on in this College from the list of dangerous
to that of prohibited enjoyments.

I need scarcely add how mean and vindictive would be the spirit that would
secularize Trinity College, in order to injure the Irish Protestants,
without any corresponding benefit to the Irish Catholics.

I believe, therefore, that it would be impolitic for the English Parliament
to secularize Trinity College, for the following reasons:--

1. It would irritate the Irish Protestants to deprive them of a College
founded on the principles of their Church, which has done its duty,
and has possessed their confidence for three centuries.

2. It would not satisfy the just demand of the Irish Catholics for
University Education, merely to admit them to the Fellowships and
Scholarships of a secularized College, the principle of which they
must feel bound to condemn.

II. NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.

The second plan that has been suggested for solving the University question
in Ireland, in one form or other, amounts to a proposal to throw open the
University of Dublin, or the Queen's University in Ireland, or both, so as
to embrace in one University a number of Colleges, each retaining its own
system of religious training and discipline, and its own endowments, and
sending up its Students to pass the Examinations of the Central University,
whose functions would be reduced to those of an Examining Board.

I readily admit that this proposal is free from one of the objections I
have urged against the proposal to solve the University problem by
secularizing Trinity College, and that it leaves both Protestants and
Catholics free to train their sons in the religious faith and traditions of
their forefathers.

This advantage, although great, would, however, in my opinion, be purchased
at the cost of degrading for ever the standard of University Education in
Ireland.

If this objection can be established, it ought to have peculiar weight in
considering the question of Irish University Education. England differs
essentially from Ireland, in affording to her young men countless openings
in every walk of life, with or without the benefits of University
Education, which in England may be regarded as a luxury enjoyed by the
rich; whereas in Ireland an University Education is frequently a necessity
imposed upon the sons of the less wealthy middle classes. The openings in
life for young men of this class in Ireland are so v