UNIVERSITIES
199
UNIVERSITIES
Church a large number of priests and several bish-
ops. Two archbishops and two other bishops
are still living. The late Dr. Cameron, Bishop of
Antigonish, and Dr. MacNiel, late Archbishop of Van-
couver, are among the presidents whose learning,
ability, and zeal have, despite many disadvantages,
rendered service to the cause of Cathohc education
in Eastern Canada. The present Bishop of Victoria,
Rt. Rev. Dr. Alexander MacDonald, w'as for nineteen
years one of the professors.
A. J. G. MacEchen.
B. University of Si. Joseph's College. — Memram- cook. New Brunswick, Canada, founded in 1864 by Rev. Camille Lefebvre, C.S.C. The institution owes its inception partly to the desire of the late Bishop Sweeny, of St. John, N. B., to secure for the youth of his diocese the advantages of a secondary education, partly to the zeal of the Rev. F. X. Lafrance, pastor of Memramcook (lS52-f54), for the intellectual devel- opment of the French Acadians entrusted to his care. The college was incori)orated, with degree-conferring powers, by an Act of the New Brunswick Legislature in 1868; and, thirty years later, by an amendment to that act, it received its present title. In addition to the faculties of arts and theology, commercial courses in English and French have always occupied a well- defined place in the curriculum. It is mainly owing to St. Jo.seph's that within the past half-century the French inhabitants of Canada's maritime provinces have steadily advanced to a position of acknowledged social, industrial, and professional eciuality with their fellow-provincialists of other racial descent. Scarcely less notable ha.s been St. Joseph's role in furthering the interests, enlarging the prospects, and elevating the ideals of New Brunswick's English- speaking Catholics. At present, practically all the priests of the Diocese of St. John, including its bishop, arc sons of New Brunswick and graduates of St. .loseph's; other graduates hold prominent rank in commerce, law, medicine, the Provincial Legislature, and the Federal Parliament.
SORIN, CiTrular Letters (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1880) ; Poibier, Lc Pire Le/ebtre el VAcadie (Montreal, 1898); St John Globe (anniversao* number, 13 Dec, 1911).
Arthur Barry O'Neill.
Ireland. — A. Catholic University of Ireland. — The project of a Catholic ITniversity for Ireland was launched at the SjTiod of Thurles in IS.iO. To revive true learning was es.sential for the well-being of Irish Catholics; the suggestion of Pius IX and the example of Louvain were inspiring; and, above all, it was necessary to provide a seat of higher education on Catholic hues for lay students who kept away from the condemned Queen's Colleges, where religion had no official or collegiate recognition and the governing and academic bodies, as regards Cork and Galway, were foreign to the religious convictions of the people they were intended to educate. The Holy See gave approval in 18.'>2; liberal contributions poured in, and property was acquired in Dublin for university pur- poses. The bishops had secured John Henry Newman as rector for a short term of years. At their meeting in May, 18.54, the hierarchy gave solemn effect to the papal letters regarding the erection of the university. On the Feast of Pentecost following Dr. Newman took the oath of office at a function in the metropoli- tan church, where .Vrchbishop Cullen delivered an address. Statutes, framed for the government of the university, were sanctioned by the Holy See; papal authority was granted to confer degrees; and in No- vember of the same year the work of the university began. The Irish hierarchy, acting through a com- mittee, constituterl the supreme governing body. Among its authorities the senate was the body repre- sentative of the university; and the rectorial council was the rector's ordinary adviser. The university
had five faculties, viz. — theology, law, medicine, phi-
losophy and letters, science. Newman was careful
to secure the services of various distinguished men as
professors and lecturers. The first appointments to
professional chairs comprised the names of Edmund
O'Reilly, S. J., Dr. P. Leahy, Eugene O'Curry, T. W.
.Vllies, and D. F. McCarthy; and gradually a consid-
erable number of students, including some in high
rank, from different European countries, began to
frequent the halls of the new university. But the
institution itself and its students laboured under the
greatest disadvantages. The university had no char-
ter from the State to confer degrees, nor were its lec-
tures recognized elsewhere in Ireland as leading to a
degree. It had to depend entirely on voluntary con-
tributions for its revenue. In the immediate issue
these obstacles were not to be adequately surmounted
even by the fame and genius of Newman, the emi-
nence of the professors, the devoted loyalty of Irish
students, and the constant efforts of the bishops.
But the determination of Irish Catholics produced
highly important results. The Government, con-
fronted with their standing protest, after a time
deemed it expedient to attempt to deal with their
grievance in the matter of university education. The
Liberal plan of a Supplemental Charter, incorporating
the Catholic University as a college, not as a univer-
sity, and enabling the students educated in its halls to
obtain degrees from an enlarged Queen's University,
failed in 1866; the Conservative scheme of chartering
an unendowed Catholic university was announced,
considered, and abruptly withdrawn in 1868; Mr.
Gladstone's proposal of one Irish universitj', com-
prising Catholic and other colleges without public
endo-mnent as well as Trinitj^ College and two of the
Queen's Colleges with their endowments continued,
was defeated in 1873 by an adverse majority of three
votes in the House of Commons. But in 1879, on the
second reading of a L'niversity BiU introduced by the
O'Connor Don, the Beaconsfield administration
announced that they would themselves introduce a
University BiU for Ireland; and the promised Bill
became an Act of Parliament in that year. It
aboUshed the Queen's L^niversity, while sparing its
colleges, and set up in its place the Royal ITniversity
of Ireland, an examining body entitled to give degrees
to all comers on condition of passing the prescribed
examinations, and to award prizes for distinguished
answering. ^loreover, an arrangement was made to
provide a small indirect endowment to helj) the work
of the Catholic University through fellowships to be
held by a certain number of its professors.
It was for the purpose of arranging the Cathohc colleges of higher education in an associated group, to stand against the endowed Queen's Colleges in the competition of the Royal University, that the fr.ame- work of the Catholic University was considerably modified in 1882. In that year the teaching institu- tion in St. Stephen's Green became University C'ollege and the Catholic University, of which Maynooth since 1876 had been constituted a college, w;is made to embrace an association of colleges, each retaining its own independent collegiate organization. The suc- cess of the Catholic colleges cleared the way for Mr. Birrell's University .\ct in 1909. University College, under the management of the Jesuits from ISS.'?. gave a fine lead in conjunction with the Catholic University School of Medicine. This school, which in 1S92 was placed imder a governing body of its own, had been founded by the bishops in 18.5.'i in Cecilia St., Dublin, and, unendowed though it was, had been a success from the start, owing to the advantage it enjoyed, in that its teaching was recognizerl as qualifying a student to stand the examinations for a licence to practi.se. It now merges, like University College, in the new University College, Dublin, which is the leading constituent college of the National Univer-
