The extreme unfairness of this University system, the ascendency secured to Trinity College, which, admirable institution as it was, was practically nearly confined to Protestants of the upper class; the failure, with respect to Catholic Ireland, of the Queen's Colleges and the Queen's University, and the large and useless expenditure this involved; above all, the denial to the Catholic University of any share in the bounty of the State, though its claim to it could be hardly doubtful,--attracted the attention of several statesmen, from 1850 to 1870; but nothing was done, or even attempted. The subject was taken up by Mr. Gladstone, with characteristic earnestness, during his first Ministry; he declared that University education in Ireland was 'a scandal;' indeed, Irish education of the higher kind was the third branch of the upas tree which threw its baleful shade over the land. He brought in a measure of reform in the session of 1873; it was an ambitious and a comprehensive scheme; but it was much the worst of his Irish reforms of this period; and it ended in complete and disastrous failure. With the historical instinct occasionally seen in his legislation, Mr. Gladstone proposed to revive the idea of Elizabeth and the first Stuarts, and to found a great National University, which was to have the management and control of the higher education throughout Ireland. The governing body of this new institution was to be composed partly of men chosen by the Lord-Lieutenant, and partly of the heads of the colleges to be connected with it; and it was to have the sole power of conferring degrees in Ireland. Trinity College was to hand over to the National University a sum of L12,000 a year, that is, more than a fourth of its endowments from the State; its professorships, its fellowships, its scholarships, in a word, all its prizes, were to be thrown open to all its students whatever their faith; but in most other respects it was not to be essentially changed, except as to the power of granting degrees. Trinity College was to be affiliated to the National University as a dependent college, and so were a number of minor colleges; but this remarkable distinction was made in homage to the 'liberalism' of the day: the Queen's Colleges, that of Galway being suppressed as useless, were to retain the endowments they received from the State, on the ground that they were free to all comers; but the Catholic University was not to obtain a shilling, nor yet other colleges of a sectarian type, on the ground that they were 'close and exclusive,' this being the case of all the Catholic colleges that could be affiliated to the new foundation. The Queen's University was to be abolished, for the National University was to be sole and supreme; and then came provisions, which, strange as they may appear at first sight, were perhaps inevitable under the conditions on which the project was formed. Moral philosophy, metaphysics, and modern