The Express.
London, England, 1865-09-27 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBBB 27.

Ix examining the demands now urged by cer-
tain people in Ireland for a re-organization of the
University system in that country there are two
biota, capital in the case, which it behoves Eng-
lishmen steadily to keep in view ; first, that the
grievance complained of—so far as Liberal politi-
cians can recognize it as a grievance—is little more
than technical—at all events is one which is not
felt by any considerable section of the Irish people;
and secondly, that the real purpose of the recusant
party is not to effect the removal of this grievance
such as it is—is not to procure easier access to
University degrees for the small number of ex-
ceptionally constituted Catholics who refuse to be
educated on terms of equality with their Protes-
tant fellow-countrymen—but to aooomplish a com-

plate change in the character of the higher education
in Ireland. We have thus to deal with a claim
formally just, and which ought, as such, to be con-
ceded, and with a purpose for which this claim is
made the cover, or rather the occasion (for in fact

there is no concealment about the matter)--a pur-
pose, we say, which has no foundation in justice,
springs from no sense of substantial grievance, but
has its root simply and exclusively in the ambition
of a section of the priesthood. The problem, there-
fore, for a Liberal government obviously is to sepa-
rate the legitimate from the illegitimate in the
demand—to provide for the satisfaction of all that
is strictly fair in the ultramontane claim, while
taking care that this shall not be made the occa-
sion for covertly undermining, with a view to ulti-
mately overthrowing, a system of education which
has already accomplished great results, and has
proved its acceptableness to the people of
Ireland by the best of all evidence—its success.
It will be little creditable to English statesmanship
if the solution of this problem cannot be found.

We have been led to make these remarks be-
cause we notice in such discussion as the subject
has yet received in English journals a rather
general disposition to ignore these capital facto of
the question. The case is argued as if University
education in Ireland was yet absolutely without
provision—without provision, at least, which the
Irish people would accept ; and as if the demands
of the Roman Catholic hierarchy represented really
a bow l jid.: anxiety for extending the higher cul-
ture among their countrymen. We entreat our
Liberal contemporaries, before they commit them-
selves to opinions on what is really an important
question—an important question, they may be
assured, for this country no less than for Ireland—
that they will inform themselves as to its ele-
mentary conditions. University education in Ire-
land is not in any sense unprovided for. Inde-
pendently of Trinity College, Dublin—which, let
us remind these writers, is, with all its short-
comings, much more liberally constituted and
much better entitled to the name of a " national
" University " than either Oxford or Cambridge—
there are the establishments which it seems they
have heard of as " going by the name
" of the Queen's University" and its affiliated ool-
leges—establishments which are not "richly en-
" dewed institutions shunned alike by Protestants
" and Catholics," but institutions, according to
the admission of successive Governments, very in-
adequately endowed, and resorted to in large
numbers by both Protestants and Catholics. The
exact sum assigned annually as a provision for the
Queen's University and its colleges is 22,8001.—
somewhere, we should' guess, about one-tenth of
the amount which goes to maintain ono of our no-
odled national universities, from all the highest
honours of which half the English nation is ex.
clude4. The number of students now receiving
education in the institutions thus poorly endowed
are between 800 and 900, not very much under
the number in Dublin University, with its handsome
emoluments and prestige of three centuries, these
800 or 900 students being drawn in nearly equal
proportions from the three principal religions
bodies in the country. As for the quality of
the education given in them, it is really
time that Englishmen should learn to speak
with modesty upon this subject. We are said not
to know when we are beaten ; and apparently it
is not generally known by some of those amongst
us who discuss Irish educational questions that
candidates from Oxford and Cambridge are in all
the open examinations in the country beaten year
after year by students who have received their i
education in the Queen's Colleges.
Now these are facts, and it is not lose a fact that
the aim of the party in the Roman Catholic
hierarchy who have set this agitation on foot is
not to extend University education in the country,
but simply to got it into their own hands. This is no
question of nice inference as to motives ; the fact
has been proclaimed by themselves repeatedly,
ostentatiously, and in the plainest terms.
The gravamen of the complaint is not that
the people of Ireland are destitute of edu-
cational opportunities, but that those with which
they are provided are not of the right mort—
is not that the obnoxious institutions are dis-
tasteful to those for whom they are intended,
but that they are liked by them too well. What
the strength of the attraction must be our readers
rosy form au idea if they but consider the nature
of the penalties by which it is found necessary to