ous and just remedy was to supply such increased
means as to create or bestow the efficiency originally aimed at. And it
was a felicitous idea to place the charge for the future on such a
footing as to combine with such an increase an avoidance of the
irritation which its yearly discussion had never failed to excite.

And at the same time, to carry still farther the principle of religious
toleration, or rather of religious equality, he induced the Parliament
to found a new university, consisting of three colleges, one in each of
the three provinces of Ulster, Munster and Connaught (Leinster, as
having Trinity College and Maynooth, being regarded as already
sufficiently provided with university education), which should be open
to students of every religious denomination, and at which, while every
kind of secular education, both literary and scientific, should be
given, the stirring up of religious controversy and animosity should be
guarded against, by the absence of any theological professorships. He
did not, indeed, design that the still greater benefits of religious
education should be withheld from the pupils, but he proposed to provide
for that object by confiding their religious education to the care of
the clergy of each persuasion, some of whom in each town which was the
seat of a college--Belfast, Cork, and Galway--might be trusted for
willingness to superintend it. It was hoped that one fruit of this
scheme, and that by no means its least valuable result, would be that
the association of pupils of various creeds in their studies and
amusements from an early age would lead them to maintain, in their more
mature years, the harmony of which the foundation had thus been laid in
their youth; and that thus the religious animosities which were the
principal obstacle to the prosperity of the country would be softened,
and in time extinguished. And this object has been achieved to a great
extent, though the disfavor with which the Roman Catholic Church regards
any educational system which is not under the superintendence of its
priesthood has prevented the scheme from attaining the full development
which was hoped for. The number of students of each of the principal
sects--the Church of Ireland, the Roman Catholics, and the
Presbyterians--steadily increases.[263] Members of each religious body
are among the professors in each college, and all accounts represent the
most perfect harmony and cordiality as existing througho