As no further amendments have been submitted, may I put the question that the Bill, as now amended, be received for final consideration?
Committee on Finance. - Institute for Advanced Studies Bill, 1939—Report (Resumed).
Perhaps before we proceed further I may be permitted to say that certain questions were raised, and certain suggestions made on the last day which I promised to look into, and see whether, after further examination of them, it would be desirable to introduce amendments. I have done so, but I do not think that it would be desirable to change the Bill in regard to the matters raised. There was, first of all, on Section 8 the question of making the initial salary continuous so that it could not be changed—to keep it to the same amount. That would create a situation in which we would be widening out the circle of officers whose remuneration, which comes from public funds, could not be changed. I think there is no likelihood that a change would be effected. There would be an initial contract, and I think it is most unlikely, as the working of the scheme will be in the hands of the council, that any change would be effected in that way. It was suggested that it might be used as a means of squeezing out some professor. As full power of removal rests in the President, to be exercised on advice, it would be quite unnecessary, I think, to make provision for a smaller power. Therefore, I have decided that I could do nothing in the way of changing that provision.
The next question was raised by Deputy McGilligan on Section 9, that it was stated definitely in sub-section (3) that certain persons shall be appointed by the President, and in sub-section (5) "appointed by the President" is introduced parenthetically as it were. The question is whether sub-section (5) imposes on the President the duty by law of making the appointment. The advice that I received is that it does, that the words "appointed by the President" could have no other meaning in the context, so that it is deemed not to be necessary to make any change.
Then, on Section 15, the question of the seal was raised by Deputy Dillon principally. The question was whether the seal should be taken by itself as prima facie evidence that everything was done properly. What is being done here is more or less common form. It occurs in the Electricity (Supply) Act and the Currency Act, and, generally, it was felt that the seal ought to be taken as prima facie evidence that the document was genuine and that the seal had been properly affixed.
In regard to Section 19, the question was raised whether the decision of the Minister for Finance should be taken as final. In that case I think that the provision in the Bill is reasonable. There will be a scheme worked out at the start. The scheme will be formulated by the council with the approval of the Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance, and then it will be operated by the council. Any dispute with regard to any claim or the amount of any claim of a professor who is being given a retiring allowance, a superannuation allowance, or a pension can only, in the first instance, be a dispute between the individual professor affected and the body operating the pension scheme, namely, the council. The Minister comes into it only when there is a dispute on the matter and he interprets the scheme. That does not preclude recourse to the courts. There is no doubt, however, that if the matter did come before the courts afterwards, due cognisance would be taken of the decision arrived at by the Minister for Finance.
The next matter that I promised to look into was on Section 28 with regard to the audit and whether the accounts would be examined by the Public Accounts Committee. It was agreed generally that we should have here whatever applies to the universities and, particularly the National University under the Act of 1908, which was mentioned by Deputy McGilligan. We have had that examined and it would appear that the provision here is quite similar and in effect would be the same as the provision in the Act of 1908. Therefore it was not necessary to make any change. I think it is right that I should give this explanation.
In connection with the last matter it is beyond dispute that the accounts of the university are referred to the Comptroller and Auditor-General, or a similar person, but it is for audit in accordance with a named Act. That phrase is not here.
I understand that although no reference has been made to that Act, the procedure laid down in the Act is that which is followed. The specific reference to the Act has been omitted from analogous sections since 1930.
Question—"That the Bill as amended, be received for final consideration"—put and declared carried.
FIFTH STAGE.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
I propose to ask the House to divide on this stage of the measure because it introduces the important principle of taking away from the universities important functions which had been regarded as definitely and clearly theirs. That has been done without any attempt having been made to secure the approval of the university authorities as such. When speaking of this on the last occasion, the Taoiseach was careful to say that he believed that this measure when passed would meet with the approval of the university people. It is significant that although two faculties in each university college are concerned, the academic council of three or possibly four colleges, the governing body of each of these colleges and the university senates, this scheme was not brought before any one of these numerous groups who might have been expected to have sufficient information and sufficient background to enable them to advise and give a lead on the matter.
We have been told that the foundation of this scheme, so far as it relates to Celtic studies, is something which happened at the Irish Language Committee of the Royal Irish Academy. I have been informed that the scheme now before the Dáil in this Bill is a markedly different scheme from that which was proposed by the committee of the academy, and that it is not correct to say that this particular scheme has been put before the academy as such and received their approval. So far as the academy as a body were approached they were merely asked to get certain information from the Irish Language Committee—this they did get and transmitted. When the scheme was transmitted —and the academy was recognised only as the channel for transmission—they were then given an opportunity to pass comment on the scheme which had been put forward by some of their own members. They contented themselves with a noncommittal reply.
I am consequently entitled to say on the whole that nobody of academic standing in the country has been invited to consider this Bill. The Taoiseach cannot say that he is armed with the approval of any of the academic groups established by other measures who are undoubtedly in the foreground in the academic life of the country and who might have expected an invitation to pass judgment on this proposal or, in any event, to give advice about it. That advice might eventually have been turned down as proceeding from prejudiced people, but, in any event, there were people there from whom advice might reasonably be sought.
Care has been taken not to ask these people to submit their views on this matter. It is, in the circumstances, very difficult to discuss the Bill and to appreciate fully what is proposed by it. It was spoken of in general terms by the Taoiseach on the First Stage on 6th July last year and again on 10th April last on the Second Reading. The statements made on these occasions are somewhat at variance. As far as the Celtic studies part is in question, that was more or less taken for granted. A special sort of pleading was heard that it was required to unearth manuseripts, edit texts, to compile a grammar of an exceptional kind, and we were asked to agree to the foundation of an institute for that work. General phrases were used, all implying or expressing the view that the universities could not do that work. Why they could not, I do not know, and no reasoned argument was advanced to show how or why the universities were unequal to this task. When it came to the physics side, we were told that a Heaven-sent opportunity was presented to this country owing to the advent of three people who would be available here for work on the theoretical physics side. Who these people were I did not know when I was speaking in the House last week. I have since learned their names. At this point, it is proper to comment that during last week's debate, I asked if these three people had previously and always been professors in universities, and I think I added professors in universities only. I was told that that was the case with two of them only. As far as my information now goes, it is true of all three, it being understood that one of them had had to leave his own country and was not, therefore, working under normal conditions.
If what I am told is a fact, and if the three people whose chance appearance here presented this Heaven-sent opportunity were never other than university professors, is it not rather an odd circumstance that they who apparently have advanced to pre-eminence in the matter of research should have attained that pre-eminence on their work in universities without finding their research work in their universities hampered to any extent by their association with teaching? That comment is certainly true with regard to two, and I am informed that it is, in the main, true with regard to the third, though the third man's career was somewhat abnormal, not for anything in connection with science but for something in connection with his race. Here then without any approach to them such as would enable the universities to be heard in the matter, a very big departure from the whole tradition of university education has been brought about and so far as the physics school is concerned, it has been made depend on the attraction to this country of three people, each of whom made his name in and about university institutions. These three people were the main argument upon which the Taoiseach relied when discussing the question of a school of theoretical physics.
I have tried to discover what principle runs through the statements made by the Taoiseach so that I might discuss this question in a brief way. I find it impossible to get any real afliliation between the three statements of his ideas and I have to take the scheme as it is presented to me under separate heads. The first point in the speech of the 6th July on Celtic studies was that at column 1967, where it was stated that the Celtic faculties turn out young men who show promise in Celtic scholarship but who, after going abroad on travelling scholarships, find that there is no work of a research type at which they can work and so are forced into business or the professions. That might be a good argument for providing extra funds to enable young people of special talent to be occupied in connection with Irish studies, but it is no argument for transferring such work from universities. If that is the only argument, it is quite clear that what is aimed at could be achieved by giving these extra moneys to the universities and ear-marking these funds for use solely on Irish studies, for the special matters detailed in this Bill in connection with the Irish side.
There is no argument on that ground for having a separate institute, getting clean away from the universities, locating a few people in two houses in Merrion Square, but removing these people, in the main, from university life. If there is any argument in this, it turned on the fact that young men in the Irish faculty or otherwise, showing certain talents, passing certain examinations at a certain point advanced themselves by a period of study abroad and then came back, and found nothing to do. If it is intended to save these from drifting into professional work that could be done inside the universities. On the second point made on July 5th, at column 1968, it was stated that the existing universities had two main objects, one to teach and the other to conduct research, and then there occurs the ominous phrase:
"But, if you want to have this particular type of work done systematically, and if the State should, as I think it should, take over responsibility for seeing that it is done systematically for a time, I see no way in which it can be done except by the establishment of an institute of this kind."
If words have any meaning, that establishes that research must be systematised, that the State is to take on the burden of systematising research.
On the second occasion on which he spoke on April 10th, the Taoiseach seems to have had a somewhat different view as then he admitted that research work is work which very often is merely haphazard. But to keep for the moment to the 6th July debate here, in the forefront of it the Taoiseach said that if it is desired to have a certain type of work done, the State is to take over the responsibility for seeing that it is done. There is no way, except by having it done through the State and the institute. I do not see that that follows. It is not a logical conclusion. I do not think it is the right method, and I see no good likely to accrue to anyone from the State delving into research. The most that any State can do is to provide funds, and, as far as possible, to insist on these funds being at the disposal of people with talent of a particular type and to leave such people under the guidance of their professors to work according to how the mood and the subjects sway them. It is particularly a temperamental matter, and most good work judging by results has been done incidentally.
It is getting back towards the Dark Ages to accept the idea that the State must interfere in such work, ordering what research work is required to be done and hoping that, from the payment of money for results, good results will follow. Good results have hardly ever followed from that class of attention. I object, first of all, to the State having anything to do with this, except to increase the available funds, so that better financial provision may be made for research. To proclaim that the State is going to systematise research is bad right at the start. But even if the State were going to pursue that policy, I cannot see how the conclusion logically follows that this systematised research can only be done by an institute of the type proposed. Incidentally, I am not sure that, in the end, if given the choice of State interference in the university system, under the pretence that the State could direct or guide research in their present position, the universities would not say: "Take your institute and your interference away from our free academic system, and leave us as we are." The proposal here lacks logic. The conclusion is not apparent from what has been previously said—that, if you are going to systematise research, it cannot be done except in an institute of the type described.
We are told that one of the purposes of the institute is to attract from other countries people interested in Celtic studies. If the attraction of people from abroad be an aim, how does that necessitate an institute? If the provision of money, the granting of better accommodation in a variety of ways, the provision of a more leisurely occupation, the relief of people from the strain and worry of modern times—if all that is likely to create a movement in respect of Celtic studies which will attract people here from abroad, can it not be carried through by the existing university institutions? How does it require the establishment of a separate institute? We are told, as if it were an argument in favour of the institute, that one of the objects is to attract people from foreign countries. We are told that this country should be a world-centre of Celtic studies. With that, I am in complete agreement. Why that was thrown in I do not know. It does not tie in to any argument that tends to establish that an institute is required. We are told later that the stress with which universities work, prevents their specialising to the extent that an institute would be able to specialise. Why? I find quite a lot of material in that. That is thrown in, possibly, out of place. It was put in, I think, as an aside in the speech of the 6th July. It is referred to at greater length later and I shall deal with it later.
At the conclusion of the speech of the 6th July, we are told that these schools will be devoted solely to the advance of learning and to the establishment of the reputation of the country as a centre of learning and that they will attract students of the post-graduate type from abroad. It was held out that this institute would have nothing whatever to do with teaching. The schools of the institute were to be centres of learning. They were to be regarded as secluded shrines to which devout people—in the sense of being devoted to their subjects—would come to pay their respects. But these schools were to have no part in teaching. That was definitely ruled out in the text of the speech of the 6th July. The whole idea was to keep these people secluded, to keep them away from the universities, to save them from the bustle and hum of university life and from the stress of teaching which operates against the seclusion and quietude required for research. If that was intended to be a correct picture, then it was not a correct picture if we are to have regard to the later speech.
When the matter was resumed on the 10th April, the Taoiseach was not going to speak at all, as he had previously spoken on the 6th July. Under pressure from Deputy Mulcahy, he said that, although it would be more or less repetition, he would venture to speak again. Quite early in his address on the 10th April, he said:—
"The work could not possibly be carried out by the universities"—this part of the speech deals mainly with Celtic studies—"because it is of a different character from the work on which they are engaged." Then a phrase was added that it could not be carried out by the academy because, as it more or less emerged, that was a resort for people who might meet on infrequent occasions to discuss things in a rather amateurish kind of way. In connection with the universities, the crude statement was made that this work for Celtic studies could not be done by them because it is of a different character from the work on which they are engaged. That is developed in a number of phrases. I shall take out one or two which, I think, indicate the chief idea. Later in the debate the Taoiseach said:—
"A century or two ago, an institution for advanced learning such as is proposed here would have been regarded as needless duplication. That work would have been regarded as the proper work for the universities because, at that time precisely, the advancement, encouragement and fostering of advanced studies was the peculiar work of the universities. Universities of the present day have a very different task. The advancement of knowledge in these later centuries has been so rapid that, in order to keep up with the advances made even in a very narrow branch during the lifetime of an individual, he would have to give his whole time to it. The universities, therefore, if they wanted to perform that task would really need to have two separate branches, because the man who had to keep abreast of the knowledge that had been achieved up to that particular time would have to give his whole time to that without any question of teaching."
That is developed at greater length, but it emerges as the chief ground of argument in this contra-distinction between teaching and research. It develops into the contention that, because of the bustle of life in the university, it is impossible to have anybody there who will do teaching and research at the same time. The speech continues:—
"In the case of the modern universities, the greater part of the time of the professors and lecturers has to be devoted to teaching. At one time, I thought it might be a very useful thing if we were to have two parts in our universities: one for teaching and the other mainly for advanced research work but, then, the cost of that to the community would be far greater than what is proposed here under this system."
That stumbled me. Take, say, University College, Dublin. In a particular faculty, you have a number of professors, lecturers, demonstrators and assistants. By degrees, the work is evened out to the point where the big class and examination work is taken by the lecturers, demonstrators and assistants. You have the professors keeping definite touch with the classes, but what might be called the routine teaching is done by those in the junior ranks of the staff. Above, you have either a professor or two professors—I am speaking of a faculty all the time— and a considerable portion of the time of these professors is devoted to research. By the statutes of the different colleges and the charter of the university, one of the functions of any full-time professor in any of the colleges is to engage in research. You have part of the staff with the duty imposed upon them by statute of taking part in research. It may be argued that some of the classes have grown so big and unwieldy that even the junior staff are not able to handle the routine work and, in any event, some professors have the idea that research benefits from touch with students and the teaching of classes. As long as that idea is about, something might be said for lessening the burden in the really rare case of the professor whose mentality is such that he cannot face a class with case and regards the class and the teaching of the class as a definite distraction. But, here, it is said that to develop that system would cost far more than the institute will cost.
Take the subject of theoretical physics. It is proposed to set up a separate institute, one college of which will be devoted to theoretical physics. I do not know what sum will be devoted to that particular school. We are told that something in the nature of £30,000 is involved when the two schools are working at the maximum. Let us take some part of that, say, £5,000. Minimising the sum cuts both ways, but supposing it is going to be £5,000, what is going to be accomplished for that sum? We are to get the benefit of one person of eminence who has made his name as a professor in a university. He is going to devote possibly his whole time to the institute. We had another man, always attached to the university system, who now proposes to live his life out in that system and has taken a step recently which ensures that he will. Then you have the third man who, during all his time in England or Scotland, has been attached to a university system and who, perhaps, until he was retired by age from that university system, did devote himself to it and lived all his life in it.
For £5,000 you are to get those three. You are going to get an affiliation with one, possibly a better affiliation with the second, and possibly the full-time assistance of the third. For what purpose? To conduct research. How does it add to the expense if you allocate that £5,000 to one of the university colleges and appropriate it for the purpose of research in theoretical physics? How would that add to the cost? I can see an addition to the cost. A college has its overhead expenses in connection with management and administration. The additional rooms that would be required for the full or part-time use of three professors is not going to be so heavy a burden as to enlarge the overhead expenses of the university. But for the purpose of the institute a new building will have to be taken, there is to be a new registrar-bursar and new officials. I do not say that this cost could be so much as to deter people from incurring it if every other argument tended in favour of the establishment of the institute. I do not think it is a very big point, but, so far as cost is concerned, the cost argument tends against the institute and in favour of the university.
Later on we are told that the universities, on account of the complexity of modern life, have to devote most of their time to preparing students, making them fit for the part which each one will have to play in life. Then there is a sudden jump to the students. We are told about the long seven-year period that the student has to spend in intensive work on his own particular profession, trying to acquire the knowledge which is necessary for him if he is to bring to the service of the community the knowledge which has already been gained. What the length of time the student has to spend in preparation has to do with the professor, I do not know, unless the Taoiseach imagines that because some course has been extended out over a period of seven years the labour imposed on the teacher is proportionately increased. The Taoiseach does know that in the courses connected with the medical faculty there are certain divisions and the professors meeting students in one year of that course may never see them again or may see them only occasionally.
We are told of the complexities of university life, of the bustle and the hum which prevent a man who requires seclusion from conducting research even in the building where teaching is carried on. We are told by the Taoiseach in column 1080 that it is very important that the universities devote themselves to arranging a programme by which, in the shortest time, a person can arrive at the stage when he is reasonably fit to enter into a profession. The Taoiseach goes on to say that with that pressure it is quite obvious that very little research work of a proper kind could be done; that by research work he means exploring new fields and advancing the frontiers of knowledge. To do that, he says, one requires, first of all, men who can devote themselves exclusively to it, keeping themselves abreast of the knowledge of the times, and students of special ability who can be trained to succeed such men. There is there an insistence on exclusive devotion to research. A little later it emerges that that is not exactly what is in his mind, for later on it appears these institute professors are to deal with advanced students, who, when they have travelled extensively and have come back from their labours abroad, are to be the students under the institute professors.
But here is stressed the value of pure research—of exploring new fields and advancing the frontiers of knowledge— and the institute is for men who can devote themselves exclusively to it. That argument was, I think, repeated later on, but it is put in its strongest form here. Possibly it may have been put to a point of exaggeration that was not meant. After that there was a rather abrupt jump made by the Taoiseach to a quite different point, and this is a point on which I would like a little more concrete information. I have been in touch with university people in the last five or six days, since this Bill was in Committee, and I cannot find anybody who agrees with the generality of the statement made here, or even with that statement narrowed and limited very considerably. We are told again in column 1080 that the need for such an institute as is proposed here has been felt in practically every country in the world. The Taoiseach goes on to say that side by side with all the universities, in most countries, you will find an institute of this kind. You will find it in the great and in the small nations, and he mentioned that in Denmark there is a number of them. It is remarkable that on the Committee Stage, when we asked for examples, we were given two, Princeton and Kharkov.
Copenhagen.
Now we get a third. Kharkov is the capital of the Ukraine; Princeton has not a very good reputation amongst university institutions or any other sort of institution. So far as Kharkov is concerned, I never heard of it except in some books that I read recently where it was associated with what was called the proletarianisation of education, as that is proceeding in Russia. I there read that there were certain opportunities offered in Kharkov—one amongst others of certain technical institutes mentioned. But that surely was an amazing statement that in practically every country in the world you will find institutes of this kind. The Taoiseach said that in Denmark there was a number, and now it appears there is one at Copenhagen—there may be others. So far we have Kharkov, Princeton and Copenhagen. I know there were others in America and I have been informed that institutes of this kind were started from time to time, but that almost invariably the result has been that inside a 20 year period they were reabsorbed in the university system.
I will vote against this measure being passed at the moment, but if it is passed I here express the hope that this institute will eventually be reabsorbed in the university system and, in so far as I have anything to say to it, I regard it as a fairly delectable morsel eventually to be swallowed up by University College, Dublin, wherein will be done any work that it is proper to do. There have been examples of this kind in the world, but they have met with this fate that, after a trial lasting over a limited period, they swung back again into the orbit of the university system. I quoted to the academic people whom I consulted this statement of the Taoiseach and had it doubted that this phrase had been used. I was disbelieved when I quoted the phrase used by the Taoiseach, and I had to produce the text to prove its use. I failed to find anybody to agree with his statement:
"Side by side with all the universities in most countries you will find an institute of this kind the need for which has been felt in practically every country in the world."
I definitely contradict the Taoiseach when he speaks so—his statement is far removed from accurately describing the number or the extent of these institutes.
Later, in column 1081, we come to a new argument. There he says:
"Universities as they are at present organised cannot be depended upon to do the work of advanced knowledge and to prepare research workers of an advanced type. The type of student who might come to an institute of this sort would be a student such as in the National University would get a travelling scholarship. He must certainly be of first-rate ability and he would have to had done a preparatory course equivalent to securing an M.A. degree."
And then—oddly enough—this is added:
"That is why we have a special reason for having such an institute as is proposed for Celtic studies."
There are to be students, students of an advanced type. What is the argument that is founded upon these travelling students? I can understand the argument that it is a pity to have people brought to a particular kind of perfection only to find after they have so utilised their abilities that there is no scope for their special talents and that they must divert themselves into the professions. I can imagine people saying: "We will make provision that a certain number of these will be saved for university work," but the way to do that would be to advance additional money to the universities and earmark it for that purpose. I do not know how numerous are the people who go abroad and who, when they come back, are not satiated with advanced learning, but desire a continuance of their studies. If they are very numerous, then to provide opportunities for them will cost more money than has yet been spoken of. If they are not numerous, the position will be easier. But whether the group be large or small they will be retained for the purpose of higher education and research inside the body of the university system. That was what the Taoiseach said on the 10th April when opening the Second Reading debate on this Bill. Certain other arguments were used, but I do not know that they were different from those I have referred to. In column 1105 of the Official Report for the 10th April, 1940, when closing the debate the Taoiseach spoke at length. At column 1105 he said:
"It should be clear to everyone that all that is intended here is to supplement the work that cannot, under the pressure of modern conditions be given full attention in the universities; ...to supplement that by making it possible to have the work done under conditions of less stress than if it were done by the universities. It is ridiculous to say that this is taking away from the universities. It is not. Universities have not been able to do this type of work in any country, and in particular have not been able to do it here..."
If the universities had not been able to do that type of research work aimed at under this institute, how does it come that three eminent men of science already referred to have been able to do their best work at universities? One of them even did it here, in this country, in a university institution of this country. These are the three main arguments for the establishment of the school of theoretical physics. Yet we are told that the universities cannot possibly do this work, that they have not been able to do it in any country. But these three men have done it; one in Germany, one in Scotland, and one in Dublin, did their work so as to reach a point of pre-eminence that marks them out for selection to this institute, and they did all their work in universities. Yet the Taoiseach condemns the system which brought these men forth.
We are told at the end of column 1105 that:
"The amount of research that can be done by anyone who has to teach a number of classes with various grades of students for a number of years is relatively small. He cannot have time to do it. A certain amount of research work will continue to be done. In fact, it must be done if there is any enthusiasm at all in the professor, or if he is going to enthuse his students."
That is what the Taoiseach said in columns 1105 and 1106, 10th April, 1940, of the Official Debates. Afterwards, in column 1106, in answer to Deputy Mulcahy the Taoiseach said:
"It (the institute) will also help the universities because the professors who will be in these institutions will be expected to give lectures in the colleges in Dublin on their own particular subjects. These occasional lectures will be open to students of the colleges and to the public."
In another part of this speech already referred to we had the institute professors paraded as people who are to devote themselves exclusively to research. There were to be three or four men who would require a desk, some writing material, some paper and some rooms in a couple of old houses in Merrion Square There was conjured up the picture of a place surrounded by cob-webs, the argument being that the bustle of university life would prevent devotion to research and that the necessary seclusion almost involved the cob-webs. But here and later on we have it that the teaching of students is a necessary function and that the institute professors are people to whom travelling students will resort. Then secondly we have it that they will be expected to give lectures on their own particular subjects to the students of the colleges and to the public. I had thought in the beginning that the basis of the institute was the argument that there are people to whom teaching was such a dis traction that they should not be asked to spend time on it, people to whom the mere thought that they were cooped up with other professors who had students, would so disturb them that the research work could not be carried out.
Now we are getting the other side. You are now to have professors in the institute who will impart the information they have. They will first concern themselves with the type of student who has become a travelling student. They will attract people of culture from other countries and they will give lectures in the colleges, such lectures as will be open to the students and to the members of the public. And yet the distinction between teaching and research was the very foundation of the institute. If now this burden of teaching is to be put upon them what has become of the argument on which the removal of these studies from the university system was founded? Is it not possible to say to the governing bodies of the university colleges: "We think that you have one of those rare geniuses who cannot be expected to give of his best when asked to do any considerable or even any small amount of teaching and examination work. We give you a certain additional amount of money. Let it be provided in respect of that money that that individual will do no teaching or only a very limited amount of teaching. Let him confine himself almost entirely to research work, but as we do not want to lose the fruit of the research let him impart his information to advanced students of the travelling studentship class and to such students only"? So it appears that it is considered proper to expose our specialists in research to contact with the student body, to impose on them the duty of giving occasional lectures to students to which the public, if they are interested in them, may be admitted. Why cannot that be put down instead of making this divergence between the institute, as such, and the university system that we have erected here?
Later we find the argument in column 1106 that people get travelling scholarships and that, when they come back, find there is no equipment and no career open to them. If it is only a question of providing equipment and a career, that can be done by the provision of money. Why channel that money away from the university system? What in this is the argument for the institute? Towards the end of the speech in column 1108 there came the worst blow of all from the point of view of the universities. Previously the Taoiseach had based the school of Celtic studies on the special work to be done such as the compilation and unearthing of manuscripts, etc. What is the case for cutting that out of the university system? Then, we had reference to a special situation permitting and demanding the school of theoretical physics—created by the three individuals. But from the university point of view a terrifying vista is opened up by what the Taoiseach said in column 1108:—
"I did not want to have in this scheme one school which would give the wrong impression that it was simply an additional organisation to promote Irish studies. It is intended to be something different. It is a further stage in the general edifice of education and learning in this country, and it is needed. It is intended to be a modest beginning but fairly representative."
This institute is to be part of "the general edifice of education and learning in this country." I take it that these words are divorced from the context of Celtic studies. "It is intended to be a modest beginning but fairly representative." That opens out this future for the universities, that there is to be a scheme of institutes with a number of schools, and each, presumably, is to be founded on the same argument, that research work of a particular type is not possible in the faculties that would more or less represent these schools in the university system. Research work must be handed over to those secluded people, working apart from the universities. There are two points in that: one, by implication, a criticism that the universities have not been doing research work in particular matters, and, secondly, that for the future they are not going to be allowed to do research work—some research work in any event—in those faculties. The institute, therefore, is to be part "of the general edifice" of education in the country. I may be misinterpeting that. It may only mean it is to be part of the general edifice in regard to Celtic studies, but I think the words have a wider context when you have the phrase that it is intended to be "a modest beginning but fairly representative." In view of those words I do not think there can be any mistake. Therefore, I believe that what I have read into those words is really there.
Later, we return to the teaching business. At column 1111 the Taoiseach said that the work to be done in this institute "will not be that of ordinary teaching."
"It will be the teaching of advanced students and the leading of them along lines of research while enabling the professors themselves to proceed along the same lines. For the reasons I stated you cannot do research work in the universities at present. When a professor is working at a class a brilliant student may suggest something that is particularly interesting. The professor cannot delay and pursue that interesting topic if it opens into a special subject. If that happened with advanced students in the institute, they would immediately stop ordinary work and pursue a line of investigation of that sort. In the university students have to cover a definite course and suggestions of this kind could not be dealt with in the short time available."
I am afraid there is some obfuscation there on the part of the Taoiseach, and that he must have his mind fixed on, say, the medical schools of the universities, with a recognition of the fact that the majority of the people who go to them go for the purpose of qualifying for a profession and getting a money-making occupation, but, surely, that statement is not to be taken as depicting the ordinary life of the universities.
"The professor cannot delay and pursue that interesting topic if it opens into a special subject ... students have to cover a definite course and suggestions of this kind could not be dealt with in the short time available."
Of course, they would not be dealt with in the ordinary time available. They would be dealt with by the professor in his research time. Take the case of the medical professors—I do not mean those who are at work only part-time—but the full-time professors on the medical side. Does the Taoiseach believe that more than, say, one-tenth part of their wakeful activity is devoted to teaching? As far as this is put forward as a thumb-nail sketch of university life, one gets the impression that the Taoiseach believes that the university professor is teaching more or less during an eight-hour day: that he has no time to spare for anything except the course, and, that the course is so long and difficult to get over, he would not have time to attend to suggestions that might come from a brilliant student. That is a complete misconception of the situation. You have professors who do occasionally get suggestions from students. In any event, whether they get them or not, something that a student does wakens a train of thought in the professor's mind which leads him to a particular type of research. I believe that it is possible, and often happens, that the professor has plenty of time to pursue that subject. He has people working in the laboratories who can help him, and he can go to other professors engaged on kindred branches of work for their help and pursue this particular idea along lines which their science will help.
Take the other side of the picture. Is there going to be plenty of time for research work in the two or three houses in Merrion Square? Are there going to be lots of opportunities for getting suggestions from brilliant students there? You are going to have a less numerous student body there. I would remind the Taoiseach that professors do not always get the most valuable suggestions to proceed along a particular line of research from the most brilliant students. It very often happens that an individual, with very little learning, does a thing in an awkward sort of way, and this leads to an interrogatory as to whether some lines of advance could not be made along the lines that are being indicated. If the men in the two or three houses in Merrion Square are going to have more time for research, they are going to have less contacts with the people there from whom those ideas may be derived. The Taoiseach's statement, as a short sketch of university life, is the most appalling thing that I have ever read— that in the universities students have to cover a definite course, and that when a brilliant suggestion comes from a student it cannot be dealt with in the short time available. If a bright suggestion does come from a student, then, so far as the universities are concerned, there is no limit to the time in which the matter may be pursued. A professor teaching a class may get a suggestion, or something may be done to excite a train of thought in him. It may be ten years afterwards when he gets a result. An analysis of the Taoiseach's thesis creates the impression that he believes a suggestion made in a class would more or less be worked out in the class period or in the year in which the class was being run. That, of course, is too ludicrous to require any further argument.
At the end we are told that the Taoiseach believes that we have the goodwill of the universities, of the academy, and of the people of Ireland as a whole. If there was any anxiety about the goodwill of the universities, an attempt could have been made to get it, by letting them know what is proposed, and requesting their views. Instead of that, as I understand, the only approach made was through the Irish Language Committee of the academy, people to whom a bait was held out by the foundation of the institute, and to one university professor, who was also tempted. There are faculties, authorities, people of different types of thought and, possibly, there might have been divergence of thought on the matter. Surely it would be worth while investigating that. The Taoiseach has a connection, through a position which he holds, with one university authority and one would expect that it might at least have occurred to him to test the opinion of the body that was close to him on this matter. Yet the procedure is that the measure is introduced and the pious hope is expressed that we will get the goodwill of the universities.
I find it hard to tie these ideas together. If there is anything in the way of an idea in the Taoiseach's head it is that the universities are too much absorbed in the day-to-day tasks, and that it is not possible in the atmosphere of the university system to get research of same type done. I cannot understand how anybody could have that viewpoint. As far as ordinary research is concerned, it has been done and done effectively all over the world and here in and through university institutions, and the occasions upon which there has been a breaking out into institutes of this type have been rare. In the main, as I am informed, when these exceptional attempts have been made to found an institute, one finds the institutes eventually coming back to the university system.
I sought for some information on this point from academic people, and any I got was adverse to the scheme. I was referred to certain books. So far as one book is concerned which dealt with higher education in America, it spoke of knowledge as a unity which may have to be pursued through particular phases, that it had to be broken up into particular phases for ease in working. But the people who pursue the knowledge have still to remember the unity there is about the whole matter. So it is the pursuit of knowledge can only be carried out properly in such a university institution where there are a number of professors occupied with the details of the ordinary sciences, where one could bring his mind to bear on the problems of the other, could lend assistance in the problems of the other, bring his learning to bear on the particular problem in his colleague's mind, and assist his colleague when the pursuit led along a particular channel. That was one aspect.
I did find that in Germany at a particular period, under the authority of a Minister for Education in Prussia, there was a system by which these institutes developed. But even the Minister who developed it insisted on the full equipment of the faculties in the different universities for research proper. He insisted on giving them all that they required in the way of equipment, staff, leisure, and everything else; that is, the university system was his first care. He then went on in this way: He held that even under ideal university conditions you might get here and there a rare genius who would squander in teaching or administration abilities that ought to be concentrated upon research. He planned research institutes, very few in number, and always built around, not a subject, but an individual; and so in practice he carried out the theory which he had. The chief institute which was developed under his scheme was an institute for research in experimental therapeutics for an individual named Wasserman and, when he died, the institute was about to collapse. It was then discovered that they had another of these rare geniuses—Professor Neuberg—and the institute was turned over to him as an institute of biochemistry, and after his death, I understand, the institute lapsed for a number of years.
That was the situation as he saw it; that here and there you get a rare genius whose abilities would be wasted in teaching and who ought to devote himself to research. These institutes were not of the type that we have here, because they were freer, even in Germany, from the sort of control that we have proposed here, Here and there an institute would develop and these institutes were built around an individual and, in the main, those institutes either collapsed or were re-absorbed in the university system when the individual for whom they were established had passed away.
A series of lectures was given dealing with universities and institutes, referring very specially to this particular scheme of institutes as developed in Prussia at that particular time. These lectures were afterwards expanded into a book and the person who lectured and who afterwards wrote the book said this when speaking of the disadvantages of research institutes:—
"The university has at hand a student body from which ‘novices and apprentices' may be drawn by professors who have had the opportunity to ascertain their merits .... Again in the complexity of modern science, there is no telling from what source the magic fact or the magic conception will come. The very breadth of the university increases its potential fertility".
He winds up in this way:—
"Far more hopeful, in my opinion, than the rapid multiplication of research institutes would be the freeing of existing universities from inhibitions and encumbrances, and their development into instruments competent to perform well their proper functions."
I suggest that that may be what is required here. It may be that there are certain of these rare geniuses in university life at present, that they are the sort of people to whom even a small amount of teaching is a distraction, and that they ought to be freed from that. I see no reason for attempting to break up the university scheme as we have known it and to take away from university people what were previously functions of theirs.
If this scheme is to be carried out, is it not incumbent to consider it from the point of view of its personnel? Who will be appointed to the new institute? Are they to be drawn from any university college? Will that university college be the same as it is now without these people? Will the university improve when these people are taken away from it? Will these people improve by being put in two or three houses in Merrion Square? Supposing the person in the physics section was still free—he is no longer free—would University College, Dublin, lose by being deprived of his services? Would the country gain by having him transferred from his university work to these two or three houses in Merrion Square? Are the people who are going to be transferred from the life of the university likely to be more or less indolent in the seclusion of two or three houses in Merrion Square? Are they going to lose anything by being deprived of what has been referred to as the stimulating touch with their own colleagues and the still more stimulating touch with students? These brilliant men are being taken from the place where they have made their reputations and where they had better opportunities than they are likely to get in the institute.
I put forward these arguments at this late stage, having had very little opportunity of consulting on this matter people who are in a much better position than I am to tell this House and the country what is the proper situation with regard to this institute. I think we have a definite source of complaint that touch was not made with these people; that they were not given an opportunity to express their views; and that from a body of informed opinion—because we have no informed opinion in this House on the matter—we should have the benefit of having someone with informed opinion produced in this House telling us what is the position with regard to these institutes elsewhere; what has been their fate, and what has been the fate of university colleges from which temporarily even some of these men were removed. On the information I have I feel bound to vote against the Bill, and if it goes through I should like to assert that, as far as I can at any time in the future, sway those in Government, I will try to get this institute brought back to the academic group from which it should never have been separated, and associate it with University College, Dublin.
We have gone through a very weird experience in dealing with this measure. Deputy McGilligan picked out in one respect some of the weirdness that one gets of a picture of the new research institute in Merrion Square—cobwebbed and gloomy—with people working there, I might say, without any sense of time; working on the boundaries of no knowledge as the Taoiseach suggested. I draw a brighter picture, because I consider the proposals here for the work intended are as sensible and as promising as if certain classes of experimental work for the propagation of plants, or for improving the soil were going to be taken away from the Albert College and carried on in some window-boxes in Merrion Square. The Bill was introduced in July last. Without seeing the light at all, the Taoiseach's remarks gave me a kind of sense of things to come, and I recalled in connection with the school for experimental physics the remarks of a great Frenchman on a particular occasion, when a change was being brought about that would take religious teaching out of the French schools and substitute physics, "that it was a pale flower without a root, but, perhaps, not without a perfume."
Certainly as far as the institute of experimental physics is concerned the description of the root is very close to the mark. We were to have the Taoiseach making the school of experimental physics a modest addition to render the picture rather complete and fairly representative, what the additional developments would be. It was easy to include it in that scope, because all that was wanted was an adequate library, the brains, the men, and the paper, but the paper shortage at the present time is nothing to the shrinkage that is taking place in the supply of men for this institute. Three men were to be available, but two are not now available, and one who is already in the country, and is working, is the sole remnant of the roots from which this institute was to be developed. I say that the experience has been weird. Only one voice has been raised in the House on the Government proposal dealing with the advancement of Celtic studies, and the restoration of the glorious name for mathematical qualities that our people held in the middle of the last century. The case has been presented as if the Taoiseach was a kind of shadowy spectre. He used a considerable amount of words subsequently in dealing with this matter, spoke rather of gestures and knobs, but not a single inspiring or illuminating word was spoken by him on what advanced Celtic studies meant to our people. Not an inspiring word was spoken by him as to what having our name held in respect throughout the whole world or being again a school of learning, including mathematics, would mean to our people.
If the Taoiseach is so wound up, and so devoted to re-establishing or developing a name for this country for learning that he can come in here without consulting any of the bodies Deputy McGilligan spoke of, as to the development of the institutions or what they are going to bring about, surely one might expect that we would have some inspiring appeal from him that would direct our views and warm our hearts as to what is possible if we get this institution working. Not an informative word has been spoken, and we are now left with a proposal to build up one of these institutes around a very eminent and a very distinguished scientist, no longer capable of pursuing his work in other countries, but happily whose services we are to have here. We are able to give him a home and able to allow him to pursue his work here and to take whatever advantage there is from pursuing that work in our midst and being in contact with people who can benefit by it. But to think that, because we have that advantage and that chance, we are to strip our universities of work that has been done, or of men working there, is simply a very haphazard proceeding. It has been pointed out by Deputy McGilligan that the men who were to form the foundation root of this institution were the product of universities, were working in universities, and in so far as the one person of the three connected with this country is concerned, that he was a product of our university, was working in our university, and would be a loss to our university system.
In respect of advanced Celtic studies, I think that the case made by Deputy McGilligan, that research benefits from contact with students, applies particularly. There is the other side to it, that in the institution where students are pursuing Celtic studies, the whole leaven of the work must inevitably be raised by the fact that they are in touch with the higher research work which is being done. Take advanced Celtic studies, remove them from the university and house them in a building away from the university, and you lower the standard of work being done in the university in Celtic studies. The fragrance of the advanced work that is to be done in an institution like this will mean very little to our country or our reputation if the normal pursuit of Irish studies amongst the normal class of student or the normal people of the country is slowed up. It will mean little to us if the result be the lowering of the standard, the impoverishment of the atmosphere in which the work of the university is being done or the retarding of the work of saving the language as a living language amongst our people.
The Taoiseach looks questioningly at me while I make these remarks. I ask the Taoiseach to explain to us, even at this late hour, what is going to be the effect on higher studies in the Irish language in the National University if the work dealing with even the preparation of grammars and other branches of higher study are to be put outside the walls of University College. No inspiring or warming contribution has been made as to what is to come from this work. On the other hand, in the manner outlined by Deputy McGilligan, you can strengthen the atmosphere of the university and bring about a livening of the university mind, which must inevitably pass itself quickly and rapidly to the students. Again, with a more stimulated intellectual development in the lower ranks of the university, you will get—and only in that way will you get—the soil that will produce men and women who will pursue those higher studies. The divorce of higher studies from university life will simply injure university work and make all the higher studies sterile, barren and fruitless.
I did not think that it was possible to have so much nonsense talked on a subject like this as I have been listening to for the past hour or so. It has been suggested that the university is going to be stripped of its functions in regard to research. One would imagine that we were going to say to the professors of the universities: "Thou shalt not continue research work." Where is the stripping? Is it not quite obvious that this institute will help to stimulate work in the universities, that it will enable some of the professors to do more research work than it has been possible for them to do up to the present? I was speaking to one of the professors of the National University the other day about this question. He said that one of the great boons of this institute would be that there would be immediately available to the professors up-to-date, direct knowledge with regard to development in certain branches of study which, if they themselves had to seek it and to master the literature appertaining to it, would take up their whole time. It is nonsense to say that this proposal will take away anything from the universities. It will be complementary to the research work being done in the universities.
Perhaps it would be well to take the the school of Celtic studies first, deal with it and then deal with the school of theoretical physics. With regard to the question of research, any professor in the universities can continue his own individual researches. He may have a student in the advanced classes to whom he will give a thesis on a particular line of investigation which that student would pursue for a year or two. That is the end of that matter so far as that student is concerned. The professor gets another student the next year and, if the particular line of research is not finished, he gets this student to pursue the same line. The result is that there is no continuity. If there were an arrangement by which a student like that would be kept on, you would have continuity. It is precisely that type of continuity which will be made possible by this institute. Deputy McGilligan would say: "Give it all over to us in our college and we will do it just as well". I do not think so. Suppose we wanted to set up a special branch of industrial research. Would we hand it over, say, to University College, Dublin? I know they could do it but it would not come ordinarily into their line of work and it would be very much better to have it carried out by an independent body. That would not mean a complete divorce from the work being done in University College. If the institution were doing its work properly, it would try to interest the professors in the branches with which it was dealing and get their co-operation. It would be a centre of co-operation for the particular branches in the university and the particular professors concerned, whether professor of chemistry, physics or engineering. In the same way, this institute will be able to organise work along special lines when these lines seem to indicate a possibility of fruitful advance. The first fundamental mistake is to suggest that you are taking away something from the universities. There is no function of the universities at the present time and there is no research work which it is possible for the professors in the universities to conduct at present which cannot be continued in the future. In fact, they will be enabled to conduct their work better by the establishment of this institute.
The only case of substance made up to the present is the case which suggests that whatever money is available—£15,000, £20,000 or £27,000— should be handed over to University College, Dublin, which would do better work than would be done by the institute. There, we shall have to agree to differ. I think that that is not so. We could have organised folklore research within the framework of University College, Dublin, but we did not do that because it was a definite piece of work which had to be supervised in a special way and we thought that an independent body would be the better body to deal with it.
When we were dealing with the publication of the Irish historical manuscripts we could, undoubtedly, have given the money that was devoted for that purpose to University College, Dublin, and we could have said to them: "You can get this work done through the professors as a part of the college work, within the college regulations and system." But that was not done. It was done in another form, in a way in which it was considered that it could be done more effectively. I believe, whether you talk about folklore or the manuscripts, these two ad hoc bodies did their work much more effectively than it would be done if it was brought into the ordinary college system.
In regard to the school of Celtic studies, there are two things to be done. There is, first of all, the making of this country the principle centre of Celtic studies in the world. The next thing that has to be done is this: there is a mass of material which is available and the work on which can be organised. I admit it is not always possible to organise research in a definite way. Sometimes when you are travelling along the by-paths you may come across the richest vein for development. It is possible, in regard to this question of working through a mass of material, to organise it, but the only people who can organise it are the people who have reached a certain eminence which enables them thoroughly to understand and supervise the editing of that material. That can be systematised and worked over a period of years. This school of Celtic studies can engage in the editing and production of that mass of material, which is of tremendous importance for the development of the language.
There is another work which could be systematically engaged in, and that is the production of improved dictionaries. That is a work which could be done over a period of years. Nobody will suggest that the Irish dictionaries in use are by any means complete. You can have a professor of eminence, a man who knows his work, continuously directing the improvement of these dictionaries and the production of new ones. The moment one edition is produced, the same band of workers could be set to work to improve that one and give us a newer edition. The same is true in regard to the question of Irish grammar. Not merely have middle and classical modern Irish to be examined and grammars made available for students, but there is great need of grammars of the language of the present day, dealing with the different dialects and so on. An individual professor in any one of the colleges can undertake that work. A university professor can spend his spare time arranging and compiling a grammar and he can give us an authoritative work. He would be working largely alone; he cannot have a number of workers with him constantly and you require the same workers if you want the work done effectively. Even the most advanced students will be passing out of his immediate control sooner or later.
In this institute it is possible so to arrange that you will have a continuity of assistants under direction in the examination of dialects, the production of grammars, the editing of texts, and so on. That is not going to prevent professors in the universities from giving to their students particular these in the treatment of texts. Many of these things could be organised in association with the institute. One would imagine from Deputies who have spoken that you were going physically to take away from the existing colleges all the work that they have been doing and that you were going to send the manuscripts and all concerned with them to some foreign country. It will really mean that the professors, if they want to come in contact with each other, will be able to do so in this city. That is one of the reasons why we made this City of Dublin the seat of the institute, because it is more likely that you will have the advanced scholars who are dealing with these things meeting in the City of Dublin.
You can have continuous work of an organised kind carried on. There are certain types of work which can definitely be organised. That organised type of research is not possible in the same way in the colleges as they exist at the moment. We could take the institute and put it in as a special section in University College and call it college work, but I think it will do its work better in a new atmosphere and surroundings. With regard to contact with students, of course there will be contact, but they will be students of the advanced type, students who will be working on the sort of work that the professors of the institute will be engaged in. You will have classes, but they will be very different from the classes you have in the university where a certain course has to be covered.
I am not thinking, as Deputy McGilligan seems to suggest, of the medical school. I am thinking of any of the faculties in the university and any of the branches of study. If you want to make a special study of a particular subject, you are not going to do it in the same way as if you have to cover a definite course. In every one of the years in the university there is a definite course to be covered. It is true that the professor indicates what the course is, and he can branch out on a particular line in which he is personally interested, but he knows that he cannot pursue that line, no matter how interesting it may be to himself, if he does not cover the definite ground-work which is necessary in order that the student may pass on to the next year of his course. I think the arguments used on the opposite side were most unreal and, if there was a unreal picture given of university life, it was not given by me.
The university that you described does not exist in the world.
I know the sort of work that is ordinarily done in a university. I was through the university just as well as Deputy McGilligan.
In 1910.
Do not try that game on me.
You have not been in contact with the university for 25 years.
I have been in contact with the universities directly and indirectly during all that time. I have had contact enough to know that I am talking in accordance with the facts.
Oh, yes that is the nightmare.
It is a nightmare as Deputy McGilligan wishes to picture it.
The Taoiseach could not stand before any academic body on it.
I shall stand before any academic body and say that the ordinary life of a student is that there is a definite course which it is necessary for him to follow; that he does that in one, two or three years and that the time he begins to do research work is after he gets an honours degree. It is then that he begins to do research work and that research work is very limited. That is a true picture of the position.
That is the professor's life.
Nobody is going to take away from the professor——
I am quite satisfied that there is no necessity for this thing at all and there are very much more pressing things to be done by the State.
It is not by bread alone a man lives.
To live he must get bread.
But a lot of bread comes as a result of this work.
This is not going to produce much bread.
Deputies opposite said that if £25,000 were to be given it should be handed over to the University College.
That is the sum total of it. This work will wither if it is not in contact with the university.
It will be in contact with the university. It is nonsense to say I have not been in consultation; I have not consulted any academic body as such, but I have been in consultation with the people who matter on this question. This scheme was put up as a result of a report by the Committee of Irish Studies in the Royal Irish Academy which consists of professors and others interested in Irish studies. This scheme itself embodies the recommendations which were put forward by that body. I have got nobody against it except political opponents. I have got nobody from University College or the University of Dublin to say a word against it.
We do not know whom the Taoiseach consulted.
I consulted the people who matter in those branches and I expected naturally that the political professors would oppose it. I was without any misapprehension in that regard. Before I started I knew the grounds on which it would be opposed. Anybody with commonsense would know that. The picture that has been painted here of this institute and of the way in which it would strip any university of research work which has been done by its professors is too absurd. As I say it will, in fact, stimulate and help research and it will provide for research what is now badly needed, that is men who will have the leisure to devote themselves to this advancement of knowledge and to inspire advanced students about them in the prosecution of their own individual research work. You have, naturally, research that you cannot organise and the type of research that you can. In the case of the work that lies before the Celtic studies school we have a type of research that can be well organised. It would be a great advantage to the nation if the work that lies there could be done. With regard to the school of theoretical physics the work there cannot be organised in precisely the same way, but a considerable organisation can be done. The director of that school will keep himself in touch with the work done by the individual professors of theoretical physics in the country and support that work. He will be able to help the professor or professors of theoretical physics from time to time as the result of the prosecution of the work of the individual professors of the school. They will give lectures occasionally in the colleges on particular branches. These would not be the sort of lectures that have to be given now in the undergraduates' course. There the professor has to start and lay the foundation of the subject, the classical forms and the rest of it. All that sort of work would have to be done before the students would come to the lectures which the professors of the institute would give. Otherwise the students would not be able to follow the lectures. It is possible that the public could come to these lectures. Sometimes a brilliant man may be able to put in nontechnical language the results of his investigations and a large public may possibly be able to understand, follow them and profit by them. Ordinarily that will not be the case. Ordinarily the professor will be dealing with some particular branch which only those specially qualified are likely to follow. These lectures will be open to everybody, but actually the number who will come there will be very few. You will be dealing with specialists for the most part. I cannot understand why Deputy McGilligan parses every statement I make. First there is the misrepresentation that you are taking away from the university something which it had up to the present.
The Taoiseach said that himself.
I do not mind what I said.
We know that.
It is possible that in some particular context I may have used a phrase which the Deputy could make use of to misrepresent what I have been saying. I say that the effect of this measure is that you are not taking away from the university any functions which they have at the moment. You are adding or supplementing opportunities for research work over and above those at present available in the university. By doing so you are going to stimulate and help whatever research work is at present being done there. The Deputy gave a wrong picture of the work of the professors. A few years ago there was a man who was ideally fitted for research work and he had to spend his time teaching a large class of first-year medical students. I do not think that anybody is going to tell me that that teaching was going to stimulate that professor in his own research work. Such a thing was most unlikely to happen. They have to do that work. Where were the lecturers, demonstrators, and so on? He was a professor of chemistry and he was ideally fitted for his research work, and he had done a great deal of research work already. What particular advantage was it to him to spend that particular hour teaching the students? There was no detachment. It is wrong to say that this will be detached——
Is the Taoiseach speaking of the late Professor Ryan?
Yes.
Surely he had detailed himself to this work and he did it of his own choice.
Because he was going to be examiner in the subject and he wanted to make sure probably that the right type of work was done.
Three-fourths of the work of the professor is done by the people under him.
I do not know what was done. I know that thing had happened. I think myself it was a waste of time so long as that particular man was capable of doing tremendous work in another direction, work that had to be done.
Now, as I have said, it is a wrong picture to make these men appear as if they were going to be in cobwebby rooms with no contact with other human beings or with other scholars or professors. They will be in constant contact with professors and with people of the type most likely to stimulate them—the advanced student. There will be another value to the university, and it is this: that it will be provided, through an institute like this, with the new professors who will be required and will be available. One or two professors may be taken away from a particular college, or a particular university, but they will be available for the country as a whole, including the universities. Their places will be filled by other people, and it is much better that their places should be filled by other people in their own lifetime than that they should be filled when they are dead. They would have to be filled some time. It is not as if they were going to live for ever. You are providing, therefore, for a natural succession by having an institute of this sort.
As I have said, I was surprised that there should be this opposition. The only real ground for it is that there is a sum of money being made available, and apparently it is thought that sum should be made available for University College here. That is what the opposition comes to.
And that argument is made for politics.
I say it is interesting that the first to make it should be a political professor.
What is a political professor?
Is the Taoiseach referring to myself?
One who is interested in politics, and interested in opposition.
Is the Taoiseach referring to me?
I am.
Was I the first to oppose it?
The Deputy was the first person to oppose it on the grounds that have been made here.
The first person to oppose it at all?
The first person I heard opposing it, and I anticipated this. The Deputy said that if ever there was a chance again, he was going to grip it, and put it into University College.
But I gave my reasons.
The Deputy gave the same reasons that he is giving now.
Is Deputy McGilligan's statement a statement or a promise?
It does not matter very much whether it is a statement or a promise, but he may find that if the time ever did come, if he ever got into the position in which he could do it, he may not be able to do it.
Why?
Because if it justifies itself, as I am hoping it will justify itself, he would not dare lay his hands on it. If it does not justify itself it will not be our fault. We will have given it the opportunity, and if it does not justify itself well and good. It will be up to those who will be put in charge to do that. They will be given an excellent opportunity for doing very valuable work. If those appointed do not avail of that opportunity, we cannot help that. It will be to the advantage of every university institution in the country that this opportunity should be given. If the school of Celtic studies functions properly, not merely will this mass of work be systematically gone through over a period of years, but we will have coming here from different countries students and future professors in those countries who may be interested in Celtic studies. If he institute does not flower to that promise, well, again, it will not be our fault.
In the same way with regard to theoretical physics. The men who will be in charge of this school are of such eminence that they ought to attract from different countries special students, and ought to give to our own students and professors here excellent opportunities of becoming fit successors to these. It is natural that it is from the universities we should get the material for the professors. The point has been made that the professors in the new institute will be people who themselves had done certain work in the universities. There is no particular point in that. It is the natural place to get them from. We will have them here, and we hope that they will be succeeded by people who, perhaps, will have been trained by themselves.
I think that on the last occasion the Taoiseach told me that one of the professors had served in an institute before.
I say that it is not easy to get people who are in those institutes to leave them. It is extremely difficult. I hope that, when we have our professors in this institute, they will not leave it either.
I simply want to correct a statement that was made on the Third Stage. I asked if any of the three, so far as the school of theoretical physics is concerned, had ever done any period of work anywhere in any country except in a university, and the Taoiseach told me that he thought so.
I am not so sure about that.
I thought it was quite certain that two of them had never been in any place except a university. There was a question about the third.
With regard to one, the work that he has been doing for a number of years has been more of the institute character than of the university character.
All I asked was if any of the three had ever been in an institute of this kind.
I want to answer the question so that it will not lead to misrepresentation of the actual position. With regard to one, the work that he has been doing for a number of years is, as I have said, more of the institute character than that of the ordinary professor in the university. With regard to the third, I am not sure whether his work for some time has not been more of the institute character than of the university character. I have not examined the thing fully, and I was answering from such knowledge as I had got.
All that I was interested to know was whether any of these men had ever been in what is called an institute, but not a university. I think the answer is "no."
The Deputy says the answer is "no."
I have been told that.
I do not want to say "no," if I am not sure.
Can the Taoiseach name the institute?
I do not want to go into names too much, but I believe that, as regards one of them, his work has been definitely more of the institute character than of the ordinary professor character.
But in a university?
Associated with a university if the Deputy wants it that way.
That is all we are questioning. But is that not so?
I have given my answer, and it is a more correct answer than the Deputy's answer simply of "no". So far as the Opposition is concerned, whatever the parsing or the representations of university life and of the work that university professors do, I have not for one moment said that university professors do not undertake a certain amount of research work. It would be almost impossible for them to do their work if they do not do some research work, but I do say that they have not the same opportunity for continuous research work—of having the assistance and direction, for instance, of a number of professors—that they will have in this institute. As I have said, it can all be summed up in this way: that this is being opposed on one simple ground. It all boils down to this simple idea, that there is a certain sum of money available and that that money ought to be used in such a way that the work could be done by University College, Dublin. That is my summing up of the whole objection. I believe that the foundation of this institute will help University College, Dublin, and will help Trinity College and the other colleges in the country; that it will stimulate research in these colleges and provide a succession of competent professors for them; and that the money will be better spent in this particular way than by simply handing it over to the universities.
The Taoiseach suggests that the opposition to this measure——
The Deputy may ask a question, but may not reply to the concluding statement of the Taoiseach.
I should like to ask the Taoiseach how he makes out that, because there is £25,000 or so available for this, and that the giving of this work to the National University would bring that money to the National University, it is Party politics to argue that the work should go to the National University?
I asked if the Taoiseach would give some further examples of places where institutes were established. So far we have been told of none except Kharkov and Copenhagen. Will the Taoiseach give us even three more examples?
I have some here, but I am sure I could get a much better selection. There is Professor Krogh's Institute of Physiology in Denmark. There is the State Serum Institute, also in Denmark. Then there is the Finsen Institute, devoted to research into the biological effect of light, which, I think, is in Denmark. Then you have the Carlsberg Foundations Biological Institute, also in Denmark. In Finland you have some institutions; I would not call them institutes because I do not know their organisation. I do not know the particular work that is being done by them, so I would not like to include these. In answer to the question, I might say that the fact is that it is recognised that specialist work of this sort has to be organised outside the ordinary university scheme. In Great Britain alone there are dozens of institutes of one kind or another doing special research work.
Give the names.
At the moment I cannot give the names. For instance, you have the National Physical Laboratory. That is State organised work. You might as well say that that should be organised in connection with a university. There are a number of these in various specialised branches of research and it is almost inevitable that they should spring up.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 46; Níl, 24.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Fogarty, Patrick J.
- Friel, John.
- Fuller, Stephen.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- Kelly, James P.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Loughman, Francis.
- McCann, John.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Carty, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Crowley, Tadgh.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Flynn, John.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Mullen, Thomas.
- Munnelly, John.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Loghlen, Peter J.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Rice, Brigid M.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Laurence J.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Conn.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George O.
- Benson, Ernest E.
- Brasier, Brooke.
- Broderick, William J.
- Byrne, Alfred (Junior).
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John A.
- Dockrell, Henry M.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, John L.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Hickey, James.
- Hughes, James.
- Hurley, Jeremiah.
- Keating, John.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McGovern, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Sullivan, John M.
- Pattison, James P.
- Reynolds, Mary.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Smith and Kennedy; Níl, Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.