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Collegiate Seminary, 57 Bolton-street,
August 22 1853

MY LORD ARCHBISHOP,
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE,—With profoundest reverence, I take leave to address you; I do so with the
greatest humility, and influenced by the sternest necessity—a necessity which religion and reason warn me not dare
to neglect—a necessity which God and Nature have imposed on me as a husband and a parent. The sheep, the
mildest of brutes—and the hen, the tamest of fowls—will face the greatest danger to guard their young.

If it be your Grace's intention to have all the Catholic youth of Dublin placed under the immediate care of
the Clergy for secular education, I would most respectfully and solemnly ask your Lordship, how are the present lay
teachers and their families to be provided for? Surely, we are to look up to you with more confidence than officers
of the English crown look up to Victoria for provision when their services are about to be dispensed with. Equity
insists that they be not deprived of their means of support without compensation. Equity and religion, therefore,
make us appeal to your Grace for protection.

Had I anticipated, or could I have anticipated, that, after nineteen years of successful training of Catholic
youth— uring which period, as the enclosed* testifies, I have had the confidence and friendship of Prelates and
Priests—my means of subsistence would be, without any fault, unexpectedly taken from me, my wife, and my large
and tender family, I would not have wasted the days of vigour, from twenty-four to forty-three, in perfecting myself
in a profession, which, with me, was one of selection, not of necessity.

It is a well-known fact, that governmental patronage would have been liberally dealt out to some of us, could
we be induced to silently look on the wrongs that have been and are being inflicted on this island of tears and of
sorrow. For my own part, I could not consent to have anything to do with a government, which, my conviction tells
me, was and is in Ireland the offspring of blood, fraud, treachery, irreligion, matured by the sum total of hellish
devices and human depravity.

The part I have taken in public matters has alientated from me the support of those who are opposed to pro-
gressive reform. But, little did I think that destruction would happen to me from a quarter whence I ought reasonably
expect protection. I could never suppose that the severest blow would have fallen on me from a pupil of my own, who is
concerned in two Schools. He is a Priest, and, therefore, my lips are sealed. He may be pious—useful for the altar—
well read in Theology (as no doubt he is); but, decidedly, the shoolmaster's desk is not his place. And God has in-
tended that each ought to fill the place for which he is fitted; and, certainly, a clergyman ought not to covet the means
of support from the ordinary hands. Moreover, it is an ascertained fact, that laymen do most of the duties in Clerical
Schools. So that the new system is, after all, merely transferring our business into the hands of other laymen—and
men unknown to the public. Parents ought to be made acquainted with this important fact—that respectable scholars
seldom become ushers; consequently, the character of the Principal, unless himself discharge the chief duties of
teaching, can be no guarantee that a refined and sound education will be imparted. The discipline may be good
(though it is not acknowledged to be so) in such schools, but the learning will be trifling, and not radical. Unless men
teach con amore, not for paltry gain, they will never impart a high-toned literature.

The Queen's Colleges have a sounding name; yet those who know them best, will admit that all is discipline,
ceremonious pageant, but little solid learning. And truly is this said. For the classical and mathematical teachers of
old, who, because of the persecuting spirit of the age, were obliged to teach behind a hedge, had a more thorough
knowledge of, a more intimate acquaintance with the sense and beauties of the authors, than the Professors—if I
except a very few. This being the case, the public ought to make our case their own, and let these few clergymen
understand that they ought rather attend to their legitimate office, than be engaging in temporal affairs—that
they have no right to be injuring a useful body of men—that they have their clerical position to depend on, without
getting over the walls of our garden. If they are not required in the ministry at home—if their ministrations be not
needed to stem the tide of proselytism—if they will not go abroad to call from the abominations of Heathenism the

*The enclosed contained my certificate.