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.