I should like to join in the welcome other Senators have extended to the Minister on his first appearance in the House as Minister for Education. At the moment, as we all know, he bears the gravest of responsibilities certainly in the eyes of our university members. We have every hope that he will act with justice and prudence and patience. His Department has heard hard words from time to time, in the present and in the past. But in one respect at any rate its conduct and policy have been exemplary. The Department of Education has always acted with justice, and with more than justice, with generosity, towards the schools and colleges of the religious minority. There is no likelihood they are likely to change that policy.
At the moment the Minister has no cause for anxiety in this House. There is nothing to be worried about in the passing of this Bill, except for some details. Its aims, which all public-spirited educationalists are likely to share, is to make the best possible use of our intellectual resources. Our country is comparatively weak in numbers and in physical resources. But history has shown that intellectually, as well as spiritually, we have long been one of the more powerful nations of the world. Therefore we have a moral as well as an economic duty to develop our intellectual talents to the full.
Obviously this is a highly commendable Bill. It will enable many hundreds of our young citizens to have the higher education that they could not otherwise afford. But one risk in particular must be avoided, as I see it. We must be extremely careful that the increased numbers of students are met by increased numbers of staff and by necessary enlargements of the buildings and the equipment of the universities. I insist on this with all the emphasis I can command. It is easy enough to say we will provide so many with £300 a year and send them all to the universities. This would be a shallow and short-sighted policy. It could do more harm to this country than good if these large numbers of students were to cause overcrowding and a lowering of academic standards in the universities.
Apart from the intellectual deterioration that would result, we have seen only too clearly within the last few months what happens when students feel overcrowded and neglected. We have seen it only too clearly in Paris and in California, right across the world from Istanbul to San Francisco. Only this morning in the newspapers we read of the deplorable happenings in Venice when young students with some grievance or other, probably due to academic neglect, tried to break into one of the most beautiful and noble shrines in Christendom, Saint Mark's. It was only through counter action taken very promptly by the citizens of Venice that the church was protected from desecration.
I quote this to show what happens when students begin to boil with indignation. What happens is that they, by their own natural feelings, are eager for action — that word "activist" is a sinister one nowadays — and then, as we know in this country, a few sinister elements from outside use them for their own purposes.
We must meet this in Ireland, both in the universities and outside, by giving the students justice, by giving them good conditions, by making them feel they are not being neglected. The events in Trinity College a month or so ago won a great deal of attention. The fact, as we see it, looking back, is that because 95 per cent or 99 per cent of our students felt that conditions were reasonably good, tolerably good, they were not capable of being inflamed, even by fairly skilful agitators. It was because they felt they were reasonably well treated that they could not be driven to rush out of Trinity and break into, say, Saint Patrick's Cathedral or some place like that, as they did in Venice.
However, in these present conditions there is the risk that the extra 900 students might lead to overcrowding and make a critical psychological difference. Then we would do our country more harm than good by this Bill. Therefore I emphasise with all the power I have that every pound spent—and most commendably spent— on these grants must be matched by many more pounds for staff and equipment. We must remember, too, that nowadays staffing is not as simple as it was 30 or 40 years ago when it meant just professors and lecturers. Now we must have secretaries, typists, telephonists and all types of administrative paraphernalia. They do a good job but they cost a lot of money. This is a depressing thing to have to say to the Minister, because money is fairly short. However, it is realistic, and I urge him, in all the plans he has, to remember that it is not just a question of opening the university gates to the students, but also of keeping the universities worthy of these young people who come to us with such high hopes.
This opens a large question that has been dealt with already by Senators Dooge and Quinlan — the question of selection. First of all, I do not agree with the part of the motion before us that university education should be free to all who qualify for university entrance, unless the universities are prepared to raise their standards even higher, unless the universities are prepared to go to four honours at least, as in this Bill. Nor do I agree with Professor Quinlan that a means test is undesirable — well perhaps I concede it is undesirable, but I feel it is necessary in the present financial state of this country. And I do not agree with him in his scheme for the extra taxation of those with £1,500 or £2,000 a year or whatever it is. Perhaps my reason partly is that all except one of my family have passed through the university while perhaps fewer of his have as yet done so. This stands on a personal motivation, but not entirely: we try to be public-spirited as well. I do not think that ultimately it would be fair to inflict extra taxation on all people above that level to avoid a means test, which is fair if properly worked.
One thing worries me greatly. It worried Senator Dooge, too, and it worried Senator Quinlan. It is the tragic fate of the potentially brilliant young boy or girl who, for lack of good teaching, cannot get four honours in the leaving certificate. This is one of the most tragic misfits that we can see in our country: some brilliant child who through no fault of his own goes into work which needs minimal intelligence. What can the Minister, or what can we, devise to get round this? If we accept the principle in the motion that university education should be free to all who qualify for university entrance, that will screen out, as I see it, these brilliant but under-taught children. Unless we are prepared to build much larger universities and to extend them, we simply will not be able to fit them in.
To put it more clearly, if we want to keep the universities reasonably uncrowded, and if there is free university education for all who qualify, the standard of the university matriculation will be so high that these undertaught but intelligent students will not be able to get in. We will have to watch that. It is a problem that we will have to consider a great deal more. We must try to devise some way in which these boys from the poor little grammar school down the country, or something like that, potentially as brilliant as any of us, can get a chance. I wonder would it work if the Minister gave grants to the universities to devise scholarship tests for this kind of child which would be quite different from the leaving certificate kind of examination, some other kind of qualification which does not depend just on book work and high-pressure teaching and grinding. If we could do that, it would be a most desirable thing.
I turn now to a matter which is of special concern to Trinity College, Dublin. I think that it will not concern us very much more in the future, but it should be mentioned. In the recent past there have been two main impediments hindering Trinity College from playing a full and unrestricted part in educating the youth of Ireland. The first is the ecclesiastical ban. I hope that under this Bill there will be no question of any obstacle against a grantee going to the university of his choice. We know that there are pressures, and there have been obstacles in this way. But I hope that this Bill will be another means of breaking down this barrier. Secondly, Trinity College has been inhibited from educating people in Ireland in the past by the fact that certain local authorities refused to allow their scholars to go to Trinity College. It was impossible from some counties and areas. I know of one particular case of a very good friend of my own, and a member of this House in the past, who won a county council scholarship down in the south-west — I will not specify more than that, it would not be fair. He asked to go to Trinity College and was told "No." He simply said "I am going to Trinity College" and he got a Reid sizarship, as we call it, from Trinity College, which is given to people who come from this particular county—this rather indicates at once where it was, but it does not matter— and he came to Trinity College and had a very good career, becoming an eminent citizen and also a good member of this House. Unless he had had the determination to go to the university of his choice he would have been diverted elsewhere. Perhaps he might have done just as well as he did at Trinity College, but at any rate I hope that it will not be necessary in the future for that kind of thing to happen. He could have got £200 a year or whatever it was from his county, but he accepted instead something in the order of £80 a year, a thing which I personally think was a great credit to him. May he rest in peace.
There is one further point which has been raised already in the Dáil debate and incidentally here—what is the effect of this Bill going to be on the recruitment of primary teachers? It is likely that any student, any boy or girl, who gets five honours, or four, will choose rather to go to the universities than into the training colleges. Now there is a very clear way to cure this effect of the Bill if the Minister would accept this implication. The way to meet it is clearly to make a university degree a requirement for primary teaching. Some of the primary teachers in the Church of Ireland Training College do take a degree. We think that it is a great advantage. This would solve our whole problem here. Let them go to the university as scholars and then let them turn to primary teaching, because though many people perhaps, or at any rate some people, in this country are inclined to deny it, primary teaching is just as important as secondary or university teaching. It needs people of just as much intelligence and with just as fine teaching gifts. Let us agree on that, and if we agree on that then the answer is to make primary teachers take university degrees.
