My friend, Deputy Gorey—sometimes my esteemed foeman—will assure you that to course more than one hare at the same time is scarcely profitable. I have seen Chinese jugglers keeping in circulation flaming torches and sharp-edged knives without injury either to the performers or to the audience. We have been trying, on this Vote, to do something equally difficult—to discuss a variety of very intricate problems concurrently. "What shall we do with our College of Science?" That was the original problem. It became almost immediately mixed up with "What shall we do with our Colleges of the National University." Then a further complication was introduced of "How is this to affect the other university— Trinity College?" There was, at any rate in the beginning, a considerable amount of doubt as to what the Minister for Education really proposed to do with the College of Science. Deputy Sir James Craig, who was the last speaker, used the term, "abolition of the College of Science." I do not think anyone so far has proposed to abolish the College of Science. I am speaking with the very considerable advantage of having the Official Report of the speeches, and not merely of having them, but of being provided with a whole week in which to study them carefully and minutely, because it was exactly this day week that the debate upon the important question of higher education was initiated.
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - ESTIMATES FOR PUBLIC SERVICES. VOTE 44—SCIENCE AND ART—RESUMED.
This is not the nation's business.
Apparently not. The Minister for Education said that even before his vast responsibilities included the responsibility of the College of Science, he had made it clear that there was no intention on the part of the Government to diminish or to impair the educational benefits afforded by the College of Science to the people of this country. He repeated that he did not propose, now that it comes within his domain, that the work of the College of Science should be diminished or impaired in the future.
There were three things obviously that might be done with the College of Science. One was to maintain it as hitherto; the other was to scrap it, and the only third alternative is the one which the Minister for Education has adopted—namely, to change it. More than one Deputy made an attempt to advocate the policy of maintaining the College of Science as it is. For the views of Deputy Johnson I invariably entertain a genuine respect, because they are always put forward, where they concern matters with which he is not directly concerned in his own active experience of public affairs, in a scientific spirit—that is to say, hypothetically and tentatively and subject to correction, with a readiness of mind always evinced to modify his view if good reason is shown that he should do so.
Deputy Johnson, by one remark that he made in answer to a rude interruption of mine—for which I regret to say that the Official Report makes the Minister for Industry and Commerce responsible—rather tempts me to discuss —although there is no time for it, and possibly never would be time for it— the idea of a University. Deputy Johnson said in answer to my rude ejaculation: "Why not—I do not know. I thought universities were institutions rather for the education of the growing person and not for the activities of the finished product." That is the conception of a university's functions widely entertained. I have no doubt that if anyone were foolish enough to spend the money on it and take a plebiscite on "What is a university and what does it do?" the overwhelming majority of answers would come that it was a place where young men spent a few years, came out with a degree and were regarded as educated men in consequence. Those who advocated the maintenance of the College of Science, whether they were conscious of it or not, had the conception of the university as a place of higher studies, and Deputy Good or Deputy Hewat—I always mix them up; I find it absolutely impossible to remember, like the heavenly twins, which is which; but one of them, I think it was Deputy Good—spoke as if he believed the very atmosphere of the university was such as to unfit men for the active business pursuits of life.
Now, a university has a dual function. If you like, it has two functions, that though dissimilar, are closely united. The ordinary view of it as a place where young men and young women are instructed is correct so far as it goes. The University and University College have been, and are, and always will be centres of education, in the sense of education being the impartment of instruction and also of discipline of mind and character. But universities have always also taken on a very great function, what Deputy Milroy would call the vital function, of expanding knowledge. The advancement of knowledge, the widening of the bounds of what men know and understand, and the imparting in turn to others of the knowledge so achieved, being always the double role of the university. In later days the name research has come to be applied as a convenient name for what Bacon wrote about under the title of "The Advancement of Learning." Through this debate, Deputy Thrift, for example, who understands these matters through and through, spoke of research always without the qualifying adjective of scientific. From the moment that the name "research" replaced the longer title "the Advancement of Learning," research came to be identified in university circles with a closer scrutiny of nature as pursued in scientific laboratories. But the presence in this Dáil of the Minister for Education, who, when he was not Minister for Education, was a professor in the National University, is a reminder that even on the side of the humanities, as distinct from the scientific studies, there was room for research.
Deputy Professor MacNeill holds a Chair that is almost exclusively a Chair of research. The work that he did, and was called upon to do as professor, while he was a professor—his duties are, of course, in suspense for the benfit of a wider public—was, let me say, one-tenth lecturing and nine-tenths research. A large part of the work that Deputy O'Sullivan, as a professor, is called upon to do, is the extension of knowledge through historical research. The spade of the archæologist—we have a professor of archæology by the way (Professor MacAllister) in the National University, who is making history in the best sense of these words in Palestine—the spade of the archæologist and the research of the scholar into the ancient past also widen the scope of human knowledge and throw enlightenment and illumination on the human mind, contributing to civilisation and its advance. Nearly all that work, I would like to tell Deputy Johnson—on the, perhaps, erroneous supposition that he had not adverted to it—is post-graduate work. In the modern university, the most valuable, at any rate not to exaggerate, not the least valuable part of its work is the post-graduate work and it is the most expensive to the university.
So that my answer to Deputy Johnson is that the university is not merely for finishing a product to turn it out. It is a centre of research to which graduates come attracted by the facilities that a particular university institution provides and that is in a great measure due to the personality of the professor. When the X-rays were discovered, Professor Röntgen was appointed to another university and the students of Europe and America flocked to him in the new university. For scientific research an enormous expenditure is necessary. Fortunately for research, the expense is not so great for studies belonging to the old traditional side of a university. But on both those sides—on the side of scientific equipment and on the side of the provision of a library—the National University has been absolutely incomplete and kept incomplete from its very foundation.
That was the plaint I have made in this Dáil on two occasions, apropos of these University Estimates, and I will return to it, sir, with your permission. The great work that is required of universities, as the Minister for Education put it, is that they should be in harmony with the life and the needs of the life of the nation to which they are supposed to minister. Universities, like every other public institution, have that as their raison d'être. They are called into being by the needs of the nation and they exist profitably only so long as they serve its needs—educationally more particularly —the promotion of civilisation and of better living, both on its spiritual and its material side.
The further discussion of this point I find exceedingly difficult, because I am unwilling to rake up the embers of a dying fire. It is difficult for me to speak about this subject of the relation of the College of Science to the National University, and to skim over it so lightly as not to refer to past controversies, and in that way so far renew them. My friend and colleague in the University, Professor Swift MacNeill, wrote some years ago a history of the Irish Parliament—that is the Parliament of the Irish Pale—and in a very succinct treatment of the legislative efforts of the first years of Grattan's Parliament he provided me with a model of allusiveness which I should be glad to be able to copy. Referring to the re-enactment of the Penal laws and the penalties against the public worship of the older Faith, he says they found it necessary to re-enact some provisions dealing with the tenure of land and public worship. In that simple fashion all these painful and, let me call them, passionate topics are dismissed. Deputy Thrift, whose views on educational policy, and in regard to educational theory, must always be listened to with more than usual respect, contributed several speeches to this debate.
Only one.
Well, as we say with regard to the arrangements for Lent, one meal and a collation—one speech and a few little addenda. Deputy Thrift requires no conversion to the view which, if there were time, I should like to expand as well as expound, that the main work of a modern university is research, and that that research is not in pure science alone, but research devoted to the application of exact knowledge to the science of agriculture and the mechanical industries. Since that is common cause between us I may pass on to the points on which unfortunately we differ.
Our first difference is as regards history. He has told us that in 1906 Trinity College established for itself a faculty of Agriculture and did it in a practical way. It appointed a qualified man as professor. I am not quoting all the Deputies words, but, if I misrepresent him by abbreviation, I know he will correct me. "The University resources were very limited and its appeals to the Government for assistance to enable it to carry out that work on a scale befitting the country met with no response whatever, which, perhaps, is not to be wondered at." That is not my comment, sir. That is in the speech, which, perhaps, is not to be wondered at. If I were to say it on my own behalf, I should say it with another significance altogether. Did Trinity College initiate this movement for agricultural and technical development? In a recent debate the Minister for Education stated that I threw a brick at him and gave the bouquet to myself. If I were to recite all the history of this movement I should be throwing bouquets to the Minister and myself in conjunction.
And the bricks?
The bricks are round the corner in reserve. It happened that in response to a long continued agitation for the provision of a university, to which the majority of the country could send their sons and daughters, Lord Beaconsfield created an examining and degree-giving body which he facetiously represented was a university. Under cover of that he said that the Catholics of Ireland had now the ball at their feet, thereby anticipating a remark of Mr. Birrell at a later date, who declared that a National University was created—more particularly in reference to University College, Dublin—that though the income provided for it was a beggarly endowment, yet, if we made good, if we showed how much we could do with so little, we would then have justified the Westminister authorities in giving more.
Those of us, who, in the old University College were trained under men who had been graduates at Oxford, Cambridge, and Trinity College Dublin, and various other universities, became aware of the new movement in the world which had built up a great industrial fabric in Prussia; we realised that if science teaching, and more particularly research, and more particularly still, scientific research with regard to applied science could be provided, we could make a new Ireland. We could stop emigration, and instead of having people descanting on the woes and poverties of Ireland, we could make it a better, a bigger, and a more prosperous Belgium. We clamoured for the creation in Ireland of a new and modern type of university institution. We were supposed to represent medievalism, backwardism if you like. The Government of the day decided that we should get scientific education but it would be put in what has been called a neutral atmosphere. At the very moment that this absurd proposition, of calling upon us to create a university college as one of the constituent colleges of the National University, to provide it with new buildings and equipment out of a sum of £110,000, the Government of that day were expending, as Deputy Sir James Craig told us last evening £270,000 on a college of science.
We asked for a modern type of university. I remember, and I am almost ashamed to recall it, the number of speeches I made, and the articles I wrote pointing out how a few German professors had created the great beer trade of Germany and given it a monopoly of the world; that a few German professors had created the aniline dye trade which got the monopoly of the world and which even the United States of America, with all its millions devoted to scientific research, and its almost innumerable universities with scientific equipment, on which money has been lavished—almost squandered, if one could use such a word—in spite of that competition, and in spite of the war Germany still retained the monopoly of the dye stuff production.
A University Commission was set up and we were given a replica of Dublin University. A Commission was set up to arrange the chairs and apportion the work. I remember well the horror with which some of us saw that Commission draw its pen through the name of a Chair of Agriculture and Chemistry, and substitute for it a Lectureship on classical archaeology. That was the temper of the gentlemen who were in charge. They had been brought up on the old traditions. At a University Conference held in Oxford in 1921, which my friend Deputy Alton and I had the advantage of attending, Professor Joly of Trinity College, one of the advanced men in modern science, told the assembly, which was composed of representatives of all universities of the world practically where the English language is spoken, of his efforts to have a Degree of Bachelor of Science set up in the Dublin University and to have it of equal weight with the Artium Baccalaureus, and of his failure.
I am not blaming so much the individuals as what is called in the jargon of philosophy zeit-geist, or the spirit of the times. There are men even still in high places in the universities who would controvert the views of Deputy Professor Thrift that the application of scientific research to the practical concerns of mechanical industries that ultimately lead to breadwinning should not find a home in the university. It is academic snobbery, for snobbery is what one ought to call it, and it is a great handicap to university advance. Narrow views with regard to culture, pronounced of course for this purpose not as culture but as “cultchaw,” go with that snobbery and create the impression which has had such a disastrous effect upon Deputies Good and Hewat, when they hold this view that the universities are inimical to the proper development of anything but the professions. That spirit and that temper of belief in the old knowledge and distrust of the new learning as belonging to business pursuits was dominant in Dublin University in 1906, the time that Deputy Professor Thrift referred to. Our agitation laid such stress upon this scientific development that when the British Government arranged for a Commission of Inquiry into Trinity College and when our Graduates' Association was going before it to give evidence on university reforms required, this chair of Agriculture was created in Trinity College. I do not say that that was done for window dressing, nor do I say that it was done to get ready for the Commission. That is not contained in my statement even by way of innuendo. I do say, however, that the jog, the spur and the stimulus for doing the thing, the awakening to the new needs at the moment, was due to pressure from the Graduates' Association as much as to the fact that there was then growing up in Trinity College with the Professor Thrifts of that time younger minds and a newer spirit. I would call attention to what I venture, without any meaning of disrespect, to suggest are discrepancies in the statement of Deputy Professor Thrift. No doubt, he will clear these up, but I am drawing attention to what seem to me to be discrepancies. He says the university resources were very limited. They were not at that time limited, but they are limited now. The change in the purchasing power of money and the increase in the cost of living affected Trinity College in recent years as it has affected us. As a point of fact I challenge that statement of Deputy Professor Thrift that the resources of Trinity College were limited and that appeals to the Government for assistance met with no response. They met with no response because the Government of that day was only too well aware that they could not have the egregious callousness or display a cynical attitude before the world of adding to the endowments of Dublin University at a period when we were clamouring for the wherewithal for existence and were being refused. It was pointed out, and I shall proceed with your permission at a later stage to point out also to Trinity College, that if it were to re-adjust its own financial resources it could do a great deal more than it did. That is a distinct challenge to Deputy Professor Thrift, who, no doubt, will set the Dáil right on the matter if it can be done in correction of me. I say the contrast is between the impoverished institutions, and I have no hesitation in saying deliberately impoverished institutions on the one hand, and a rich corporation on the other, which is, no doubt, feeling the pinch in the present hour.
Deputy Professor Thrift in his speech goes on: "It was really ahead of its time." Then we, the Minister for Education and our colleagues in the Graduates' Association were very much ahead of our time. "Because in the country itself and from the agricultural interests it met with no practical support. That system was continued for some years with discouraging success." I do not profess to know what sort of success "discouraging success" is. I quote again: "Then the University initiated the 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 were run as a separate faculty by the University. Instead of appointing a new professor arrangements were made by which the general educative work could be done inside the University. More specialised work could be done under the professor in the College of Science. That was in 1912, and since then that work has been running on these lines." Now, there are two policies of Trinity College, Dublin. In 1906, the University worked its own faculty of agriculture. In 1912, the University does not work its own faculty of agriculture, but it utilises the equipment and the facilities of the Royal College of Science, and for two very excellent reasons, for reasons that it could be done better and more economically. Certainly, if the work of the nation can be done better and more economically by method A than by method B, then it would be the duty of the Dáil to insist that it was done by method A, and not by method B, but in so far as Deputy Professor Thrift represents the mind of Trinity College there is another policy in this matter in the year 1924. In 1906, the University had its own faculty of agriculture, but in 1912, it is better and more economical to make use of the College of Science.
The College of Science was not there in 1906.
It was there in 1924, and Deputy Professor Thrift would do well to remember that. If the Deputy will turn to column 4295 of the Official Report, he will see his own declaration on the matter. Deputy Professor Thrift interrupted the Minister for Industry and Commerce on a point of explanation, and the point of explanation he 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 that would benefit the whole country.
The Minister replied: "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?" and Professor Thrift replied "No." Deputy Professor Thrift's view, which he made very clear, is that the College of Science should be continued as it is at present. That was the view of Trinity College in 1906 and in 1912. "No" is his answer to the question: Should it be continued in 1924. Now, why was Trinity College in favour of this system? Other speakers have advocated, by the way, the 1912 policy for 1924. Why was that done? If Deputies will take the trouble to read carefully the speech made by Deputy Major Cooper, the speech made by Deputy Good, and some of the remarks made by Deputy Alton, and the concluding portion of the speech made by Deputy Sir James Craig last evening, they will thoroughly understand why. It will emerge if I read a passage from Deputy Thrift's speech. Am I exceeding my time?——
The Deputy will remember that we are in Committee.
Yes, but may I plead with you that this is a very important matter. Other Deputies have been allowed to speak on it at very great length. I know you have no desire to be unfair, and I am quite conscious that I am going on too long.
There is one suggestion An Leas-Chinn Comhairle, that I would make which may be a help out of the difficulty. We are really discussing two Estimates at present.
I do not want to cut Deputy Magennis short, but I only wish to remind him that we are in Committee.
Surely there is no time limit for Committee on Finance?
It is the rule in Committee that each Deputy is allowed ten minutes.
Was not the practice in a general discussion to lift the time limit?
The Deputy may resume.
I apologise, but I cannot refrain from reminding the Committee that anyone who studies the Official Report, from which I have quoted, will see that the restrictions of the time-limit were not imposed upon those who preceded me in this debate.
Quite correct.
One cannot discuss the College of Science policy of the Minister, and the Vote for the Universities, as readily and rapidly as one can discuss whether a word in a section should be "whereas" or "wherefore," or whether it was a printer's error. If I do not read what the Deputy said I run the risk of creating a further loss of time by his pointing out that I am misrepresenting him, and in the end we are back to what might be done in the beginning. I will try to be brief, but I cannot be brief, in the best sense of the word, and deal with an intricate and detailed matter of this sort. Perhaps An Leas-Cheann Comhairle would prefer I sat down and let someone else speak, and then I could resume again.
DEPUTIES
"No, no."
It is my wish that the Deputy would proceed.
Then I think I shall read from Deputy Thrift. There is no one in the Dáil whom I should less wish to misrepresent than Deputy Thrift. He says: "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."
Now, Deputy Cooper, in the same or a similar frame of mind, asked the question, "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?" And Deputy Good spoke also as if the carrying out of the Minister's proposals meant the shutting off from students of Trinity College of the facilities which they now enjoy.
Now, Deputy Professor O'Sullivan has dealt with that so effectively that I may deal with it very lightly. It is assumed that because money comes to the rescue of the National University that that is inflicting some injury upon Dublin University, upon Trinity College, that is to say. Deputy Johnson stated: "I am afraid that it means that the present economic position is being allowed to determine the future of development in this direction," and I admit that it might appear so to the casual observer. The great poet, Dryden, unfortunately, joined the Catholic Church at the moment when it was coming into political ascendancy. It happened that his own material interests were served by his change of religion and his conversion of heart was very gravely doubted by his enemies, who were many. And there is an unfortunate appearance of coincidence here in this. University College, Dublin, alone of the University Institutions in Ireland, has a building debt. I have explained how that came about on more than one occasion here, and the Minister for Industry and Commerce has done so again. We are the only institution with a debt. That is not due to mismanagement on our part. On the contrary, University College, Dublin, ought to be attacked, as I have attacked it, for its economic policy and its parsimoniousness. It committed a great blunder in the beginning of its days by attempting to live within the miserly endowment that was provided for it instead of doing, as the Minister for Education and I attempted to do, mapping out a proper scheme of university Chairs and making provision for university wants.
They prefer to balance the Budget.
I admit this is very complicated. It is claimed that Trinity College, out of its resources, could not provide certain things. For example, Deputy Good told us that the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, which recognises neither religion nor politics in the matters it investigates and promotes, went before a Royal Commission in Trinity College, held a few years ago, and pointed out that whereas the National University had a Faculty of Commerce, the Dublin University had not, and asked for money to provide that it should have such a Faculty.
Now, that is part of the case made by the Deputies representing Trinity College. We have a Faculty of Commerce, and they have not. Very good. I was one of those few who stood for the introduction of the Faculty of Commerce into the University, and out of our very limited funds we were able to force the University Commission, in spite of its retroactive tendencies, to create this Faculty, and we paid for it out of our limited endowments, because we believe in progressing with modern progress. We had to do without other things. The salaries allotted to certain Chairs had to pay for it. There were other Chairs which we required, but we had to go without them. We saw to it, however, that we had our Faculty of Commerce. Deputy Thrift also told you with regard to the explanation of the £100,000 given to Trinity College last year, that that money owed its origin to a fund provided out of the Irish Development Grant to compensate Trinity College in case of the sale of its Lands for losses accruing out of the Land Acts. The money accumulated, until last year it was £100,000. Deputy thrift has not observed that the beneficent and paternal British Government was watchful for the interests of Trinity College that it might not be hurt by legislation meant for the betterment of the land system. That fund was provided out of the Development Grant, but what Government provided a grant or a sum out of a grant to protect us from the inimical workings of the changes in the value of money and of the cost of building work in the period of the war? We appear before this House year after year clamouring about buildings and unless we take time to explain that it is a war debt for which the British Government should be responsible, not us, the public will go away under the impression that we are not able to work the finances of our own institution. Now, I go into the question of finance with a certain amount of detail. University College, Dublin, was given a sum of £110,000 with which to build and equip a new college. It is sometimes spoken of as a Dublin College. It is not a Dublin College, and that must be remembered. It is a college for Dublin, the Midlands, and the Northwest, so far as the territory assigned to it in its charter is concerned, but if you look at it in actual practice it is the College of Ireland. For that college that was brought into being by an agitation actuated by the spirit of modern progress and science and the application of science to industry, £110,000 was allotted.
Now, owing to the war we were only able to build a fragment. We are still without the provision of a library. That was the first thing we had to scrap. In the architect's plans for the Earlsfort Terrace buildings, which were divided into two quadrangles, the library was the first to go. We dismissed the library, the school of anatomy and the school of sciences as applied to medicine. I stated last year that we would not give details as it might be hurtful to our progress, and I keep the same reticence now. Trinity College last year got £110,000, and Deputy Good and others come here and talk about the Government treating the two universities with equality. I started on that sideline from this point: what was the driving idea in the minds of Deputies who speak like that? It was the idea that the Minister for Education was relieving our financial necessity by doing some wrong to education in general; that just as in my country a hotel company wanting to put up a new hotel laid violent and unholy hands upon a castle of ancient period because the stones were good the Minister for Education says here, "University College, you want buildings and you want money; here are buildings and money, take them and leave us alone." It looks like that, but it happened that two years ago or thereabouts this whole question of duplication and of unnecessary expenditure due to duplication was forced upon the attention of the Government, and ever since has been occupying their attention. Like the Minister for Education, I do not undertake to say how many universities a country should have. Scotland, a very small country, has four; Belgium has five, but the College of Science is doing work of pure science as well as applied, University College is doing pure science. Through historical reasons which I do not like again to go into in too much detail, the one has been left incomplete, as I contend, purposely incomplete; the other is a portion of a university. These two, financed simultaneously, mean overlapping. Deputy Good says that nobody will advocate overlapping, so we have Deputy Good on our side in this matter. We can provide in University College, Dublin, the chairs of pure science required, so far as agriculture particularly is concerned, and in some respects as regards technology. A slight addition to our staff completes the whole work for a Faculty of Agriculture and for technology. So much is to be done for University College, Dublin. Is that something taken away from Trinity College? A great deal of the criticism that came from here was dictated by the hasty idea that that was bound to be the effect.
Deputy O'Sullivan pointed out, and I have referred to it already, that if Trinity College were to reduce its own expenditure, out of these very ample though not sufficient funds that it at present enjoys, there would not be the so called inequality. Figures showing the cost of the various universities and university colleges were provided to the Conference at Oxford in 1921. I have seen other figures, but they were incomplete; but I remember that the cost of the administration for University College, Dublin, as shown in these statistics, was one of the lowest per student, with the exception of one university institution in Scotland. We were actually step for step with Scotland as regards economical expenditure. Trinity College has internal students, commons, the upkeep of residential buildings, expensive administration, and all these things require looking into and readjustment. We are a new university, and at the period of our creation these things were very narrowly looked into and dealt with in a very miserly fashion. Suppose that what Deputy O'Sullivan said were not the case. Suppose that what Deputy Major Cooper—he is gone away, unfortunately, I have chased him from the House; he does not want the light —suggests is the case, that this dreadful thing would be inflicted upon Trinity College students, namely, that they would have to go to University College, Dublin, for further scientific study, what then? We created a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the request of the various universities, because after the war there was reluctance on the part of Canadian, American, and other overseas students to resume the practice of going for scientific research work to the German universities, and it was necessary to do that class of work, as, in order to qualify as lecturers and professors in their own university, they had to have a degree which would show the character of such studies. The other universities created this research degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Students, graduates of other universities, came to us to pursue post-graduate studies. Some of ours go to other universities, notably to Cambridge, to pursue post-graduate studies. Take the case of Professor Ryan, who happens also to be in charge of the State laboratory. Supposing students came for a post-graduate course, are we to understand here, because of the fact that the buildings within which they breathe for the purposes of that study belong to us—the majority—that some hurt, some moral or intellectual damage, will come to them?
That is what it reduces itself to in the last analysis. That is what it comes down to. Deputy Cooper asks where are they to go, where are they expected to go? He had certain correspondence. I forget the exact words. I think he spoke of his bag being filled with letters. I wish he had seen my post-bag. "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 who they think has any influence in the matter. But it is the case, and I suppose it is a product of past evils." Deputy Cooper mended his hand a little later when he came to speak about it again, and spoke of it as "they wished the right of choice." I am one of those who genuinely believe in the things that are protested by others, that in knowledge there is no political or religious distinction. There are no Catholic mathematics, no Protestant philosophy, no national geology, and no British astronomy. Let there be no such distinction, and if there be no such distinction, why then is it to be argued that the proper provision of buildings to University College, Dublin, is not to be provided, because there are still some people who would shrink from going to an institution of that sort? I will leave the matter at that. I could say a great deal more about it, and with more effect, I believe, but I prefer to leave it at that. There was another point. The Deputies from Connaught came down like a cohort on the fold last evening. For the first time we had the spectacle of Deputy O'Maille, not as a master of diplomacy, arranging for the disposition of controversies, but actually threatening a Six County Government in the West, if this dreadful thing that the Minister for Education proposed, or is alleged to have proposed, for the Galway College, were carried out.
You are safe from interruption now, at all events.
The Minister has been grievously misunderstood. Today's newspapers are full of resolutions from Galway, protests, laments, and about what? Because the Minister proposed to do for Galway what ought to have been done for it at the beginning, namely, to do it justice. That agitation, to which I have been referred earlier, and which has been conducted for so many years with so much noise and, unfortunately, with so little results, claimed that the Queen's Colleges, as they were then, the Colleges of Galway and Cork should be put in harmony with their surroundings. That was not done. To a great extent, that still awaits being done. The Minister proposes to do it. It is an act of belated educational policy. What I cannot understand is this. They see in an Irish Minister in this Dáil, who has always stood for educational progress, an enemy, one who threatens their future. One of the proposals made to the Commission at the time the National University was being created was to see to it that the college in Galway was made in harmony with its surroundings, that it should have a Faculty of Agriculture, that it should be utilised for the development of Irish, that it had always scope for engineers, that there was much work to be done in the west that called for trained and skilled civil engineers, and that instead of spreading money over a miniature university institution so as to create the absurdity that was in Queen's College, Galway, earlier, it should be made an efficient institution by paying proper salaries to the professors and lecturers in it within the limits of the endowments it was possible to give. Now, that is what has been so unfair to Galway College. As a consequence, Galway College has lost Professor Trench, who now, happily for himself, though unhappily for Connaught, is transferred as Professor of English Literature to Trinity College. In Galway he was Professor of Mental Science, which includes Logic and Psychology, and he was also Professor of the English Language and Literature and Professor of History, and as well as I remember his salary was £250 a year. He is not much better off now, Deputy Thrift reminds me. Financially he is not, but academically I am afraid he is.
Afraid?
Yes. Afraid in the obvious sense that I regret so excellent a man should be lost to the National University. Now, that system of having the window dressed, of having a number of Chairs in the College without sufficient money to pay for the proper sort of men, brought it about that Galway College, as the Queen's College, for many years was regarded as a taking-off place for the budding professor. A Cambridge graduate would do duty there for a number of years to acquire proficiency in his work there, and then go elsewhere. So that there was a constant stream, a changing population of professors. That was not fair to Galway, and it was not fair to Ireland. Our proposal was turned aside, I will not say by what influence or through whose machinations; but, at any rate, University College, Galway, was decreed to be the name of Queen's College, Galway, and the old system was pursued. What is the result? The other night we passed in a few minutes an Estimate for the Dublin Metropolitan Police amounting to £405,200. The Estimate for Galway University College which we are now discussing is for £21,000. For the Police Force of the Metropolitan City, £405,200, and for the university institution of the Province of Connaught, which might through specialised courses serve also the whole of Ireland—£21,000! For the Gárda, £1,180,000. But take all the Universities, the two rival Universities, and the University Colleges of the National University, and the total Estimate here we are discussing is £107,800; in round numbers, £108,000. The Dublin Metropolitan Police, nearly four times that; the Gárda exactly ten times that the Army four millions, nearly forty times that; Property Losses Compensation— and this is not without its connection with the matter in hand—£7,333,000. Now, what sort of university institution could be efficiently worked on £21,000? If it were not so dreadful in its reaction on the country, and the country's future, you would say it is a superb joke, the work of humorists. I have repeatedly pointed out in connection with the Education Vote that you cannot expect men to turn away from lucrative professions, or from business, men of the type, calibre, quality, and character to be professors and lecturers in university colleges, if you pay them as they are paid in University College, Galway. Among the details of the Vote for the Dublin Metropolitan Police you will find details of the salaries of the constables and sergeants. A constable of twenty years' service has precisely the salary that is vouchsafed to the secondary teacher. The station-sergeant, with his five guineas a week, house allowance, and allowance for clothes, is financially better off than the lecturers in University College, Galway, and that in a country where education is supposed to be one of our proudest traditions. Reverence for the educator was a great thing in Ireland's past, and the one thing that every Irishman is proud of is that Ireland was a centre from which scholars went out to found universities in all lands. It is only saints that Deputy Gorey is sceptical about; he admits the scholars.
Quite right. I stick at the saints, though.
Galway College is not the only problem. There is, I insist, without a want of due regard for the other colleges I have the honour to represent, a necessity for concentrating attention upon the Central College, because it is the College of the University situated in the capital, and more particularly, it is the college side by side with the ancient college of Dublin University. That emulation and rivalry which we expect, and which in the past had, unfortunately, political and other horrid tinges, makes it necessary that more should be done for the Central College. I do not say that because I belong to it. I should say that if I did not belong to it; at least I believe I should. We want to have that Central College in line with other institutions of the same type. Take the University of Sheffield, the University of Birmingham, the University of Bristol, the University of Liverpool, the University of Manchester, and so on—each of these devotes itself to the development of whatever happens to be the most profitable kind of industrial development in the region that it serves. I should have mentioned in that connection, in answer to Deputy Johnson, an interesting thing which was going through my mind when the debate was on, regarding forestry. As everybody knows the great industry in the Province of Quebec is the paper industry, and the Government there has provided a Forest Products Laboratory, which is housed in Montreal in the building of the McGill University. The students who are concentrating upon this side of technology study the chemistry of woods, wood pulps, and paper, in their final year, and they work and share in the research of that laboratory on forest products, so as to be in conjunction with the best minds, and see the work and to learn how to do it.
I refer to that because this question about the transfer of buildings and equipment of the College of Science was raised. I was talking about other Estimates, and it reminded me that there is an estimate for a State Laboratory, a National Physical Laboratory, a National Technological Institute corresponding to the Forest Products Laboratory of the McGill University and the Quebec Government in the Dominion of Canada. That is feasible here. That is not shut out by this promised development in the interest of University College, Dublin. I want to end on that. I want to reinforce this idea. The fact that what University College lacked is now to be its, through this provision, is not a diminution of facilities for education, but an enlargement of them. It will not interfere with any special inquiries of a particular and limited kind, such as Deputy Johnson referred to in his speech. Rather it will help all these.
In many countries at the present moment where there is not this absolute agreement as to what a modern university should include or should not include, the great businesses combine in many cases to pay for the work of scientific research in regard to their own problems. But it has been found in the cities where there is mass production in one industry that it would retard the profit-making if in the interests of development they were to scrap their models and have to make new models; and the result is that the British industries, for example, find it profitable to endow by contribution original University research work—to give it financial aid; and I hope that the Goods and the Hewats of the future Ireland will leave a portion of their enormous wealth gained in business to the enrichment of the laboratories that we are now trying to provide for, and to foster in our university institutions. Again I apologise to you for keeping you so long.
There is one question I should like to ask the Deputy. I am considerably disappointed, because when he touched on Galway I thought he was going to tell us something that the Minister had failed to say. He twitted us about the anxiety displayed by the Galway Deputies and twitted us about these resolutions coming from Galway. I took down what the Minister said he proposed to do for Galway, what should have been done long ago for it, that is, to do it justice. I read the statement made by the Minister and this is what he said:—
"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 was hoping that the Deputy who has spoken, and spoken so well, would have discovered in what the Minister said something that I failed to discover, namely, what they are going to do for Galway.
The proper thing is that the Minister should defend himself. As I seem to have found something, according to Deputy O'Connell, which is not there, something which he cannot find himself, might I point out what the Minister said about provincial institutions. It is column 4255:
"It is 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."
Mr. O'CONNELL
Will the Deputy continue the quotation?
Might I remind Deputy O'Connell of Dickens' novel, "David Copperfield"? In that pathetic parting interview between Copperfield and Steerforth, his schoolboy hero, Steerforth asks of him what we all have to beg of our compatriots: "Think of me at my best."
Mr. O'CONNELL
Might I remind the House that the quotation which I read came in after what Deputy Magennis has just read. The Minister said: "I leave Galway outside my proposals."
That is as regards the College of Science. It must be read in its context.
Mr. O'CONNELL
I hope the Minister will be more definite.
As this matter has excited considerable comment, would the Deputy agree now that there is not either in the speech of the Minister for Education or in my speech any remark on which there could be founded a statement that it is proposed to take away the university institution from Connaught? These statements are being made in Galway at the moment, if the newspaper reports are correct.
Mr. O'CONNELL
I have no hesitation in saying that so far as I am concerned I did not read anything like that into anything the Minister stated. My only complaint was that there was a want of definiteness in the proposal so far as Galway was concerned.
Tá baint agam le Connacht, ós rud é go dteigheann buachaillí agus cailiní ó Chonntae an Chláir gach bliain go dtí an Ollsgoil i nGaillimh agus gur mhaith leo oideachas fíor-Ghaedhealach d'fháil dóibh féin. Sin é an fáth gur mhaith liom fios a fháil amach cad a dhéanfaidh an t-Aire Oideachais leis an Ollsgoil sin. Deirtear go bhfuil an Ghaedhlig beó fós ann. Tá fhios agam go bhfuil. Sin é an chúis go mba ceart cabhair speisialta do thabhairt don choláiste seo.
Ag tagairt do rud mar sin tamaill aimsire ó shin dubhairt Pádraig Mac Piarais: "De réir cosamhlachta is 'sa teangaidh is mó atá an rud spioradálta sin atá riachtanach chun náisiúntachta (sin má chialluigheann teanga litridhéacht, béal-oideas, fuaimeanna is corr-chainnteanna), agus gurab í an teanga is mó a chosnuigheas í.... Sean-oideas ársa is eadh an náisiúntacht agus ní fhéadfadh an náisiún bás d'fhágháil an fhaid is a mhairfeadh an oideas sin i gcroidhe aon fhir dhílis nó gcroidhe aon mhná dílse amháin. Ach dá mbéadh bás faighte ag an duine deiridh a choinnigh an oideas sin beo, nó ag an nGaedheal deiridh nár bhuaidh an Galldachas ariamh air, bhéadh deire go bráthach leis an náisiún Gaedhealach. Pé brí stát saor, a chuirfí ar bun ina dhiaidh sin i n-Eirinn, ba chuma cé'n teidiol a baistfí air, ní h-é sean-náisiún na nGaedheal a bhéadh ann .......... Dá bhrigh sin, i dtreo is go mairfidh an náisiún caithfidh beatha na nGaedheal, seanchas na nGaedheal, litridheacht na nGaedheal, ceól, ealadhain agus béasa na nGaedheal fanamhaint beó."
That is a statement by a man before the splendour of whose genius and integrity of whose patriotism we must all uncover. In considering the position of Galway University my reason in rising is not to criticise—I do not think it is my function to criticise— but to try to elicit information as to what is proposed to be done for that university. Is there any special treatment which might be called derogatory to its status? Is its status to be reduced; is it not to have the same status as Dublin University College or Cork University College, and, if so, why is it not to have that equal status? I should like some information about that and the reason is that I do not pretend to be able to follow Deputy Magennis into the various phases of university life which he has so lucidly and with such detail described. But there is one phase I am very much interested in, and that is the Gaelic atmosphere which surrounds the University College, Galway. The atmosphere of Trinity College internally may or may not be Gaelic; the atmosphere of Cork or Dublin University Colleges may or may not be Gaelic; but there is one thing certain, that the surroundings outside, the immediate surroundings, and the immediate atmosphere which the students come in contact with, when they leave these universities, are not by any means as Gaelic as the atmosphere of the Gaeltacht in which Galway is situated. That is one thing we should think of.
We should endeavour, in the words of Pádraic Mac Piarais, to conserve what we have of Gaelic culture. There is a certain amount of Gaelic culture in the Gaeltacht. It was rudely broken, I know, at a certain period, and perhaps we have to pass over a gap between then and now. Perhaps we will have to put English, French and Latin dictionaries into the pulping machine and grind them up in order to fill up the gap, but I believe we should bring the Irish mind, the purely Irish mind of the Gaeltacht, to bear upon the problems that confront the nation to-day in order to continue and preserve the continuity of that culture. The conserving and the perpetuation are the two things that the University College, Galway, is peculiarly situated to do. It is useless to deny—nobody has attempted to do it, and it would be useless to try it—that life in the university and the culture the university will impart, will not influence very largely the life of the nation.
Did the Deputy say "it will not"?
Mr. HOGAN
I say it would be useless to deny it will not, and I would repeat what I said. It would be useless to deny, nobody is attempting to deny, that the education and the culture and all the things that are acquired in University life, will not influence the life of the nation. That is the reason when acquiring that culture and the knowledge and all the other potentialities that a university can offer, that it should be acquired in a Gaelic atmosphere. That Gaelic atmosphere we will get in Galway more securely than in any other university in the country. There is another aspect; that national teachers could also do a course of study in Galway University. There are possibilities that when they come to take a training course, that they can also acquire that knowledge of the Irish language and the use of it in the teaching of the school programme which should be useful in their daily work. They can also, perhaps, get a literary degree or degree in education in that university. I do not propose to stress that point particularly beyond this fact —that the atmosphere of Galway and its University for the prepetuation and the conservation of Irish culture and the bringing to bear on the problems of the country the purely Irish mind, is better suited than that of any other University College. Instead of giving it special treatment in a retrogade fashion, I believe that Galway should get special treatment in a progressive fashion in this direction.
I shall not attempt to imitate my friend Deputy Magennis in one respect, that is in the feat that he performed in his remarkable speech, but I hope I shall imitate him in one very important point, and that is in the spirit with which he dealt with this subject. I rise particularly on this occasion to make two or three points as clear as with my humble capacity I can. I thought it was plain to every Deputy, with perhaps the exception of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that I did not approach this subject in any way with regard to a comparison of the resources and the revenues of Trinity College, Dublin, and the National University of Ireland, or University College, Dublin. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, I am sorry to say, appeared to think that I had, and appeared to criticise my remarks from that point of view, and to give that colour to what I said. I disclaim that altogether. I intend, in view of the remarks that have been made since, to confine myself to one point, namely, what I regarded as the university work of the College of Science, and its relationship to the university work as carried on, either by the National University or by Trinity College, Dublin. But I did not make any comparison, and I do not think that what I have said could be twisted or drawn in any way to show that I was thinking of the matter at all from the point of view of revenue or resources. I did not even know at the time, but perhaps I may know now; I am not sure yet. I did not even think at the time of any definite transfer of revenues; I did not know that was in question. I am not sure yet how we stand in this matter. I certainly did not contemplate that the proposal should be dealt with on the lines of whether it meant an increase in the resources of one body or the other. I was thinking, purely and simply, as to whether the university work of the College of Science could be best carried on on the lines indicated, or whether when it came to be considered as to the details on which the change that was in the minds of the Minister should be brought into effect, those details would involve with them certain implications which would operate injuriously on one university as compared with the other. That does not touch the question of resources.
I put it up to the Minister at the time, and I put it up to him again, that with his statement I have very little, if any, fault to find. I hardly criticised it even on the question as to what it meant, and I suggested to him that whilst on that line of general policy— and, mind you, I was dealing, as I said, with the purely University work of the College of Science—that while I did not question his general proposals at all, I did suggest and put it up to him definitely that he should not finally decide on the details in which that line of policy was to be carried out without consultation with the interests involved. I dare say it would shorten matters very much if we knew precisely whether the Minister would consider that suggestion favourably or not, or whether we are to approach the thing from the other point of view, which is that the whole of the details are settled and done with, and that we have got to face practically an accomplished fact. I should dearly like to follow the Minister for Industry and Commerce along the lines he has taken in his speech, and I will do it another day, but I do not think he will get along with this particular problem at all if we take the line he took.
resumed the Chair.
This particular thing does not depend on a comparison between the resources of one and the other. I also want to make one other point clear in this connection. I do not withdraw one single word of what I said last year in reference to the Government's action towards Trinity College, Dublin. I said at the time that that was a fair, and even a generous action, considering the resources of the country. I say that again to-day. That, as the Minister has stated, was accompanied by a promise on our part that there should be no request for any further grant or help from the State for three years. I do not wish to modify that promise or to qualify it in any way. My remarks were not accompanied by any thought in my mind at the time that this question involves in any way any qualification of that statement. As I said, I was not thinking of it from the point of view of the resources of the two Universities. But, at the same time, it is necessary, I think, after what has been said by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to make it absolutely plain what that action really did, without, as I have said, withdrawing my appreciation of it.
I think the Government, at the time, did all for Trinity College that they well could do, and I am quite prepared to applaud them if you like, for doing in a similar way something in order to help the resources of the National University of Ireland. At the same time, I think it is absolutely necessary for me to state exactly what it means, both for Trinity College, Dublin, and for the Free State Government. This has been talked about as a handing over of £100,000, approximately, to Trinity College, Dublin. That is put in very carefully-chosen words, but it conveys one impression, and an impression that I do not think it is meant to convey at all. I believe the proper way to put it is as I am about to put it now. Trinity College had a certain endowment. Some day we will go into that, and some day we will explode, and I think hopelessly explode, the fable we would like to believe is true, namely, that on the one hand you are dealing with a rich corporation that is only a spoiled child of one Government or another, and which has only got to hold out its hand and be supplied with milk and honey, and all that sort of thing. Some day we will deal with that; I do not think it is advantageous to deal with it to-day. But we had an endowment from landed property.
In 1903 a certain Land Act was passed, which it was hoped would lead to the sale of all the lands and the handing over of them to the tenants. It was foreseen that if that policy was carried into effect, the endowment of Trinity College would be very seriously lessened. In order to prevent that, after very considerable pressure on the British Government, Trinity College succeeded in getting a provisional clause inserted setting aside £5,000 per annum in order to prevent that loss accruing. Land purchase, in fact, took place comparatively slowly, and ultimately was almost held up altogether, as members of the Farmers' Party will remember. But the upshot of it was that it proceeded so slowly that our losses in any year did not exceed £1,600 or £1,700, and as a rule they were about £1,200. The balance was set aside for that specific purpose, and had to continue to be set aside by the Act until the capital sum amounted to so much that there would be just £5,000 per annum accruing from the revenue on which Trinity College could claim.
I say, deliberately, that with less difficulty than we had at the time when the Wyndham Act was passed, we secured from the Free State Government last year, when they wanted to pass their Land Act, the very same treatment, so far as they could go. We secured that this £5,000 a year should be drawn on, and that in addition they would give a further £3,000 a year in order to meet these land losses. That is specifically stated in the Government's own letter. We believed that the losses that would accrue to us under that Land Act would far exceed, when the whole sales came to be completed, that £8,000. Whether the Government point of view, that it would not amount to that sum, or our point of view that it certainly would at least equal it, is correct, remains to be seen, and in carrying out that line of policy the Government did us a further good turn when they enabled us to make use of these revenues, even before land purchase was completed. That was an additional advantage to us, because we got the revenues at once. I admit all that frankly. But I wish to point out this equally clearly, that so far as we were concerned, we believed that it was a line-ball arrangement, that when land purchase was completed our revenues would be the same as they were before the Government's Land Act was passed.
As far as the Government was concerned, it was also a line-ball arrangement. £100,000 was there as an accumulated fund. Under the Wyndham Act they were obliged to set aside a further £5,000 a year until the completed sum would produce a revenue of £5,000 a year. That would have taken two or three years more. I am not quite sure about that. But because they were relieved of that liability of £5,000 they had to accept a further liability instead of it of £3,000, making £8,000. They gave us a further lump sum of £5,000 which spread over three years, comes to less than £2,000 a year. We were to have that £3,000 without making a further appeal. That will be adhered to both in the letter and in the spirit. I hope I have made it clear that just as it leaves us in the position we were in before the Land Act was passed, so it was an advantage, a good turn the Government was able to do to us without impoverishing their own resources at all. The money was there. It was not a question of their giving us £100,000 at all, and the Government themselves do not wish to make it appear that it was. It was something that they could do, without straining their own resources, and I think the Government were glad to do it.
Now, coming to this problem of the College of Science, I take it the position of the Government is this: they have a certain fund which they will be able to set free; by this arrangement and without further straining their own resources they propose that these funds should be handed over to the National University. That is the way in which they are able to improve the position of the National University without straining the resources of the country. I accept that freely. I do not quarrel with it at all. That explanation is a lengthy one, but I hope it will clearly meet these two points in a way in which they will not be challenged any more.
Now, to return to this question of the College of Science work, which is, to my mind, at this moment a much more important point, and I do put it up to the Minister again—is the whole thing settled in detail, or may we have an opportunity of discussing the details of this proposal so as to see how the policy of the Government can be carried out, and so as to ensure that the University work and the College of Science work will be conducted in the best way under the new arrangements? Now, if we were to go into these details here, it would take us a week, and I do not think that even after that week we would do it as well as it could be done across the table by people talking over those proposals and putting their points of view to the Government. I do not suggest at all that the final people to decide this matter should not be the Government through the Minister for Education. Of course, they must be. But they will not be in a position to decide the matter unless they are in possession of the points of view of all the parties concerned. I have only approached the matter so far from the point of view of the University work of the College of Science. There are several other aspects in which the matter has to be looked at and dealt with. Some of them have been dealt with by previous speakers in the Dáil, so it will be only necessary to refer to them briefly——
It is now four o'clock.
Very well. I move to report progress.