subjects; but they occupy a very small place in its teaching; and in a National University this ought not to be the case. A National University would not be founded in Ireland under the second project. Trinity College would remain completely intact; it would retain its present governing body, its privileges, and its power of conferring degrees. The Queen's Colleges--that of Galway being probably suppressed, and its funds transferred to the College of Belfast--and the Royal University would continue unchanged; the students of the Queen's Colleges would probably seek degrees from the Royal University as they do at present. But the Catholic University should be established and endowed, and placed on the same level as Trinity College, as far as this could be effected by law; the charge of the endowment would not be great--it would be perhaps L100,000 for buildings, and perhaps L40,000 a year for other purposes; but the students, and those of other colleges to be connected with it, would not be numerous, at least for years; it should, of course, have the power of conferring honours and degrees. In return for these advantages, the State should have a right to insist that its governing body should be in part laymen--the Irish Catholic bishops have already agreed to this; and the State ought, also, to have a right to require that the secular education it should afford should be good, a security which could fully, if indirectly, be obtained. The advantages of this scheme, it is obvious, are that it would get rid of the difficulties inseparable from a National University in Ireland; it would preserve Trinity College exactly as it is, an enormous gain for that great place of learning; it would interfere as little as possible with things as they are; and it would do all that Catholic Ireland could reasonably demand. It is understood that a scheme of this description has the approval of the authorities of Trinity College, and of their distinguished representative, Mr. Lecky; their opinions are of the very greatest weight. The only real objection made to this plan is one made by characteristic prejudice: the education, in the Catholic University, it is said, would be bad, and its degrees would be of no value. In the face of the success of Catholic University students at the Royal University examinations, the first assertion has been proved to be false; and besides, this is the affair of the students and their parents alone. As to the inferiority of the Catholic University degrees, there is no reason to believe that this would exist; these degrees, moreover, would have to compete with those of the Royal University and of Trinity College; if they were really inferior, this would soon be found out, and the Catholic University would have to increase their value. This is the true security the State and the public would possess.