religious equality, it was said, could be only thus secured; and residence in the colleges was not required. The principle pervading the Irish National education system was certainly open to grave objections; these became infinitely stronger, when it was applied to a system of high education in Ireland. Secular instruction could be really combined, and given to children together, when limited to the first rudiments: how could it be combined when it should embrace such subjects as moral philosophy, metaphysics, modern history, nay, physical science, and when taught to young men of the University age? Besides, religious instruction, without a great shock to conscience, could be made a subordinate consideration in mere day schools: how could it, consistently with Christian duty, be practically excluded from a University course, and left to undergraduates to be dealt with as they might think fit, and that at the most critical time of their life? Indifference to the Divine, masked in specious 'liberal' phrases, was, in truth, the cardinal feature of this scheme; it would have been severely reprobated by Burke; it was repugnant to the ideas of five-sixths of Irishmen; its tendency was to form minds in superior men, like those of Hume and Gibbon, in inferior men, to produce infidel, even atheistic, sentiments. It was denounced as 'godless' in the House of Commons by the High Church party; it was condemned by O'Connell, from the outset, though the men of 'Young Ireland' were not adverse; after some hesitation, it was rejected unequivocally by the Irish Catholic bishops,[188] and finally was held up to anathema at the Synod of Thurles. That the bishops were sincere is proved by the fact, that they established the Irish Catholic University a few years afterwards--the first head of this creation was Newman; and the foundation has been maintained ever since, though it could not give a degree, and it received nothing from the State, and its only funds were the contributions of a poor communion, a noble example of self-sacrifice and of a true sense of duty. Meanwhile, the Queen's Colleges and University were kept up and endowed, at the rate of about L30,000 a year; the College of Belfast has done well, for it falls in with Presbyterian ideas; but the Colleges of Cork and of Galway, notably the last, have been sorry, nay, almost useless, failures; and Peel's hope that his project would secure a good University training to Irish Catholics of the better class has not been, to any real extent, fulfilled. Trinity College remained for many years unchanged, that is, it gave an admirable education to a very few Catholics; but it continued to be a Protestant institution in its essential nature; its governing body and its hierarchy were all Protestant; its teaching was Protestant in some of its parts; its higher honours were a monopoly of the favoured communion.