University Education in Ireland

At the present moment, Trinity College may be regarded as a manufactory for turning out the highest class of competitors for success in the Church, at the English Bar, in the Civil Service of India, and in the Scientific and Medical Services of the Army and Navy; and any legislation which would produce the effect of lowering the present high standard of her degrees, would tend to destroy the prospects of the educated classes in Ireland, and become to those classes little short of a national calamity.

In order to establish my objection, it is necessary to call to our recollection the ancient and true notion of an University.

With the exception of Oxford and Cambridge, there is no example of an ancient University in Europe composed of a collection of free Colleges, united by the common bond of an University, of which all are members, and which conducts the Examinations for Degrees.

All other ancient Universities resemble the University of Trinity College in Dublin, in consisting of