capabilities united will lead us appropriately enough to those points of extension and improvement to which such a condition of things will naturally lead.

We have in direct connection with and under the immediate management of the Established Church the following institutions, chartered to a certain extent for public objects.

In connection with the Presbyterian Church-The Belfast
Academical Institution

In connection with the Roman Catholic Church-Maynooth

In connection with no particular Church, but equally open to persons of different creeds :

The National Schools

The Provincial Colleges

£ 2,000

26,500

120,000

21,000

141,000

With this large amount of money, contributed in the main from public sources for the purpose of education, no light feeling of surprise will be entertained by those who examine the official returns, and see in them how small is the number of the educated persons in Ireland.

The official statistics of the progress of education, amongst

* These figures neither show the total number of acres nor the total amount of income, there being no Parliamentary or other public information available for the purpose. What is here shown, therefore, is to be taken as so far certain-but as less than the real amount in some instances.

the whole of the population receiving instruction in public schools, give the following as the numbers on the rolls of the

Leinster 362,746 231,351 153,622 226,166 Munster 367,722 185,018 121,129 150,010 Ulster 412,697 205,945 237,687 382,127 489,058 Connaught 144,894 55,783 71,496 71,140 394,749 490,714 Ireland 1,288,059 678,097 583,934 829,443 1,623,856 2,142,210

328,467
541,981 724,852
358,659

437,586

It thus appears, that in a population exceeding eight millions of persons, the number of those who can read and write is less than two millions. If we connect with this fact and weigh for a moment the amount of money applicable, as already shown, to this best of uses, it will be impossible to resist the conviction that there is by no means such a judicious and effective distribution of our resources as the circumstances of the case imperatively demand and would easily admit of.

The question then arises, How is improvement to be effected and with what degrees of advantage, convenience, and impartiality? In considering this matter, it will in the first place be material to note that every step recently taken in the proposed direction seems to have been dictated by a sense of the extreme policy, if not the abstract justice of disturbing existing interests as little as possible. Sir R. Peel's conduct in this respect deserves particular attention, and the more so

because his career as a statesman has been in nothing more eminently distinguished than by the fulness and efficiency of his Irish measures. Now it is to be attentively noted, that Sir Robert when providing for the extension of educacation in Ireland, took nothing away-neither funds nor patronage-from established institutions. When he remodelled Maynooth and founded the Provincial Colleges, he supplied palpable deficiencies; but he diverted to that good end no property whatever from the particular uses to which it had previously been devoted. The wisdom of this conduct is conspicuously clear; and as the example has been so successful, it will in all probability be followed with careful respect by all future legislators upon the subject.

We may then, perhaps, lay it down as a sound rule to follow, that existing institutions and their uses are to be preserved, and that the great object to be kept in view is to give full activity to their powers. Hence, wherever we find funds administered with a particular intent and interest, it will be prudent to allow that interest to be still promoted. On this principle, our business will lie not in a change of destination, but, in an ample and efficient administration of our educational institutions. According to this plan, Trinity College and the Endowed Protestant Schools would continue to be managed and directed by members of the Established Church. There may be, and there probably is, nothing in the Charters under which either the college or these schools derive their rights which would justify their maintenance as exclusively Protestant Establishments. The funds by which they are supported have unquestionably been contributed by the nation at large, and not by a particular section of it; but their application has so long been confided to the hands of Protestants, and turned to the propagation of their religious tenets, that the force of continuous habit, if not the strict authority of law, has given their rights a prescriptive direction, which cannot be lightly diverted or safely extinguished.

But on the other hand, if the State upon general grounds

of policy is content to allow these rights and powers to be continued to the actual possessors and their successors, it is bound to see that the utmost extent of benefit shall be secured to the public, for which such an arrangement offers facilities. In order to make this plan work satisfactorily and efficiently there should be no reserved or secret administration, either of the university or the endowed schools. The property of both should be publicly accounted for, and an open system of management adopted in each, on which the force of public opinion ought to be brought to bear continuously. There is no other peaceful guarantee against abuses and corruption. The possession of 231,000 acres of estate by Trinity College-producing no one can tell how much, and divided amongst a few individuals after the expenses of the establishment have been provided for-is so extreme a departure from propriety as to constitute a national disgrace. The salary of £1000 a year to the master of Enniskillen School, in addition to a further sum of several hundred pounds a year paid him by his boarders, for superintending the education of ninety-three boys, is another piece of extravagance which could not have been committed under a responsible system of management. So far there are two obvious improvements to be easily effected. First: the Crown should be called upon to reconstitute Trinity College, and to place the administration of its ample funds fairly under the control of those who have acquired, by successful study and university honours, the most legitimate title to regulate and control them. Secondly: the separate establishments for managing the Royal, Charter and Diocesan Schools, together with the schools of Erasmus Smith and the Blue Coat Schools, should be superseded by one general administration of the whole, conducted by paid commissioners, rendering annual reports and accounts to Parliament, The amount of money that would be saved, and the extent of improvement that would be effected by such a change, would assuredly be considerable and of the best kind.

The insufficiency of the University of Dublin for the national requirements having been so apparent for many years, the wonder is that no effort has been made to supply an obvious and important defect. When Sir J. Perrot addressed himself to the subject, he proposed "to begin the foundation of two universities, and to endow a couple of colleges in them with £1000 per annum a-piece." Two universities would have been Sir J. Perrot's beginning, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; 265 years have since elapsed; and we have in the reign of Queen Victoria but one university in Ireland. Even Cromwell's soldiers, rude as they were, made an effort to obtain a second university, for which they bought Archbishop Usher's library, afterwards given to Trinity College. The Act of Settlement recognised the same necessity, for it provided that £2000 a year from the forfeited estates should be set aside for this object. If this was the sense of our ancestors at a period so remote, it surely cannot be too much to press for the fulfilment of their designs at the present day.

A second university is demanded upon other grounds. Trinity College satisfies the wants of the Protestant portion of the population, but it is not resorted to by Roman Catholics nor by Presbyterians in any extent proportioned to the numbers or the wealth of the one or the other. The Presbyterians do not affect to conceal their repugnance to Trinity College, and their determination not to travel beyond their own academy at Belfast, while debarred in the former place of their fair share of its emoluments and honours. The Roman Catholics do not scruple to enter Trinity College; but so few of them, comparatively speaking, appear to have been educated there, as to make it clear that the establishment is not regarded by persons of that persuasion with confidence or affection.* In short Trinity College is a Protes

* Mr. Heron_sought, but was not allowed by the College Board, to obtain a list of the number of Roman Catholics who entered the University since the year 1794. He is of opinion, however, that fifteen per annum would be a fair average of those who took their degrees—which, down to 1829, thirty-four years, would be 510. The House of Lords, in