As soon as its details were published, it was submitted to the parliamentary committee, and, during its discussion there, he expressed for the first time some doubts as to the practicability of a mixed system of education.  Mr. O’Brien, Mr. Davis and others expostulated, and deprecated in unmistakable terms the fatality of engaging the Association to a principle so sectarian, narrow and illiberal.  He said he would take time to consider, and would meantime consult with Doctor MacHale.  He was reminded that Doctor MacHale could not approve of the system without gross inconsistency, and requested to take the opinion of all the other Bishops as well.  How far he was governed by this advice is unimportant and impossible to tell.  But the bishops met in solemn synod and published the result of their deliberations in the following memorial:—­

“That memorialists are disposed to co-operate on fair and reasonable terms with her majesty’s government and the legislature, in establishing a system for the further extension of academical education in Ireland.

“That a fair proportion of the professors and other office-bearers in the new colleges should be members of the Roman Catholic Church, whose moral conduct shall have been properly certified by testimonials of character, signed by their respective prelates.  And that all the office-bearers in those colleges should be appointed by a board of trustees, of which the Roman Catholic prelates of the provinces in which any of those colleges shall be erected shall be members.

“That the Roman Catholic pupils could not attend the lectures on history, logic, metaphysics, moral philosophy, geology, or anatomy, without exposing their faith or morals to imminent danger, unless a Roman Catholic professor will be appointed for each of those chairs.

“That if any president, vice-president, professor, or office-bearer, in any of the new colleges shall be convicted before the board of trustees of attempting to undermine the faith or injure the morals of any student in those institutions, he shall be immediately removed from his office by the same board.”

It will be observed that the principle of mixed education is not here directly approved or condemned.  But approval is an inference, as clear and emphatic as words could express.  The memorial prays for distinct and specific alterations in the details of the Bill.  It demands that certain branches of secular education should be taught to the Catholic students by Catholic professors approved of by the prelates, and it insists upon other guarantees to secure the Catholic youth from the danger of all and every species of interference with the tenets of their faith.