for the establishment of this Faculty of Commerce.

Mr. O'CONNELL

Can the Deputy say when that Commission was held?

Professor THRIFT

1919.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That was the Special Commission on Trinity College and Oxford and Cambridge?

Mr. GOOD

Yes, on the older universities. They made a recommendation that money should be provided for this Faculty, but before the British Government could give effect to that recommendation the Treaty intervened and we were cut off and are now wandering in the wilderness in the same condition as we were prior to appearing before that Commission. When I heard the Minister laying stress upon the needs of one University—and I am quite sure that what he is prepared to do for one he is prepared to do for the other, if it is shown to him, as it can be shown in this particular case, that the need is urgent—I thought that the time was opportune to put forward the claim of the other University in the direction in which we have been working for the past five or six years in the Chamber of Commerce. I hope he will bear those efforts of ours in mind, and, seeing that it is only a question of finance, will use his influence with the Minister for Finance in order to have this very real difficulty under which we suffer removed at the earliest possible opportunity.

I think we all recognise the magnificent work the College of Science has done in the past. We all regret that there should have been any curtailment of its work during the last few years. I would remind the Minister that while students in the College of Science comprise many University students, there are a considerable number of others there also, so that in transferring the work that was done in the College of Science to the Universities, a number who have availed and who would avail of the work of the College of Science, will be shut out if the College of Science should be closed up. It appears to me, before any drastic step is taken in connection with the College of Science, that a thorough inquiry should be held. Nobody urges that there should be overlapping in educational work more than in any other work. At the moment I am satisfied that the College of Science does a work amongst a section of the community that would not be done by the Universities, if that work were confined in future to the Universities. Therefore, I say that this question is not so easily solved as appears on the surface. I agree with Deputy Thrift that, before we attempt to interfere with this institution, a full and thorough inquiry should be held into its work, and into the manner in which that work is to be carried on in the future. Pending that inquiry, I think there should be no diminution and no crippling of the work of the College of Science. Unfortunately a diminution and crippling has taken place for the last two or three years. It is a remarkable thing that we feel the results of that crippling in industry already. I do not know if Deputies are aware of the very close connection that there is between commerce and science. There is a close and a growing connection, one that is great at the moment, and that will be greater in the future. Any crippling of scientific education is reflected by a reduction in commerce. That, again, is reflected by an increase in the amount of unemployment. At the moment these are factors that one does not want to deal with, but they are very important factors in connection with our country. Again I say, before any conclusion is come to with regard to the future of the work of the College of Science, before a decision is come to, as to how that work is to be carried on, the whole question should be thoroughly and impartially investigated.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

I think it is generally recognised that the work which was done by the College of Science for some years was in the nature of university work.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

took the Chair.

Mr. O'CONNELL

There can be no doubt there was overlapping of that work with the universities. So far as the general principle is concerned, as announced by the Minister, I think there can hardly be any doubt, but it is a sound principle, and that this work should be in connection with and by way of development of university functions. I think the Government is open to very grave criticism owing to the way they have treated this whole matter. It is over 2 years now since the buildings were closed, and since the future of the College of Science was first raised. Various rumours and various suggestions have been going about as to what was to be done, and as to what should be done. Now we have a very vague announcement, as I might style it, because the Minister is not in a position to give us any information as to the details of how the plan is to be carried out—of general policy on behalf of the Government. It is bound to give rise to numerous discussions and controversies. I agree with Deputy Good that this is a matter that should not be decided in a hurry. I also say that it is not now the Government should begin to make inquiries. When this question was first raised two years ago, the Government should have set to work to make these inquiries, and to give every interest concerned an opportunity of expressing its views, not only on this matter but on the whole question of university education in this country. I am beginning to think that this Ministry of Education has a special objection to setting up inquiries or commissions We have asked on more than one occasion that a commission or committee of inquiry should be set up to consider the co-ordination of education. We have been told repeatedly that all this can be done without inquiries or commissions. I hold it cannot be done. This whole question, not alone of the position of the College of Science, but of universities in general, the financing of universities, and the lines on which the development should be encouraged is a question, I think, admirably suited for discussion at a commission or committee of inquiry, on which various interests would be represented, and on which the various interests would have an opportunity of giving their views. For instance, there is a matter which undoubtedly concerns the agricultural community very much—that is, the question of the College of Science.

I do not know—perhaps the Farmer-Deputies would be able to tell us— whether the views of the farmers, through their organisation, have been sought as to what the future of the College of Science should be. I just give that as an example. But I do say that is a matter that will require discussion and inquiry. There is a question touched on by the Minister as to the position of the various university colleges. That is a matter that will require very grave inquiry. There is the position, for instance, of Galway University College. Anybody who knows the position of the Galway College at the moment realises that it is just barely struggling along, and it is questionable whether an institution of that kind, which is barely struggling along, should not have its whole position considered, whether instead of allowing it to struggle along and drag out a miserable existence as it is doing at the present time, it would not be better to reorganise it altogether. I believe it could be done. My idea of the matter is that the Galway University College should specialise in something which none of the other university colleges will have the same opportunity of specialisng in it. It appears from the suggestion or proposal of the Minister that a certain benefit will accrue to University College, Dublin, and to University College, Cork. In spite of what the Minister said, it does appear from his statement that Galway is being let down, inasmuch as it is not, as I understand, deriving any immediate benefit from this special proposal. Here, again, I say it is not a question of Dublin University or Cork University College, or Galway University College, but it is a question of the reorganisation of our universities as a whole. You cannot have, in my opinion, any proper treatment of the National University or Trinity College on the one hand, or Cork or Galway, without going into the position as a whole and treating the question as a whole. Some people believe that Galway is specially suited to do work which no other college is in a position to do. The question of the fisheries has been mentioned, and undoubtedly Galway is the most favourably situated for the purpose of engaging in fishery research. I believe that it could be done with great advantage not only to Connacht but to the country as a whole, and that Cork and Galway should be looked upon not as Provincial Colleges but as National Colleges, portion of the National University, doing work of a national nature.

Then, again, there is another aspect in which I believe Galway should be specially developed. That is the question of the training of teachers. We heard during the debates on education a discussion on the necessity and advisability of having our teachers trained in connection with universities, and that they should be men and women who would have the hallmark of a university. We have it that the policy of the Government and the policy of the country is to revive the native language. You have here in Galway a university college situated almost in the heart of Irish speaking districts. There are children who speak Irish from their cradles, living in districts within two miles of the city of Galway, and in the city of Galway itself you have Irish spoken in the shops, and in the streets. I think the teachers who are expected to teach Irish in the schools would derive immense advantage if they spent their years of training in a place like Galway. I think that would be valuable work for the nation as a whole. It is not alone for a province but for the nation as a whole that this work could be done in Galway—and perhaps better done in Galway than anywhere else, if there were a proper scheme of re-organisation for the colleges as a whole. I do not think that it is essential that there should not be a piece-meal treatment of this matter of university education. I do plead for a treatment of the question as a big general question, and that all the problems involved, and all the intersts involved, should be fully considered before any piece-meal decision is taken with regard to the future development of university education in the country.

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE (Mr. Hogan)

Everybody who has spoken on this question up to the present has agreed that the College of Science, as it exists at present, is an anomaly.

Mr. JOHNSON

Does the Minister refer to the present occupation of the College of Science?

Mr. HOGAN

I do not, and I did not say so. I will deal with that point when we reach it. Deputy Thrift put the case quite clearly. He agreed entirely with the Minister for Education that the idea that applied science should not be taught in a university is out of date, that the idea that you require a special institution for applied science is absolutely out of date, that any institution which is giving higher education in applied science and is out of touch with the other faculties of a university is not functioning at full power, and that any university which is short of or which is doing without the ordinary, normal faculties of applied science is also functioning at a loss. The Minister for Education put the case very clearly when he said that the result of the system up to date is that you are, in effect, losing the agricultural faculty and injuring the university. Everybody who thinks about the matter must realise that that is so and hence that the position of the College of Science in a country like this, at this date, is anomalous. It might date back to the fifteenth century or sixteenth century, when there was an idea, I understand, that only the humanities should be taught at a university. I did not intend to labour that point at all, as the Deputies who have spoken are agreed upon it. But as apparently Deputy Johnson has some doubt about it, I want to give just one example showing how the system works. Before doing so, may I say that all the services of the College of Science were kept going last year and the year before, and kept going just as efficiently as they had been in the past. That is largely due to the help of the universities and to the help of the other institutions that offered their services and their laboratories. The services were kept going fully.

Mr. GOOD

Not in the College of Science.

Mr. HOGAN

Not in a certain building. The fact that these services were kept going, say, in Stephen's Green and not in Merrion Street may be the reason of the unemployment which Deputy Good complained of and which he suggested was connected with the treatment the College of Science was receiving. But all these services were kept going and have been kept going, and all the students of the College of Science got the teaching and the services they required in their particular faculties during those two years, notwithstanding all the difficulties of the case. I leave it to Deputy Good to explain how it is that the difference in buildings made such a tremendous difference as he says in the employment market.

But to get back to the point. You have an agricultural faculty in the College of Science at the moment, and you have an agricultural faculty in University College, Dublin. The agricultural faculty in University College, Dublin, is carrying on at a disadvantage, for want of funds. For want of proper facilities, want of land, and all the other facilities that are necessary for an agricultural faculty, the work is carried on at a disadvantage in University College. University work in agriculture should be mainly research. That is the important work in a University. You will, of course, have students coming in, having passed the matriculation examination, and getting a degree in agriculture. But the real work of the Universities in connection with agriculture is research work. There is no more fruitful field for research by the first-class student, and there is no class of research so badly attended to. Why is that? Take the thing in practice. The students who go into the Universities with scholarships—the brilliant students—are generally Senior Grade exhibitioners. They have their choice. They can go to the University. How many of them will choose, unless they intend in the future to get qualified in mechanical and electrical engineering—how many of the first-class mathematical men who leave the various schools all over the country and get exhibitions in Senior Grade entitling them to pass into the University—will choose a place like the College of Science, with just two or three faculties? In fact, practically no Honours men come in. In the nature of things, that must be so. Men will go to the place that offers the widest opportunities. Men who got first places in physics, chemistry, mathematics, First Arts degree, M.A., and doctorates practically all of these men are men who have come into the universities as exhibitioners and scholarship-students in their first year. How many of them will go to an institution with just four or five scientific faculties? Practically none of them do. The sort of man—and in the nature of things this is bound to happen—that passes into the College of Science or into an institution with faculties in chemistry, zoology, botany, physics, and so on, is generally a pass man. What is the result of that? Your first-class men who, by reason of their training in physics, chemistry, zoology, and these subjects, are ideal research students, are all to be found in the Universities. When they come to do research in this agricultural country, instead of taking up agricultural subjects, and instead of doing research in the hundred-and-one matters that require research in agriculture, what do they do? There is no faculty of agriculture in the Universities—no proper faculty. Agriculture is not part of the life of the University, and hence these first-class research students turn to something else. You can only have the right type of men doing research if you have first-class faculties of agriculture in the Universities. That is the reason I want to see established, as soon as possible; one first-class faculty of agriculture in Dublin, and another in Cork.

I repeat, that the present position of the College of Science is anomalous. Deputies on different sides of the House agree with that but they agree for different reasons. Deputy O'Connell agreed with the Minister for Education in all his general principles. He agreed that the university is the right place to teach these subjects but he blamed the Minister for Education for not taking steps to deal with this problem two years ago. He said there was undue delay. There has been considerable delay. So far as I am concerned, I want to see that there will be no more delay and that is, I think, the desire of all of us. But I do put it, that if we are to wait until we make up our minds as to what our policy is to be on the Irish language, the proper university training of teachers, how far the universities can help the fishing industry, the functions of Galway University and a hundred and one questions which Deputy O'Connell has mentioned, there will be considerably more delay. Deputy Good suggested a Commission to inquire into—I am not quite clear what. He also agreed that the present position of the College of Science was impossible and anomalous. Deputy O'Connell also suggested a Commission and made it clear that his inquiry would deal with about twenty or thirty different aspects of educational policy.

We are to leave this anomaly in existence, we are to leave things exactly as they are until we make up our minds as to what the functions of Galway University are to be. I could be sympathetic about Galway University just as well as anyone else, but the point is that we are to leave this anomaly in existence until we make up our minds as to what the universities are to teach, whether they are to teach the Irish language or until we know what sort of faculties of commerce they are to have; until we know what arrangements we intend to make in the universities for teachers—until we know all these things, I say, we are not to deal with this anomaly—which everyone agrees is an anomaly. We are to have a Commission. That is a suggestion that has come from people who complain of delays.

Mr. JOHNSON

Does the Minister accept the contention of Deputy Professor Thrift that he himself promised that all the interests of the people should be consulted before any decision is arrived at?

Mr. HOGAN

What has that got to do with the point I am making?

Mr. JOHNSON

That is the whole point that Deputy O'Connell made that you are replying to.

Mr. HOGAN

I will deal later with the question whether or not I agreed. I am putting it that Deputy O'Connell's policy of consulting certain unspecified interests and the setting up of Commissions for the purpose of deciding what is to be the function of Galway University, of deciding what is to be our policy in regard to the Irish language and of deciding what our educational policy in regard to the teachers is to be —the setting up of Commissions for all these purposes—is, I suggest, not exactly the way to hasten a solution of this particular problem. The problem to be decided is what is to be done with an institution that teaches applied science, not the Irish language.

Mr. JOHNSON

I can only ask the Dáil to recognise that that is a distinct misrepresentation of Deputy O'Connell's speech.

Mr. HOGAN

That may be the Deputy's opinion, but I am not accustomed consciously to misrepresent anyone. I took notes of Deputy O'Connell's speech. I have a note here in front of me in which Deputy O'Connell stated expressly that this specific problem should be deferred until the whole question of university reorganisation has been gone into by a Commission. I take it that the Deputy does not deny that. Deputy O'Connell defined some items that make up the whole question. He mentioned the functions of Galway University, the functions of our educational policy in regard to the Irish language, and he mentioned our educational policy, or at least the use that the Universities might be put to in connection with the fishery industry. I have not the slightest doubt about that, because I have notes of Deputy O'Connell's speech here in front of me. I have not the slightest doubt that Deputy O'Connell stated that, and I can only add that I am not accustomed consciously to misrepresent anyone.

In any event, there has been some complaint about delay. I take it that if Deputies are genuine and want to see a solution of this problem, and if they really mean what they say, that the present position of the College of Science is anomalous, the proper thing to do with it would be to transfer its faculties to the other universities. Now, I want to know what is the inquiry to be about? Are we to deal with this obviously limited problem that is here before us, or are we to wait until there is a general reorganisation of the universities. Does not everyone here who knows how things happen, know that that is simply another way of deferring the whole problem. My interest in this matter is not in University College, Dublin, in University College, Cork, or in University College, Galway, but my interest is to see two first-class faculties in agriculture in the universities, and I think that one of these faculties should be in Cork. We have waited long enough for that, and I do not want to wait any longer.

I propose now to deal shortly with the points made by Deputy Professor Thrift. He was quite clear himself that applied science should be taught in the universities, and that it is a loss to the College of Science not to be a full University. It is equally a loss to the University not to have this faculty of applied science. He was quite clear also that the right arrangements would be to have these things taught at the University. I think I am quoting him fairly when I say that he agreed that the existing position of the College of Science was anomalous, but his solution of the problem was co-ordination. We all know what co-ordination means, or, if I may put it this way, we all know what co-ordination meant. Co-ordination in the past meant that you did your first and second year in agriculture in Trinity College or in the National University, and that you did your final year in the College of Science. That is what co-ordination meant, that in mechanical and electrical engineering you did as much of the mechanical and electrical engineering course as they had equipment for in the Universities, and that you spent your final year in the College of Science. That is the anomaly that we are complaining of, and it is the real anomaly. Surely Deputy Professor Thrift will agree, as a University Professor, that it is an absolute degradation of university functions that in the faculty of applied science a student can only do the first two years of the course in the university, and that he has then to be sent to do his final year in a high technological institute to complete his course. I am sure that the Deputy will agree that that is a degradation of university functions.

Deputy Professor Thrift's extraordinary position appears to me to be this: that he agrees that that is an anomaly, but still he says that that anomaly must go on, and to put the matter specifically he argues that there must be no agricultural faculty in University College, Dublin, until there is another in Trinity College, Dublin. That is what his argument comes to. We cannot afford to wait until the Universities make up their minds on these matters. I daresay it would be just as hard to get the Universities to agree on anything—I am not in favour of Commissions myself—as it would be to get two County Councils to agree. I am speaking here as the Minister for Agriculture, and I am thinking of agricultural education, and I say that this is a matter that brooks no more delay, and that there should be a faculty in agriculture established immediately in Dublin, and another in Cork. I am quite clear about that, and I say that no sophistry about commissions or co-ordination or anything else should prevent the Government from going ahead and dealing with this question. There should be consultation certainly, but if Deputy Professor Thrift means by consultation that I gave any undertaking that we could not deal with this problem until Trinity on the one side, and the National on the other, were satisfied as to who was making the mistake, I reply that I never said anything of the kind, and I do not think that the Deputy suggested that I did. If we were to wait until the Universities had reached agreement on the matter we would probably have to wait until Tib's eve. There certainly should be consultation on every side affected, but this thing should not be allowed to drag along, and I hope that the Minister for Education will take the line of consulting all who should be consulted, and finally make up his mind and get rid of this anomaly once and for all.

Professor THRIFT

That is what I ask for.

Mr. GOOD

May I ask how a student who is not a university student is going to get a scientific education?

Mr. HOGAN

The Deputy asked that question before, and I took a note of it because I thought he was labouring under a certain delusion with regard to that. When we speak of the College of Science we mean the College of Science so far as it gives University education, but so far as the College of Science does not give University education it is a totally different problem. That is a matter that must be arranged for, and I may say that the College of Science, as it exists at present, gives some courses to creamery students. I think you may take it for granted that we are going to see to it that the facilities which the College of Science gives at present are going to remain, and that they will be increased in the future.

There is just one other point, and it is this: Deputy Professor Thrift asked why one section should be debarred from benefits. He put the problem this way: A faculty in agriculture is to be given to University College, Dublin, and he asked why one section of the people should be debarred. I must say that I was rather surprised at that question. Is it Deputy Professor Thrift's contention that any section will not come to the National University, because that is what his question amounts to. I think Deputy Professor Thrift ought to know as well as any other Deputy that there is no attempt made here to penalise any section, and it has never been the policy of the Government to penalise any section.

Professor THRIFT

That is what I said.

Mr. HOGAN

The question which the Deputy asked as to why one section should be debarred is hardly relevant. The policy enunciated by the Minister for Education debars no section, and there ought to be no occasion to repeat that. Whatever about the rights of University College, Dublin, or the rights of Trinity College, or the rights of Galway or Cork University, this problem should not be allowed to drag on any longer, and these faculties, which are really university faculties and which are working at a tremendous disadvantage at the present time, not being in any university, should be transferred immediately to their proper place.

Major COOPER

It is always a pleasing thing to speak after the Minister for Lands and Agriculture, because he gives his facts such a clear definition that one is not in any doubt as to where one stands. I think there could not be a clearer definition than his description of what co-ordination meant in the past, and what it will mean in the future. He says that co-ordination meant in the past that the student spent his first two years in Trinity, or the National University, and that in his final year he went through the College of Science. Co-ordination in the future will mean that however much students may wish to go through Trinity College they cannot do so, and must go through the National University.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Why?

Major COOPER

Is it suggested that the National University will take Trinity College students for their final year in order to equip them with college of science knowledge? I did not gather that. The proposal as Deputy Thrift understood it or as I understand it is that the whole machinery and the whole apparatus of the College of Science are to be transferred to the National University and then that anyone who wishes to acquire the knowledge given in the College of Science must go to the National University. This proposal is in effect a measure of conscription for the National University. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture said that the point put by Deputy Thrift was that there should be no agricultural faculty in University College, Dublin, until there was one in Trinity. But he left out one word and that is a most important word. He left out the word State— that there should be no State-aided faculty in University College until there was one in Trinity; that the State should not discriminate in these matters. Trinity, as a university, as the Minister for Lands and Agriculture well knows, and as the Minister for Education will admit, with its great tradition of wide knowledge, draws its sons from an area not only in the Saorstát but outside the Saorstát, and should not be placed at a disadvantage in connection with the National University. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture said that this thing should not be allowed to drag on. There I think the whole Dáil is in agreement with him. The thing should not be allowed to drag on, but it should be settled now. The suggestion I make and I would make it equally if Deputy Professor Thrift were the Minister for Education, proposing an exclusive endowment for Trinity is that if the State is going to aid these agricultural faculties they should be divided; that the National University should have the benefit of the Cork faculty and Trinity the benefit of the Dublin faculty. I do not expect that Deputies who represent the National University will agree with me in that. They would be false to their trust if they did, but as a dispassionate observer, with no particular feeling for Trinity, because Trinity had deprived me of a large number of votes in my constituency that I otherwise would have got by people being put on the University register, it seems to me that if it is impossible to provide for both then that the fair thing to do would be that one faculty should be given to the National University in whichever constituent college it should wish to have it, and that a similar provision should be given to Trinity College.

The Minister made a good rhetorical point when he asked would any section refuse to come to the National University. I wish he had seen my postbag. There are hundreds of students in the College of Science who are reluctant to transfer to the National University from the College of Science and they are continually writing to anyone that they think has any influence in the matter, but it is the case and I suppose it is a product of past evils. Nobody would be more pleased than I would be to see Trinity College and the National University welded into one university for the whole of Ireland with their constituent colleges, with their own traditions, but until that time comes, and it cannot come yet, there is a certain reluctance on the part of some students to transfer. My main criticism of the statement of the Minister for Education, with which in principle and outline I almost entirely agree, is that it dealt too much with the students as if they were stock-in-trade. The College of Science has developed amongst its students—it was approximating to a university—a tremendous esprit de corps. They have a real feeling for their college just as if it was Trinity or University College, Dublin, or Balliol, or King's, and they do intensely dislike the idea of being handed over at the behest of the Minister to any institution that he may arrange with to take them.

The details are still vague. I think the Minister was wise in leaving them vague from every point of view, but in their vagueness I hope he may include some provision to obtain the opinion of the students as to what their future is to be, awaiting their answer to the question as to whether they wish to be transferred to the National University or to have the College of Science continued until they finish their course— admitting no new ones—but giving the existing ones the benefit of finishing their training in that institution which they joined. I hope that with such consultation as he may have that such opinion as he may have obtained will guide him in his final decision of this very important question.

Mr. HEWAT

Listening to the Minister for Education this morning, I do not know whether it was his personal magnetism or not, he was very convincing to me upon this question of the abolition of the College of Science. He was very convincing because it is very apparent that someone has blundered. When you come out of this building and look at the enormous range of buildings which are now occupied as Government offices and the way they were put up with the intention of forming a College of Science one begins to wonder who was at the back of that expenditure, and who adumbrated this idea that a college of that size was required for the particular purpose for which it was erected in the Free State.

Well, now, these are puzzling questions to me as one who is uninitiated in educational matters. When we come to examine the proposals of the Minister for Education we must realise that even his personal magnetism will not get over the controversy that is bound to rage round this very big subject— a subject which I don't profess to have any special knowledge of, nor can I decide on the merits of the case. This controversy must come, and people like myself must get more light, and the people I think that we must look to for more light and more guidance are the people who are mostly concerned with the question of education as it is to be in the country as a whole. The proposal is that the functions of the College of Science shall be transferred to one or more Universities. That, I think, pre-supposes that you are going to get in the future a vastly larger number and a vastly different type of student than you have had in the Universities in the past. The Universities in the past, if I may say so, with all due respect, have been very one-sided, and a businessman who sends his sons to college, if he had any intention of their carrying on his business, must run a very grave risk that these boys, after they have gone through college, would cease to have any intention of going into the business. In other words, a training in the University unsuited men in their ideas, not necessarily in their faculties, but for commercial pursuits. Under the Universities as I see them in that respect you attach faculties which are expected to draw—whom? The sons of the farmers throughout the country. Is not that what is wanted? Now in my judgment you would want to change the atmosphere of the University very much to get a number of farmers' sons to come up and go through a course, and afterwards to be satisfied to return to farming. In other words you are aiming a little bit too high, or your Universities are out of touch with the people of the country because the University atmosphere in the past——

Professor MAGENNIS

In the past.

Mr. HEWAT

There is the difficulty. I want to know what you are going to do in the future. The atmosphere of the University in the past has been for men to gain educational advantages, and their aspirations were all in the direction of a professional career, even where a professional career was not covered by the radius of Doctors, Barristers, or Clergy. The man who went through college has always been dissatisfied to enter an occupation which his University training made him think was beneath his dignity.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

Would not the Deputy like to have that changed?

Mr. HEWAT

I think I advanced an answer to the various professors who are interrupting me in the early part of my speech. I said that the universities must be changed if this is going to take place in my judgment. I also said that I wanted light from the people who are able to give me light on this subject and I approached it with an open mind. How are you going to do it? I think the Minister for Lands and Agriculture is impatient of any delay in this matter; he wants to get it put into operation right away. I would like at all events to have the subject developed as to how the universities are going to change their character and their outlook so as to make it suitable to transfer to them a branch of education which, necessarily if it is going to be of any use, is going to train practical students in the practical working of their business.

Professor THRIFT

It might clear the air perhaps if the Minister would reply to the points which have been raised up to the present without exactly closing the debate.

Mr. JOHNSON

I would like to say that I am in this, as in one or two other questions, that have arisen, very much in the position of Deputy Hewat. I cannot approach this subject with any degree of knowledge which makes any observation of mine more than notes of interrogation. I certainly realise that it is a serious question that has to be decided, and I think that the discussion should be general and Public from more than one side. There has been a considerable amount of preventive activity on the part of the people associated with the College of Science fearing something that they believed to be a calamity was about to happen. I think the case they have made is a very good and substantial one, and I have not seen or heard anything here, or read anything elsewhere, which seems to me to meet the case that is put up.

The statement made by Deputy Good in the opening of his speech was somewhat of a surprise to me, when he spoke of the advantage which had been derived by the commercial community from the setting up of the Faculty of Commerce in the National University. I am very glad to hear that, because I had formed a different impression. I had on one or two occasions opportunities of reading quite a sheaf of testimonials from the Faculty of Commerce, and I had rather come to the conclusion that one of the chief activities of that branch of the University was to write such testimonials. But I am glad that Deputy Good is able to speak much more favourably of the effects of the work of that Faculty. In regard to the College of Science, it seems to be that the case that has been put here to-day really boils down to this: the country is poor; we have no money to equip properly the National University, to put it in the position it ought to be in; therefore, we must utilise the College of Science to help the National University to be put into a right position; that we shall not consider henceforward the College of Science as something distinct from either of the two existing Universities. It may be utilised by each, and because of poverty, the lesser evil is to allow the National University to take the fullest advantage, and possibly even the complete control of the work of the College of Science. That may be the right and the necessary conclusion, but I am afraid that it means that the present economic position is being allowed to determine the future of development in this direction, and it really means that we are somewhat faithless as to the future of the country and our ability to equip the National University for the full purposes of a University. That is as I understand the argument, and it may be quite wrong. The College of Science may not be a desirable institution to maintain on its merits. I think that the Minister for Lands and Agriculture rather suggests that in itself and on its merits it is not an institution that ought ever to have been set up, and, therefore, ought not to be maintained. To those who think that, of course, anything that I have to say is of no value, but I have assumed that it was desirable to have in the country such an institution as the College of Science, and I think that it is true to say that that institution was set up as an all-Ireland institution, which would serve agriculture and also other industries. I put this question: Whether the abandonment, or the supersession, or the absorption of the College of Science by the National University would prejudice in any way the future re-union of the two portions of this country which are now divided. I would have thought that the College of Science might have been very valuable as a unifying influence and that the technological side, apart from the agricultural side, would have been helpful in that direction.

I do not know whether it is within the scope of university life to do this, but it seems to me that there is a need for an institution which would allow the specialist, the industrial chemist who may be engaged on behalf of a group of industries or a private firm, who has a clue which he wants to follow out, and cannot do it within the resources of his own establishment, to do so in either the College of Science or a university. But I would have thought that the College of Science was the kind of institution which would be fitting for such special research, research to a deliberate purpose and with a single end in view.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

There is such.

Mr. JOHNSON

Well, I am hoping for enlightenment on this matter. I could imagine groups of industrialists of various kinds, or related industries, coming together and calling for the appointment of chemists and physicists, or scientists of one kind or another, who would be deliberately set aside to do a certain work, and to find out new methods in a particular line. It seems to me that the university would not be fitted for that.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Why not?

Mr. JOHNSON

I do not know. I thought universities were institutions rather for the education of the growing person, not for the activities of the finished product, and I would have thought that the chemist who was active in industry, who was deliberately pursuing a course of inquiry and research for a definite purpose, would be somewhat anomalous in the university. Apparently, I am wrong. Apparently, university representatives here take the view that education in the university may be utilised for the propagation of a separate idea. I have had knowledge of certain controversies in the economic world where colleges have been specially set up to inquire into and get support for a pre-conceived economic theory, and that there is an opposing school which I support and which denies that. But I thought that the universities should not—I am speaking subject to correction in this— be utilised for the purpose of following out a clue for a particular purpose, but that inquiry should be general rather than particular. However, that may be entirely due to my ignorance in this whole matter. But I have thought, looking ahead, of the possibilities of the development of technical education in connection with the youth who is partially occupied in training his mind and also working for his livelihood, and that the technical activities of the technical schools might become more popular and more thorough, and that the College of Science might become a sort of advance college for that kind of student.

Then, again, I may be wrong, but it seems to me that an institution such as the College of Science should be available for the non-University student and should be available for the specialist in industrial and technological inquiry. If that kind of work is intended to be continued, if the Universities are to be made available for that kind of work, and that line of development, then my fears in this matter are almost groundless. It comes down to this: as to whether we think it desirable that two existing Universities should continue as separate institutions; that they should each have separate equipment, and, as a consequence, have to spend a great deal more of the national wealth in having a double equipment instead of a single equipment, which might be available for both. That is purely a matter of economy. It might be more economical to have the two sets of equipment, but again in the present state of the national wealth—I do not mean in this sense the Treasury—the advantage of having duplicate equipment seems to me to be hardly proved. I am more concerned, though, in this whole matter with having some reassurance that if any change of the kind that is contemplated has to be made it will not deprive the non-University student of the opportunity for following out studies and training of a technical character to the utmost, and will not remove the possibilities of industrial research for specialised purposes. If I have a reassurance which is complete enough on those two points, as I say, most of my doubts in this matter will vanish.

Mr. E.H. ALTON

I am very sorry I did not hear the earlier stages of this debate. I am speaking largely upon hearsay and from the particulars I have gathered from the last speakers. I regreat very much that the Government should have come to this very sudden and very unexpected decision. I leave the question of the functions of the future of the College of Science aside for the moment. I think, of course, the College of Science, for its purpose of possible utility for the work of the nation, is a thing that could best be discussed by a committee of experts. Deputy Johnson has mentioned, and I think rightly, the claim of the non-University student to science, but this decision of the Government, if I understand it rightly, excludes such a student from any chance of equipping himself, of developing himself in the particular line he has chosen, unless he goes to one university. I do not want to be misunderstood in this. It also excludes the University which I have the honour to represent.

I sincerely wish well to every university in this country. The more endowment of university education takes place, in my opinion, the better it will be for the country. I am not small-minded enough to grudge good fortune coming in plenty to our sister university, but if the Government have decided to take this step, they must realise two things apart from a broken promise, because I believe there was a promise that before any final decision would be taken regarding the College of Science both Universities would be consulted. They have not been consulted; at least the university to which I belong has not been consulted. Apart from that broken pledge, this decision will have a very far-reaching and deplorable political effect. Deputy Johnson points out that it is the duty of statesmen in this country to weld together all parts and make a coherent, co-ordinate and real nation here. We are perpetuating again the old divisions. You are making a minority and giving it a sense of being victimised. That is the interpretation that will be put upon your act. I do not understand why the University of Dublin should be excluded from participation in the development of agricultural education in this country. Yet, apparently, this is the decision which the Government, in their wisdom, have arrived at. Apart from my constituents, I think a very large section of this country will view this decision as an attempt to benefit one section and to boycott another. I hope I have been misinformed as regards the decision, but if it is as I have been informed it is, a decision to, as it were, hand over agricultural education, and all the other practical and scientific forms of education that go with the College of Science to one university and to exclude the other, I think that decision is an unhappy one.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

I do not think there is any inclination on the part of the Government, as I have understood their views, to victimise a minority, but may I suggest that the Government should not be asked to continue victimising the majority? May I for a moment say a word on the part of the majority, as reference has been made to a minority? I suggest that the majority should have something just occasionally said for them in this matter. Here is the situation so far as University College, Dublin, is concerned. In 1908, as the Minister has pointed out, it was admitted by the then British Minister that the endowment and equipment of the college was beggarly. It is still more beggarly to-day. You have one of the most important medical schools in the country in a slum. Anybody who has any doubt about that can go down Dame Street and turn to the right and he will find it. There is no adequate equipment of any kind whatsoever. Now you have duplication here in Dublin, and as I understand this proposal, it is that the Government will utilise the money that they, rightly or wrongly, think is wasted in duplication at present. They will try to help University College to meet its barest needs with that money, but they will attach onerous conditions to the endowment. They will insist on University College providing out of that money a proper faculty of agriculture. That is the condition. If you look at it in the broad view, there is no question of the Government saying: "There shall be agricultural teaching only in the University College, Dublin; there shall be mechanical engineering teaching in only one university." They will say to the University College, Dublin: "We are making an effort in a financial stringency; we admit your buildings are totally inadequate; we will grant that only one-third of the building provided for in the University Act of 1908 is built; we admit you have inadequate equipment; we will attempt with the resources at our disposal to try to meet you, but we will put this condition on you: "You must provide a satisfactory faculty of agriculture."

Even supposing you do grant this endowment of the College of Science to University College, Dublin, does anybody here who knows the situation contend for a moment that even this equipment of the two University Colleges in Dublin will be on a parity? The attitude of the Government to University College, Dublin, is this: "Even with your increased endowment you will have less than Trinity College, Dublin, but you must establish a faculty of agriculture." Compare the revenue of the two Colleges; compare the equipment of the two Colleges. You need not go very far to do that, and I put it to you that there is no such thing as unfair discrimination against the minority. There is and has always been, even since 1908, and even since 1922, discrimination against the majority, so far as this matter of University education is concerned. I think it was Deputy Hewat asked why was the College of Science built? Can you tell me why all that money was spent on the College of Science two years after the University Commission sat? I do not say that the meaning of it was that there was no adequate provision for University College, but I do say that was the effect, so far as University College, Dublin, was concerned. One of the arguments against giving University College, Dublin, satisfactory equipment was that the College of Science was already there. Still, that was a couple of years after arriving at a settlement of the University question, and when everybody in Ireland must have known that a settlement was bound to come within a couple of years. So far as Deputy Hewat was concerned, in any reference he made to the character of the University, I must say I totally disagree with him. What I think he has at the back of his mind has already been condemned in this Dáil, the idea that the professions can look down, so to speak, on agriculture. I think agriculture, engineering, and every other business are quite as much entitled to be in Universities and to have as high conceit of themselves as any profession.

Professor ALTON

May I say one word in explanation? I do not want the Deputy to think that I regard the equipment of University College or the National University as adequate. I think it is far from it, and I would urge the Government to make their equipment a modern and reasonable equipment, but my point is that this decision will be interpreted as an attempt to exclude the college to which I belong from future development of agricultural education.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

My suggestion was that even after this reconstruction is made there will be a bigger revenue in that other University than we have, and we will have the additional burden of having to satisfy certain conditions.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The approach to this problem has not yet been clearly stated. As a member of the Government, in approaching this, I did it on the following steps: first, that there can be no case made out, and that there has been no case made out, for the continuance of the College of Science as a separate institution—no case whatever —and that for the betterment of education generally in this country the College of Science, its professors, students and work should be incorporated in a University. Up to that point I believe I will have the majority of the Dáil with me, excepting, possibly, Deputies Figgis and Johnson. The third approach is, that there is a certain University in the country which has certain claims on the Exchequer, and that these claims can, incidentally, be in part, but only in part, met by the amalgamation of the College of Science, its fees, finances and students, with the National University, particularly, and the two colleges of that National University. That is the general approach to the subject, that there is no use in this country for a College of Science as such, that it is an anomaly which is a result of past unfortunate circumstances, and it is out of trend with all modern opinion. If such a project were put forward to-day for the first time it would be scoffed at. It is one of the unfortunate things we have got as a result of the unfortunate occurrences of past years.

I have said that certain demands made by one university on the Exchequer may be met, and met only in part, by the transfer to that university, or to the two colleges of that university, of the College of Science. I say "in part" deliberately, and I wish the phrase attended to. The position of the College of Science at present is roughly this:—The teaching staff numbers about 38, between professors, lecturers, demonstrators. Certain other additions to the teaching staff bring that number up to 61. If you add certain mechanics that attend the Engineering School, and others not really concerned with the teaching staff but things arising out of teaching, the total staff engaged in teaching, or concerned in matters arising out of teaching would number 85. There is an additional group of some 20 between cleaners, charwomen, etc. The staff of the college is roughly 85, and that is brought up by various additions to 105. The net cost to the Exchequer of that college is roughly £40,000 per annum, and that, if Deputies are interested in it, is hidden under certain sub-heads—Votes (a) (1), (a) (2), (a) (3), (a) (11) and (a) (12). To that portion of (a) (1) which specially pertains to the College of Science there must be added a considerable portion of the sum allocated under the heading of bonuses in the previous column. When worked out it will be found that these figures are accurate. £40,000 a year is the cost of this institution, the staff of which numbers 85 with all possible additions! What does it give in return for that sum of money? It gives a certain type of education to a mixed body of students, people who take an associateship course in its various branches in the college and non-associate members who attend laboratory courses; people receiving instruction to fit themselves as creamery managers and veterinary students of the first and second year or mechanical engineering students from the University College of Dublin. The average number of these students per year since its foundation has been 200, and a staff of 85 people costing the State £40,000 per annum, and it is proposed or suggested that they should be continued. If that work was of an exceptionally high grade, if it was unique in its character, there might be something said for paying £40,000 a year for the education of an average body of students of the average number of 200, but is it exceptional, or is it, as I hold, a complete duplication of what is in the ordinary universities? I can give here if necessary the subjects taught in the College of Science, the various groupings of them, and point out how far subjects of the first, second and third year of the associateship course which is the main function of the College of Science, how the subjects of these four years are in every particular a duplication of what is taught in University College, Dublin, or what would have been taught in University College, Dublin, had a properly equipped agricultural faculty been given to that college, and a department of mechanical and electrical engineering added to the civil engineering side in that college.

When I say that this is a solution in part of the difficulties in which University College, Dublin, and the National University generally finds itself, I want to stress this point that of the £40,000 per annum paid to this College, almost £28,000 is ear-marked to the payment of salaries or wages to people who must be regarded as established Civil Servants, consequently that money is not free. If the other items of this list were gone into it will be found, and I can give the material to substantiate the argument, that there is a sum of about five or six thousand pounds free money, and that simply arises from the one fact that of the eight professors allowed for in the Estimate there are, I think, at least four dead. There are four positions which have not been filled. Some others are on the verge of retirement. There is a prospect of about £4,000 or £5,000 free money, and that is the great gift to the National University of this free money. I am not at all minimising the fact that it has set up two agricultural faculties in two colleges of that University. I had thought that to-day there would have been some argument going to show that the College of Science was a useful institution which should be preserved, but with the exception of what Deputy Johnson has said, and of a few flights of fancy on the part of Deputy Good, I have not heard anything in support of keeping on the College of Science. The arguments which I have heard are for a distribution of the assets of a concern which apparently is admittedly for sacrifice.

Professor THRIFT

On a point of explanation the suggestion which I put forward was of a totally different character. It was that there should be a discussion between the Universities and the Minister as to how this work could best be done in a way to benefit the whole country. It has been misrepresented on various occasions, and that is why I intervene now.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I think that that stresses my argument. Deputy Thrift, in his interruption or speech, did not say that it could best be done by keeping on the College. I wonder does he assert that now.

Professor THRIFT

No.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I may then proceed. There is great argument as to how the College of Science should be carried on.

Professor THRIFT

I say that it requires investigation to see how it is to be best done.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The point at issue seems to me to be, is it equitable to give these funds to the National University, or should they not rather be put up for division between the two University Institutions? That, argued calmly and coldly, is the proper thing, but that to be represented, as I think Deputy Alton said, as an attempt to benefit one section——

Mr. ALTON

I said that it could be interpreted as an attempt to benefit one section.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Interpreted as an attempt to benefit one section and to boycott another. The interpretation will depend on those who approach a particular type of interpretation and if example is given here of the people who stress and enlarge their fears as to how this is to be interpreted, it leads to the interpretation that they fear, and that is that this is benefitting one section and boycotting another. In the last Dáil there was a certain provision made towards the end of the session for the University of Dublin, and I do not remember reading in the papers or in the Dáil Debates that any member of the National University, or any official of it, or anyone educated in it, made any attempt to argue that that was benefitting one section and boycotting another. I do not know that any phrase of that sort was ever used in the House on that occasion. I am sure that if Deputy Magennis at that time had cared to start a campaign and to seek aid of newspaper columns with regard to the likely interpretation of that generous act on the part of the Government, he could, I am sure, have succeeded in getting that interpretation canvassed in the newspapers, but he refrained from doing so. To-day we have an appearance of an old attitude which I thought had entirely departed from the country—that we are benefitting one section and prejudicing another when we seek to equalise people who are in entirely unequal positions and while those in the lowly position would have been and should have been, on the merits of the case in the superior position, a hundred thousand pounds was handed to Trinity College last year.

Professor THRIFT

No.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It was handed over to provide a capital sum from which the annual income alone was to be enjoyed. Is that the point?

Professor THRIFT

No.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Then I make that statement in order to have it contradicted. A sum of almost £100,000 was handed over to Trinity College, the annual income from which was to be enjoyed by Trinity College in perpetuity.

Professor THRIFT

On a point of explanation. There was a sum of £100,000 in the possession of the British Government which was handed to the Irish Government, and it was put together in order to meet the loss which was annually incurred by Trinity College because of its sales of land. The income of that fund could be drawn on in so far as such losses from land sales occurred. That was ear-marked for that particular purpose and belonged to Trinity College in precisely the same way as it does after this transfer. It is now held jointly by Trinity College and the Government. The proceeds could be drawn on without having to show explicitly what was the exact amount of the loss accruing from the sales of land. Does the Minister mean to suggest that under the operations of the Land Act, so far as sales have taken place already, that the losses which have occurred are not on a par with this additional revenue of £5,000 which comes from the £100,000?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I think that proves that the position is as I stated. A sum of money was accumulated by setting aside a particular amount from which deductions could be made to balance any losses incurred by previous Land Purchase Acts. The result of the withdrawals did not affect it very much. That is to say that losses as a result of previous Land Acts did not affect it very much.

Mr. GOREY

Has the Land Purchase Act affected the National University?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

No. As I understand the letter which was sent at that time the interest only was to be touched, but in addition to that a sum of £5,000 for the last financial year was given and a sum of £3,000 per annum was promised for the next three years. The position with regard to the other University in the country was made quite clear to Trinity College at that time because the circumstances surrounding the grant were clearly stated in the letter to them. It was pointed out that, however great might be the needs of Dublin University, those of the National University and particularly those of University College, Dublin, were still greater. It went on to point out that the University of Dublin with fewer students had an income fifty per cent. greater than the National University, that it was free from the debt that pressed on University College, Dublin, and that it was equipped with buildings on a scale which contracted very favourably indeed with those of University College. What was the position as a result of that letter? Was it not this? That we recognised that both Universities were in need of funds, that we are going to deal with you, that is with Trinity College, immediately, because there is a sum of £100,000 ready to hand. This is your portion and that of the National University will follow later.

Attention will be paid immediately to the National University, and this, as outlined by the Minister for Education, is an attempt to step forward and put the National University, in so far as its position was worsened last year by the grant of that sum, in a more equal position with Trinity College. That takes no account of the previous tremendous advantage which Trinity College enjoyed over any other university in this country. Surely it is not suggested that a proper basis for fair treatment would be that you should take the position of things as you find it; that you should take all the peculiar historical circumstances which brought that position about, take that position, no matter how unfair and stereotyped it was and for the future, advances must be fifty-fifty. Is that how fair play is to be given in this country— that, irrespective of the conditions, irrespective of the number of students, irrespective of the original capital endowment, buildings or anything you must proceed to divide any sum which will be given in the future for university purposes equally between the two institutions?

Mr. ALTON

That has not been suggested.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

resumed the Chair.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Let me quote a few phrases from Deputy Thrift to-day: "It deals with the problem in a one-sided way. Trinity is in need of development." I notice that at this period the needs of University College were not introduced last year when Trinity College was getting a grant.

Professor THRIFT

May I explain at this point that I think it is regrettable that this discussion has tended to the matter of resources. That was distinctly not the line taken in my speech on the matter. I really tried to avoid that kind of thing because I have admitted as frankly as can be admitted, that I am just as much in support of developing the National University as I am of developing Trinity College, but what I asked was, what those proposals exactly meant. Did it mean for instance that in order to get the benefit of agricultural education, a student would have to become a member of the National University, or did it mean that in order to get any advantage from the modern equipment in the Royal College of Science, he would have to become a student of the National University? What I asked was that there should be an inquiry as to how those things could be best used for the development of the country before a cut and dried scheme would be propounded by the Minister. I did not go into any comparison of assets or suggest that there was nothing due in the way of grant or compensation to the National University.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I agree, but I am trying to go into the comparison of assets now in order to redress the balance which Deputy Thrift so violently disturbed during the day. I will read a few of the remarks of Deputies Thrift and Alton which I took down: "That this deals with the problem in a one-sided way. That Trinity College is in need of development. That Trinity College desires completion, and that its desire should be met. That the Government's desire for fair play is not now shown. That it should not be the policy to turn down one section but to consider all sections." Deputy Alton said: "The far-reaching and deplorable political effect of this. Gives the minority a sense of being victimised and is thus an attempt to benefit one section and boycott another." If the Deputies did not mean to stress the points I have set out to answer, their feelings came out a little more than they had expected, because those remarks I have quoted, and which they have not denied, show that there was running through their minds all the time this idea that it was victimising Trinity College to attempt to put the National University on a proper footing.

Deputy Good spoke of the work of the College of Science and preferred to keep on the high ground of generality rather than to go into any details, but he delivered himself of one statement which was a complete surprise to me. For several months past I have been considering unemployment, how it came about in this country, how it may be met, and to-day I have heard that some portion of the unemployment in the country has been due to the fact that portion of the Royal College of Science has been kept from working. If Deputy Good keeps on those lines he should stop the grim struggle for business and develop a taste for light literature.

Mr. GOOD

When I said the reduction of the work of the College of Science was reflected in commerce, and what reduced commerce was reflected in increased unemployment, I thought that was obvious to anyone who had commercial experience.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I have not had commercial experience, but even if I had I should not have been able to see to the end of that long road which connects the College of Science with unemployment. I will leave the matter there, and can only promise the Deputy that if the putting in working order of the College of Science is going to decrease unemployment, then I have another measure to tackle so as to remedy that urgent question.

Deputy Cooper proceeded on a peculiar basis. He said that the effect of this is that a certain type of student must go to the National University, and that he has gathered from letters written to him that there is a great reluctance on the part of some students to go to that University, and that students are unwilling to be handed over at the behest of the Minister to any University.

Major BRYAN COOPER

They wish the right of choice.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It was not based on that. It was based on this, that they developed a certain esprit de corps by tradition. I thought the argument was that because not more than 200 students had developed a sense of conservatism that this useless Institution should be kept on, lest we might wound the pride and dignity of those people.

There is another point. Must they go to the National University? They must not. I hold the College of Science is an unnecessary duplication of the University. The National University would require only an establishment of about three professorships and six lectureships, and they could with their present staff do all the work, creamery management and everything else, performed by the College of Science. I believe Trinity College, with its present staff, could do the same. This is an attempt to give to the National University resources to enable it to carry on those additional faculties. Is it then argued that students must go to the National University? They need not. If Trinity College agrees to adjust its financial position, and to call for the inquiry which was more or less foreshadowed, when this money was given over last year, they can let people see if the resources of Trinity College cannot be better handled to provide for the extra few lectureships and professorships necessary to put it in a fit position to do the work of the College of Science.

I do not believe that this will mean, unless Trinity College, Dublin, obstinately refuses to budge from its present position, and to change its present scheme of working, that only one University will have, say Faculties of Agriculture and of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. It is quite easy, and if it is said not to be easy, then the sooner Trinity College, Dublin, clears up the doubt by having an open inquiry the better. If it is said that the National University should have an open inquiry, I reply that the National University is altogether open; its accounts are presented and subject to audit. Anyone can inquire and investigate how it manages its finances. We shirk no inquiry. An inquiry can be had at any time.

Professor THRIFT

Does the Minister mean to suggest that Trinity College is different as regards openness?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I suggest it has not the same compulsion on it to produce accounts for inspection. In fact, its accounts have not been so open for inspection as the accounts of the National University. I do not say that is deliberate—by no means. I simply say these are the facts.

Professor THRIFT

Was there any hesitation in submitting them to the Government when the Government asked for them?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I think not. I was not a member of the Government then, but I believe there was not—that great readiness was shown. I do say that I have heard, not from National University students, but from Trinity College graduates, that a better adjustment of the finances would meet all that was required of Trinity College at the moment.

Professor THRIFT

I think there is a misapprehension. That might be one of the points that might be dealt with in a discussion with University College and the Minister, as I suggested.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I am afraid the Deputy will not go the step further that I would like him to go, and that is this investigation of the resources of Trinity College, an investigation which was foreshadowed last year when this sum of £100,000 and additional annual moneys were handed over.

Professor THRIFT

The Minister wants all the gain.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I do not. The National University accounts are open. The whole workings of the National University are before the public and can be inquired into. There is nothing close or secret about it.

Major COOPER

Will the accounts be circulated as a White Paper?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

They are actually published. They can be purchased, I believe, for sixpence in any book-seller's shop. I do not know if the Deputy seriously suggests that they should be taken in hand as portion of the work of the Government and circulated. Deputy Hewat referred to the enormous range of buildings outside. Is there any other enormous range of buildings which catch the Deputy's eye in connection with educational establishments? Did he ever go to Earlsfort Terrace and see the half-completed structure there?

Did he ever walk along the Hatch St. side and see there only the smallest possible fraction of a contemplated wing built? Does he ever walk down through College Green or along Nassau Street and look at the enormous range of buildings attached to Trinity College, Dublin? Take that as one item. A sum of £150,000 was set aside on the establishment of the National University for the building of a university college in Dublin and also for the building of whatever administrative offices were required for the Federal University—£40,000 was taken for the administratives offices and £110,000 handed over for these buildings. A contract was entered into at £105,000 for the completion of certain buildings. Owing to certain troubles in the city that contract had to be broken and a new contract formed. As the money had not been increased the contract was readjusted in this way: Two wings were left out of the plans and they were only to build the frontage and the right-hand wing. Actually when that contract was in course of completion it was found that the contractor could not carry out his work owing to the peculiar conditions brought about by the war, and under the Emergency Powers Act the contractor went before a British court and got that contract broken. The result was that the buildings, previously estimated to cost £105,000, were partially completed.

Mr. HEWAT

Is the Minister tacking this on to anything I said? Did I ever infer that the National University buildings were adequate? I do not think I did.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I am founding this on one remark of Deputy Hewat's which gives me the proper peg to hang these remarks. That left the University in debt on its buildings alone to the extent of £35,000. I want to make a comparison on this one item of buildings alone as between the two institutions. £110,000 was handed over and a contract entered into. Owing to the operation of a British statute due to a war, which could not have been foreseen, the contract was finally completed, leaving the University in debt to the extent of £35,000 and only half its buildings. In opposition to that you have the buildings of Trinity College, Dublin. What their present-day value is I do not know, but I do know that the late Provost Mahaffy, at a centenary celebration, boasted that they were worth not less than one million pounds. Taking that in comparison with present day values, it would certainly run to two and a half million pounds.

Professor THRIFT

Will the Minister give that for them?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It is now complained of this University which has buildings that cost £110,000, that there is to be added to it the enormous range of buildings outside. Nothing at all is said about the comparison; no advertence is made to the comparison of Trinity College, Dublin, from the representatives of which most of the complaints have come.

Mr. HEWAT

I do not like the Minister's remarks to be tacked on to mine. All I said was in reference to the College of Science, that someone must have blundered if they put up a building like that and if the whole thing is now to be scrapped.

Professor THRIFT

I wish the Minister would continue his arguments to indicate how much more of a responsibility than an asset these very same buildings of Trinity College are, and what their cost of upkeep takes out of the fixed revenues of the College.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

Will Deputy Thrift swop the buildings? We will relieve him of responsibility in the morning if he likes.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

As to Deputy Hewat's point, if somebody did blunder in erecting that enormous range of buildings, that mistake is now going to be rectified, because these buildings are going to be handed over to the best possible use—they are going to be handed over to complete the National University of Ireland, as far as one of its colleges are concerned.

Mr. HEWAT

I have no objection to that.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Deputy Hewat stated further, that University training had the effect of unsuiting a man for industrial pursuits. He also asked if you attach the College of Science to University of College, Dublin, do you expect to attract to it the same body of students. Finally, he put the rhetorical question: Does anyone expect farmers' sons to go through a University course and then go back to the farm?

Mr. HEWAT

Only as we knew Universities in the past. As some Deputies have indicated that there are to be great changes, I was only hoping they would let us know how the changes were to take place.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I was approaching the matter from another point of view. Does Deputy Hewat know how many farmers' sons went to the College of Science and afterwards returned to the farm?

Mr. HEWAT

I am thirsting for information and I will be glad if the Minister will give it.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I suggest ten.

Mr. GOOD

The Minister told us that there were 200 students attending the College of Science. How many of these were university students?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Presumably the Deputy means university students attending certain courses at the College of Science. I believe there was one there from Trinity College, Dublin, and a certain number from University College, because the Engineering course had to be taken out there. They were certainly very few.

Mr. GOOD

The point is, there were very few university students attending the College of Science in the past. They were largely outside university students. How are they to be catered for in the future?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

They may have been largely outside university students but they were attending the College of Science and doing university work.

Mr. GOOD

How are they to be catered for in the future?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

In the same way, by giving the same university education which they got under another name.

Mr. ALTON

How will Trinity College agricultural students be catered for? I know of at least two who were attending the College of Science.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I am allowing the Minister to be considerably interrupted as I take it he rather likes it.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

As regards the two unfortunate agricultural students, the Minister for Lands and Agriculture says he can only account for one from Trinity College attending the College of Science. If the other one can be discovered and presented to the Minister he will have a doubly difficult problem. As I said in my answer to Deputy Hewat, if it is asserted that students who were going to the College of Science will not now fit into the university, the reply is, they went to the College of Science and did work that was in every particular a duplication of university work. They will do that work now in association with university students and it will not do any harm to them. Deputy Johnson displayed considerable weakness to-day. He said there was a good case made out regarding the calamity about to fall on the College of Science, and that a good case had been made for the continuance of the College of Science and he had not yet seen any answer to it.

Mr. JOHNSON

I have heard one in the last quarter of an hour.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

So far I have heard no case for the continuance of the College of Science. When that case is presented to me I will proceed to argue against it. I am glad to know that Deputy Johnson has discovered that the superior attitude he had previously towards the Commerce Faculty of the University has been disturbed, and that he even thought fit to encroach on what he previously thought was their preserve, namely, the giving of testimonials. He proceeded to give a rather lukewarm, but at any rate definite, testimonial arising out of something Deputy Good said about this Commerce Faculty. I am sorry we got back to one of the two main points upon which Deputy Johnson relies in the Dáil. Extraordinarily enough, he did not propose a vote of censure on the Executive Council on this matter. That is one of his ordinary resorts. But he got back to the second one, that this would prevent a re-union of the country. I have heard many things that were going to cement the sundered portions of this country. We had the railways when the Railways Bill was on. On pretty well everything that came up delay was urged, and it was said we should not tackle any problem. as it might prevent the final unity of the country. Presumably out of the 200 students who attended the College of Science, so many came from the Six Counties that the added weight of their votes is going to prevent any solution of the Boundary question.

Progress ordered to be reported.