Studies in higher education in Ireland and Wales, with suggestions for universities and colleges in the United States

Front matter

DEPARTN4ENT OF THE INTERIOR BUREAU OF EDUCATION

BULLETIN, 1917, No. 15

ITUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN IRELAND AND WALES

Chapter I. The Dublin University, Trinity College: A variant of the Cambridge type of college and university 11

Monopoly of higher education in Ireland 12

An early leader in university reforms I3

Recent distinctive features I3

Attempts to make Trinity a constituent college in a larger University of

Dublin or of Ireland 18

Mssion of an endowed university side by side with State-supported institutions 2g

Chapter II. The Catholic University: Its occasion jg

Newman's Adsion of an Irish university 20

Newman's plan of university government 21

Pathos of Newman's seven years of rectorship 22

Story of "Newman's university " since his day 23

Coalescence of the Catholic University with the National University 24

Chapter VI. The Queen's University of Belfast: Royal Belfast Academical Institution 52

\'ariations in statutes from those of the National University. . , 53

Agreement with Municipal Technical Institute 53

Arrangement with Royal College of Science 54

Tutorial classes and university extension 54

Chair of education 54

Faculty of commerce 55

Student's representative council 55

Pension scheme 55

Buildings 56

Chapter VII. The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction: Its origin 58

Irish Agricultural Organization Society 59

The department bound up with coordinating bodies 60

The Royal College of Science 60

The Albert Agricultural College, Glasnevin 63

The policies of the department 63

Chapter VIII. Movements preparatory for the University of Wales

The crown of an ancient, of a religious, and of a modern movement 66

Establishment of the university retarded 68

Aberystwyth, the pathfinder 68

Cardiff 70

Bangor 73

Cooperation of the colleges coincident with school and local government

legislation 74

Renewed movement for the creation of the university 75

Chapter IX. The University of Wales: The preparation of the charter 76

A confederation of colleges 77

A university on wheels 77

The university authorities 78

Qualifjing schemes of study 79

Theological instruction and colleges 79

Degrees in education and training of teachers 80

Supplementary charter 81

The three constituent colleges in the university's formative period 83

Chapter X. The Royal Commission and educational problems confronting it: The occasion for the appointment of the commission 89

Appointment of commission and ' ' terms of reference " 90

Problems brought out by the Moseley Commission and Principal ReicheL. 91

Proposed municipal university at Cardiff 96

CONTENTS. 5

Chapter X — Continued. Page.

Problems emerging in the report of the Treasury's ad\dBory committee,

1908 93

Some recommendations of advisory committees of 1914 95

A specimen solution suggested by a Welsh leader 95

Problems of organization, ' ' separationists " and federalists 96

Resolutions of various bodies 97

Proposed educational reforms 98

Relation of ' ' institutions pro\dding education of a post-secondary nature " . 99

Movement for the coordination of education 100

Chapter XI. Summary of studies and suggestions 101 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

Department or the Interior,

Bureau of Education, Was/migton, March 10, 1917.

Sir: Because the changes in tendencies and ideals in higher education in Great Britain and the consequent changes in the curriculum and the details of administration in colleges and universities within the last few years contained so much of general interest for higher education in the United States, in 1913 I commissioned Dr. George Edwin MacLean, formerly president of the State University of Iowa, to make a careful first-hand study of the newer features of these institutions and to prepare a report on them for this bureau. This study was made by Dr. MacLean, with the generous cooperation of university and college officials, between 1913 and 1915. The report thus includes an account of progress until the beginning of the present war. I recommend that this report be published as bulletins of the Bureau of Education under the titles Studies in Higher Education in England and Scotland and Studies in Higher Education in Ireland and Wales.

Respectfully submitted.

P. P. Claxton,

Co7nmi88ione7\ The Secretary of the Interior.

STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN IRELAND AND WALES.

Introduction

This study represents an endeavor to point out facts and tendnecies in higher education in Ireland and Wales by which American universities and colleges may profit. It complements similar studies in England and Scotland,^ and presupposes familiarity with the principal features and terminology of these studies.

The compiler of the bulletin visited some 20 institutions ^ of like type with those in England and Scotland and for the most part modeled after them. Similar historical, religious, and political forces have been at work in them. In all of these institutions religion begat the beginnings and ecclesiastical zeal has asserted itself. Royal commissions and acts of Parliament have successively played no small part. The influences of the industrial age and of imperialism have been much less than in England and Scotland. The strength of nationalism has been much greater, and consequently the aspiration for a national system of education, crowned by a State-aided university, has been stronger. Notable differences may be attributed to the predominance of Celtic blood, traditions of a pre- Saxon culture, political domination by what was long considered a foreign power, comparative isolation due to geographical position, and the limitation of industry largely to agriculture and mining.

Contrary to the common saying that educational movements proceed from above downward, in both Ireland and Wales the establishment of lower school systems has prepared the way for founding the universities. In both the State has largely supplanted voluntary schools with its own. The clannish character of the Celt, much less

1 studies in Higher Education in England and Scotland, with Suggestions for Universities and colleges in the United States. Bulletin, 1917, No. 16.

2 University of Dublin (Trinity College); National University ■ of Ireland (University College, Cork; University College, Galway ; University College, Dublin) ; The Queen's Uni versity of Belfast ; Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland ; Albert Agricultural College, Glasnevin ; Royal College of Science for Ireland, Dublin; National Museum, Dublin; National Library, Dublin; I'lunkett House, Dublin (headquarters of tho Irish Agricultural Organization Society, and Cooperative Reference Library) ; Alexandra College and School, Dublin ; Tyrone House, Dublin (Commission of National Education in Ireland) ; Royal Belfast Academical Institution ; Municipal Technical Institute, Belfast ; University of Wales (University College of Wales, Aberystwyth ; University College of North Wales, Bangor ; University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff) ; National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth ; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.

individualistic than that of the Anglo-Saxon, the poverty of the countries, and the purposes of the English Government to Anglicize them, have resulted in State systems of education. It is largely true that in the earlier times " the aim was to denationalize the country and to wean it from its language and from its religion."^ The administrators of the national systems of education at different times have had various aims. " One powerful influence wished the worlrof education to subserve the purpose of proselytism ; another wished it to secularize; another to Anglicize."^

Eecently the outcome of the above conditions has been the leadership of Ireland and Wales in State educational experiments, in agricultural and technical education, and in emphasizing the ethical side of education in forming character. In the two countries education is in a most interesting transitional stage. Besides the effects of the war, one must reckon with the direct and indirect influences of the act for the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Wales, and of the home-rule act in Ireland, the operation of both of which is suspended for the period of the war. The disendowment portion of the Welsh act provides for a certain distribution of funds for educational purposes in museums and libraries. The Irish home-rule act is silent as regards education, except for the provision that schools shall be maintained, and shall be free from any discrimination against pupils on account of denominational prejudice. Guaranties are also given against the diminution of endowments and funds of Trinity College, Dublin, and Queen's University, Belfast. The Irish Parliament will therefore have a free hand to coordinate the National Commissioners of Education, who manage the elementary schools, and the " Intermediate Board," who examine, inspect, and subsidize secondary schools; and to coordinate into the national system the Nationar University. Steps in this direction are not unlikely. For many years " coordination " has been a catchword in Ireland as in all the world, and the National University is one illustration of it.

In Wales the treasury, the board of education, and their advisory committees for years have been urging more coordination, and the Royal Commission on the University of Wales, just appointed, is expected to further it. There is also agitation with reference to the relations of the Central Welsh board to the national system.

In short, Ireland and Wales educationally, though not without enchanting traditions of ancient glories antedating those of English and Scotch lore, are young, plastic, and in a formative period.

1 Starkie, W. J. M., Resident Commissioner of National Education, Ireland. "Address, British Association, Belfast, 1902."

' Gill, T. P., Sec. of the Dept. of Agr and Tech. Instruction for Ireland. "Address, British Association, Dublin, 1908."

Chapter I. The Dublin University— Trinity College

The University of Dublin represents in Ireland the same type of university as Oxford and Cambridge in England, with a commingling of the Scotch type. As Durham is a modern, so is Dublin an ancient variant of the former type, particularly of Cambridge, in its Puritan period, from which its first four provosts came. The charter, contrary to the usual order, refers to " Cambridge or Oxford,*' and the Cambridge terminology as in the use of the word "Commencement" prevails to the present day

From the beginning Dublin has been a persistent variant as a " single-college " university from the Oxford and Cambridge type. In March, 1591-92, Queen Elizabeth granted a charter or letters patent incorporating a college — "the Mother of an University " (unum Collegium Mater Universitatis) — under the style and title of " The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, near Dublin, founded by Queen Elizabeth." ^

Trinity College is an anomaly in English history of a college that has exercised all the functions of a university. It is plain that the charter, in accordance with the example of Cambridge and Oxford, anticipated that other colleges would be founded, and these incorporated with Trinity College would make her the " mother of an university." Indeed, attempts to do so have been made, but in the earlier days new houses were called halls, not colleges, and they were not sufficiently endowed or encouraged to become colleges. In modern times the endeavors to persuade Trinity College to become the nucleus of a federal university of Ireland or of Dublin have failed.

The first statutes of this combination in a single institution of a university and a college were copied from the university statutes of Cambridge, while the real government and life w^ere those of a college only. The practically inseparable university and college were ruled by the college provost and fellows, who elected university officers. Two of the first fellows, a Dublin schoolmaster and his assistant, were

1 For history of the college, cf. MahaCfy, J. P., "An Epoch in Irish History " (T. Fisher Unwin, 1906); "The Book of Trinity College, Dublin, 1591-1891;" "Trinity College, Dublin," by W. MacNeile Dixon (College Series).

u

Scotch university men, pupils of Andrew Melville, the Protestant Scotch university reformer. The incongruity from a Camhridge point of view of a university and a college in one was little felt at that time. In Scotland the central universit , governed without complications from undeveloped colleges; on the other hand, in Cambridge and Oxford, highly developed colleges were arrogating university functions. In this particular Trinity College stands as an intermediary between Oxford and Cambridge and the American colonial colleges. The latter exercised the university function of conferring degrees. They have maintained the original college organization with slight modifications to the present day. At PTarvard from early times the name " college " or " university " was used indiscriminately. The contradistinction^ between the college and the university was not clearly made until in the last quarter of the nineteenth century when, for example, the title " Yale University " was adopted in connection with Yale College.

Trinity College also is a variant from Oxford and Cambridge in that it did not, like them, grow from a gathering of scholars about masters but was deliberately planted by church and state; and has suffered from the interference of each. The purpose of the founders was not simply to spread learning but to strengthen the Established Irish (Protestant Episcopal) Church and to Anglicize the Irish nation.

In a land of wealth, Oxford and Cambridge and their colleges were guilds of scholars, springing from a love of learning, and not planted for purposes of propaganda. For four centuries they secured privileges from church and state, and attained an autonomy that the imposition of statutes in the times of Queen Elizabeth and Archbishop Laud could not extinguish.

Dublin, starting as a creature of church and state, had a long struggle to attain a degree of autonomy to which she since has clung tenaciously. In a sense her initial privileges impeded her. She had a monopoly of higher education in Ireland, making her unpopular with a majority of the population, and an internal government in the hands of a provost and a few" fellows — a close corporation, designed for efficiency in a small college but becoming an autocratic oligarchy in a large university and breeding discord.

The spirit of the monopoly may be gathered from a reason for the founding of " Trinity " given in the preamble of Elizabeth's charter and letters patent. She wished a college in Ireland for the instruction of her people there, " because many became infected with Popery in foreign universities."^ In the eighteenth century it was unlaw-

1 Cf. U. S. Bureau of Education. Bulletin, 1913, No. 4, Chap. IX. »Cf. Mahaffy, supra, p. 1.

DUBLIN UNIVERSITY TEINITY COLLEGE. 13

ful for an Irish Eoman Catholic to go abroad to study or to be taught by Roman Catholics at home. At the same time Trinity statutes required all students to take an oath denying the temporal supremacy of the Pope in these dominions, and made attendance upon the Episcopal services in the college chapel compulsory. Lecky says, however, in practice Roman Catholic and Nonconformist students were sometimes excused from attendance at chapel. One could not proceed to a degree who had not taken the " oath of supremacy " and made a declaration against transubstantiation. But the subscription to the " thirty-nine articles," then necessary for admission to the English universities, was not required.

Another variation of " Trinity " from Oxford and Cambridge was due to the fact that the city of Dublin was among its founders, having presented it a site. The idea of a national university at the capital of a country and of municipal support was abroad. Edinburgh had just been founded as the " Town's College." Gresham College (founded 1548) was anticipatory of a University of London.

In the sphere of university reform and progress in many ways Dublin has preceded the older universities, due perhaps to the exigencies of Irish agitation. As a semistate institution the university Avas able to effect changes in its statutes by means of royal letters. In 1794 a royal letter in accordance with the Roman Catholic relief act of the preceding year admitted Roman Catholics and dissenters to all privileges of study and of graduation and to sizarships, but scholars and fellows remained under the old restrictions. In 1840 a royal letter abolished celibacy as a condition for a fellowship.

Parallel with the movements for university reform and the appointments of royal commissions in England from 1851 onward, several commissions sat upon Dublin. In the main, they did not find need for such radical changes as the commissions recommended in England; one commission assigns the reason, "numerous improvements of an important character having been from time to time introduced by the authorities of the college." The problems of reform were not complicated by the multiplicity of colleges as in Oxford and Cambridge.

Dublin has been a leader in many of the features now characteristic of the new or modern universities. At an early date it enforced a inatriculation examination and conducted genuine examinations under its own teachers and not by external examiners. The curriculum was widened at a much earlier date than in its sister universities. It was the first university in the Kingdom to establish chairs of modern languages. It was the first in the Avorld probably to give instruction in Irish, and it has been reintroduced into its curriculum. King James was urgent that the college should fulfill its main purpose to train Irish and Anglo-Irish students to teach the people the reformed religion in their native tongue. The Greek and Latin classics never had the supremacy they had and still have at Oxford. Compulsory Greek was abolished in 1900.

At Oxford and Cambridge four academical years of residence had become about the only qualification for a B. A. degree in the eighteenth century. At Dublin the examinations gave a meaning beyond residence to the four years, and the institution still maintains a four years' course akin to the four years' American college course until recently considered almost sacred by the colleges. This is now a point of difference between Dublin and Cambridge and Oxford. Having Paised the standards of work and examination Cambridge reduced fehe required residence to three academic years in 1858 and Oxford in 1859. On the other hand Dublin has not made residence a necessity for the B. A. degree. If one passes an examination each term he need not reside in college or attend lectures. Thus Dublin prepared tbe way for the external students and degrees of the University of London. But Dublin required residence and attendance in the faculties of law, medicine, divinity, and engineering. The further condition for graduation in all these faculties that one must first take the B. A. degree makes Dublin stand out as over against Oxford and Cambridge as a " professional " university.

The standard of medical degrees is of the highest. The establishment of the school of physic (medicine), dating from the time of Charles II, promoted also the foundation of that famous corporation the College of Physicians which has cooperated with " Trinity " in requiring the B. A. degree as a preliminary to medical degrees. A bachelor of medicine must have taken the degree of bachelor of arts and must have spent five years in the study of medicine. A doctor in medicine must have taken the M. B. degree and must be of M. A. standing. There are also subdivisions in the medical curriculum courses leading to degrees of bachelor and of master in dental science, in obstetric science, and in surgery.

In 1811 the university established the first school of engineering in Ireland.

In 1873 the university abolished all religious tests for all offices except for teachers in divinity. In 1914 a Koman Catholic was mentioned for the provostship. By more than 40 years Dublin anticipated the action of Cambridge in opening its degrees to those not members of the established church.

Reforms in the constitution of the university, moving in the direction of representative government, began in 1857. The small oligarchic "board," consisting of the provost and senior fellows, was given power to alter rules only w^hen approved by the senate or public congregation of the university, then for the first time incorporated. The Senate consisted of doctors and masters on the books. The

DUBLIN UNIVERSITY TEINITY COLLEGE. 15

caput of the senate, consisting of the chancellor and the provost or their substitutes and the senior master of three years' standing elected by the senate, can collectively or singly veto a grace. The chancellor or vice chancellor has an absolute veto in the senate. Still in 1873 Mr. Gladstone spoke of the University of Dublin as in " servitude to eight gentlemen, who elect the other fellows, who elect also themselves, and who govern both the university and the college." In 1874 an advance in representative government was made by the institution of the council of the university. It consists of the provost, the senior lecturer, the registrar, and sixteen members of the senate ; two elected by the " board " ; and the others by senior and junior fellows, professors; and four members elected at large by all the members of the senate.

The council nominates to all professorships not subject to previous legal restrictions and not in the school of divinity. The nominations are subject to the approval of the board. The approval both of the board and of the council for regulations respecting qualifications, duties, and tenure of office of professors, and respecting studies, lectures, and examinations is required.

A full measure of reform was made possible by letters patent of the present King in 1911. The gov-erning body, "the board," formerly consisting of the provost and 7 senior fellows, was enlarged to a possible 11 or 15 members with representatives elected by the junior fellows and the body of professors.

In 1911 the Crown surrendered its power of making new statutes to the board, subject to the consent of a majority of the fellows and the approval* of the visitors.

The visitors are the chancellor of the university and the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

The chancellor, with life tenure, is elected by the senate from three persons nominated by the board. The provost is appointed by the Crown.

The same letters patent made provision for the constitution of a divinity-school council, all to be members of the Church of Ireland. It consists of the provost, five representatives of the board, three representatives of the teaching staff, and three representatives of the bishops chosen by them. The divinity-school council is empowered to nominate to divinity professorships. The appointments are subject to the approval of the board. The divinity-school council is not to have control of the conditions on which university degrees in divinity are conferred. The exercises and examinations for such degrees are subject to the approval of the board and of a court constituted for the purpose from ecclesiastical professors of the Church of Ireland or churches in communion therewith or similar courts of other denominations, the regius professor of divinity being among the examiners. No religious tests are to be required.

Letters patent in 1904 made it possible to admit women to privileges and degrees of the luiiversity. They now enjoy these privileges except in the engineering and viivinity schools. A separate anatomical department has been provided for women medical students.

In the undergraduate arts courses there are several distinctive features. For the pass B. A. degree the outlines of the old four years' course of compulsory studies even into the last two years are more fully preserved than eisewliere. Ethics and astronomy are still compulsory as well as logic which from the beginning of the institution has been made prominent. The four years' course, however, may be completed by keeping two out of the three terms of each year, or within three years from entrance by taking the final examination of the first year at the time of entrance. The tutorial system is preserved in that every student must choose one of the staff of the tutor fellows as his tutor, and honor courses are given partly by professors and partly by tutors. An honor B, A., called a " moderatorship," can be taken in 10 different groups.^

The Oxford and Cambridge practice of admitting to an M. A. degree a B. A. of three years' standing upon the mere payment of a fee still prevails.

Though degrees in the professional schools of divinity, of law, of medicine, and of engineering may not be taken without the precedent B. A. degree, by reason of the privileges extended to the arts students of attending professional lectures, the advantages can be obtained of what are known as the combined arts and professional courses in American universities. Since 1877 the university has had an Indian and home civil -service school. It also had a post-graduate army school with a two-year course recognized for commissions by the army council. The school is suspended owing to the war but the officers' training corps, established in 1910, with total strength of about 400 before the war, continues.

A professorship in education was established in 1905 and diplomas and certificates in education are given. A training department for secondary teachers, for women students only, is carried on in connection with Alexandra College, Dublin.

The latest development is the beginning of a school of agriculture and forestry with a two-year course. The purpose is to cooperate with the Government agricultural department and to make use of its farm near Dublin.

1 1. Mathematics. 2. Classics. 3. Mental and moral philosophy. 4. Experimental science. 5. Natural science. 6. Historical and political science. 7. Modern literature. 8. Legal and political science. 9. Engineering science. 10. Celtic languages.

DUBLIN UNIVERSITY TRINITY COLLEGE. 17

Since the opening of the present century, modern laboratories and equipment for the teaching of physical and natural science and for research have been given by the graduates and friends of the university.

The library, famous for its " long room " and MSS., affords opportunity for research students, as it is one of the largest libraries in the British Isles, receiving by act of Parliament a copy of every book printed in the United Kingdom.

The ample walled grounds, entered by an imposing gateway, and the buildings with their "courts" or "quads" called "squares," opening one into another give the air of an Oxford or a Cambridge dropped into the midst of Dublin. This outward semblance reflects the actual kinship of Trinity College with its two unique sisters. Graduates in arts of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are admissible in Trinity ad eundem to all degrees they have received in their own universities, and undergraduates from Oxford and Cambridge have full acknowledgment of their residence and standing by Dublin. In turn Oxford and Cambridge extend similar privileges only to one another and to Dublin by " incorporation," marking a supposed equality in this trinity of institutions.

Trinity College has brought the advantages and spirit of the other two venerable universities to Ireland. Planted as a bulwark of English and Protestant influences it has well been called " the only English foundation that exer succeeded in Ireland." But its success has been largely due to its becoming Anglo-Irish and its secularization.

From the first " it attracted not only the sons of the English plantation, but those of the Irish gentlemen left as tenants upon their estates " and occasionally the sons of Irish chieftains. The evasion of religious tests before their abolition, the broad terms of residence, and the tolerably low standards of admission, due in part to the absence of public schools like those of England, gathered a widely representative constituency with a sprinkling of Roman Catholics among the Protestants of different denominations.

Many of the leading minds in Ireland have been graduates of the college. The alumni have been strong enough to defeat every attempt to make Trinity a constituent college in a larger university of Dublin or of Ireland. In 1873 Mr. Gladstone brought in a bill to emancipate the University of Dublin from the control of Trinity. The Queen's Colleges of Belfast and Cork, the Catholic University, and Magee (Presbyterian) College were to become parts of the university with Trinity. The latter's theological school was to be given to the recently disestablished Church of Ireland. To avoid controversy metaphysical and moral philosophy and modern history w^ere not to be taught in the new university. The measure failed. Protes- 89725°— 17 2 lants did not like it because it deprived them of power and limited the range of instruction. Roman Catholics opposed it because it gave them no endowments.^ In 1907 Mr. Bryce, then Chief Secretary of Ireland, proposed a scheme meeting these objections, merging Trinity College in a new University of Dublin with the Queen s colleges and a new college for Roman Catholics. The control of the university was to be in a board, partly nominated by the Crown and partly by the colleges and with representatives of the students. The alumni organized a " Dublin defense committee " of four or five thousand. They argued that the ideals of Trinity were incompatible with the principles of authority and of scientific theory as expressed in the " Index." On the other hand the Roman Catholic bishops objected on the ground that Catholic students would be brought into an atmosphere inimical to their religious faith. The plan, so far as it concerned Trinity College, was dropped, owing to the strong opposition the " Dublin defense committee " had developed, and to the departure of Mr. Bryce to become amba&sador to the United States. It prepared the w^ay for Mr. Birrell, Mr. Bryce's successor, to bring to a conclusion the agitation of many years for a National University.

Whatever opportunities Trinity College may have lost in saving the people the expense of duplications, in lending luster to the National University, and leavening its lump, the question is settled that Ireland, like England and the United States, is to have the advantage of the independent and endowed university side by side with the State-supported institution. Trinity College remains as an illustration that it is the nature of a university, whether founded by church or state or both, to develop its own independent life and to be a free witness to truth.

Referring to the settlement of the Irish university question by the establishment of the National University and the Queen's University of Belfast, in both of which there are to be no religious tests, the erroneous statement (a natural impression from past history) has been made that " it was tacitly agreed that the former should be the resort for Roman Catholics and the latter for Presbyterians, Trinity remaining the recognized Episcopal center." ^ This is not true as to an agreement, though, in fact, it has a large element of truth.

In the new era when Ireland shall have passed out from intense politicalism and religious zeal and sectarianism Trinity College may have a special mission in preserving the continuity of university traditions and in cooperation with the new foundations in perpetuating a genuine university life.