propose to make the attendance upon the lectures of its professors voluntary. We propose, also, to exclude the two subjects I have lately named from the examinations for the emoluments of the University. From the examinations for honours we do not propose to exclude them, and for this reason. It is perfectly practicable to adopt the system of a positive standard as regards examinations even for honours, and you may bring up to that standard any number of men who show themselves competent to reach it; but as regards emoluments, the competition must be between man and man; what one gains the other must lose, and therefore we think it the best and safest method of managing these emoluments to provide that these men should meet upon a common ground upon which all can equally consent to be examined. There are some other provisions of the same kind in the Bill, because I need not say that these securities for conscience are among the most important safeguards of the Bill, and unless they are effective we cannot expect the Bill to work, neither should we desire it to be accepted by the House. Among these, we have provided a clause somewhat analogous to one which appears in the Education Act with reference to the punishment of masters who persistently offend against the conscientious scruples of the children whose education they conduct. We provide that a teacher in the University may be punished or reprimanded if he wilfully offends the conscientious scruples of those whom he instructs in the exercise of his office. But I am bound to say that the main security for the rights of conscience on which we rely is such a representation of all parties, within moderate and safe limits, in the body of the Council, as can be usefully and beneficially introduced into its constitution."

Into the financial part of the scheme Mr. Gladstone went with great minuteness, the general result of which is that from the present revenues of Trinity College will be taken the cost of providing for vested interests, and a contribution of 12,000l. a year to the new University. This, he said, will still leave Trinity the richest College in Christendom; and for its consolation he added that in all probability it would be necessary to apply the same treatment to some of the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge when the Commission now prosecuting its inquiries had reported. The expenses of the extended University Mr. Gladstone estimated at 50,000Z.viz., 25.0007. for the encouragement of learning, thus divided:Ten Fellowships annually of 2007., each tenable for five years; twenty-five Exhibitions annually of 507., and 100 Bursaries annually of 25/., each tenable for four years; 20,000l. a year for the staff of professors, and 50007. for examinations, buildings, and general expenses. This sum is to be thus provided:-12,000/. by Trinity College, 10,000l. from the Consolidated Fund, 50007. from fees, and the remainder from the surplus of the Ecclesiastical property of Ireland. Finally, Mr. Gladstone mentioned that powers would be given to Trinity College to form a scheme for its own self-government. also, the other Colleges would have the same powers; and as to the

So,

preponderance of lay or ecclesiastical influence in them, each, he said, must settle for itself; all the Legislature could do was to give them an open career and fair play. Mr. Gladstone, having spoken just three hours, concluded by claiming for the scheme that it was no mere innovation, but an attempt to build on the ancient historical lines.

"This is an important-I would almost say, considering the many classes it concerns and the many topics it involves, it is almost a solemn-subject; solemn from the issues which depend upon it. We have approached it with the desire to soothe, and not exasperate. I hope that in the lengthened address I have delivered to the House I have not said anything that can offend. If I have been so unfortunate, it is entirely contrary to my intention and my honest wish. We, sir, have done our best. We have not spared labour and application in the preparation of this certainly complicated, and, I venture to hope, also comprehensive, plan. We have sought to provide a complete remedy for what we thought, and for what we have long marked and held up to public attention as a palpable grievance a grievance of conscience. But we have not thought that, in removing that grievance, we were discharging either the whole or the main part of our duty. It is one thing to clear away obstructions from the ground; it is another to raise the fabric. And the fabric which we seek to raise is a substantive, organized system, under which all the sons of Ireland, be their professions, be their opinions what they may, may freely meet in their own ancient, noble, historic University for the advancement of learning in that country. The removal of grievance is the negative portion of the project; the substantive and positive part of it, academic reform. We do not ask the House to embark upon a scheme which can be described as one of mere innovation. We ask you now to give to Ireland that which has been long desired, which has been often attempted, but which has never been attained; and we ask you to give it to Ireland, in founding yourselves upon the principles on which you have already acted in the Universities of England. We commit the plan to the prudence and the patriotism of this House, which we have so often experienced, and in which the country places, as we well know, an entire confidence. I will not lay stress upon the evils which will flow from its failure, from its rejection, in prolonging and embittering the controversies which have for many, for too many, years been suffered to exist. I would rather dwell upon a more pleasing prospect upon my hope, even upon my belief, that this plan in its essential features may meet with the approval of the House and of the country. At any rate, I am convinced that if it be your pleasure to adopt it, you will by its means enable Irishmen to raise their country to a height in the sphere of human culture such as will be worthy of the genius of the people, and such as may, perhaps, emulate those oldest, and possibly best, traditions of her history upon which Ireland still so fondly dwells."

The first feeling created by the Bill was admiration of the in

genuity it displayed; the second was a suspicion that it violated the prejudices or the professed opinions of nearly all religious and political parties. Its least unfriendly critics were the Irish Hierarchy and Conservatives, who were ably represented by Dr. Ball. Trinity College might think itself fortunate in escaping with the sacrifice of a fifth or sixth part of its annual revenue, especially as the Theological Faculty was to be transferred to the Disestablished Church, and to be endowed from its surplus funds. There was nothing in the indireet benefit which might accrue to Roman Catholic institutions through the establishment of the University which could shock the advocates of denominational education; and perhaps the Protestants of the Irish Church appreciated more justly than political and sectarian factions the nature and amount of the discontent which existed among Roman Catholics. The Liberals in general, and especially the Dissenters, formed a more unfavourable judgment of the Bill. It was suspected that the suppression of the Galway College had been proposed to gratify the Roman Catholic clergy, and it was shown by plausible calculation that within a dozen or fifteen years the majority of the governing Council might be appointed under the influence of the Roman Catholic bishops. The provision for the exclusion of mental and moral science from the course of study was naturally regarded as a blot on the Bill, while it evidently implied a stigma on the good sense of the Irish nation. Mr. Gladstone had even thought it necessary to provide by special enactment for the punishment of any professor who should enunciate opinions which might be unpalatable to any section of the University; and it was stipulated that no student should be subject to disadvantage on the ground of his preference or rejection of any theory. It was easy to suggest the explanation that the Council and its officers would not fix an absurd interpretation even to the most paradoxical restrictions on freedom of education; but, as one of the movers of the Address to the Throne happily remarked on the first day of the session, the promoters of a scheme for disseminating learning without offence to religious feeling seemed to have thought far more of religion, or of religious prejudice, than of the interests of learning. No enlightened Governing Body would have been seriously encumbered by the cautious limitations of the Bill; but bigoted sectarians might have found in its provisions sufficient authority for the most perverse and vexatious interference. Secular patriotism in Ireland can scarcely have been gratified by the gagged and bandaged condition in which their national University was to commence its career; but the more independent Irish members were strongly disposed to accept, under protest, the Ministerial offer. The Roman Catholic bishops, in accordance with the recent policy of their Church, unwisely refused concessions which ought to have been recommended to their acceptance by the disapproval of their bitterest adversaries. Instead of waiting for the chance of manipulating to their own advantage the constitution of the Council, the bishops bitterly denounced every

project of education which was not exclusively under their own control. Five years before they had in a similar spirit rejected the liberal overtures of Lord Mayo; and they may have long to wait before they meet with another Minister so anxious to gratify their unreasonable demands as Mr. Gladstone. Their support might, perhaps, not have insured the passage of the Bill, but their rejection of the offered compromise was decisive. In the debate on the second reading Professor Fawcett distinguished himself by an exceedingly bitter and powerful speech. In the course of it he asserted that the measure would make the condition of University education in Ireland more unsatisfactory than ever, and would create worse evils than those with which it was meant to deal. There was no principle consistently carried out in it-it was a mere compromise intended to please everybody, but which pleased nobody. Against the abolition of the Queen's "University" and the Galway College he protested warmly, showing that the policy of centralization had failed in all foreign countries, and warning the Scotch members that, if they helped to carry this Bill, their four Universities would be united in one before many years. Travelling through the principal points of the measure, Mr. Fawcett took exception to the constitution of the Governing Body, and asked on what principle the selection of its members was to be made-was the qualification to be academical distinction or a balance of religious opinions? Of the gagging clauses, and the degrading censorship of professorial teaching which they involved, Mr. Fawcett spoke with great bitterness; and, speaking as a Cambridge professor, he declared that if such clauses were introduced into the English Universities he would not submit to them. The Bill could lead to no other conclusion but the establishment of denominational education in Ireland. It had not satisfied a single class, and he hoped the House would reject it on its merits without reference to the collateral issue of a Ministerial crisis.

Many of the younger Liberal members followed Mr. Fawcett in denouncing the humiliating precautions of the Bill against proselytism, and the alleged inclination of the Government to conciliate the priesthood. An unlucky remark by Lord Hartington, that it would be desirable to exclude from the new University professors holding the opinions of Mr. Fawcett, involuntarily conveyed the severest satire on the silencing clauses. Mr. Horsman, who had at first congratulated Mr. Gladstone on his happy solution of the puzzle, delivered a powerful speech against the Bill.

He began his criticism by remarking that the favour with which it was originally received was due to the assurance Mr. Gladstone had given that it was to be a settlement. But that delusion had been dispelled by the resolutions of the Roman Catholic bishops, and now it was evident that there was to be no end to the agitation until they obtained all their demands. Under these changed circumstances, Mr. Horsman asked, why does not the Government withdraw the Bill? Nobody wants it-nobody accepts it-it

settles nothing, but unsettles everybody. The Protestants did not want it, the Catholics refused to accept it, and Mr. Gladstone ought to have put an agreeable termination to an ugly business by withdrawing a Bill so impossible. There was no precedent for proceeding with a measure so universally condemned, and why should Parliament have this Bill thrust down its throat against its will as a vote of confidence in the Government? Had any English or Scotch member-Mr. Horsman asked amid loud cheers-ever gone through the hypocrisy of professing to feel confidence in the Government on this question? To ask for such a vote was a piece of effrontery worthy of a cartoon in Punch. When the country understood the Bill, such a vote would be regarded as a vote of confidence in Cardinal Cullen and his priests. Any member who gave such a vote would meet with speedy execution from his consti

tuents.

After discussing the Bill itself, and an amusing criticism of Lord Hartington's speech, in the midst of which a gesture of dissent from Mr. Gladstone incidentally brought upon him a sarcastic allusion to his "equally sudden and auspicious conversion to the policy of disestablishing the Irish Church," which provoked some tumultuous cheering, Mr. Horsman declared that the Bill would lower the standard of University teaching. What a fall for the great English Liberal party to be exhibited in the face of Europe throwing its weight on to the side of the clergy, and conceding to the Roman Catholic bishops a power which they were not permitted to exercise in any other country in Europe! Regarding it as practically impossible to give the names of the Governing Body now, Mr. Horsman advised that all compromise should be abandoned; and, repeating once more that it was little short of an affront to persevere with the Bill, he appealed to the House to vindicate its independence by throwing it out on the second reading.

Mr. C. Fortescue assured the House that the Government had no intention of withdrawing the Bill, and pointed out to Mr. Horsman that if the Roman Catholic bishops had declared against the Bill it was on the ground that it perpetuated the mixed system, which Mr. Horsman said it destroyed. The object of the Bill was to create a National University, and the best mode was by separating Trinity College from the University and creating a new Governing Body. In defence of the Governing Body proposed by the Bill he referred to the National Board of Education, the Council of the Royal Irish Academy, and other similar bodies, in proof that there was no fear of it becoming partisan or discordant. So, also, he ridiculed the apprehension that the Roman Catholics would get the control of the University by means of "bogus" colleges. The Government never had intended that the affiliation should go beyond a certain small number. No doubt the Roman Catholics might obtain an important position in the University, but that was the object of the Bill, and surely the Protestants were not going to confess beforehand that they could not hold their own. As to