must be made by Parliament, and when the question is brought up, let us hope that the Times will repeat the note of warning given last August: "If the Roman Catholic clergy insist too much on their own way, they will find themselves drawing near to a grand re-adjustment of the Education question. Nothing is so contrary to all the traditions of this people and Empire as to go on paying money, and that more and more, without any account of it, or even share in its expenditure. It is a practice which really cannot last, and will not last, for any considerable time. Ireland will be reminded that she has land, and that she is able to levy rates upon it for roads and a few other purposes. She will be told that if she wants more for education she can obtain it nearer home, and in that case it will be necessary to have School Boards."

To this I only add, that if the present Board of Commissioners is so irreclaimably under the power of the Romish hierarchy as it has shown itself in the case of Mr. O'Keeffe and the Callan schools, it has become unfit for directing the national education. A new central Board, under the Minister of Public Instruction, with independent Inspectors, reporting to Parliament, is what the case requires. In granting half a million of money annually, Parliament has claim to the service of such a Board.

CHAPTER XXV.

IRISH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.

Existing Institutions-Trinity College and Dublin University- The Queen's Colleges and University - The Catholic University— Ultramontane Claims-The Synod of Thurles-The Government Plan.

THE

'HE Irish University question has been put off from year to year, and at length presses for settlement.

Leaving out of view colleges which are wholly or mainly "schools of the prophets," institutions for training students for the ministry of the churches, the present academical system comprises (1) Trinity College, or the Dublin University; (2) the Queen's Colleges of Cork, Belfast, and Galway, constituting together the Queen's University; and (3) the Roman Catholic University, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin.

It is said that something more is required, and that there ought to be an Irish National University, not superseding, but overtopping the existing academical institutions; to be established, chartered, and endowed

by the British Government. Whether this new University is to be in substance only an Examining Board, granting degrees and honours, or whether it is to be a great teaching seminary; whether it is to be established on an entirely new basis, or on old foundations, extended to meet the demands of the times; whether the endowment is to be by national grant, or by appropriation of part of the funds of Trinity College; these and other questions remain yet open.

There are difficulties which at the outset face the Government. It is not a difficulty for Liberal or Conservative, for Mr. Gladstone or for Mr. Gathorne Hardy; whichever party is in office this Irish University question puts the Government in an embarrassing and humiliating position. There is no spirit of high statesmanship apparent, as when the late Lord Derby took the lead in introducing the system of national education. Patriotic principle is kept down by considerations of political expediency. The Ministry have to try to pacify and please the Romish hierarchy of Ireland, without rousing the hostility of the Protestantism of the empire. It is impossible to satisfy both sides, and the choice between the irreconcilables must sooner or later be made. "Religious equality" is the watchword of that shifty expediency which will try to make concessions to the Romish party under the guise of a national University.

So far as the question concerns University education, the problem could be easily solved. The extension and reconstruction of Trinity College, as the Dublin University, along with the Queen's Colleges, would meet all the requirements of higher education. There is a very general desire among Protestants, even those who have traditional reverence for the old associations of Trinity, to make concessions in accordance with the spirit of the times. That the Catholic laity would gladly hail such concessions, is known from the large advantage already taken of the institutions which are now open alike to all denominations. The Ultramontane party alone offers obstruction to the settlement of the question. How far it is entitled to be heard will appear from a brief consideration of the origin and history of the denominational University which now stands as a bugbear in the way of a national University system.

The Roman Catholic University in Dublin sprang from no spontaneous zeal for academical education, or for the training of the Irish youth in higher learning. It was purely the result of hostility to the "mixed education" offered to the youth of all denominations by the Queen's Colleges. Before the Queen's Colleges were established, and when Trinity College was the only academical institution in Ireland, there was no movement for a separate University for Catholics.

A sufficient supply of youths educated for the Church was all that was desiderated, and these were supplied by Maynooth and other seminaries. The zeal now shown for the academic training of Catholic students was then never heard of. Ireland was more populous then than now, and no anxiety was shown to provide for the "twenty thousand youths thirsting for college education" of whom we now hear!

When the Queen's Colleges began to attract nontheological students, the alarm of the Ultramontane party began. "In founding these Colleges," said Sir Robert Peel in 1845, "we shall promote social concord between the youth of different religious persuasions, who, hitherto too much estranged by religious differences, will acquire new methods of creating and interchanging mutual esteem. I sincerely believe that, as well as receiving temporal advantages, so far from preventing any advantages with respect to Christianity, the more successfully will you labour to make men good Christians the more they are imbued with that great principle of our faith—a principle which, I grieve to say, many individuals are too apt to forget-the principle, I mean, of reciprocal charity." This was the very principle which the Church of Rome dreaded, and accordingly the Queen's Colleges were from their very foundation viewed with dislike and fear. The reports sent to Rome called forth, as early as 1847,