Birrell's Irish University Act. For a
whole generation the progress of higher education in Ireland has been
held up by a barren and wearisome religious quarrel. Now that quarrel
has vanished, and Ireland is organising a great system of University
education for her Catholic as well as her Protestant youth. Not the
least stimulating experience of the Eighty Club in Ireland was the day
which we spent, under the guidance of the distinguished Principal, at
Cork University College, where we saw Catholics and Protestants, men
and women, young and old, working together in friendly harmony in the
splendid buildings which have sprung up to house the undergraduates of
the south-west. The same process is going on at Dublin, Galway, and
Belfast. The machinery is being rapidly prepared for training up in the
best possible atmosphere of mutual tolerance the new rulers of Home
Rule Ireland.
* * * * *
Such have been the great Acts of Parliament which have created a
changed situation in Ireland. But the crown is still wanting to the
work. Those who travel in Ireland and make any close inquiry into the
work of these Acts must feel that there is a great gap unfilled.
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