But what it most complains of
is the all but total absence of instruction in science. The
memorialists say that the neglect of science by the university has
afforded a very plausible argument to the enemies of the university,
who never tire of repeating that the Catholic Church is the enemy of
science, and that she will carry out her usual policy in Ireland
with respect to it; that "no one can deny that the Irish Catholics
are miserably deficient in scientific education, and that this
deficiency is extremely galling to them; and, in a commercial sense,
involves a loss to them, while, in an intellectual sense, it
involves a positive degradation." They speak regretfully of the
secession of Professor Sullivan, to take the presidency of the
Queen's College, Cork, and declare that "no Irish-Catholic man of
science can be found to take his place." They then go on to make
several astounding charges. The lecture-list of the university does
not include for the faculty of arts a single professor of the
physical or natural sciences, or the name of a solitary teacher in
descriptive geometry, geology, zoology, comparative anatomy,
mineralogy, mining, astronomy, philology, ethnology, mechanics,
electricity, or optics.
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