ed;
and another involves a surrender for ever of the high literary and
scientific standard of Dublin University, and a permanent lowering of high
class education in Ireland. Against the one I feel bound to protest, as an
earnest Protestant, and against the other as an advocate for the
advancement of science and letters.

The proposals made in Parliament respecting University Education are all
founded on the generally admitted fact that Roman Catholics in Ireland have
not got the same facilities for University Education as the Protestants of
that country, and that it is expedient at once to redress this grievance.
In order to do so, it has been proposed to do one or other of three
things:--

I. To secularize Trinity College, by throwing open its Fellowships
and Scholarships to all Students, irrespective of religious
qualification.

II. To open the University of Dublin to other Colleges than Trinity
College, thus transforming the University of Dublin into a
National Irish University, on the model of the University of
France.

III. To grant a Charter and Endowment to a Roman Catholic University,
in which the education given shall be based on religion, as in
Trinity College at present.

I shall endeavour to state briefly the objections which seem to me to be so
fatal to either of the first two proposals, as to leave us no alternative
but to accept the third horn of the Educational dilemma:--

I. SECULARIZATION OF TRINITY COLLEGE.

Trinity College was founded in Dublin by Queen Elizabeth, in 1591, as a
Protestant University, and for the purpose of giving to Irish Protestants a
University Education, based on the doctrines and discipline of the Reformed
Church of England. This infant University was fostered by the guiding hand
of the great Lord Burghley, its interests were defended by the ill-fated
Essex, and its Statutes were drafted by the highly gifted Bishop Bedell.

Trinity College has been well described by her enemies as a "handful of
Protestant Clergymen;" because her Fellows, with the exception of three,
were required to take Holy Orders in the English Church; and at the present
moment five only of her thirty-two Fellowships are permitted by Statute to
be held by laymen.

Trinity College is now nearly three centuries in existence, and may be
regarded as the only English institution that ever succeeded in Ireland.

The sons of the Alma Mater founde