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CHAP. X. imprisonment, under an illegal warrrant-and it may ultimately receive its decision in the House of Lords.]

Questions raised.

The foregoing Questions may serve as a specimen of the many Doubts-still suspended over the heads of the Catholics-and which require the serious interposition of a paternal and provident Legislature-for their clear and conclusive solution.

SECTION IV.

Importance of
Public Educa-

tion.

Laws-respecting the Public Education of the Catholics.

1. ONE of the principal duties of a wise and good Sovereign is that of instructing and enlightening his People, and of forming them betimes to useful knowledge, and salutary habits of discipline, He cannot bestow too much pains upon the performance of this duty. Vattel. Lib. 1. He can feel no apprehensions from the light of knowledge, since it is always of advantage to a good Government.-He must be aware, that the most effectual way of forming good citizens, is to found useful Establishments for public Education, to give them wise directions, and to promote such mild and useful measures for that

ch. II.

purpose, that the citizens will not fail to em- chap. x. brace them. Of this opinion, too, was that Xenophon: incomparable Legislator and Philosopher, Lacedemon: Lycurgus. He entered earnestly into all parti

-

culars relating to the good Education of youth, being persuaded of its intimate connexion with the glory and prosperity of his country.

Republ.

Public

These truths, always recognized by profound Importance of statesmen and writers, always acted upon by Education great and enlightened Sovereigns, appear to have

been wholly overlooked in Ireland.

Ireland.

The great bulk of the people, the Catholics, Neglected in are by Law abandoned to neglect, and left destitute of any provision for public Educationunless such as may be purchased at the price of Apostacy from the faith of their fathers.

In truth, the affair of useful Public Education is nearly unknown in Ireland. That, which is so called, is of scarcely any practical value.— It is, for the greater part, an affair of public Proselytism, mischief, or of private emolument :-an engine either of proselytism, or of peculation.

and Peculation

fessions of

Education.

2. That there exist in Ireland numerous Plausible pro splendid Establishments, bearing the plausible Public professions of Public Education, is sufficiently known.-From the extensive scale and pompous exterior of the Buildings, from the numerous train of officers and heavy annual charge-a

CHAP. X. stranger might infer the existence of ample and liberal Public Instruction in Ireland-but, upon a nearer view, he will be quickly undeceived.

Illiberal System of Education.

These Seminaries are closed, by Law or by usage, against the Catholics. They are founded, generally speaking, upon strict and exclusive. Protestantism-upon abhorrence of Poperyand upon the inculcation of doctrines, breathing personal imputation and indirect hostility against the Catholic Population. With the exception of a stinted pittance, ungraciously doled out from year to year to a Seminary for Public bounty, Catholic Clergymen at Maynooth-the Edumonopolized by Protestants. cation of Protestants engrosses all the favour, and absorbs all the bounty, afforded by the Legislature to public Instruction in Ireland.

Dublin.

The principal Institutions of this nature

are,

Trinity College, 1. The University of Dublin, consisting of one large College-which maintains Provost, 7 Senior Fellows, 18 Junior Fellows, 72 Scholars, and about 35 Professors, Lecturers, and Assistants, in Languages, Arts and Sciencesof whom, however, many are also Fellows. The number of Students is commonly between 6 and 700.

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How these Establishments are conducted, or how their funds (which, in many instances, consist of annual Parliamentary grants) are appropriated-it is not our province to enquire.

3. One of them, however, namely that Charter Schools instituted 1733% of the" Protestant Charter Schools," deserves particular notice.

This Establishment was founded, in 1733, upon the charitable and truly Christian Petition of the Primate, Chancellor, Archbishops, Bishops, Nobleman, Judges, and subscribing Clergy, &c. We give its Exordium, merely to exemplify the curious temper of that day it runs thus, viz.

"Humbly Sheweth,

candid Petition,

"That in many parts of Courteous and "Ireland, there are great tracts of mountainy 1733. "and coarse Land, of ten, twenty, or thirty "miles in length, and of a considerable breadth, "almost universally inhabited by Papists:

and that, in most parts of the same, and more

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CHAP. X. especially in the provinces of Leinster, Mun"ster and Connaught, the Papists far exceed "the Protestants of all sorts in number.

Petition, of 1733, for Charter Schools.

Imputing Irreligion, Disloyalty, Super

stition, Idolatry, Disaffection

to the Catholics.

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"That the generality of the Popish natives appear to have very little sense or knowledge of Religion, but what they implicitly take " from their Clergy (to whose guidance in such "matters they seem wholly to give themselves

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up) and thereby are kept, not only in gross ignorance, but in great disaffection to your "sacred Majesty and Government-so that, if "some effectual method be not made use of, "to instruct these great numbers of people in "the principles of Religion and Loyalty, "there seems to be very little prospect, but "that Superstition, Idolatry, and Disaffec"tion to your Majesty, and to your royal posterity, will, from generation to genera"tion, be propagated amongst them."

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If we feel disposed, at this day, to smile, in pity, at the fury and falsehood of those imputations-let us recollect, that in all ages, even the present, there are found political hypocrites, who cloak their selfish projects under apprehensions as loyal and sanctimonious, as those of these dignified Petitioners.

In consequence of this Petition, his Majesty King George the II. was pleased to grant his

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