academically
or simply possesses a greater social acceptance and prestige it is
needless here to discuss--is withheld from them, except on conditions
that tempt their sons to abandon the faith of their fathers or to become
weakened in their attachment to it."

No one--least of all an Irishman--can deny the greatness of a College on
the boards of which are such names as Berkeley, Swift, Grattan, Flood,
and Burke, but it will be admitted by all that as far as the fame of her
_alumni_ is concerned--and there is no other test for a collegiate
foundation--Trinity reached the zenith of her greatness during the years
in which a free Parliament served to break down the barriers of religion
in the island. With the passing of that phase of political history she
relapsed into her place as the "silent sister" in the country, but not
of it, taking no part in national life other than to offer opposition to
the legislative changes, which even she is now constrained to admit were
reforms.

As owner of some 200,000 acres, Trinity College has proved herself one
of the worst landlords in Ireland. An estate belonging to the College in
County Kerry gave rise to one of the bitterest struggles of the land
war. In view of the cry which is being raised in England to-day as to
the broad tolerance which is alleged to hold the field in the College
to-day, the bitterly anti-Catholic spirit of the present Provost and of
his predecessors deserves mention; but I must further call the reader's
notice to a recent event which attracted much attention in Ireland, but
was passed unnoticed in Great Britain. In a sonnet, written by a leading
Fellow of the College in "T.C.D.," the College magazine, the writer
spoke of the Catholic churches in Ireland as "grim monuments of cold
observance, the incestuous mate of superstition," of which "to seeing
eyes each tall steeple lifts its tall head and lies." Sentiments of this
kind, expressed in such taste, are not calculated to encourage Catholic
parents to send their sons to a college where they may come under
influences of which the writer is an example.

The idea of putting into practice the proposed expedient of swamping
Trinity by the encouragement of all Catholics to send their sons to that
College is to a member of an old university as attractive as on paper it
appears easy, but there are drawbacks to its practical application other
than the presence in the College of such a spirit as I have exemplified.

I