The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-25 00:00:00

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4d.
STA ATI'ED sd.

rems behind. On the right land side from the
entrance, about half-way down, is a pulpit, and im-
mediately below it was erected a canopy and throne
for the Chancellor, his Eminence Cardinal Cullen.
Opposite to it was a small side door conitnunic iting
with the principal building, which was origieally a
p.-ivateoinansion, and, though very large, would be
w.itolly inadequate for the purposes of a university
ith'ending to hold a high rank or receive a large
uui aber cif stn lents. At 3 o'clock visitors began to
asse.nble, and the seats below the gallery were soon
anea by a respectable assembly, consisting chiefly
of ladie,;, Roman Catholic clergymen, and some lay-
men. The gallery overhead was occupied by the
junior students and by a numerous chorus and or-
chestra. Shortly after 3 o'clock the tinkling of a
bell was heard, and in a few minutes afterwards the
Cardinal entered at the side door, followed by a train
of prelates, together with the rector and professors.
The ecclesiastical dignitaries were arrayed in their
episcopal robes, the Cardinal, of course, in scarlet,
the attendant bishops in purple, except one, who
represents an Indian diocese, and wore a black robe,
and the rector and professors in their academic
gowns. The Cardinal took his seat on the chair of
state, with the prelates on each side, and the pro-
fessors ascended the dais. The Lord Mayor locum
tenens, his secretary, and a few others appeared in
the reserved places, but the vacant lines of easy
chairs, in vain offering temptation to occupant°,
showed too visibly that few, indeed, of the "distin-
guished visitors," for whom they are reported to have
been placed, had come to do honour to the ceremony.
If the ecclesiastics had been withdrawn the empty
benches would have been more painfully manifest.
The following prelates were present :—.His Grace
the Most Rev. Dr. Kiernan, Lord Archbishop of
1! Armagh, and Primate of All Ireland ; the Most
Revs. Dr. Leahy, Lord Bishop of Dromore ; Dr.
Walsh, Lord Bishop of Ossory ; Dr. Walshe, Lord
Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin ; Dr. Delany, Lord
Bishop of Cork ; Dr. Keane, Lord Bishop of
1 Cloyne ; Dr. Derry, Lord Bishop of Clonfert ; Dr.
M'Gettigan, Lord Bishop of Raphoe ; and Dr.
Kelly, Lord Bishop of Derry .
A long overture, composed for the occasion by Mr.
Croft, having been performed by the orchestra after
the Cardinal had taken his seat, the Rev. Dr. Wood-
lock, the rector, delivered the inaugural address. lie
plunged at once into the question of the time—the
claims of the University to a charter, and, quoting
the words of Cardinal Cullen's pastoral, said that he
concurred in the observation that no other explana-
tion could be offered for the " strange anomaly"
that the institution was denied legal recognition,
except the fact that it was Catholic. In 50 years
hence, perhaps in 20, it would be thought incredible
' that the present state of University education should
have been allowed to exist so long. He contrasted
its position with that of other inAitutions whose
history he traced, beginning with Trinity College :
"By force and chicanery, and especially by the
help of strangers, and by the action of a Govern-
ment whose misrule is now admitted on all hands,
a fraction of the nation, less than one-ninth of it,
usurped the chief education of the country. It is
now some three hundred years since that usurpation
was consummated, and since Queen Elizabeth
founded in this metropolis of our Catholic country
the University of Dublin, to be the bulwark of Pro-
testantism, and an effectual engine for the mainte-
nance of the educational ascendancy of the favoured
class. At the close of the last century, when it was
thought the Catholics of Ireland were sufficiently
degraded in mind and had become very helots in
thought and feeling, our proud Protestant school-
mistress condescended to open her door to such
' Papists' as would. knock at it and ask admittance—

" ' In bondman's koy,

" With 'bated breath and whispering humbleness."
This concession may have been accepted with thanks
at a time when for Catholics, so long accustomed to
feel the utmost severity of the penal laws, the day
of freedom was just beginning to dawn. But it
does seem incrediNe that 70 years after that time,
and nearly 40 years after emancipation, which
theoietically declared us equal to our Protestant
fellow-countrymen, we should be told that now
for the first time the existence of the Dublin Uni-
versity has been put forward as an Irish grievance ;
that there is not an Irishman who is not proud of
that institution as it stands, and who would not be
sorry to see it altered or overthrown ; that it has
taken hold of the great affections of the great body
of the people, and that no feeling against it exists
on the part of any portion of the population.' This
is said to us by the very defender of Trinity College,
who in the same place tells us that the institution
was founded originally for Protestant purposes, and
maintained an essentially Protestant character ever
since, and that the most important and 'valuable
professorships and scholarships must bo held by
members of the Church of England. Arguing a
priori, it would seem impossible that 40 years after
the Emancipation Act such a state of things coal('
exist in Ireland ; it would seem impossible that a
handful of Protestant clergymen should still be al-
lowed to monopolise the Government and the chief
part of the teaching in an institution which is put
forward by its admirers as the National University
of Catholic Ireland. Would Catholic France allow
such a state of things ? Would Protestant England
permit a few Catholic priests thus to rule its educa-
cation even for a day ? And shall we be told that it
is no grievance for Irish Catholics to be obliged to
recur to Protestant clergymen for the higher branches
of their education ?"

Ile next referred to the Queen's University and
Queen's Colleges, which, he admitted, were founded
to meet these inconveniences ; but the founders, he
observed, " had reckoned without their host," and
now, after 20 years, they were unable to enter the
place they would have occupied "if they had been
differently constituted, and even their friends pro-
claim them a failure." No wonder that the Chief
Secretary for Ireland, the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, and Mr. Gladstone declared that university
education was in an unsatisfactory position and
desired to see the question settled. He then stated
the expectations which they entertained in the fol-
lowing suggestive paragraph :--
"It is admitted, then, upon all hands, that our
claims aro just; and the Catholics of Ireland expect
that during the present receEs her Majesty's Go-
vernment will arrange the details of a measure by
which we may be put on all equality with all other
classes, and may reap the advantages of university
education. This cannot be done otherwise than by
granting a charter to this institution, and by en-
couraging the cultivation of science in its halls by a
suitable endowment."
He thought it unreasonable that they should be
asked to give external guarantees which were not
required from other universities, but if they
were "left perfectly free in educating the Ca-
tholic youth" they were willing to give every
reasonable guarantee that their teaching would
be in every way worthy of a University. The gua-
rantee was, in fact, found in the character of other
distinguished professors who bad given proofs of
the excellence of their teaching. Ho referred to
instances of numerous medical officers iu the army
and navy who had studied iu their school of
medicine, and of one of their students in letters
and science who recently gained the sixth place in
mathematics among 304 candidates for the Indian
Civil Service. lie then proceeded to reply to the
able report of the President of the Queen's College,
Galway, who, he said, had arrived at strange con-
clusions by reasoning still more strange. Mr. Ber-
wick had attributed the falling of iu the Queen's
Colleges to the policy of the late Government, but
it was strange, if the colleges were so popular, that
" when these fundamental principles were assailed"
their friends, instead of rallying round them, fled ;
strange that love so intense. should
_have been Bo
easily shaken, especially as,.under the regulation of
the Senate, under the Supplemental Charter,
tat privileges view granted to 04 btu-


//tL„. z.

dents of the Queen's Colleges. In reply to the
argument that degrees could be obtained from the
London University, he " protested against the
spirit which would bid our country content herself
without a centre of national thought, and send our
youth for University honours to an English Univer-
sity, telling them to ignore their country." But
if the argument were good, what necessity for the
Queen's University itself? and why did not the
Colleges, for the stke of peace, resign their paltry
privileges if they were nothing worth, and .;end
their students to that other University ? Mr. Ber-
wick asked how it happened that the students who
left the Queen's Cullego:i (LI nut go to the Catholic
University. They left becatis'i they did not like
the institutions, and they hoped to obtain Uni-
versity privileges elsewhere, and they
,did not
enter the Catholic University because their hopes
were not realised. With respect to the charge
of being a " sectarian institution," he observed
that Protestant students were not excluded
front their medical lectures, but they would
stand firm on one point—they would have no pro-
fessors in any department save those whose
principles they knew to be in accordance with the
teaching of the Catholic Church. As regards the
decrease in the number of their students, it was not
so considerable as Mr. Berwick supposed. The num-
bers given for their session of 1863-61 he confessed
might not have been accurate, owing to the diffi-
culty of obtaining accurate returns in an unrecog-
nised institution. Besides, they had in that session
evening classes, which they afterwards thought it
desirable to suspend, and it should also be remem-
bered that in that year, owing to well-known
changes in the medical schools of Dublin, they had
a greater number of students than in subsequent,
years. But what was to be said of the want of
sympathy for denominational education on the part
of the laity ? To that question he replied in the
concluding passages of bis address :

" I shall merely remind you that the number of
students in our halls must depend entirely on the
advantages we can offer to youths and to their
parents and guardians ; that there is no religiou4
obligation to enter the Catholic university ; that f,llO
religious obligation is limited to the duty of nrie in.
curring the risk of Catholic faith and mows in-
volved in frequenting the mixed, or Protestant col-
leges ; that, as long as legal recognition is refused
to the Catholic university, the advantages we can
offer are no other than those given by an able staff
of professors, who have proved their efficiency by
the success of their pupils, whose erudition is known
throughout all the learned societies of Christendom,
and is confessed, as Mr. Berwick is our witness,
even by our opponents ; that, in fine, the argument
of those who cast in our face the smallness of our
numbers is precisely similar to that used in times
gone by by other enemies of Ireland and of Ire-
land's faith, who made it penal for Irish Catholics
to acquire knowledge, and then upbraided them
with being ignorant. I conclude, and in doing so
I adopt in part the thought of the learned president.
The laity of Ireland have read the history of their
country ; our rulers, too, have, I hope, read the his-
tory :of Ireland, and begin to see, what we have
long known and felt, that the attempt to force upon
us educational systems not according with our reli-
gious sentiments, as well as every other attempt to
maintain ascendancy and to hinder equality by impos-
ing civil disabilities for religions opinions has been
a full and constant source of misery to Ireland ;
it has blighted every policy, however wise or good,

_ .
and that as long as there remains a particle of the

old ascendancy, politital, or educational, so long wo
shall be a divided, and, consequently, a misgoverned
people. Let us hope, however, the day is not
distant when every vestige of ascendancy, every
cause of disunion being removed, the poet's vision
may be realised of our common country, when—.

"'Like the rainbow's light,
Her various tints unite,
And form in Heaven's sight
One arch of peace.' "

The choir next performed part of the ode com-
posdd in celebration of Cardinal Cullen's return to

Ireland in his now rank, after which the secretary-,
Mr. Scrattan, read the names of the successful cad-
didates and the prizes awarded to them, comprising
two exhibitions and 12 class prizes for the winter
session of 1866-7, and one gold medal and ten class
prizes for the summer session of 1867. There was
also one prize for Latin verse, for Latin prose, and
two for Greek prose. The cardinal invested the
solitary student with the gold medal, and the re-
mainder of the ode was then sung. The perform-
ances elicited warm plaudits.
Cardinal Cullen brought the proceedings to a
close in a short address. He was not at all surprised,
he said, that the University had to encounter difli-
__

culties. Fo great institution could be brought to
perfection in a short time. The Catholic LTniver.
fifty was progressing gradually and slowly, but he
trusted that in the end it would be " what the peo-
ple of Ireland desired—a great centre of education

and a great means of raising up the name and the
fame of this old country." Other colleges, too, had
difficulties to contend with first. They all knew, he
said, how rich Trinity College was at present. It
had its 200,000 acres of land, and a vast amount of
money, in the shape of supplies. But in the first few
) ears OA its existence that University made no pro-
gress, and he thought he had read in the history of
Irelatid that 50 or 60 years after the University had
been founded it was reduced to sueh straits that it

had to subsist upon donations given by the sol-
diers. in Ireland. They should not be surprised,
then, that the Catholic University should get on
61.0 Wry. On the contrary, they should be surprised
that it had made such- progress. Its cause was a
great and glorious ono. Its great object was "to
prevent the spread of bad education and to promote
good education in the country." Ile referred to the
conduct of the students at Liege and Ghent as a

warning. Good education consisted in a knowledge
of religion, in attachment to religion, and in being
able to discharge the duties of whatever station a
young man was called to do in this world, and that
was what the professors of the Catholic University
sought to give. Such an institute deserves every
assistance and encouragement from the country,
and ho was sure the people of Ireland would con-
tinue to assist it as far as they could. His Emin-
ence, the prelates, and professors then left the
church, while the orchestra played a masch, and the
assembly dispersed.

his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin held his an-
nual visitation of the rural parishes of the diocese

in Christ Church Cathedral. At the close of the

usual service, a sermon was preached by the Rev.
L. B. Strene, M.A., rector of Delgany. The sub.-

ject of his discourse was the duty of pastors, by
attention to the details of their ministerial office, to
retain the confidence of their people.

P. O'Brien and J. Brien, who were charged some
days since with having arms concealed in a house in
Francis-street, were again brought up before the
magistrate at the head police-office yesterday.
Brien, who is an old man, was liberated on bail.
O'Brien was committed for trial at the Commission
which will commence on Friday. The calendar is
rather heavy, and includes the names of the follow-
ing prisoners, who are to be tried for being members
of the Fenian conspiracy, and engaged in treason-
able practices :—Generals 0. Fariola, W. Halpin,
IV. Nagle ; Cul. J. Warren, A. E. Costello, W. C.
Nugent, P. Nugent, 1). Lee, D. O'Connor, R. Kelly,
T. Frewhan, F. Fitzgibbon, P. Kane, J. Roonoy,
M. Fitzgerald, M. J, Greene, IV. Sheehan, J. Har-
ley, L. Doyle, A. Dowling, J. Murray, J. Llwlss,
1. Cade, P. Cogan, M. Walsh, I'. Roche, J. Fitz-
simons, and A. Leonard. it is understood the
Fenian cases will not be proceeded with until the
28th inst.

THE SHERIFFS FOR ENGLAND AND `VALES.The
Judges will assemble in the Court of Exchequer on the 12th
of November to nominate tho sheriffs for England and
Wales.

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