n afford to
do so, send their sons increasingly to Oxford or Cambridge, and Trinity,
which has not known how to create a true and special function for
itself, is becoming merely a cheap substitute for these English
institutions. And the reason for this is a moral reason which goes to
the root of many questions connected with Irish education. Should Irish
schools and colleges seek to educate citizens for the Empire, or
citizens for Ireland? During the last half century, while the
Imperialist idea has been developing in England, Trinity has thrown all
its moral weight into support of that idea. But the Imperialist idea in
England is very different from the same idea as viewed in Canada or New
Zealand or Australia; and universities in these countries address
themselves particularly to local needs. In the section of Ireland which
Trinity represents, local patriotism is held to conflict with Imperial
patriotism, and one has to observe that Trinity's Imperialism is
forwarding tendencies which are leaving her drained. Nationalists may
respect the sincerity of convictions so pressed in defiance of a local
interest; but a university, whose main emotional appeal is directed
towards evoking primarily an enthusiasm for England, cannot be of much
use to Nationalist Ireland. Catholics may (and do) respect the
thoroughness of the religious teaching, and the strong grip which
Protestantism keeps on the university; but a university which
inculcates morals through a Protestant religion is not precisely
suitable to Catholics. Yet Catholics and Nationalists alike infinitely
prefer a university or a college or a school with strong Protestant
beliefs, or strong Imperialist patriotism, to an institution with
neither beliefs nor patriotism at all. The colourless and merely
scholastic ideals of the Queen's Colleges, and the huge examining
machinery known as the Royal University, typified in their total lack of
moral influences all that was worst in the educational system under
which Ireland labours.

I pass to a brief examination of the boarding schools, institutions
which have never flourished in Ireland. Nearly all Protestants and many
Catholics, if they can afford it, send their sons to England to be
taught. The ideals of the English Public School have reacted so strongly
upon Irish Protestant schools that nothing need be said of these--not
one of which has ever, within living memory, had a continuous
prosperity. The important Catholic scho