s that a State-nominated Senate would always
appoint competent Examiners; but in such a case those Examiners would
themselves become the University, and would regulate the value of the
degrees conferred by it, and the country could have no guarantee that the
standard of education would continue to be maintained; for this would be to
suppose, on the part of successive Governments, a purity in their
appointment of Senators which no rational man expects will ever be found
outside the boundaries of the kingdom of Laputa.

If the Senate of the National University were composed of State officials,
they would feel themselves bound to maintain the interests of all the
Colleges committed to their care, and it would be impossible to maintain
the standard of Degrees at a point higher than the attainments of the
weakest College in the partnership, whose defective standard would regulate
that of the University Degree, just as the sailing of the slowest tub in
the squadron regulates the manoeuvres of the entire fleet.

If, on the other hand, the Senate of the National Irish University should
be composed, after the model of Oxford and Cambridge, of the heads and
representatives of the various Irish Colleges, although liberty of
education might be preserved, the standard of the degrees would become
degraded by the simple operation of a natural law easy to explain.

The heads of the Irish Colleges, united into a "happy family" University by
the hands of a paternal Government, would either struggle with each other
for supremacy, or enter into a compromise for peace sake, on some such plan
as the following:--

After a few preliminary skirmishes, to try each other's skill, in arranging
a common curriculum in Morals or History, it would be found that profound
and irreconcileable differences existed among the Colleges on the most
elementary principles, and that it would be impossible for the heads of
Trinity College, of St. Patrick's College of Maynooth, of Queen's College
of Belfast, and of other institutions, to agree upon a common curriculum of
education, or even of examination for Degrees, that would satisfy the
reasonable and conscientious scruples of all parties.

Under these circumstances, a sort of bargain would be made between the
heads of the various Colleges, who would agree to take each other's
certificates without challenge, and confer the Degrees recommended by each
independently of the others.

The University and its Sena